Whales!

This post is being written for Mrs. Witchers first grade class in Watertown, South Dakota. Hi to all the first graders and I hope you enjoy the pictures. If you click on the picture it will enlarge (get bigger) and you can see the whales a little better. We got to see a mother whale and her baby. It was pretty cool. The Whales are only in Mexico during the winter time. They arrived a few weeks ago and will stay here until things warm up in the United States.

In this picture the mom showed her tail. This means that they were going down deep and probably wouldn't come up for another 45 minutes.
Here is Hannah playing with the snorkeling equipment.

I heard that you guys learned about turtles yesterday. Here is a picture of Josiah cheering on his little turtle. After the turtles hatch the marine biologists keep the turtles for a few days so that they can grow stronger and have a better survival rate. When they are strong enough they are released into the ocean. They are released at sunset because there are less predators out. The conservationists draw a line in the sand and expain that people are not allowed to cross that line. They then have you rub your hands in the sand (I think so that anything on your hands - germs, oils etc. wont hurt the turtles). After that they pass the turtles out to anyone that wants to release one. Then the turtles are layed down on the sand and they head to the ocean. It's really cool because the turtles have an instinct to head to the ocean so even if you face your tutle away from the ocean he/she will turn itself around and head to the water.
Hope you enjoyed. Have a great Christmas vacation and be nice to Mrs. Witcher!!

While in Vallarta we went on an excursion. The boat took us out into the ocean and then let us snorkel for a while. It was pretty cool. The fish were amazing and very big.
Abigail once again with her hand on her waist.

Josiah after snorkeling for 10 seconds. He got scared and Cory pulled him right out.

These fish were beautiful and the picture doesn't do them justice. They were probably at least 9-12 inches long.

Once again the hand on her waist.

On the beach there were two groups of guys making huge sand sculptures.

Nativity scene. To help you understand how big it was - it was taller than the iguana in the previous picture. Probably twice as tall.

We got to release sea turtles again. The kids loved it and so did the AIMers.

Abigail named her turtle Abigail and she cheered her on the whole time till she made it into the ocean.

Back from Vallarta

I noticed that some of you are still faithful and check my blog even though I haven't been good about updating.

We just got in the door from a great retreat. We went for 5 days/4 nights to Puerto Vallarta. We took the AIMers for an evaluation and relaxation retreat. Today the AIMers have been here exactly 7 months which is half of their time. We wanted to take them out of town to have some time of refection on how the last 7 months have gone and what they want to accomplish in the next 7 months. We had a really good time. Cory just asked what I was doing and then replied "because you have nothing else you need to do right now?" This is a very true statement we have been home a little over an hour and I am doing laundry, we just finished lunch and need to be at Josiah's school in one hour for his school program. We didn't have hot water this morning in the hotel so I also need to go shower quick. All that to say that I have a ton to tell you guys about but it will have to wait till tomorrow. Sorry. I will leave you with a few pictures though.

Abigail walking with two of our AIM girls. She feels so big when she gets to hang our with them.

Walking down from our room, heading to the beach.

Abigail loves to have her picture taken with her hand on her side.