Happy St Patricks Day!

And Happy Birthday to Ashley!!!

440am came early, and Ashley was awoken to our enthusiastic rendition of Happy Birthday.

by 5am , we were on the road for the 3 hr bus trip to the Parquari river.

We stopped on the way to visit to the National Basilica of CR. The kids were amazed by beautiful white humoungus church, and were awestruck by the sweeping cathedral ceilings with all the beautiful statues and altars / I guess the movement after Vatican II to simplify the ornateness of the churches  didn't make it all the way down here! I thought it was cool how all the statues of the saints had Latino features, and I had Lisa take a  picture of the  12 foot statue of St Vincent de Paul to shoiw the Society in Goderich.

Everyone enjoyed seeing the panorama on the way to the river. Coffee and pinapple plantations, and sugar cane fields all in mid harvest. We saw some tractors working, 3 JD, a Ford and 2 Sames, both in the fields and hauling trucks of the cane. Banana and coconut trees are every where, and all sorts of fields under mesh with flowers for export.

The river experience was according to my raft " the funnest thing " they have ever done in their life, although Emilie in particular was pretty apprehensiuve at the start. But she did loosen up when I put her and Jess in my boat, because they both knew I would never be able to return home without them or their mothers would kill me, so she was pretty confident I would dive in after her and save her or die trying!

Of course, our prayer service tonight could be extremely short as Emilie did enough praying  for all of us for the first hour. Or at least she started a prayer a lot... " Dear God" "Oh Dear God" ... Paige even let out a "Oh my Jesus"  while I mostly got water in my mouth during the rapids because \i was laughing at them! Of cours, by the end of the trip, Emilie was begging to sit at the front on the bow, so Louis our guide said yes, and Emilie managed to slip off into the river as she was sitting donw, and Paige and I had to rescue her! We all thought it was pretty funny,

All the rafts enjoyed the 18 mile trip , with it's Class 1 to 4 rapids, and the lunch on the side of the river, feeding fish and seeing an Native with his wooden boat. I haven't really heard all the individual stories yet, I do know Tristan caught Taylor as she was heading  out of the boat, and all the teams seem to think their boat did the best, but Obviously my boat was by far the best at teamwork, or so our guide told us!

No one got any injuries, in fact if we throw Paul out of the average, we have had an injury free trip under my supervision so far! Of course, when they are on free time playing dodge ball or monkey in the middle or whatever game they are on,l they are running into trees, diving on the gravel, wiping out on hills ... they seem to be a competitive bunch. Lets just say nobody has a scrape or bruise that wasn't self inflicted? This technology free idea is a little more physically dangerous then letting them zombie out in front of computer screens!

Its 9pm and most of the kids have been in their beds for the last 1\2 hour and I am about to join them. I am wearing my St Patricks Day scarf that Alex gave me, but aside from a prayer to St Patrick at our meeting tonight, that is it for festivities. I think this is the frist St Patricks Day since I was pregnant with Tristan that I haven't had a beer and toast my ancestors. Man, the sacrifices I make for these kids... and yes that was a whine, but hey! they won't know until after I am home, so I won't have to do extra dishes.

At least it was a Feast day, and according to Father John, we get on bye on Lent, so I was able to have a piece of the surprise birthday cake I ordered for Ashley MMMM good! Very fance with all sorts of fresh fruit and beautifully decorated.

Special thanks to Father Gary for expediting the wire, all has arrived and both Charlie and myself are thrilled!

That s it I am beat like a drum and off to ZZZZZ

Erin Go Braugh!