We went to Mexico once again. As always, the kids are amazing and a blessing to see. It was their Independance day on Friday, so that made it plenty interesting, after all it is Mexico. They definitely know how to celebrate holidays. :)

When we arrived, there was a lot of kids that weren't at the orphanage. We were still able to hang out with some of the kids, and then after they went to bed, we went into town. Before even parking the van, we saw Cristina and Elizabeth walking back to CdE. We picked them up and brought them into town with us. Then, we see Max, Cristina's brother. Randomly, many of the kids kept coming up to us one by one. Some of the kids were with each other, but a lot were by themselves. By the time we headed back home, we had a van full of kids. It was definitely fun hanging out with them in town and cruising the square on foot, and even watching some of them do that as well, like Eduardo. Manuel, the owner of CdE, is so amazing. He was sitting up and waiting for them to get home. He told them to go to bed, and they marched. He is their uncle and he truly cares and loves each of these kids like they are his own.

On Saturday, Ben, Noah, Jordan, and Jared Gentes got there. They all bonded with different kids, and it was awesome to see. Adrian and Jordan clicked, lots of kids loved Ben, and Noah just liked to ask anyone questions that knew english. He did good though, and he was definitely well liked. They are probably still playing his ever-so-famous finger game. Jared bonded with Adrian a lot too, and he got really into the water fight. It's great to see that both of them are interested in coming again. I'm glad that they had a good time.

(Ben pretending to be a bull)

We brought lunch for the kids which was donated through different people. It's always scary when you're providing for them because the numbers fluctuate so much. There are always random visitors as well, so it can be hard to plan for. In the end, we ended out having more than enough sandwiches, chips, and apples ~ which is always a good thing.

Saturday night, we were allowed to bring kids with us to Magdalena. We took 7 of them (Amelia, Abilene, Adrian, Max, Ramon, Jaime, & David) because that's all we had room for. We got there just in time to catch the tail end of their fireworks. The best quote was from Jordan Gentes who said, "This is so gross but so cool at the same time" as we were standing on the sewer cover. They went and looked at the bones that are buried in the middle of the square. Some of them have never seen that. I think that struck a couple of them pretty hard. We got ice cream and then we went to a mini parking lot carnival. It was totally fun. Ramon asked me to go on the rocket ride with him. He's only 13, so he was the youngest out of the group we took. He was totally scared to go on it, but he had to prove himself to the other kids... even though Jaime didn't go on it. So, I sucked it up and went on it with him. I couldn't tell him no. I was totally scared and I tried not to scream as much as possible because I knew it would make him more scared. His face was embedded into my arm the entire time, and once it started the reverse part of the ride, he kept screaming "No mas! No mas!". The seatbelt was barely over us and it went through a hole in the door that was tied with some rope. Needless to say, my hands were clenched around the horizontal bar and then I had to cross my arms and put one around the small vertical bar. I had to keep us both in! My hands were so sweaty, but we survived it. The other rides went a lot smoother. Yet, during the teacups that also elevated during part of the ride, we could see that Jaime was getting alittle queezy. Let's just be honest and say I had him that way before the ride even started. That's one thing that is great about the teacups... you can go ahead and start the spinning before they even turn the ride on. Well, just near the end, out came the clumply, non-digested bright blue bubble gum ice cream complete with the little color speckles. I felt so bad. But in the end, the kids all had fun, even Jaime.

Oh, and how can I forget Arnulfo's hand. Jordan had to clean it up because he has a serious burn. Supposedly, his hand got run over with a car, but I don't see how that's possible. It's clearly burned. He is a lot better now though, and hopefully he can get some antibiotics. He kept showing all the kids his bandage and thought it was so cool ~ especially the little arm band that Jordan made for him.

All in all, it was a great trip, and now I have to wait another 5 weeks to go back down. If anyone wants to join us on our Oct. 20-22 trip, please let me know. We already have lots of people that are going.