En Todas Las Cosas: Halloween and Thanksgiving...

As most of you know, I LOVE CHRISTMAS!
But before Christmas can happen, there are 2 "lesser holidays" that must first take place.
This year, both were celebrated and are worth mentioning on the blog.
However, don't worry, after this post, there will be PLENTY of posts touching on the holiday that is fastly approaching!

October 31st is the birthday of a dear friend here in La Paz. And since another friend's birthday is about a week before, we had a birthday/halloween party for them.
After hearing the word costume, Esteban and I immediately went to work on our costume (since he would probably admit to liking costumes as much or even more than I do.... if that is possible) and we came up with....

That's right...in honor of Idaho (Famous IDAHO Potatoes) and Bolivia (the home of over 3,000 varieties of potatoes!)

Here are the birthday girls Jjill and Molly...

And here's the ever popular, timed group-shot...

With the ending of October, we were quickly ushered into the "Thanksgiving Season" as I have come to think of it....at least this year I have!
You would think that since I live in Bolivia and Thanksgiving is traditionally an American holiday, meals with turkey and stuffing would be few and far between. However, I think had the most feasts that I have EVER had in 1 year this year.
3.
And at each one I ate my full!!!

We did a thanksgiving feast with the middle schoolers to give them a better understanding of WHY we didn't have school for 1 1/2 (wonderful) days. Then, the Saturday before Thanksgiving we had an extranjero celebration complete with LOTS of great food....

football...

**Note that my Bolivian boy is playing the "all-american" sport and enjoying it:)

and Happy Thanksgiving Charlie Brown (traditional, even if it had to be viewed on a bity computer screen!)...

THEN we had a staff thanksgiving feast before we all went our separate ways to ejnoy the break.

This year I stayed in Bolivia to enjoy Thanksgiving in Santa Cruz with Esteban....AND HIS FAMILY!
Esteban's mother is from a family of 9 children (a couple have died since then) and they all live in Santa Cruz, except for his mom Tere (yes...his mom's name sounds just like my mom's name....!).

While there I enjoyed getting to know the many tios y primos (aunts/uncles and cousins) even if they couldn't really say the same about me....
People from Santa Cruz are known for their accents and habit of leaving off the "s" sound completely.
Ucha!
Megan was lucky to understand what was being said...adding to the conversation was not in the cards for this trip!
Here are a few pictures from our time.....I LOVE SANTA CRUZ!!

A taste from the great West...mas o menos....

The hats Tia Ana Maria let us borrow for our day at the water park Aqualand that we "happened" to have forgot at the house....bummer!

Our reaction after finding out that Aqualand only had 1 "ride" open and that 2nd best was the rundown Playland with the faded dinosaurs next door....we still had fun despite the less than ideal conditions of this park.