Portraits, Padre Wasson, and Pijamadas!

Chilling in the park with Carmencita and Cristela on Padre Wasson Day!

Yep, again, life continues to move along here at a rapid fire pace. It’s crazy to think how much has happened in just the last 10 days or so. Here’s a quick recap:

1. PORTRAITS! As previously mentioned, Avriel and I took photos of ALL 216 kids this past week. We did the majority of it last Tuesday, but have been doing ‘retakes’ and getting the few stragglers who have artfully avoided us for the last couple of days. More or less, I took all of the girls’ photos and Avriel took all of the boys’ photos. These photos will get sent to our 1500+ sponsors/godparents at Christmas time. We tried something new this year too, where we not only took a nice picture of each child, but we also took a ‘foto loca’ where each kid could strike a pose, make a face, etc. Pretty fun! Here’s some good ones! By the way, these photos are definite proof that our kids are the CUTEST kids that exist in this country.

Milagros!

Junior Olivo!

Yudelkis!

Noel!

Catia!

2. Padre Wasson Day! This past Thursday we celebrated the 6^th anniversary of our founder, Padre Wasson’s death. It’s a day of celebration and thanksgiving for all Padre Wasson has done. The day started with mass at 8:00am, summer workshop presentations at 10:00am, sports tournaments in the afternoon, a Padre Wasson play at 6:00pm, a pizza dinner at 7:00pm, and a movie at 8:00pm. It also happened to be the Inauguration Day for the new president (Danilo) so it was a day off work for all NPH employees (except for us and the tias of course!)

Me and Nairobi at the party!

Ofemia and me in the park!

With my godbrother and sister, Wilson and Milis!

3. Pijamada! Yep, on Saturday night with the help of Pili, I did a pajama party sleepover in my house complete with a movie, popcorn, ghost stories, and all of us spending the night in the main room sprawled out on the floor. Interestingly enough, I think the highlight of the night for the girls was when I took out my contacts. All of the girls were crowding around me in the bathroom and simply amazed at what contacts are! It’s the little things in life…

Cecilia, our new (awesome) house helper making palomitas!

Sleeping on the floor!

Carolina, Yaqueline, and Cristela!

Me with Belkis and Ditania!

4. Avriel’s birthday was last Wednesday, so that was a fun day. We balloon bombed Avriel’s office the night before, sent her 23 little ‘love notes’ from the kids throughout the day, had a surprise party for her with her house, and then closed the day off with a Chinese dinner for all the volunteers.

Av, Pili, and me!

Yay volunteers!!

Yep, we got 'tud.

5. Memory Project: This was really REALLY cool. So towards the end of last year, we sent a guy named Ben photos of all of our kids. Ben has started this organization where he gets young artists to create draw, paint, or photoshop pictures of kids who have been neglected, abused, abandoned, etc. Long story stort: Years ago, he met a kid who had never owned a picture of himself. So on Friday night, Ben arrived with his wife and daughter (I love that our kids got to see a complete family) and we began the process of distributing 4 portraits to each child here (do the math: that’s over 800 drawings!) It was so so SO fun to see each kids' reaction as they received their portraits. What a GREAT way to reach out and make a difference!

Sandy!

Santa Rosa!

Joel José...love this one!

6. Katherine is here! On Sunday, Katherine (long-time NPH volunteer/coordinator of the Internation Mtg that took place in February/amazing person) arrived with her husband. We took two of her godchildren, Esmerlin and Esteban, to pick her up at the airport with us. WHAT AN EXPERIENCE! It was the boys’ first time going on an elevator and escalator. Tough Esmerlin needed me to hold his drink and took my hand with an IRON GRIP for his first escalator trip while Esteban was left stranded at the bottom while we all started up, trying to decide when he could get on. The second time, they both stepped on they ended up on cracks and the trip in rgw elevator had them both nervous as heck. SO CUTE! In other news, we spent all Monday afternoon and evening with Katherine and Tom exploring the Zona Colonial in Santo Domingo and then having a lovely supper together :)

7. 1^st day of classes was Monday! The kids all have new uniforms, shoes, backpacks, etc. They look so sharp! Needless to say, we were READY for this. It’s so nice to have the kids in a routine again…things are just a little less crazy.

8. And lastly, Daniela (head of sponsorship) is on vacations for the next 2.5 weeks, so I am officially in charge of Padrinos. Things have been pretty busy so far, but I definitely like it. I don’t think I’ve mentioned my job a lot on here, but I really really enjoy it. It’s a fun job, because all of the kids are always asking if their godparents have sent them anything or are coming to visit, so I get to be the bearer of good news a lot plus I get to help with a lot of fun visits!