Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh My!

Thursday was Valentines Day, or here it's called El Dia del Amor y la Amistad (Day of love and friendship). To celebrate this day, I made lunch for everyone at the shelter.  I made 5 pans of cavatelli (pasta dish), and garlic bread, as well as made a sheet cake.  It turned out really well, and I only had one pan of cavatelli left over, which they ate for supper.  The cake turned out well, but I made homemade frosting for the first time, and it was really salty, and not very good.  Oh well, I'll keep trying.  That night, I went to Ray and Adalia's house for the weekend.

Friday we got up, and Ray taught me a new sport.  We went to a park and played Disc Golf.  I'd never played before, but I've seen it at parks.  I wasn't very good, but Ray says I show potential.  When Adalia and I grew tired of slowing Ray down, we went to the Cabrillo National Monument.  It was really pretty, and a nice day.  Afterwards, we went and got burgers (yummy) at In-N-Out (I highly recommend them!  So Good!) and went to Old Town San Diego.  It was a neat place to walk around and look.

 The lighthouse.

  Cabrillo National Monument

Saturday, we headed out early to go to the zoo.  I took tons of pictures, some of which I'll put up.  We walked all day, and had a blast!  It was so cool, and I got to see panda bears and koala bears for the first time ever!

This is kind of hard to see, but it's a Panther!  As a UNI Panther, I had to take it's picture.  Go Panthers!

Sunday, we went to the Wild Animal Park, which is like the zoo, but the animals have more space to roam.  We went to an amazing bird show, and got to see a cheetah run at full speed.  It was so fast, I couldn't get pics or video!  For supper, Adalia made pork chops that Ray had marinated!  This Iowa girl was so happy!

Monday was a day to recover.  I slept late, and helped Adalia do some work for the shelter.  Then we came back to Mexico.  There is a new woman and her son at the shelter, so I spent some time getting to know them.

Tuesday was very busy!  After breakfast, I taught Maggie how to freeze onions, and we filled 11 quart bags full of chopped onions!  If you know me, you know I don't like onions, and I was getting tired of eating them in every meal.  :)  After this, Maggie and I walked to the grocery store a few blocks down the road and got groceries.  When we returned to the house, I made potato soup for lunch.  After lunch, I taught a cooking lesson, on making No Bake Cookies.  They turned out really yummy, and the women were surprised you don't bake them.  After making cookies, I taped, trimmed, and painted the kitchen ceiling with primer.  I was so tired, that I ate supper and went to bed.  It was a very full day!

Yesterday was a ton of fun!  At 6:30 am, Maggie and I walked up the road and caught a bus.  We went down to the border.  There we got water, tamales, and chamurado (a delicious hot chocolate drink!) and got in line to cross.  On the other side, we sat down to eat our tamales.  The vendor had said that my tamale wasn't spicy (no pica), but when I ate it, it was pica!  Maggie tried it and said I was silly, it wasn't spicy.  Well she ended up finishing it for me, and decided that it was pica after all!  We caught the trolley that took us downtown, and met up with Maggie's sister there.  The three of us went to SeaWorld for the day.  It was so amazing!  I'd never seen dolphins before, and never whales up close!  I took tons of pictures there too!  Maggie convinced her sister and I that we needed to go on the one roller coaster.  So we went, and oh my goodness!  I was so scared and didn't like it at all!  Her sister and I both were terrified and shaky afterwards!  I got to see Shamu, and the park had a new baby whale born on Valentine's Day, and I got to see him too!  After we saw everything at the park, we went and got Chinese for lunch!  It was so good and so filling!  We walked along the beach for a bit, and then the sister took us back to the trolley.  When we crossed the border, Maggie got us a taxi to take us back to the shelter.  It was my first time in a taxi!  We got back around 8pm, and I went straight to bed.

Today I'm still kind of tired.  I haven't really done anything yet, except straighten up my room, and update this.  It's hard to believe I only have 3 more weeks here.  In some ways I'm looking forward to being home, but I don't want to leave these women and kids too.  I've become so attached and don't want to miss out on their lives here.  I've been trying to think of ways I can continue to help them from the U.S., as well as being more aware of people's needs at home too.  I've seen a lot of poverty and need, and it's not just in Mexico.  God has really opened my eyes to His people and ways that I can help them.  I hope you will start looking too and finding ways you can make a difference.  I'd also like to ask you to pray about possibly helping out here as well.  They have so many expenses here, to run this wonderful shelter, and don't always have the money to do it.  I'd encourage you to think and pray about possibly contributing to them here.  I can tell you that they are doing great work here.

Ok, enough of serious talk!  I'll post more pictures later.  Right now, I need to go get busy.