the baby birdies are here!

Polly's babies have hatched! we have been on the lookout for them all week, and didnt think that had hatched yet. but to our surprise this morning momma Polly was feeding them, and man they look big already! i dont really know how that happened. and theyre so ugly theyre cute! any ideas of names for them? its weird...all year long we pretty much have the same hot temperatures, but im declaring this spring because there is so much new life in our patio! aside from the baby birdies, flowers that havent bloomed all year are bursting with flowers:we have a flower on our strawberry plant that marty planted, so we hope to have strawberries soon. and we finally have little baby limes on our lime tree:

this "shrimp" flower is finally blooming:

speaking of shrimp, we got up this morning and went to the beach with another couple, just in time for a mid-morning swim and a fresh seafood lunch on the pier. you see, they have made a huge fresh seafood market on the pier, with shrimp bigger than my hand and red snappers bigger than me! the fishermen that have just caught the figh gut them right there on the pier, then they sell it to you for real cheap. of course, its not the best smelling place in the world, but it really is cool. so we picked up some shrimp and fish to bring home, and ate a huge bowl of fresh shrimp ceviche (shrimp mixed with cut up tomatoes, onion, cilantro, and lime) for lunch for just a couple of bucks. now this is how every sunday should be: beach in the morning, UNC basketball in the afternoon, and church at night!

usa vs. el salvador

vs.

So, i had a dilemma tonight...el salvador and usa played to qualify for the 2010 World Cup, and at first, i didn't know who to pull for! i was really having an identity crisis. =) however, i found myself rooting for el salvador, as they were ahead 2-0 for a while! turns out that they tied (which is a stinky way to end a game i think), but the good thing is that it is still possible for both teams to qualify for the world cup. we thought about going to the game, since it is here in town, but decided it may not be a good idea to be a gringa in the midst of thousands of salvadoreans if usa were to beat el salvador! especially since it is not unusual at the stadium for fans to throw cups of beer, pee, etc at other fans of their same team...i dont even want to think about what they would throw at me, being the obvious blondie from usa!

in other news, i had the priviledge of sharing today at our monthly women's saturday get-together at church...what a good lookin' group!

showers, sushi, sermons, and sweet 16

Try to say that 5 times fast! today's title is pretty much a summary of our fun weekend. First of all, i went to a friend's wedding shower, where of course i was picked to be the model of a toilet paper wedding dress ( i guess they figure im short and wont use up too much TP). it brought back fond memories of being dressed in white...however, i must say that my wedding dress was not nearly as absorbent as this one!

Later on, we went out with some friends for our very first sushi experience! well, ive been served sushi before, but it was crab sushi, and it actually had a little crab leg sticking out. you see, at that time, i was the proud owner of a hermit crab, Hermie, and all i could think about was that i was eating sweet Hermie's brother! so i refused. So, there were 5 of us eating lunch, and so we ordered a humongous plate of sushi (i think there were 72 on the plate), all different kinds.
So it turns out that we LOVED it! each and every kind we tried! of course, i had to ask for mine without sesame seeds because im allergic, but man oh man we wolfed down those 72 rolls and when we got home, i was craving sushi again! anybody got any tips for making sushi at home??

stuffed...and happy =)

You may notice our carolina t-shirts in the picture...elvis was so pumped about the game on saturday that he wouldnt let me leave the house without my unc shirt on! we were really excited that we actually got to watch the game on TV, and that we made it to the sweet sixteen!!

On Sunday, we had a birthday lunch for elvis's grandma and the whole family...it was good to see her because even though she only lives right outside the city, we actually see my grandmas more than we get to see her! weird, huh? Then, elvis was invited to preach sunday night in Comasagua, so we enjoyed worshipping with them up there and elvis did a great job preaching. So, now we are into another week, but only 1.5 weeks left until easter break!!!

mango season!

The yummmiest time of the year is upon us here in El Salvador...mango season!!! In the picture you can see my favorite type of mango (there are a million different types)...this one is called the "Tommy" mango...i have no idea why it is called that and not "Tomas" or something a little more salvadorean. Anyways, we ate this one for breakfast this morning, and it was just at its peak...not too ripe (i dont like 'em mushy) and not too green (although green mangoes are good with lime and salt!) hooray for mango season!!!

as a follow-up to yesterday's election blog, everything went smoothly, and the country's first leftist president was elected (well, he is moderate left). it was neat to see history in the making, and hear from our house the fireworks and tons of people celebrating in the streets!

election day in el salvador

today is a big day here in el salvador, presidential election day. it has been interesting seeing the whole process from an "outsider's" point of view...i mean, i guess im really an "insider" since i live here, but an outsider because as a foreigner, i am not allowed to take any part in the elections. one thing that has astounded me has been the lack of unbiased news. one of the candidates actually went to N.C. State....but i will withhold my comments=) we are really anxious to see who wins, and are praying for no violence and for no fraud in the elections. we are excited to have a really relaxing weekend, since all activities at church and even school tomorrow has been cancelled, just in case there are protests because of the elections. elvis went out early to vote, and for the rest of the day we are just laying low here at the house, watching movies all day! we highly recommend a movie we just watched, "Slumdog Millionaire."

in other news, we are moving closer to easter week, the hottest time of the year. the threat of rainy season lingers in the air, but the dry season hasnt released its hold yet. in order to fight the upcoming heat, we have tried to find a haven for the upcoming weeks, and we did! we became members of an association for engineers and arquitects (now that elvis is officially an engineer!) which has a pool just a few minutes from our house, a real treasure here in the city! we are excited because i mean its not that fancy, but we only have to pay $1 per month, and get to go swimming all we want!! so our new exercise plan is to go swimming everday after school. so, come and visit us! we'll take you swimming!

in NC news, my aunt Barb, who is a psychology professor at UNC, was interviewed this week on UNC-TV by Bill Friday, about her new book, "Positivity". We are very proud of her, and you can check out her interview at: http://flash.unctv.org/ncpeople/ncp031309_bfredrickson.html

p.s. we are still awaiting the hatching of our baby doves! we enjoyed reading yalls comments about that post =)

Polly wanna cracker?

We are really excited because we have a new house guest...a turtledove, who has built a nest in one of our plants! We have affectionately named her Polly la Paloma. She is such a faithful mama to her little eggs, even when i scared her by taking her picture (i almost cried when she started freaking out because of the picture), she kept guard, watching her nest from our neighbor's roof before coming back and settling in again. i love the blue area around her eyes...it looks like she has makeup on. elvis's mom told us that it is a common belief here that if a turtle dove makes her nest near your house, it means that she has found your home to be a place of peace, so we take it as a complement the fact that she has chosen us!

While we are sharing bird stories, there's a video ive been meaning to post for a while of Elvis's mom's pet parrot, Katita Henriquez. One day, we were at her house and thought that elvis's sister's car alarm was going off. we went to check, and turned out it was the parrot imitating the car alarm! it is amazing, you have to check it out:

In anniversary news, we had a great day on wednesday. Elvis made triple chocolate brownies and cappuchino, and so he picked me up from work and we went to our favorite park for a fun picnic. oh, and we stopped by burger king to pick up ice cream to go on top of the brownies!! =) that night, we had our women's group at the house, then elvis picked me up and we went out to eat at Tony Roma's. its cool, we earn points from our bank every time we use our debit card, and can trade them for gift certificates for places like that. we felt like we were in NC...we had a bloomin' onion and elvis had ribs with "Carolina honey bbq sauce", and i had a "Carolina BBQ sandwich" yummmm!
two days later, im still stuffed.
im sure not why i equate in my mind special holidays with having the liberty to eat in an out-of-control fashion. anyways, it was a really fun day, with lots of little details to make it really special. we just still cant believe its already been 3 years!

Anniversary Trip!

When my parents came down this month, we went to this really amazing place at the beach for the first time (you can see pictures from there in the last blog i did). its cool because on one side of the property there is a mangrove estuary (is that how you say it?) and on the other side is the beach. and in between are really nice rooms, 3 pools, waterfalls, wild animals, and hammocks tucked in between all the palm trees and flowers. We fell in love with the place, and noticed that the rooms were half off for the month of feb. so we made reservations for our 3 year anniversary (coming up this wednesday!), and Mom and Dad's anniversary gift for us was a night at the hotel, with an ocean front room!
God is so cool...He always gives us special anniversary and Valentine's Day gifts (such as gift certificates, etc) so we can go out to fancy places we never would have been able to go by our own means. For example, last year for our anniversary, God had already given us a gift certificate to go out to the Japanese steakhouse here, and when we got there, they sat us at the same table as some businessmen from North Carolina and they ended up treating us to dinner!

anyways, back to the story at hand...we went to the beach friday afternoon, and came back yesterday late afternoon, and had a blast! here are some pictures:

Coolest flower ever:

A "before" picture of Elvis's dinner:"After":

My favorite part of our room, the balcony:

Breakfast on our balcony (notice the jar of Nutella on the table, which we smuggled in and devoured all weekend with strawberries):

The view from our balcony:

A teeny-tiny baby crocodile:
The mangrove estuary:
Some hens just chillin' out under the palm tree:

Big foot, little foot:

Please don't poop in my open mouth!

We are so thankful we were able to celebrate such a special event en such a beautiful place!!