Butterflies

These are pics from my day at the butterfly garden outside Santa Cruz. It was such a different world - lush and green and beautiful, while inside the city is dirty and dusty. There was so much more than butterflies.
This is the view from the top of the observatory inside the screen dome with the butterflies.
Just outside the dome, we were walking along, looked up, and saw this sloth!! It was pretty incredible. But I didn't get a good shot because it kept moving away from us. Slow and shy!
Sally (school nurse), me, Andrea (elem. teacher), Rachel (ESL teacher), and Heather (Spanish teacher) eating lunch!
Pools you could swim in!! They were connected by little waterfalls and slides. Beautiful!
There were spaces like this all around the park - random hammocks hung up that you could just crawl in and take a nap in the middle of the day if you wanted. :)

This is how we made the half hour trip out - in the back of a pick up!! Wind, exhaust fumes, and dust grit between the teeth. But so much fun!! This is Rachel and Andrea, two awesome girls.
Tried to get some of the scenery.....and failed miserably.

Rock structures through out the park on which orchids were growing - too bad they weren't in bloom!
Walking through the butterfly dome!
It was huge!! If it wasn't so hazy, you could see the city out past all those trees.

It was a wonderful day to just relax and hang out with people. In regards to butterflies, there actually weren't that many. I was told they go through cycles and we must have hit it on an off cycle. So ironically, I have no butterfly pictures in this butterfly post. Oh well.

Lovely People

A few more pictures! I really need to take more pictures - it's just weird to carry a camera to "work." Most normal people do not do that. :) But I wanted to get more people on here - these people are who have made this experience wonderful!!

Bekah, Rachel, and Jessica - 3 junior high girls in my mission who are very awesome and fun to hang out with. This is a restaurant downtown - notice the classic soda bottles!

Alright, can we say PRICELESS??!!? This is Katherine Strebig - the most precious 5 year old you could ask for. This was at our early St. Patrick's Day dinner - I won a prize for knowing the most Irish vocabulary and since the sunglasses fit her better than me (and looked better, as you'll see from a later picture!), we decided she should keep them.

These are Katherine's two sisters, Elizabeth and Rochelle, and her dad, Dan Strebig. Precious family!

Katie Wells (art teacher), me, and Dana Wilson, who heads up a lot of the ministry at South America Mission. Awesome girls!!

Me and Katie flaunting the fun-in-the-sun glasses we won for being a team in Irish Trivia!! And somehow those glasses tilted the same way my silly smile does!! Oh well...

Broken

Something's broken through - what is it?
It's freed me from the chains that bound me
bound me to my fear and doubt
It's opened my eyes with a bright brand new vision.

Before I looked
And never saw
Now I see -
My heart in awe.
A wild rose
Burst in bloom
A hyacinth
Fills the room
The sculpted bush
The mango tree
How sunlight fills
the air, and ME.

The darkness has lifted
The blinders removed
His grace alone
Y el Santo Espiritu
My heart is so full
The love feels so new
I trust in the Light
For that's what broke through.