More Birthdays!

I don’t think it is common in the States to be invited to your students birthday—but here it is the norm! (and I like it!)

Here are some snippets from our most recent birthdays :)

Allan, Michael (other 4th grade teacher), and some of the 4th graders at Angie’s Disney Princess birthday party. That was the Cinderella piñata before she got torn apart with a stick.

One of my students, Carmen (left-side) invited me to her birthday party at Tun-Club. It was fun to hang out with some of my students outside of the classroom :) This cake was one of three by the way! and she had 2 piñatas, one for the boys and one for the girls!

Funny story from the night: Before the piñata, Gandhi and Manuel were fighting and I said “Boys, lets not fight.” (like a good teacher would!) Gandhi said with a smile “Mees, we aren’t in school, you can’t tell us to stop.” He was kidding (well kinda!) and it made me laugh. About 3 minutes later, Manuel was bothering Gandhi and Gandhi said “MEES!! MEES!!!” (like he wanted me to help him.) I said “Gandhi, we aren’t in school, I can’t tell him to stop!” and it made him laugh :) Got ‘em!

So we have told you before that birthdays are a big deal here—if you have money. Well, Beto (Allan’s old student and a friend whom we have blogged about a lot ) turned 13 about 2 weeks ago and we got to be apart of planning his birthday celebration—a day at the POOL! YAY! Beto is such a special boy. He works really hard for his family and genuinely loves them. We (and his other gringo friends!) thought he deserved a grand birthday celebration to celebrate his life!

The party was great. His whole family came. We had pizza, cake, coke, and even pool toys! The boys were so fun to watch play in the pool. They just loved it! and it was so fun to play with them too (minus the splashing!) Below are some pictures. I couldn’t chose :)

This is Victor, Beto’s littlest brother. He would not get off of the float!

This is Marlon, Beto’s 2nd youngest brother. He is in the 3rd grade at Mayatan and a smart little sucker.

No fear! Marlon diving in, pool noodles and all!

Ya queremos pastel! Birthday Cake time! Look at that smile!

Victor has the BIGGEST sweet tooth I have ever seen. He does not resist food, especially sweets! He was so excited for cake, he didn’t even take off his floaties!

Beto got a little messy eating cake :) and check out his new swim-trunks we were able to give to him thanks to some donations from my aunt’s 5th grade class!

It was fun to get to spend the afternoon with this family! Allan especially loved it…I mean, check out that face!