Some of Angie's "haggling"

Some of Angie's haggling victories from the market in Ecuador.



A sweater coat.


A woven scarf.and you can see a bit of her belt.













Two of her four hoodies (these 2 are knit the other 2 are woven) She was wearing one of her woven ones in the Angie's Back pictures.




A few pairs of pants under her scarves on top of her GIANT orange duffle bag.


Just some of the jewelry she brought home!

Angie's Home!!

Angie Comes Home Today!!

Part of me can't believe three weeks is up, part of me feels like she's been gone forever!!

Tumbatu Ecuador

Angie has left to the airport for her trip to Ecuador. I am slightly torn between really excited for her for this amazing adventure she is embarking on and feeling a little lost without my "baby" around.

Here are some pictures from previous trips Global Citizen's Network ran to the village .

C wants a picture of Angie's face the first time she needs to sweep and someone hands her a tree.

Do you think she'll believe this is the mall?? She is looking forward to their R&R day at a nearby popular market place where she is very excited about "haggling"

Angie update

After much lurking at the mailbox, Angie got the letter she was looking for. Out of 82 kids who applied, 57 made it into the National Honor Society. And Angie made it in!

She also made last Sunday's sports section in the spring track outlook. Last years girls team was undefeated in the regular season. There are 40 returning girls. 13 made the paper. Now she has to live up to the press! They did win their first dual meet so off to a good start.




I was somewhat feeling like a terrible Mom Friday night. We had a meeting for her trip to Ecuador, with the former head of security for the US Embassy complex in Quito. All these parents were freaking out because of the stuff going on in Mexico. And because they suddenly realized that their kids were going to a developing third world country and there is no cell service where they're going and how canthey be overprotective? I swear these people are going to spend the entire 22 days parked next to the phone. Me, I figure Ecuador is probably one of the safer countries in South America right now. Safer than Columbia definitely. As long as they understand how to act so they are not targeted for theft, and they stay together as a group, they should be ok. It is after all supposed to be a learning experience. But really letting her go to New York over Christmas was technically just as dangerous if you think about it. Just closer. Curt and I are actually thinking about taking one of the weeks as a vacation ourselves. WE figure we can still be reached via cell, Curt get's email on his cell so we are just as easy to get as at home. And as long as we bring our passports and aren't too far away from an airport, even if something god forbid happens, it won't be any harder to deal with. But really I'm not going to sit here and panic. She's getting her last bunch of shots next week, we're going to get her that bug netting to use with her sleeping bag, pants with zippered pockets, sunscreen, real deet ( not that off stuff) etc. I'm confident.

Weekend Plans

I am actually writing this on Thursday night, as I am spending Friday and Saturday in Connecticut with Curt and Angie. She is going to take a tour of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield and Quinipiac on Friday. On Saturday she is taking a tour and informational session at Yale. We should be back on Saturday night but since I don't know what time we'll be back or if I feel like posting at that time. So to keep up with NaBloPoMo on Day 8, I am posting in advance.

This whole college search thing is going to be very interesting and possibly slightly traumatic. One of the schools Angie wants to look at is Syracuse. Ok, I asked her why Syracuse. Her answer - they get a lot of snow. Oh boy. We had a discussion on things she needs to look at, and she then weeded out a bunch of schools because they are in the middle of nowhere and she wants a town - she loved New Haven last time we were there, loves Baltimore, loves Boston. She wants to be within 4-6 hours away from home. She's not so into the whole Greek thing. She really doesn't like cliquey type social behaviour. She wants a school with fencing, and a big intramural option. She likes tennis and volleyball but doesn't think she's that good and doesn't want to invest that much in them once she gets to college. She's not 100% sure what she wants to do as far as discus and jav. She wants to visit lehigh at some point also. Out of the 3 schools this weekend, Yale is her dream school. She picked the other 2 because they are interesting to her and they are reasonably close to yale. She thinks that once she sees 3 schools and the different things they offer it will give her a better idea of how to look at prospective schools.

On another note - she definitely made it into powderpuff football. She got to pick her number. Originally she wanted 80 for Jerry Rice, but they were only going up to 50 so she picked 43, Bobby Labontes number. Trust me, there will be pics up after that game.

I took a 4 day weekend from work - originally we were going to Yale on Thursday and Boston for the rest of the weekend, but Angie had a meeting for her trip to Equador with Global Citizens network. So here's something that sort of is a pain, She needs to fundraise at least 33% of the cost of the trip. Because they don't want it to be a trip of kids whose parents just write a check. Mind you 3000 is a lot of money and it is a big payment for us to be making for her to do charity work. But, maybe it's because of all the fundraising we were forced to do during all those years of Catholic school, but fundraising is going to be a pain in the a$$! Sigh. I can't tell you how much I needed to just get away from that place. Of course in order to take 2 days off, I ended up working 3 10 hour days and was even more stressed when I left on Wednesday. I won't find out until Monday what I was expecting last Wednesday. It's freaking killing me!! I am even letting Dan unload my carpet truck on Friday. I thought about cancelling Friday's delivery and bringing it in on Monday, but they really need one of the rolls on that truck.

"see" you all on Sunday!