22, Julio- Mi 16th Cumpleano... and some on diving ~ by: Amanda

Too bad I don't know how to make my laptop have the proper accent marks.

But I'm SO excited to tell you about my sweet 16, because it truly was a blessing!

I was told by my Spanish teacher that a tradition in Honduras was to sprinkle flour on the birthday girl until she is completely white.... I would have loved to take part in this tradition, but the washing machines aren't that grand... and I was wearing my newer dress.... so she let me pass on tradition :D

Although I passed on that tradition... I NEVER would pass on ours... what is ours you may ask? Well, of course Banana Baby Food!!! I, being the birthday girl, got two!

We have been doing diving, a ton of bookreading each and everyday.... but we took my birthday off (today, the 29th, we went diving... in the water ... 40' 0_0 it was great... but that's for another post) So after Spanish, we did some homework and then began to prepare for my party. My sisters all did very well with helping brainstorm game ideas, and Mom and I went to bake a cake. This would be the most Cherry cake anyone had ever had. Originally I had wanted white cake with strawberry frosting.... but nope... I wanted Cherry. We had tried to make brownies once before, to test the oven, but they had burnt around the edges, and was still totally uncooked in the middle. Also the oven only went up to 300 degrees... the cake called for 350... so we went to the Pastor's house. We baked the cake, came home, and waited.... waited for it to cool. Have you ever noticed that it takes FOREVER for a cake to cool? Oh, I hate that. So we worked on the games, and ideas, then about an hour later we got to decorate it. Meaning, frost it with Cherry frosting, some sprinkles, then cherries around the edges of the cherry cake :D ... I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story :) <3>

Getting birthday braids

All ready

My YUMMY cake!

Oscar is helping Andi untie the balloons... or the
other way around... who knows :p

Pastor Julio opened with some Spanish, and

worship songs, along with a cool Spanish game

song... :D

you don't have any idea how hard it is to play
'flipbooks' with a language barrier!

This was great, and everyone loved this game

It's a dress up game, but a big hit even with

the males in the room :p

I L-O-V-E their birthday songs.... they're long,

I was afraid that the cake would soon be frosted

in wax :p We didn't get a video of them singing...

but we have two more birthday's here :D

All 16 candles out in one quick breath... my wish

my dream will come true :D

God wanted to make my birthday really special for me,

You see, this whole time we've been in Utila, It's been SO

cloudy, that we have only seen one star... but as we walked home

from the fellowship with all of our sweet new friends, we glanced up

to the night sky, and stopped. It was the most stars I have ever seen!

So beautiful. And to think God had them wait to show themselves just

for my special day!!!

now onto some other things....

Spanish has been going VERY well, and we are
finally working on past tense :D

I got a mean blister :*(

.... it's better now though.

As I mentioned earlier... lots of diving reading

Stephanie just sat there.... wasting time, because,

"I don't wanna drown!"

Our first breath of tank air! 21% oxygen, 79%nitrogen

Texas definitely does dive :D


Here are some of the children playing on the streets

The girl looking away is Yessy.

Well.... I'll have to post about diving today another time. Hope you enjoyed this post :D

Always Sending my Love,

Amanda- The one who NEVER wants to leave.

P.S. the ovens... we found out later that they aren't Fahrenheit, they're centigrade, thus no 350