Trail REMARKS

Yesterday Paulina and Lydia turned one. We celebrated at home as a family. I think some of the things were more fun for us than for them. :) Here are a few pictures from the day.
We skyped with my parents and they were able to watch the girls unwrap (actually we unwrapped it) their gift. Reminder to self: get a soft toy next time.
Here's Lydia digging in to her cupcake. She was an animal
Paulina on the other hand didn't quite understand what to do. She barely got dirty.

There they are. If you can see Paulina on the right holding up her index finger saying, "I was first." or "What are those things on my chair."

Lydia did not like the idea of sitting in our large washing machine box the other day! ALSO I just posted a new video of Paulina doing this weird thing with the towel. It's the first video on the right in the video bar. Ayuna says that we look alike. I'm not too share about that.

The rainy season has just begun here. It's not like a monsoon, but more of a constant drizzle so far. We are told that it will last until the end of August. This is not exactly what I thought the summer break would be like. We did get some reprieve today, so we got the girls out in the stroller. Here are a couple of pictures of some initial flooding. I love the picture of the four guys plowing through the water.

Our t.v. entertainment options are limited here. (Side Note: I'm not saying that is a bad thing. It's actually a good thing.) There is one English speaking channel, but it's all information shows as opposed to sitcoms. There is a sports channel in the local language and that's about the only subject we can understand without translation. There is a local Jack Sparrow type video store that offers a selection of things that we have watched. It's a hit or miss there.

I think the main things I, Mark, miss watching are the Dog Whisper (Ceaser Milan is awesome!) on the National Geographic Channel and Myth Busters on the Discovery Channel. These are shows that you can't find here. The real popular stuff like Lost, 24, and a few other sitcoms are readily available. I even found a BBC series called Planet Earth. If you ever get a chance to rent it from the library (Blockbuster is too expensive) and watch the first show just to see the part on the bird of paradise from PNG, it would be worth it. It was so cool!! Sorry, it seems like I have a lot of tangents in this post.

If anyone gets Doug Whisper or Myth Busters and can record them to a DVD that would be awesome!

Here are our little ladies in recent days. Lydia is making weird faces while looking through the toy that she has by her face. She is also the one holding the ball. All the other pictures are of Paulina. She loves her toe jam and hates standing in the crib.

Here's a few culture tid-bits that we are learning as we go.

Writing in RED INK

It turns out that writing a letter or note in red ink is a no no. If someone receives such a thing then it means that you no longer want to be their friend. Wonder what that means for red lettered history books?

No Bags! Uhhh...How do I get groceries home?

I'm not sure if this is culture or just my own stupidity. Went to a store similar to Wal-Mart the other day and as I checked out there were no bags given. I had a rather large basket full of items, so there was no way to put them underneath my arms and walk home. So I preceded to do the point and confused look to get my question across. Finally, I was directed to a place where a box was made available. Later I found out that now you have to by the bags. Go figure. Everything would have been fine if I was only offered a bag.