27 days and counting!!

I have definitely loved my experience here and I know I still have lots more to learn, but the countdown has definitely started! I feel like everyone in the group is in a very similar place right now...we have all loved it here, but we're feeling a little homesick! I think it is the realization that the end is so close, and yet in some ways still so far away...
I think it doesn't help that this is one of the hottest months of the year, all of our tummies are not extremely happy with the food right now, and my parents being here from the US definitely reminded everyone of home!

The rest of my parent's trip here was great! We got to spend time at the pool (a very hot commodity here, seeing as the only other time I have had access to a pool here was at the resort I went to), we went out to dinner with everyone from the APU group, we had some awesome conversations, I got to sleep in their AIR CONDITIONED hotel room, and we got to have a goodbye dinner with mis padres and go to see my church afterward. I was just so thrilled taht my parents got to see all of the things here that are completely impossible to describe with words... All in all, an incredible time! But, I realized at the end that before they were here, I had definitely done a good job of compartmentalizing them and pushing them to the back of my mind...But them being here obviously made them jump right back to the front of my mind again!

For some reason, I think that my parents coming signaled the end of the trip for me, but I have another month left! This is where my lessons on "just being" come in, and I need to just jump right back into life here and take in every single moment, appreciating the beauty of what I have here because it really is going to be done before I know it! I try to take snapshots in my mind of everything here that is so wonderful and so dear to my heart like mis padres standing and worshipping together in church, or the silly look mi hermana gets on her face after she's told me how to say a bad word in Spanish (hehe), or how much I revel in the idea of a cold shower at the end of a day, or how ridiculous it is when we are able to squish 16 people in our 6-seater car after church because we need to make sure that everyone has a ride home, or how, when the power goes out right before bed, my entire family will lay on the tile floor of the front porch because that is the coolest part of the house...

I love my life here...sometimes I just need to remind myself of the moments that I will miss when I get back to the United States because, although I get tired sometimes and just want to be home, I am so blessed to be having this experience that will forever be a milestone that I look back on with great joy!