Hi everybody.

It’s been a very tough week. As most of you know, our beloved family horse died unexpectedly on Friday. I’m devastated and heartbroken. I’ll try to not let my sadness overtake the tone of this post.

This week started off great, Monday was the fourth of July. Since SC is an American school, we had a grand celebration. For starters, all the gringos were invited to a lavish feast with the headmistress that morning. There were waiters and fancy American decorations of which I’m still curious of where they found them.

There were probably 20 or so of us at the breakfast. We had pancakes, scrambled eggs, bread and cheese, yogurt parfaits, cheesecake and orange juice. It was very sweet for the school to put so much thought into it. The headmistress made a toast and said that sometimes it’s hard to celebrate holidays abroad; she hoped that this breakfast helped to fill the void a little.

The kids came to school dressed in red, white and blue or as historical American figures. One of my kiddos came dressed as George Washington and it was awesome. He had little white rolls of paper attached to his hat for his wig. There were many cowboy hats and cowboy boots. Somewhere along the way, the school projected cowboys as an American symbol, since then everybody dresses as cowboys for the fourth. I found it quite humorous.

Later on, we had an assembly where the band and orchestra played American songs like the national anthem, the middle school did square dancing for us and some of the gringo teachers performed a skit from The Wizard of Oz. In the end, each gringo was given a fancy box of chocolates from the headmistress. I felt like a celebrity for the day.

Monday was also the last day for one of my kiddos. His mom decided to move him to a different private school mid-year. My heart is sad for him. We had a party for him, and he cried the whole time.

The rest of the week seemed to crawl by. Our students have been having a lot of issues lately which are exhausting to deal with. By Wednesday, I had hit a wall. I came to the conclusion that I was burnt out. The dumbest things made me want to cry. I actually went home that day and took a 5 hour nap. 5 hours! I’m a nap person but 5 hours is a night’s sleep almost! Thankfully, we've finally arrived to July vacations -two weeks off!

On Thursday, we had a field trip to see a play downtown. It was a children’s play focused on recycling. The play was exclusively for our first graders which was nice. There were 4 girls who did the show. It was actually really really good and they were very talented. It was interesting because the set and props were entirely made of recycled materials. I think the play was perfect for our kids because it was interactive. They had the kids get up out of their seats, yell things and answer questions. It’s incredibly difficult to perform for such young kids but I think these guys did a fantastic job and held their attention the whole time.

Today I did some exploring. I needed to get some fresh air and take a walk. I love to look at the different street art.

^^I was very happy to see this one. Thunder stopped by to say hi :)

Laughable Moments:

• My cellphone arrived from the US in just 3 days!! The grumpy lady on the phone told me it would take 10 days. Coincidentally, right after I plugged in my new phone, my broken phone started working….

• On the fourth, I can't tell you how many people told me "congratulations".

• On the bus ride home from the field trip, “Miss, next time we go in a bus, can we go somewhere fun?”

• All of the desk people know León because he says hi to them every time we pass by. As we were getting into the elevator one of them said to a passerby “watch out! There’s a lion in the elevator!”

• While on lunch duty, one of my former students told me she was eating yellow cherry tomatoes. “They taste just like the water from a pool!”

• A friend was describing her trip to me and told me her breakfast was delicious “I had some cheese, some juice and a couple loaves of bread”. I had to clarify that she meant slices of bread and not loaves.

^^ "During this semester I was caring when I help Clemente in recess"

Picture: "Are you okay?" "No"

^^ "During this semester I was balanced when I say to my mom if please can you send me healthy food"

Picture: "Can you send me healthy food please?" "Yes of course".

^^ why fly when you can take the metro?

^^ I love getting pics of my babies. I miss them all so much.

^^ My Flat Stanley has arrived to the US. (I'll post more about Flat Stanley later) Mom is having fun with him.

^^ Cachai is a chilean saying everybody says here. I'm so stoked about my new pillow!

^^ I pet this friend on the way home today. I hope he stays warm tonight

Tomorrow I’m headed off to Buenos Aires! I’m looking forward to exploring a new country and hoping a change of scenery will help lift my spirits. León is staying with Dani and having a blast playing with his 3 dog best friends.