Sorry (as always) for the absence. I've been trying to get my body and energy back to 100% since our busy, busy, beach weekend. Looks like I caught some nasty virus, so as I'm on the final stretch of getting better, my sweet pup is getting over a nasty rash, and my car is also recovering from its latest trip to the shop.

Currently we've been working hard in the bilingual school as second semester started back in January. With spring break right around the corner (and spring break groups who come to visit at JEC), we're neck deep in multiplication, charts, ABC's (for our newest boy), and pen pals. So today I'm going to talk about what each of our 7 boys are currently working on at the bilingual school.

Nelson is the oldest (above), and Antony is the youngest (below), so I'll start with them. Nelson is in his final year at Alison Bixby Stone, and he's literally smarter than I am. I'm not being silly - I'm being honest. He's currently learning the basics of social media, e-mail, and how to work with computers. The school we are hoping (and praying) to send him to next year, Del Campo International School, uses iPads for their lessons in class, so its great Nelson is getting a good base now to prepare him for the big transfer to "high school" (here starts at 7th grade). Of course, he's Facebook crazy right now - already addicted - and I hate that, but it is good for him to learn. The picture was taken last year at a mother's day luncheon where we won a Twix bar for winning a game of bilingual bingo.

Antony just started this semester in kindergarten, and he turned 6 a week after he was accepted into the school. A space opened up, so we grabbed the opportunity and ran with it. The bilingual school rarely has space available, since each grade (nursing-6th) only has 1 class per grade (max 18 students per class). Of course he cried the first few days, since the other kids have spent 5 months listening to the teacher (who is Colombian, yet speaks awesome English) talk and give instructions in english. So after a few weeks, he knows the basics - "hello, teacher", "how are you", "eat", "sit", "go".. you get the idea. We're working at home on singing and learning the ABC song... so sweet :)

Cristian - always gets respect awards at school for great behavior

Daniel - who clearly is enthusiastic about being on cross-guard duty.

Luis Fernando... who's insane and never sits still (but I love him  so much)

Norman (the monster) who is practically fluent in english and in 3rd grade

The four boys we have in 3rd grade are all about math right now. Lots of graphs, times tables, division, and word problems (duh duh duh). Some are really catching on, and others are not. We're working very  hard to memorize, study, and in the mean time keep studying spanish, reading in both languages each day, and working on calligraphy. Needless to say, 3rd grade has our hands full to the max right now.

Jose Alexander... the one in the sunglasses (haha!)

Jose Alexander is the last boy we have in Alison, and he's in second grade. Jose struggles a bit more than the average joe because of the amount of malnutrition he suffered when he was a newborn. Although memorization of numbers, letters and other basic elements of english (and even spanish) are challenging for Jose, he speaks and understands the language extremely well for someone in second grade. So we make sure to speak in english at home to practice, always working on writing our numbers and letters as often as possible. We are also working on words like "big, bigger, biggest", "small, smaller, smallest" and matching the word with the pictures of different things. *I'm sure there is some proper or more professional way to say this, but remember I studied international business in college... so that's the best everyone's going to get.* This picture was taken over a year ago, but it's so Jose.. so I had to include it.

With that update on these sweethearts, the one last detail would be we are always looking for donations for these boys' educations. Two have scholarships at the actual school, two have full time sponsors for their educations, and then the rest are paid from purely from donations made by people like you. Since Antony is new, we are looking for donors to pay for the spring semester. For such an amazing education, this school is very affordable for a private, bilingual education. The monthly cost to attend is roughly $220 with a one time enrollment fee of $248. If you or anyone you know would like to help, please contact me! The education these boys are receiving is changing their lives!!

Hope everyone had a special Valentine's day. The boys here had a school-wide party, so our contribution was coke, chocolate and brownies (per the boys' requests). Everyone went home with full bellies and happy hearts. The previous picture is outside my bedroom at my house. My mom sent a few valentine's goodies via Lindy, who came down for our annual beach trip.  It made me feel a little bit more love down here in Honduras.