For your viewing amusement....

This is what happened when Eunice and I stayed behind at the Ranch to do some cleaning while everyone else went to Jersey Park on Friday.



They are animal hats. Eunice's is an elephant and mine's a lion...I think.

Las montañas

We climb a mountain with the niños every Friday. Usually we don't quite go all the way to the top, but we went the little extra distance to the top this week. I took some pictures of the valley the Ranch is in. I also have a picture of the group at the top of the mountain. Hope you enjoy!





The Ranch is down there, somewhere.

Week 4

Every week we do certain activities. On Mondays and Tuesdays we do Discovery activities (see previous blog about those) and Vacation Bible School-type activities. We use a story called "Sydney y(and) Norman" for VBS. From what I have been able to learn of the story, it sounds really great. I plan to read it in English when I get home. What I can tell you is that it's about 2 pigs that have an encounter with God that effects them in different ways (both positive). You should read the rest for yourself -- I'm going to. ;) We also play games, do crafts, and go over a memory verse during VBS.

This past week we went to the beach on Wednesday. We first go on a nature walk near the beach. During the nature walk the ninos get to look for crabs and shells. Then we eat lunch, and after that we play in the ocean. I had a lot of fun jumping waves with a few of the girls this week. It's definitely not as warm here as it is going to the ocean in the Carolinas. Still fun though.

On Thursday we went to Baja Mar. Baja Mar is a private community that is largely inhabited by retired Americans. The kids get golf lessons and get to practice hitting the ball at the community's driving range. They also have a lot of fun picking up all the golf balls before and after they use the range. It's like a really easy Easter egg hunt or something. Baja Mar residents donated hot dogs, chips, and cake for our lunch Thursday. It was really nice of them. They usually do pbj's, so this week was extra special. After lunch the ninos have a putting tournament and then everyone gets prizes. The kids have a blast. They end up coming back to the Ranch with a t-shirt and a couple prizes.

The ninos this week loved the game Uvas (Grapes). It's basically a type of tag. One person is the Uva and stands in the middle of the field, while everyone else starts at one end of the playing field. The Uva shouts "uvas" and all the other players have to run across the playing field without getting tagged. If the Uva tags you, you have to stand in the place you were tagged and then use your arms to tag other people as they run past. I included one picture of the ninos playing ovas in this week's slide show.

That's a little bit of this week (and our weeks in general). I may post some more this weekend...we'll see...

Let's see...

I am currently listening to NeedtoBreathe and trying to decide what to share with all of you this week. I think I may tell you about some of the pictures that I posted in this week's slide show. This week was very fun. We had a great group of kids. It was this particular orphanage's first time coming to the Ranch, so it was fun to see them get to have so many new experiences. I'm going to caption pictures and then do some more blogging. :)

Another weekend coming to a close...

...and, as usual, I didn't get as much posted as I would have liked. I hope you enjoyed what I did manage to post though. It's been a busier than usual weekend and a fun one. I hope everyone has a wonderful week and I will post more next weekend! I have 2 more weeks of camp and then I will be spending more time at the office. Hasta luego!

Discovery

On most Mondays and Tuesdays we do "Discovery" with the ninos. Our Discovery activities have to do with the 5 senses and how God gave them to us to experience the world. We do at least one activity with each sense. I took a few pictures this week of Discovery that I thought I would share.



In this activity, the girl with the eye patch is trying to hit the two pencils together. The kids have fun laughing at each other when they see how hard it is. It also demonstrates how having 2 eyes helps our depth perception.



Stephanie is helping one of the ninos figure out an optical illusion card.



Stephanie and Alejandro were doing a listening activity where the ninos had to identify which sounds were the same.



We played duck, duck, goose with two brushes. They weren't supposed to say anything...you knew if you were a duck or goose based on the type of brush they touched your hand with. One brush was soft the other was coarse.

There's a little peak into the Discovery activities. They are basically a mixture of educational information and activities. They're fun. :)

Clean Tent!

So, last Saturday (not this past one, but the one before) Rachel and I cleaned our tent. It looked so much better than it had in the previous pictures I showed you that I wanted to post some new pictures. The pictures don't do our hard work justice, but you'll at least get some idea of the improvement.

Last Week's Video

The video I was uploading last weekend didn't have a chance to finish before I had to leave, so here it is.

A little bit of this weekend

I took a couple pictures and a video this morning, so I thought I would share them with you.

These two pictures were taken after church this morning. This one is of me, Rachel and Eunice.


This one is of the three of us girls, Alejandro and Eric.


After church I went out to eat with a few people. We went to a pizza place that serves breakfast in the mornings. I had their breakfast special: 2 pancakes, 2 eggs, and meat (I had bacon). On the way back to the office they took me up a steep hill that overlooks much of Ensenada. It's a huge city. Here are a couple of pictures and a video. In the video I say that there are about 400,000 people who live in Ensenada. There are actually closer to 600,000 people. I was off a little. ;)

Note: Katie's video didn't finish uploading before she had to pack up her stuff and leave, so unfortunately the video is unavailable at this time. -B





I'm short on time this weekend (and, unfortunately will be most weekends) so this is all I will have time to post for now. I hope everyone is doing great and that you have a wonderful week. I will share more info and more pictures next weekend. Bye for now!

My Home on the Ranch

This week I took a few pictures of the tent/dorm that I live in and some of the other amenities I use at Rancho Genesis. There are 3 bunk beds in my tent, carpet, and a couple of plastic shelves that we keep some of our stuff on. I was living in there with Ceci and Rachel up until Friday when Ceci left to go back to college. The picture(s) that I will have on here show it really messy, but Rachel and I cleaned it up this morning so it looks a lot better now (I'll try to remember to take another picture before we mess it up again).





The shower the staff use on the Ranch is constructed of a wooded frame and blue tarp-like material. It's open to the sky and you can easily hear everything going on near the shower while you are in there. It's a little strange. I'm not used to having conversations with people while they are showering (the shower is right next to my tent). We have 2 water options for our showers. We can either use a solar bag (which only works if you remember to fill one up) or the piped in water from the tanks. Solar bags provide great warm water up when you remember to fill them and are able to take a shower before it cools down outside.





We have really nice bathrooms at the Ranch. A very fancy hole in the ground. :) I didn't take a picture of the inside of the outhouses, but it's basically a toilet seat on a bench over a large, deep hole. Next to the outhouse we have a large blue barrel that serves as our hand/foot/face washing station and next to that is an igloo that contains the water we use to brush our teeth. It's far from fancy, but it works.



Now you've seen most of my new home. I haven't taken any pictures of Genesis's office where I stay on the weekends and where I will be staying when the camps are over at the Ranch. I will try to remember to take and post some of those over the next few weeks.

Food in Mexico

Well, I really can't be too general about the way I talk about the food in Mexico because I really haven't experienced that much of it. I have been to a couple of taco stands (they call them "stands", but they are small restaurants, not street vendors) and they were really good. They aren't your usual American, Taco Bell tacos -- everything is made fresh in front of you and the salsa is a good bit more spicy. I haven't seen chicken offered at either of the stands I have been to, so I usually get beef. I also had guacamole, cilantro, a couple beans, salsa and a squeeze of lime on the two tacos I had today. They were good. :)

Food at the Ranch is good as well. They serve tortillas at almost every meal during the week (they don't serve them with breakfast and the don't serve them when they do tuna salad). We also eat a lot of rice during the week. The type of meat and the vegetables it is mixed with change throughout the week, but you can always count on lots of tortillas and rice. I took a picture of two different meals last week and I will try to do more in the future. The first picture was taken of the tuna salad meal. In the second picture we had a pot roast-ish meal with baby carrots, small potatoes, and chicken along side (can you guess?) rice and two tortillas.

Week 2

Hello Everyone! I can't believe week 2 of my trip here is over! It's been a good week. We were missing a couple staff this week, so we were extra busy filling in for the missing people. The group I worked with this week consisted of both an Amigo group (youth group) and a Nino group (orphanage), so it was a bit different from last week. I didn't end up getting to interact with the ninos as much due to each nino being paired with an amigo. It was great for the ninos though because they got a lot of one-on-one attention that I am sure they do not usually get at their orphanage.