Red is the new white!

Or, at least in our living room it is. Not too long ago, Tom and I got tired of looking at our blah blah white living room wall. On the way home from school we decided to pick up some paint. After much deliberation ("No, Tom. I think the color red that matches our carpet is closer in color to the shirt that guy is wearing!") we ended up with a vibrant red gallon of paint. Here's a little bit about our special project:

BEFORE

WONDERING IF WE MADE A MISTAKE DURING FIRST COAT

COAT #3

AND THE FINISHED PRODUCT!

The paint looks great across from the red curtains I sewed last month!

Mencken on politics, Me with some birds

Observing the Democratic Primary from abroad has been an eye-opening experience. I came across the following H.L. Mencken quote a couple of weeks ago and thought about posting it, but changed my mind. Now that the Democratic Primary has gotten NASTY I thought it might be helpful to remind ourselves that this isn't anything new to American politics. In fact, if you look at it from the right perspective, its one of the most entertaining spectacles the world has ever known.

Mencken wrote this in 1922:

Consider, for example, the current campaign for the Presidency. Would it be possible to imagine anything more stupendously grotesque? I defy anyone to match it elsewhere on earth. In other lands, at worst, there are at least issues, ideas, personalities. Somebody says something intelligible, and somebody replies. But here, having perfected democracy, we lift the whole combat to a gaudy symbolism, to a disembodied transcendentalism, to metaphysics, that sweet nirvana. Here [politics] is purged of all menace, all sinister quality, all genuine significance – and stuffed with such gorgeous humors, such extravagant imbecilities, such uproarious farce that one comes to the end of it with one’s midriff in tatters.




But I am pretty sure that no one reads this blog for insightful politically commentary (is that an oxymoron?), so here is a picture of me with some birds on my shoulders.

See what you miss out on...

...when you don't come to visit Honduras!

Here are a few of the first release pics from our fantastic floozical weekend.

We headed to Roatan on Friday after school and found West End to be delightful! On Saturday morning, we took a water taxi (with some policia nacional men) over to West Bay. West Bay is just 5 minutes by boat and filled with beautiful turquoise waters and white sands. For some reason, we and the tipsy 55 year old lady were the only people asked to wear life jackets.

We took in some rays. I was especially concerned about sand fleas. While we were vigilant about re-applying deet, some of us ended up a bit sunburned by the end of the day.



By Day 2, Ann was sporting socks with her flip-flops to ease the pain of foot sunburn. I'll be honest, the front and sides of my neck are peeling today. Lesson learned (again).


Once back in La Ceiba, we headed up to the river (with Tom this time) for some swimming and to try to even out our tans.

Below, you can see Tom sharing some of his knowledge of river rock formations to Vegas.

Once we said our goodbyes to Megan, we tried to find ways to amuse ourselves. Ann rode my bike around town in a coordinating outfit with my bicycle. Way cute!


Good times. Friendship abounds where the sun shines. It brings me delight to welcome Ann and Megan to their Honduras blog debut. Congrats ladies, you've done a nice job.

Too Much Fun!

I realize that we've pretty much dropped the ball for the month of March. I cringe every time I think of something cool that has happened, and I haven't blogged about it. It's true that we still don't have internet at home and we've been either extremely busy at school or on vacation. Nevertheless, I ask our blog readers for forgiveness.

I can't begin to list the millions of exciting things that have happened since the last post, but here are a few highlights...

- Mazapan school Father's day program. My kids sang "We Will Love You", a Karine-original to the tune of "We Will Rock You" They dressed up like rock stars and were incredibly cute.

- I co-hosted a baby shower for our friend Ashley. Way fun times with a bunch of our lady friends.

-Tom has developed his fine culinary skills a bit more. He's quite the gourmet chef lately!

-Ruby is bigger. Big surprise?

-Probably most exciting, my friends from Minneapolis, Ann and Megan came down for Spring Break '08. We took a long girls' weekend to Roatan, worked on our tans, avoided sand fleas, laughed and caught up on life. Megan discovered her calling as a snorkel master, and Ann has honed her Spanish skills to a fine art. Once back in La Ceiba, we enjoyed meals a la Tom Lewandowski, swam in the Rio Cangrejal. Today we're having a quiet day, complete with coffee on the front porch, neighborhood walk with Ruby, and internet time at school. Hopefully I'll be able to load some pics later this evening.

Internet Situation

We've been enjoying the use of internet in our home since we moved in. For the past 2 weeks, we have not been able to access the server. I guess nothing is free forever...
No real news or great pictures to share. Our lives have been pretty quiet and relaxed over the past couple weeks. We are very very excited to see Ann and Megan in a little over a week. They'll be joining us for spring break for some fun in the sun.
Happy March!