Visitors from Home!

At the end of September two of our friends from Oregon came to visit us, Lauren Dealy and Elyssa Emel. Elyssa is one of our employees at our coffee shop in Yoncalla and Lauren and her family go to our church. Lauren has also been a good friend of Emily's for a long time. It has been a real treat to have visitors from home! It hasn't been good for our Spanish though, because we talk so much in English! Much to Rudi's chagrin I have stayed up late talking way to many nights since they have arrived!

Lauren helping out with Leo

Lauren has been able to help us with the kids schoolwork, as well as help with the cooking and care of the little children. She is always available to help, but never in the way... the perfect combo! Lauren is going to be staying with us until January.

 
Elyssa originally came to Bolivia to visit just us, but our local private Christian school found out that she was coming for a visit and asked her to fill in between fifth grade teachers for them. Elyssa recently graduated with her teaching degree, so she came very qualified for the job! Many an evening would find her at the kitchen table grading papers! On the weekends we had fun going out to eat or going to some local tourist type things. The last two weeks, of the six she was here, she was free from teaching and we were able to do more stuff during the day with her!

Elyssa hard at work in Bolivia

 Almost every Saturday morning our children would go to play soccer and frisbee at Carachipampa School's field with Elyssa and Lauren and at times others.

Some of my favorite times have been the late night talks and game playing! In the picture below we are playing "Gimps" and Elyssa and Clancy won time after time!

 And, of course, our guests were able to help out with the "Casa Kids"!

 Rudi took all of the kids and Elyssa and Lauren up to see the hot springs in the mountains above our house. On the way home they stopped and had Chicharron!

Enjoying Chicharron for the first time!

The last week of Elyssa's stay we were able to take an extended five day trip to Uyuni. It was the adventure of a lifetime. My next blog will be about our time there!
We saw Elyssa off last Sunday night. It was such a blessing having her visit and we will miss her much! We are thankful that Lauren gets to stay with us a couple months longer. The way time flies we will be saying goodbye to her all too soon!