Quito!

I had a great time in Quito last week.  I had no idea how much history was packed into the city and country of Ecuador.  It was a great time.  I would love to go back to visit again sometime.

I spent most of my time at an International Educators Conference but, I spent the rest of the time with Ariel and our friend Mariqui touring the city.  She did a great job of showing us the highlights.  

What I liked the best about the city was the Colonial part.  We got to cimb up to the highest tower of the Basilica and that was great because we got a great view of the city.

Mariqui, Hannah, & Ariel

Mariqui also took us up one of the volcanoes that surrounds the city called Pichincha.  On the way up we got a spectacular view of the city, once we got up to the top we were in a cloud.  Ecuador's climate is quite cold most of the time.

 

Mariqui did a great job of showing us the highlights.  We walked around the old city and saw the churches, Ariel was able to see on of the museums and she took us out to eat real Ecuadorian cuisine.  

Probably one of the best parts of the trip was getting to spend some time with some of Ariel's Ecuadorian friends that he made when he lived in Guatemala.

I loved the people, the flowers (there were so many beautiful flowers everywhere!) and the culture (so much art, museums, history, etc.).  I would love to go back someday.

Museum prank

I love this type of thing!  

Camp

This weekend is the Campamento de Jóvenes.  Ariel is the director and he had a hard time finding people to help him with the camp this year so, I offered to do half of the teaching so that he wouldn't have to carry all of that load alone.  I have avoided that type of teaching and working at camp for several years, so it's felt strange in many ways.

I didn't really realize how exhausting it is to teaching in this context.  There are almost 40 campers and they aren't my students.  I taught last night and felt completely exhausted when it was over.  The other side of that exhaustion is that I as teaching from the Bible and that always makes me feel very introspective.  It's a strange feeling.

It's been strange because I've realized that I don't know how to get to know some of the campers.  I feel very disconnected and don't know how to connect.  I cannot think of what to talk about them, I cannot remember how to do it... how to just find something to talk about with people that I have very little in common with.  It's been hard for me!  I feel more timid because I'm afraid of really having nothing to talk about.

This week 750words had a problem with its server and it didn't save my words.  I have to say that  was super disappointed when it didn't save my words even though I had forced myself to write them.  It made me feel very discouraged.

March Challenges

Today is the first day of March and the first day of a lot of things for me.  I have decided to join two challenges this month.  The Fitblogger Challenge and the March Writing Challenge at 750words.   I saw that Bonnie posted about the Fitblogger challenge and I am excited to join in order to complement another health  related challenge I've joined at school.  

I like the idea because it is described like this on the site, "the challenges are not a competition with others, but with ourselves, to strive for something we maybe didn’t think we could do, and challenge our own definition of ourselves... The challenge can take whatever form of goal you’d like fitness, nutritional, it’s entirely up to you and what your personal goals are."

• You can pledge minutes, miles, consistency (like 5 days a week).
• For this challenge, no weight related goals please. That might be a bonus for a more active lifestyle but we’re focusing on health. You might want to work in a nutrition goal, like drink 8 glasses of water a day, eat 5 fruits and veggies, etc.

March goals:

My goals are focused on having more healthy eating habits and mostly more healthy physical activity levels. The great thing about combining this activity with bogging is that I can feel accountable with other goals that I have.

1. My goal is to get 20-30 minutes of physical activity (swimming, jump rope, etc.) five times a week.  I think that is a very reasonable goal and it is my main goal.  
2. I think that on a nutritional level I want to focus on drinking more water and eating more veggies, specifically make sure that I get some type of fruit or vegetable every day.  

I have signed up to write in the monthly writing challenge with 750 words and in order to avoid ending up on the wall of shame, I have to write at least 750 words every day.  This is a great motivation to write and I use part of my 750 words to write my entry for my blog post about my participation in the March Fitblogger Challenge (this is all working together quite well, eh?) and then, to add to that, I want to focus on writing daily on Contrapunto (our Spanish blog) and this is another way to really help me do that. This is going to be fun and I'm looking forward to it.