leder legends

Here are a few pictures of our daughter Nathania and her friend LIsa...in Alaska. They are skating on some lagoon and having some Alaskan fun while we sit and watch our green lawn. She was bemoaning the fact that I had not even mentioned her in my last posting but that's what she gets for moving thousands of miles away!! ha ha

Merry Christmas everyone! I am posting a few pictures of the kids. We really love all the picture-Christmas cards we have once again received this year. Just got a nice one from Chuck & Louise. Thanks so much. You'd think that because I love getting these picture updates so much that I would reciprocate in kind ...the problem is that I am just not organized enough in the summer before I go to Honduras. One of these years you MIGHT get one in the mail from us. In the meantime, rest assured that we love getting your Christmas photos and have a grand display of them on our refrigerator. Until we get a new one, the old one stays on display. It's a great conversational piece. So here are a few of some of us.

Well, I'll back in Michigan-via Toronto. I got back Wed. night and then the next morning early we headed to Brampton to celebrate Tante Tini's 80th birthday. Her brother from Winnipeg (plus a niece and nephew) and her sister from Seattle (plus brother-in-law and niece) came to help celebrate. All of Arie's brothers from Edmonton (and two sisters-in-law) came plus two cousins from the Netherlands. It was a happy crowd.

Well tomorrow is the day for final goodbyes. Today has been full of last minute details and tonight is the official farewell for the families that have housed, fed, counselled, doctored, etc etc all the students this semeter. It would be impossible to do a program like this without them. Today I'm interviewing the professors and making plans with them for next semester (Development program) and next fall (Spanish program with Ed Miller). I still have some grading to do but that might not get done until I'm in the plane. I really need to go home and do laundry. We are leaving all our extra toiletries and towels and clothes we don't want to take home for two organizations. So by tomorrow night , Wednesday, Dec 13, I will be back in Grand Rapids and back to a normal life...how "normal" that will be waits to be seen. Thanks for your interest in Honduras and my adventures there.

High above the stadium is a park called Monumento a la Paz. I finally figured how to get up there today...one of the things on my TO DO list before I leave. It was so peacful up there and the view was great.