June 19th & 20th

Yesterday started off with a nice long walk in the residentail area of Volcan.. and the exercise ended with me "sweating to the oldies" in my bedroom :) jk  No music, but yes some exercising. It was good for me, long time coming.

Then we all made some quiet time and studied our Watchtower for the meeting. When we had finished Aiden, Aliah, Asa and I walked to town to get some groceries. We stumbled upon a carnival or something of that sort going on. It was really cool. But guess what..ya..I left my camera battery at home charging.. so no pictures of the festivities :(

Beyond the "action" was a building that I was told has different vendors with different things to purchase, so we thought we'd check it out, however it wasn't as great as I thought it'd be. Too many "creepers" were there. Then we left that building and walked on to the grocery store..and for the first time since we've been in Volcan we took the sidewalk. Which led to be the worst possible choice. Why you may ask?? Because it led us behind the grocery store, which we had been warned about not going there..ESPECIALLY on the weekend.. of which it was still Sunday.. tho it was only like noon. The reason we were warned..as we were quickly made aware.. Pause for a moment and imagine this if you will.. Lil' ole me with 3 children!! walking up the BackSide of a road that is lined with BARS!!! Ya, bars.. where many Knobe Indians spend their paycheck!! Not dissing Knobes, just saying that is what those bars are known for is for serving them.. Anyhow, it felt like we walked right into a western for a minute. I scurried the children on past and we made it thru safely. Whew! That was a close call.

That was the extent of the drama for yesterday. We had our meeting at 2p, then changed our clothes and went to some friends house. We chatted around there for a while and then had a fake 'cookout'. The company was great, I was just out of sorts myself. We left around 7 or 8 and had a nice quiet evening at home.

June 20th:
Today we had plans with the Blackers to go swimming and play tennis (if they needed any of us). So Harriette, Aidan, Aliah, Asa, Zoe, me and a young brother Hal went to Bambito to hang out. At first we all (minus the Blackers) went to the swimming area. Shortly thereafter I was summoned to play tennis. Let me tell you, I have not had so much physical fun since the last time I played volleyball!! I thought I was going to severely handicap them but it turned out that I wasn't as bad as I thought I'd be.. truly not trying to brag, because seriously I wasn't all that good either :) More often then not, when it seemed like I was just about to get a point because I was 'volleying' well, I would hit the tennis ball like I was going for a homerun!! Guess somethings never change (I played softball since t-ball thru High School). Hahaha but it was GrEaT fun. When we get back to the states I am sooooo playing tennis!! And too, the girls kept going on and on about how much fun they had swimming. Unfortunately none of us took pictures there.. but we did get some of us on the ride back..because we fit 9 people in a vehicle again. And actually we could have fit comfortably 1-2 more :)

Once we got home we went walked our clothes to a "lavanderia" (laundry mat) and had them just dry our clothes.. For those of you who have been to Panama, especially in the rainy season, know how difficult it can be to get your 'ropa' (clothes) dry in less then 3 days due to the moisture. So we took our clothes and then walked on to a restaurante that the locals say is "the best" in Volcan. And my girls were not disappointed. They had 'arroz con vegetales' (rice with veggies) and papas fritas (french fries) and hojaldres (I don't know the translation of that). All that for less then $5. Harriette got the 'seafood rice'..wow!! I will post a picture of what was found in it :) Oh, and if you read my earlier post about us meeting some friends from Texas here last week..that is who we ran into at lunch. It was really cool to have 13 witnesses in such a small circumference. Too, they said that their plans have changed and they will be in the Bocas the same time as us and so likely we will get to spend some time with them then. It would be soooo great!!

After lunch we can home and did some deep cleaning of the house (sweeping, mopping, bathroom detail, dishes)..then relaxed until I needed to make a salad. We were invited to the Blacker's house for dinner. They picked us all up because it was raining like a torential downpour.

They are one of the most fascinating, humble, loving, gracious, fun and funny couples we have met. They are soo giving and soo sympathetic. I just love them!! I wish I could roll them up and take them home in our luggage with us!! After the delicious dinner they served us we did a portion of this weeks Bible reading and discussed it. It was nice to hear everyones thoughts on it, espcially the childrens. Then we played the ABC Bible game (each person says a person/place/thing that starts with -in rotation- a letter of the alphabet). Some letters really took some thought (like O, U, W, X, Y, & Z). Then we all talked and giggled around a bit. Then it hit 8p and the yawns started coming out.. So we called it a night and they drove us back home.

Nothing exciting has happened since we've been home..so I guess I will wrap up this post and say good night.. GoodNight :) muah muah muah