In place of Halloween festivities the kids celebrated Christian Character Day at school. They also had fall festival. Maggie dressed up as Mary (a last minute thrown together ensemble). Alex's class did a play about the Muslim culture and he was part of the Taliban. The focus of the day was on Muslim countries.

Afterwards was the Fall Festival with games and activities for the kids. Maggie was excited when they brought out a horse for rides, but very upset when the horse became agitated by the crowd and whipped his head back into her face! She cheered up when she got to throw a pie at Mr. Cool, her teacher's husband who is also a teacher in the school.

Alex was a little bit embarrassed because his picture was chosen as the display picture for the school. I thought it was cute!
~Tona

We just moved to Colombia and it's a little bit different, but I already made friends. Most of my friends are from school. Santiago is one of them (there's a picture with him below). Most of the kids in the school are trying to learn English, so that's a relief for me. Our school isn't just one big building. It's like two big patios, one half is for high school and the other for elementary. My favorite subject is art. I also have an activity period. My class is cooking. One of the things I made is chocolate.

We've been going to different churches. The one that I like best has a park and the teacher is really nice. She's trying to learn English.

I like the malls here. They have little parks for kids inside. One of them has an amusement park on the outside. So far all of them have parks for kids.

~Alex

Today is October 1st and I moved here about a month ago or two. When I first got here I thought it was cold and now I found out in the mornings it is cold. In the afternoons it’s hot. At church I liked to wear long-sleeved dresses and it is a lot of fun. In about 16 days is my birthday! I have been trying to think about what I can do and I can’t wait to go back to Georgia and back to the States.

In school I had a girl’s sleepover at my teacher’s house. It was fun. We watched High School Musical and Mulan. We played a few games. School is a lot of fun when you get to be there for a few times. My favorite subject is the class that’s not very long, but it is fun. There’s a lot of different ones because everybody is assigned to certain ones. I am in stuffed animals. On Friday I had to sew, except a needle got in my skin a lot. I’m making a soft stuffed animal rabbit. I already stuffed it and now I only need to do the clothes and maybe keep sewing, but that hurts.

I have been having a lot of fun at churches. Sometimes we have been going to lots of different churches with friends. I can’t wait to go back to the States. It is fun there, but I wonder if there is anything funner than some of the games here. Like there are amusement parks and they are fun. One time with a friend we went to a park where there was lots of water things, like you try to swing over the water without getting wet, except I accidentally dunked my foot in it and got wet. And there was a huge thing with a lot of different colored slides. Some were bumpy and some were smooth…especially the red one was bumpy. There was this thing like a zip line except you did not have to wear straps, you just sat down, held on to a rope and it brought you down. There’s yellow and red. The yellow is smooth and the red one is bumpy!

There are a lot of fun things in Colombia. I am thinking about finding a horse back riding place for my birthday to go horseback riding because that’s what I LOVE to do!! Or maybe we’ll go to this thing by school that shows horse shows and it will probably be fun if I do. That’s all for now :)

~Maggie