Rain + Fun = Mudfights

Sometimes it takes the simple things in life to really appreciate what you miss.

I miss rain. Every day here, it's hot. And not just hot, but blazing hot with little to no clouds in the sky. Pretty much from the moment I wake up until I go to bed.

It's rained a couple times, usually I like to take a nap because it's perfect weather, but today was a different story.

Sabrina, Chelsea, Katie, Elisa and I ran out in the rain. Solely to enjoy the coolness of it. Then we decided to run over to the boys dorm to find William and just hang out in the rain. More people started showing up. We ended up playing freeze tag on one of the courts.

Then we decided to have a mud fight. More like the guys decided to throw mud at us girls and force us into a mud fight. Here are some AFTER pictures.

Needless to say...When in Argentina ;)

Night Job: Killing Deadly Spiders

I was just about to sleep when I heard a knock at my door. I figured if I didn't say anything, they would just go away. I was sleeping in my bra and underwear so I was inappropriately dressed anyway. My door opened anyways and Chelsea popped her head in my room.

"THERE'S A TARANTULA OUTSIDE YOUR DOOR!" She said in her quietest screaming voice.

Well I couldn't just ignore this, because here in Argentina all the bugs are mutant sizes, so I got out of bed, put some clothes on and went to see what she was talking about. Sure enough, there was a spider outside my door by this plant flower decoration thingy. IT WAS HUGE.

Sabrina, Chelsea and Ashley were in the bathroom, hiding from it so I decided to take action. I went into my room and got my camera. So I took a couple pictures so I could put up on FACEBOOK to show my friends and family the monstrosity of animals we have here.

It started crawling towards me so I ran back into my room to find something to kill it with. I found a pair of flip flops I hadn't worn yet and my can of RAID®. (I highly recommend buying this in the summer down here. I might just sleep with it tonight, just in case.) I ran in front of the spider with my can of RAID® and one flip flop, while Sabrina was on the other side of it with the other flip flop. We were going to kill this thing. I glanced over and saw Chelsea and Ashley up on the sink counter waiting for the consequence of our attempt at killing this beast and cheering us on.

"KILL IT!" they softly yelled.

I ran at it with my RAID® and just kept spraying it. Sabrina was ready to squish it. We slowly watched it curl up and die. Now, I sound like a murderous, troubled, young woman finding some pleasure killing this thing--BUT IT WAS HUGE. I mean this kind of spider is one that eats small babies and can bite your toe off. I wasn't about to let that happen!

So we watched it die. I found a pencil and tried to unfold it 'cause I wanted to take a picture of how big it really was. Three girls from CLE (the other learning Spanish program) came out of one of the rooms and wanted to see what was going on. So I proudly showed them what I just killed. Pictures were taken. I found my handy dandy container and put the spider into it. You can see I am quite proud.

We spent the next 10 minutes talking about what had just happened and tried to figure out what kind of spider it is. I still have no idea...I would love to, but paging through page after page of spiders at 2:30 am won't help me sleep any.

So now it's sitting on my desk, all crawly and stuff. I'm going to bring it to my class tomorrow and show everyone. Hopefully, it'll scare my teacher enough she'll have a heart attack and we won't have class. No, seriously that's mean and I would never wish that on anyone. But I really don't want to have class.

Below are pictures that documented the night.

So the fun was over.

Come, Lord Jesus, come soon!

The one thing I hoped never happen did.

One of my close friends here just found out tonight that his father passed away. I found out through Facebook. I was just staring at the computer screen, when Krista came in wondering if I had read his status. We walked down to the other girls' rooms and all sat down in shock. We prayed for him and went our separate ways. While I was praying, I couldn't help but to fight back tears. "This could happen to me." I thought.

It's inevitable. We're all going to die. Not to sound morbid, but it's true. We're not meant to last forever...at least not on this earth. At first, I had a ton of questions running through my head. Why him? Why now?

My heart aches for my friend. I can only imagine what him and his family are going through. While I have never lost anyone close to me, I've known people through the years, losing one parent or even both. I can only cry and pray to God that He will comfort them in this time of need. I am always a problem solver, so I want to do something.

I'm sharing this with you to say this: Don't take for granted the things you have. I don't care if it's family or a hot meal on the table. We aren't promised tomorrow. So live each day like it's your last. Love the ones that are in your life no matter how rude or annoying they are. They're there for a reason.

There are things in my life that I regret. The way that I've treated people mostly. I can never take back the things that I've said or done. I don't want to constantly be living with regret though. I want to live in the moment. Knowing that one day, I'm going to see my Jesus face to face.

I don't want to take things for granted, but I will because I'm human. The people here that might get on my nerves are my family. We've gone through surviving (well not yet completely) a foreign country for a year. That's a bond I'll never have with anyone else.

In the wake of this, I will not blame God for putting my friend through this hard situation. I know that God has a plan for each of our lives. The road isn't easy by any means, but it's to bring glory to His name. I'm still learning and understanding that part. But God is good. That I know. And one day we will all be standing side by side, worshiping our Lord and Maker in Heaven. So as you read this, please keep my friend and his family in your prayers.

Come, Lord Jesus, come soon. I can't wait to see your face.

An Argentinean Birthday

Today, was like any other day. At the strike of midnight, I was bombarded with Facebook messages, friends and family video chatting on Skype, friends coming to my room and wishing me happy birthday and getting invaded by bugs. Needless to say, it was a bit crazy. :P

I didn't go to sleep until about 4 am because I was talking to people back home, wanting to wish me a happy birthday. I finally fell asleep in the hot sticky night and slept until my alarm clock went off. I got up this morning and got ready for church. I knew it was my birthday, but I didn't really feel any different. I woke up with a headache and was debating on whether to even go to breakfast, but I dragged myself out of bed and went to breakfast. Afterwards, I thought about skipping Sabbath school, but I knew that I needed to go because I had studied my lesson. I went back to sleep for about 30 minutes to get rid of my headache, met Rose and found our way in Sabbath School. It was a small group, but we talked about anxiety. It was a good study.

Afterwards, I went back to sleep since I hadn't slept at all. Woke up and went to lunch. We had our usual ravioli and salad and I spent a lot of time talking with friends. It was nice. I hadn't had anything planned for my birthday, but I figured someone had planned something.

Some friends and I watched Lord of the Rings and I fell asleep for about 3 hours. It was a beautiful nap. Just beautiful.

We decided to go out to dinner 'cause I couldn't eat in the cafeteria for my birthday. We walked all around town and nothing was really open. We went to the bowling alley and put a bunch of tables together. There were about 25 of us in total. We got the football game on and sat down eating pizza. Honestly, I couldn't of asked for a better birthday. I got to spend it with a ton of my friends, watched football and just had a lot of fun. PLUS I didn't have to plan anything.

Even though the Seahawks won and the Colts lost, all in all it was a birthday I'll always remember.

Christmas Vacation: Buenos Aires, Argentina

After stopping at the UAP for a couple hours to repack and get ready, Krista and I left for Buenos Aires at 12:00 am. We were prepared to just sleep the whole way there and meet up with her family at the airport around 8 am. It was really hot that day, so both of us were sweating up a storm as we walked to the bus station. I decided to leave my blanket in my room and keep my sweats in my suitcase. Our bus from Rosario had no A/C so I was just prepping for the worst. We got on the bus and found it to be quite refreshing. It was cold and it felt good. I leaned over to Krista telling her that in about 10 minutes, I'd regret leaving my sweats and would be freezing. Soon, I realized how right I was. They kept the A/C blasting the whole time. It was hard to sleep when you feel like you have hypothermia. Needless to say, we didn't sleep at all on the way.

We made it to the bus station and then got a taxi to the airport, which was pretty much on the other side of town. The taxi driver ripped us off, but I just let it go. I was way too tired to argue with him. So we sat and waited for about an hour. Grabbed breakfast and waited some more. They finally came and we got two taxis to take us to their apartment. I was so tired, I fell asleep during that ride. When we arrived at the apartment, I was blown away at how beautiful it was. It wasn't in the nicest part of town, but it was still beautiful. It was Christmas Eve, but it definitely feel like it at all. We were all tired from traveling so we all slept. I slept until 2 something in the afternoon. It was a beautiful sleep.

We made dinner that night: Haystacks. We had a couple missing components, like Fritos (used Doritos instead), black beans (we used some strange white beans) and SALSA, of course, because here in Argentina you don't eat salsa. But it was nice to have a tasty home-cooked meal. We sat around and talked until about midnight and then the fireworks went off. And by that, I mean real fireworks...until 2 am.

Sabbath just so happened to be on Christmas Day. We slept in a little bit and went to church. The pews were seriously the most comfy pews I've ever sat in. It was nice to be at a church. It was small and I definitely feel out of place, but I got the gist of what the sermon was about. We walked back to the apartment and had lunch and slept some more. Christmas was nice to be with people, but honestly it was really hard being with someone else's family. That night we went out to this cafe since the internet didn't work at the apartment. We ordered pizza and it seriously was the best pizza I've had while being here. We stayed there for awhile then went back to watch White Christmas. We were all so tired we couldn't watch it all, so we went to bed.

In the morning, we got up and went back to the airport to meet up with my family. I was excited, but still super tired from traveling and not sleeping. We got to our apartment and chilled until the afternoon. I decided to take everyone to the places I had visited in Buenos Aires before when I was with ACA minus the gaucho place.

Every day we would meet up with Krista's family and go around Buenos Aires. It was fun having a big group of two families going around the town. I was dubbed as the translator of the group. It was a bit frustrating to be the only one that spoke Spanish (along with Krista). But I was able to use a lot of my Spanish so that's good.

New Years Eve was spent with our families and Maddie and Rose. We had dinner at Krista's place and caught up with Rose and Maddie on their trip down to the South of South America. It was fun and we talked until about 10:30 pm. Rose and Maddie left to meet up with their group. Our families talked some more until it was about time for the countdown. Stefan and I walked down to the Oblisco and meet up with Maddie and Rose. We counted down to the New Year and watched fireworks go off. It was cool to be in a different country and see how they celebrate.

New Years Day was Sabbath, so we found another church to go to in Palermo. The pews weren't as comfy, but I understood more of the sermon. One pastor from the UAP came and translated for my mom and dad since they didn't understand. We tried going to that Rose garden, but it was closed. We spent the rest of the day sleeping. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner and had a wonderful meal. Stefan and I went back to apartment and watched Despicable Me. I FINALLY got to watch it and it was hilarious. It was a perfect way to ring in the New Year.

I woke up this morning ready to get back to school. So now I'm back and ready to get into the swing of things. So here's to 2011.