Ahhhh…what a great weekend! It has been so nice to have a whole weekend of relaxing and enjoying time with friends. I went out to Cashibo (the lake) on Friday and had a wonderful time swimming in the lake, working on my tan, hanging out with the girls (Kelly, Stephanie and Emily) and just really enjoying the peacefulness of the lake. It is always nice to get away from the nasty wood factory and its smoke. It was crazy to see how much the lake has risen with the rainy season. It is almost into the basement of Stephanie and Todd’s house and the Schmidt’s house is completely surrounded by the lake. They could jump off their deck into the lake…so cool! The lake has a ton of huama (pronounced wama), chunks of floating plants/grass, and it has pushed the swim dock pretty far away from where it usually is. It was interesting to watch people with canoes try to get through all the huama to get to land. Definitely not a job I would want. Thankfully we had a huama free area to swim in since the Schmidts had put up their huama fence. I spent a little too much time in the lake and burned my back and my face…but that is ok…it is training for spring break. :~)

I got back to the school on Saturday afternoon and got to spend about an hour online talking to some friends from home. It was great to talk with them and catch up. Definitely a good time and I can’t wait to see them again. Then Kelly and I went to town to do some shopping. We were able to get some things but not nearly as much as we hoped. Since the bridge between Lima and Pucallpa got washed out on Monday it has been pretty hard to find certain things and other things have gone up in price. But we are thankful for what we were able to find and that we have been blessed enough to be able to buy it. Kelly bought her hammock and now we just need to find some hooks to hang the two hammocks up with. I am so excited to finally get it up; hopefully we will find hooks soon. But if we can’t find them here we will have to wait until we are in Lima and buy some hooks there. Oh well, it will be worth it once they are hung up. So comfortable and relaxing! I love to sit in a hammock and either read or take a nap.

Let’s see other than that I don’t think there is much news. We made it to church and to lunch and back without getting wet from the people throwing water balloons. February is festival month and so on Sundays the kids LOVE to throw water balloons at the mototaxis. Thankfully we didn’t get hit. They don’t usually use clean water and so the water usually stains your clothes if you aren’t careful. Oh well, any reason to throw a water balloon….always fun! Well, I am going to enjoy the warm weather and try to send some of the warmth to those of you who have some really cold weather right now. Try not to freeze and I will try to not over heat.

The float plane. The lake (the stuff that looks like grass in front is huama). The water behind Stephanie and Todd's house.

Another picture of the huama. The boat dock huamaed in! The Schmidt's house over the water.

Pretty palm tree and the lake. The Schmidt's house again with the lake under it!