Week 39, Project 365

We had a terrific storm last night that knocked out the internet as I was trying to upload photos for Project 365 so I'm running a little behind today. But before it went down I did manage to get three short videos up on youtube (what's up with the new blogger set-up that doesn't allow us to post videos directly any more?) because this week I went a little crazy with the video feature on the camera.

Our week started and ended very busy but with a nice break right smack dab in the middle. My photos reflect that; I took a great number of photos at the beginning and end of the week and almost none while we were in Sta. Rosa. In fact I realized Thursday that I took my shoes off when we arrived on Tuesday and didn't put them back on until Thursday afternoon. Not leaving the house = No photos.

But back to last Sunday... A group of Bible Institute students spent the day running Mufa Pufa games on the costanera again. We had lunch together first, enjoying the beautiful weather by eating on the patio. Pasta, salad and bread hit the spot and provided the energy we needed for the activities of the day.

For those who may not remember, Mufa Pufa is simply the name they've given a bunch of crazy games using lots of props -- oversized wooden "feet", fabric tunnels, and good old inner tubes...

The next day the city of Carlos Paz hosted their annual fiesta del Día de la Primavera y del Estudiante and teens from all over the country flooded in. What teen wouldn't want to go where there were free bands, a variety of sporting events and lots of other teens? Actually this year there weren't as many as usual. Not sure if that's because of the economic crisis or because they had better bands in Cordoba :-) I meant to find out if the anticipated 80,000-100,000 came but we left town the next morning before I had a chance to check the news. Anyway, it was tens of thousands, just not sure how many tens of thousands. While we were downtown Monday I stopped in the center of the sidewalk across from the bus station, near two band stands, and did a 380° turn with the video camera so you could get an idea of the sheer number of kids. Remember, this is just a fraction because there were things happening all over town.

(Notice all the short sleeves? It was a beautiful first day of Spring!)

After supper one of the guys from PdeV in Sta. Rosa found my Spanish/English dictionary and the section on colloquialisms. Now I don't feel so bad about butchering Spanish after seeing him do a number on English. Here he is trying to say "be in a bad mood" -- although no one could be in a bad mood after watching this!

Tuesday we took the boys and a trailer load of Mufa Pufa props back to Sta. Rosa. As we came into view of the high Sierras, the panorama took our breath away! Snow covered the mountain tops and a low band of clouds hovering above made it seem like the snow extended into the sky. Amazing sight.

Then I went inside and didn't come out for two days.

When I did, it was to take a walk before we packed up and headed home. I've talked before about the pesky wild parrots and huge nests they create with thorny branches. They were particularly raucous that day so I stopped, aimed the camera at a tree with multiple nests and just recorded the sound of parrots for about 15 seconds. I knew your life would not be complete without the opportunity to listen to REALLY LOUD parrots squawking.

WAY more effective than a rooster in the morning.

Our son has to scrape the paint off his garage and Ivan knew he'd seen an article about how to do it efficiently in one of his Fine Homebuilding magazines. He subscribed for years so we have a bunch of issues -- so which one was it in? He was able to find that info online, pull out the correct magazine and take photos of the spread to e-mail to our son. I know Ivan would love to be there helping Jon (especially in light of the fact Jon will be one-handed for the foreseeable future) but since he can't, he figured the next best thing was passing along some good how-to tips.

[Please keep praying for our son; he started physical therapy last Friday and doesn't know when -- or even if -- he'll get feeling back in the tips of his fingers. Meanwhile the pain in his wrist and up his arm continues to be pretty intense. Not fun!]

The neighbor across the street had her palm trees trimmed and among dried fronds stacked along the curb, bright green seeds caught our eye. I thought they looked kind of like green grapes. What do you think?

Saturday there was more soccer followed by merienda followed by a time of sharing. Last week only a handful of boys showed up; this week the turnout was better with 13. They quickly decimated the cookies, cake, cheese and crackers we'd set out.

That's our week. How was yours?