Fun Times...

One morning, about 2 weeks ago, I was helping Ally-girl with her maths when we both look up on the wall in front of us and SCREAM. We saw the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life (besides tarantulas which we see all the time in Mexico). She quickly ran upstairs to get her mom and a jar to catch him in while I keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't get away.

So Belinda and her helper, Ate Amor, came to be the spider catchers since we were all too scared to do it! Ate Amor recognized it as an extremely poisonous spider and told us to be extra careful with it. Then as they were trying to transfer it from this cup to a jar, he JUMPED from bottom to top, scaring us to death!

We left our poisonous jumping spider pet in a jar with aluminum foil without holes in it, and he suffocated later that day. I think it served him right for scaring us so bad!! I took the Filipino equivalent of "Raid" and sprayed the entire school room, scared that there were more of him hiding out somewhere in there!!

What interesting things I've found in the downstairs of this house so far.... American toad, countless mice, (which are quite difficult to photograph... otherwise they would be up here too) slugs in the shower, now poisonous jumping spiders!! What next?

One day, Neo was playing around in my room with me and his Ate Jemma and he discovered a new way of going "voom voom" --he sits on our knees and leans back as far as he can, then flexes his body and just drops and we catch him. AFTER we make him count to three. Which sounds more like this: "Ee, ee, eeeeeeeee"

The night before my friend, Miki (the one on the right)'s birthday, he and Lucas (the one on the left) called me up on skype, and we talked for almost 2 hours!! About an hour into our conversation all the rest of our Mitla friends show up at his place with brownies... So I got to talk to everybody and be a part of the birthday party from the other side of the world where it was already his birthday!!So I taught them some Filipino poses and some skype shortcuts. Ha ha.

This is the whole group--my closest friends at home! Isaac, Kristin, Lucas, Benjamin, Johanna and Miki.

Then, later that evening after we all got to eat some delicious chocolate ice cream... Belinda surprised me with a surprise! Balut. AKA: a most-of-the-way-developed egg.
Yep - head, wings and feet. The whole deal. Here shows Aunt Lynne demonstrating where to crack and how to open it.

Mentally preparing myself for this.....

Trying to psychologically convince myself that it really isn't that bad... (or I was just laughing at Uncle Chris, Aunt Lynne and Belinda making fun of me and my "weak stomach".) I had just eaten a huge dinner, a cup of choco ice cream - a half-developed egg doesn't sound so great after all that!!

Ready to go

After sucking and sucking and expecting some slime to gush through the hole I made, I realized nothing is coming out of this thing!! So it took some more cracking and peeling to discover...

False alarm!! They miscounted the "maturing days" and it ended up just being a rubbery hard-boiled egg. *HUGE sigh of relief*

So in all, it was quite the fabulous day! I got to play with Neo, have some amazing American ice cream, talk to all my friends from back home on skype (WITH an extremely clear connection I might add) and I almost got to taste something of Filipino pride!! Until next time though.

Jumping ahead about a week and jumping over some tiny islands, and in the city now:

Lola Lynne and Neo doing the Filipino squat (Neo's idea)

Lolo Chris and Neo showing off their new outfits!! SO cute! =)

More of town to come later..... I'm just a little behind!