More Year In Review pics ...

Franchesca on the swings ...

Bryan and Jazmin playing stick ball out in the street with neighborhood kids
Two of our best interns from this year- Elizabeth and Nina!

Working on the city of tents during our bussiest Spring break weeks ...Kelvin, Marcos, Bryan, Odalis and Nina

Carmelo and Winston with grapes at Playa Popa beach

Merri Risa and Jose Luis ...Merri has come a long way since January- she walks and talks a LOT more!

Some of the boys dressed to impress for our Valentines Day dinner back in February

Jessica and Franchesca

Yanelca ...keeping English class COOL

Sisters, Joanni and Luz Maria, enjoying a plastic taco and playing with other pretend-food.

Year In Review ...

Bryan and I will be heading home to Michigan soon ... so here is a recap of some pics from the year ... check back again after Jan. 4th for more pics as we start our 2nd year in the DR!

Here I am at the go cart park in Puerto Plata.

Bryan carries "baby" Santos down to the beach when we took an evening beach trip with our Fall Villanova team.
Motos anyone??? Lots of motorcyles parked outside of the baseball stadium in Monte Cristi back during the local playoffs in September.

Cristofer told us he was going to start driving the Orphanage Outreach bus when he turned 4 ... this phot was from back when he was 3.

Raileni and Bryan at one of many summer beach trips with the kids.

My favorite picture of Jose Luis, and the barrel of monkeys.

Curlers during summer art camp

Some of the kids out on the patio ...Joanni, Ariel, Nena,Indiana, Carmelo, Jose Luis and Luz Maria

Bryan and summer intern, Katie, pretending to be Stacy and Clinton from the show What Not To Wear ...

Jennifer ...not sure if she likes the "Someone in Minnesota Loves Me" shirt that Meghan made for her. ...what a face!!!

Bryan and Meghan playing in the water fountians in the park accross the street from our building.

Picinic on the beach ...Santos, me and Jazmin ...the beach wood hut was there before we got there.

Bryan and I on the escalator in the La Sirena grocery/department stroe in Santiago

Santos, finishing his heart shaped masterpiece on El Moro beach.

another great Jennifer face ... mid-dinner

Jessica on her first day of school

Carmelo, Monch and Jaury beofre the April Easter Egg Hunt

Special Edition: Pizza!

Since the bottom floor of our building used to be a restaurant, there's a pizza oven in the kitchen ...we've made several attempts at home made pizzas, but are still looking for a good dough recipe ...here are Bryan and Joella experimenting.

Adding sauce ...

Joella checking to see if it's done
One of the first attempts at a pizza not quite a circle and definitely lacking to good cheese like at home ... but it tasted better than it looks!

The real deal-- Pizza at Pizza Hut in Santiago during one of our trips into the big city for supplies and errands.

and the Dominican Pizza Huts have delivery too ... only its on the back of a moto!

Edwin & Domingo

Edwin and Domingo...

... loosing more teeth everyday!

New Swings!

A donation of new swings for the kids' playground area was recently made. This weekend they were all out enjoying them. Here's Nena.

getting lots of use ...
Jessica pushing Raisa

Jochi pushing Jennifer and Joanni

Jochi pushing Jennifer

Jennifer ...

...again

Joanni

The Amazing Race: Monte Cristi

Bryan and I brought the Amazing Race competition to Monte Cristi last weekend by matching up our interns against each other ... the Red Team (Santos, Emily and Joella) compeated against the Blue team (Jazmin, Meghan and Jen, pictured below). After finishing a 30 question quiz about Monte Cristi and the English Institute, the teams were given their first clue (wrapped in many layers of duct tape) ...they then had to run around to different locations in Monte Cristi to find their next 10 clues (baseball stadium, park, post office, clock tower, etc) ....and the winners of the Amazing Race were ....the Blue team (below) ....the final clues lead everyone to a local restaurant for lunch.

getting ready for Halloween ...

Even though the Dominican Tropical Storms have been happenning in the southern parts of the country, (nothing more than a few clouds here in Monte Crtisti) the dept. of education canceled school for all parts of the country this week ... only a few students still came to English class, and those who did, got to help us prep for Halloween ...here is one of the white boards with cob webs and pumpkin lights that our intern, Joella, brought down.

Students in the English 1 classroom making pumpkin balloons
Jazmin and I with another Halloween decoration that Joella brought from the US.

Cristopher coloring a Halloween picture

...and Jose Luis too ...

a spider balloon ...our interns got pretty creative with decorations!

Jessica wrapped up in a sheet (its been cold here) and I ...

English 2 students as ghosts and mummies ...