Movie weekend

Nothing too exciting this last week or this weekend. We spet much time getting $1.00 movies from the "Redbox" at our local Wally World. This week alone Courtney and I have watched: Rendition, Michael Clayton, The Ultimate Gift, American Gangster, No Reservations, and we went to the cine and saw Juno. We've been really boring lately folks! Basically we know that we will be spending a ton of money that we don't have coming up in the next few months because the countdown to moving has begun. We have friends and family coming for part of Spring break but for those of you that haven't booked tickets to come down yet there is still time!! We will have company over our break from March 17 - March 25 but we still have from March 25 - March 30 with noone so, as they say on The Price is Right, come on down!! We would be thrilled to get to show our island off to as many people as we can. We've decided that we need to take advantage of this place as much as we can because we move home in right at 3 months. Then the actual "living like an adult" will be happening...tear! Anyway - yesterday we discovered that Juno was playing in Guayama and we knew we had to go see it or it will disappear. We tend to not get movies at the same time as the rest of the free world and they don't stay as long. I guess they're a little grumpy about having to read subtitles all of the time. After the movie (you know we go to the movies in the afternoon because noone else does and at night they talk through the entire movie) we went to Doble Seis to see the Guayama Brujos basketball team get their uniforms. We finally got to meet Matt Freije from Kansas! For all you KS basketball fans - Matt is from Overland Park and played for Shawnee West in High School. He went to college at Vanderbilt (I don't know if that's how you spell it, hell I don't even know where it is!) and then played for a little bit for the Atlanta Hawks. He has played 3 seasons here in PR and also with a team in Germany and for the Denver Nuggets. We talked to him for a while and he is the nicest. He thought it was pretty cool that he was talking to some good ole KS folk (of course some good ole SD and CO folk too!). Courtney of course had to ask him if he was one of those Johnson County people who liked Missouri sports to which he replied, "Oh, no! I hate Missouri!" As you can imagine, Courtney was thrilled! (Sorry Trav!) For those of you not from KS or Missouri that won't make much sense... Let me just say that I have never felt so small in my life and it was kind of freaky. I'm not used to being around basketball players because we are more football/wrestling people. Those men are HUGE!! Matt is 6'9" tall so even Brent and Courtney looked small against him! I stood back a little ways so I wouldn't get a pain in my neck. Today will be spent doing pretty much nothing, I think. Maybe we'll take Miller to the beach (to try out his lifejacket) or maybe we'll go to Caguas to the Cigar Museum - who knows! All I do know is this week will be insane for me. Tomorrow my class is dismissed at 12:30 for me to go training to give the first grade entrance exam. (Kate and another 1st grade teacher are going too - who knows why they asked us!!) Thursday I have a sub to give the exam and then Friday is our field trip. I will need a stiff drink after that experience on Friday I'm sure!! Have a great week and BUY THOSE PLANE TICKETS!!

Rain, sushi, and a broken bikini top...

...can only mean one thing folks. That's right, the Marshes tried to take a trip on their 3 day weekend! We started out our weekend on a not so terrible note. We didn't have students Friday because we went to San Juan for a convention. Blah, blah, blah! Katie and I, of course, understood every minute of the convention in Spanish. We then go to lunch and they served the first GPS table and we got our food a good 45 minutes later...cold. We came home and went with Papi, Sara, and Max to the home opener of the Brujos baseball season. We were so excited because we had been to a few preseason games which Manny played catcher and first base. We of course thought he'd play one of those in this game - ha! - designated hitter again. We ended up winning and Manny hit a few good balls so it was worth it. They even had fireworks, a horse, and a mascot. If any of you feel like you can explain to me why our mascot is a bear when we are the Brujos (wizard or witch) please let me know. Look Mom! A speaker truck with a video screen...ooohhh!!

We got up Saturday morning to drive to a beach in Cabo Rojo that Clate had told us about that was supposed to be great. We thought it would be fun to spend a day and night by ourselves before meeting up with friends on Sunday to go whale watching. When we finally found the (stupid) beach we stayed about 4 minutes before I was ready to leave. I don't know what everyone thinks is so great about that beach but I found nothing great about it! And then, of course, it started to rain. We drove to Rincon to check into our hotel room which wasn't ready yet. It's raining even harder now so we can't even venture off to a beach. We got in the pool there but it was freezing and it started raining more. Our room was finally ready so we went in where we stayed for the rest of the day. Que triste! We decided to venture out for food and drove to The Lazy Parrot to eat. We knew the place and had eaten there before so we thought it would be easiest. Once we got there though we realized it was sushi night and they weren't serving anything else! This would not be a big deal except for neither one of us has ever had sushi before!! Oh well, might as well be adventurous right? Courtney got spicy crab with rice and raw tuna and I got tilapia, cream cheese, jalepenos, and red peppers tempura fried wrapped in eel, wrapped in rice, wrapped in seaweed. WOW!!!! So good people! You must try it! After that we went to the hotel where my hubby was asleep by 8:30 and I was watching TV most of the night.



To quote Brian Fantana from Anchorman - You're making me look stupid, whale jerks!!

We got up early Sunday to meet Sara, Max, Papi, Melissa, Kate, and Brent for a day of whale watching. I put on my bathing suit because we knew we would spend part of the day at a beach waiting for the whales and it happened. The plastic part that holds the back of my top together broke. No I did not pack a second suit so we had to improvise. We ended up taking a key ring and putting it through to hold it together. It actually doesn't look bad - kind of cute so it'll be fine. It did however take me 45 minutes to get it to work...of course! Unfortunately Katie and Brent neither one were feeling well so they did not meet us but the rest of them did. We tried to meet at the lighthouse which is closed due to construction. We went to a beach where we saw the whales last time but they weren't feeling friendly. We ended up going to a beach that our waiter the night before told us whales had been spotted the day before. No such luck. It was an okay day until it started to rain. We decided to go eat at a place we had been to before. They of course raised prices and the food wasn't that great this time. We ended up coming home and doing nothing. Today has been spent doing laundry and trying to groccery shop but I am in Puerto Rico so you know that's not easy. I swear the stores here stock something for a few weeks and then never stock it again. How difficult is it to find a roast?!?! We haven't been able to find one since before the Super Bowl!! I'm feeling pretty defeated today and to be honest I'm ready to come home!! Anyway - I'm sure things will get better. Here are a few pictures from the weekend that turned out nice. The dog is named Otis and he was having a blast swimming and then rolling in the sand. I hope you are all having a better weekend and start to your week than we are. Stay warm!

We're Still Here...

I know, I know, it's been a long time...AGAIN. To tell you the truth this year we are broke and a little bit boring. I think our fun times will begin to pick up in the next couple of weeks so be looking for some fun updates. We honestly haven't done much in the last several weeks. Two weeks ago was Clate and Fuentes' birthdays and we celebrated with a party at Papi's house in the mountains. I love to go up there where it's peaceful and quiet! Quiet that is until we get there and then all hell breaks loose!! Katie and I went and got a cake for the birthday people before the party and decided to be a little funny and get the candles that relight themselves after being blown out. We were so excited about the cake so we called for everyone to come in and we lit the candles. Keep in mind these little boogers burn fast and there's no stopping them. Just our luck - Clate disappears! Isn't that just like him? Of course we did get told how rude that was of us to light the candles when he was gone...to which I let them know we did not do on purpose. Anyway, with Clate away the mice will (still) play and we sang "Happy Birthday" to Fuentes by herself and let her blow to her little heart's content. Wouldn't you know it, Clate shows back up just as the last candles are being removed from the cake...figures! So we decided he needed a candle too - one very large candle. Then the High School secretary, Melissa, told us that he deserved to have his face planted in the cake for disappearing on us like that. Who should hear this but Courtney and you know he's not going to let an opportunity like that pass him by! He of course had to make it realistic so he removed the candle and started going on and on about how it smelled really bad. He got Clate to smell the cake - bad move - and planted his face right in the cake. It really was funny! But then noone wanted to eat the cake after his beardface had been in it. Oh well, they did anyway. We really had a good time.











After that party we really haven't done much. Last weekend we cleaned, did laundry, went to a baseball game on Sunday and did nothing else. This week Katie's friend Jodi and her sister Niki came on Thursday. We were supposed to go to Culebra with them today but then we got invited to a party where they are giving out the official jerseys for the baseball team. We are supposed to go to that at 6:00 tonight but Courtney's been home sick for the last 2 days so those plans are gone now too. I've basically been stuck in our bedroom since Thursday because I'm trying to avoid getting what he has. I was sick last week and I don't want it again. Courtney never gets sick so when he does it's not good. He's had a fever and chills since Wednesday night and it's driving me CRAZY!!! I swear I'm going stir crazy in my house - in my bedroom. I leave every once in a while to say, "How are you?" but I've found it's best to leave him alone. The Dills are on a (hopefully) beautiful and sunny beach on Culebra (oh and Clate's with them) and I'm in my bright orange bedroom...fun! This coming week we have a conference in San Juan on Friday so no school and we also have off Monday the 18th for President's Day. Hopefully we can find something fun to do if it's not raining and everyone's healthy. Well, there you have it. An update from PR...exciting, huh?