Feliz Cumpleaños a Mi y Angela

4/20
Monica was born, now 23 years later celebrating her day of birth with her lovely girls in Bolivia
Angela´s parents came into town day before (19th)! YAY

So my day began with the death of our lovely, and pregnant dog Pereouka (don´t know how to spell it, but it means pearl in polish and belonged to Hermana Anna our old director who yes is from Poland)
Once the girls were awake, their chores inspected (by us), and all lined up in correct attire, they broke out the bday song in spanish (of course) and a couple learned it in English for me, so cute. After all the hugs and kisses, I led the Our Father and they were off to school.

Angela and I then helped the distraught Ruth shovel her limp and pesada cuerpo into an old rice bag and placed her in the wheelbarrow to be dumped off the side of the road.  Another part of our job title we were unaware of.

After a good hand washing, we had a lovely breakfast of bread and spreads.
Then presents. Angela bought me two dolls (boy and girl) in traditional Cochabamba dress, they are on my shelf now, great for my ethnic doll collection at home!
Her parents were so cute and got me a gift too:
A lovely butterfly journal with Scripture passages on bottom of each page (good because my current butterfly one is almost full), and a Catholic women´s daily meditation book.
Plus some sweet pea anti-germ lotion and handwash. SO perfect!

So they left for the city (Ang and her parents) all day so I was working alone, but it was good. The girls weren´t too bad. During ballet with one of the groups, I saw this little boy on the side of the road in a bowl of water just hanging out, unclothed. It was the cutest thing! it was a hot day and i´m pretty sure his mom was working at the little tienda nearby, so he wasn´t alone.
Little images like this make me smile, I also bought CORN FLAKES!! yay for cereal. After almost 8 months i really do miss it. Later in the evening, I went to Mass at the big church to thank God for a beautiful sun-shining birthday. In the evening the girls were so sweet, I went to get them ready for bed and a couple rooms decided to do a little impromptu dance for me, not the greatest though they are good dancers normally, but then I got a couple sweet notes and more hugs. Later went down to kitchen to help with conejo (rabbit) cookies, they started them when i left for Mass, so it was a long process, but we were at the icing stage so that was fun with some of the older girls and two of the Hermanas. The third Hermana surprised me while I was down there with kind words, flowers, and a present (this gorgeous blue, purple, and pink scarf).  And i got to eat one of the cookies. We were up til almost midnight finishing them up and there were a few broken ones are semi-burnt ones that we got to share. I had to be careful bc the icing dried fast and sometimes the necks snap easily but it was so funny working with them.

Beautiful day! No cake bc it´s holy week, the hermanas felt bad, but 
this was more than I expected for my special day.

Side note:  I heard we might be celebrating with cake on Sunday because both mine and Angela´s bdays were this week (her´s was yesterday, 22nd)  So that along with our grand Easter celebration,ooh can´t wait!  I´ll let you know how it goes, plus I bought a piñata bc I really wanted one for my bday and will fill it with goodies and glitter for the girls!

Side note 2: I wasn´t blogging during lent, clearly, so will catch you up on the news after my Easter blog later this week, but I have updated my flickr pictures album and will remind u the website after I fill it with Easter and Holy week photos.

HOPING YOU ALL HAD A BLESSED AND HOLY WEEK, WISHING YOU ALL THE MOST BLESSED AND LOVE AND JOY-FILLED EASTER! 
¨Christ the Lord has risen today (tomorrow) Aleluia¨