Christmas cards 2010

Wrapped With Ribbon Christmas 5x7 folded card

Make a statement with Shutterfly Christmas photo cards.

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flower monogram card

This is just one of the 10 monogram 5x7 stationery cards I made for my mom on Shutterly- love it :)

Classic Hot Pink 5x7 folded card

Unique party invitations and announcements by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Shutterfly

I just thought I'd take the time to post something since I haven't really posted anything since we got back to the US. I have all of these great pictures from our trip, but scrapbooking takes so much time! A few months ago I came across a Groupon for a great deal on a photo book from Shutterfly. I figured it would be great because (now almost 3 years ago) we still haven't ever ordered our wedding pictures. When I actually registered for my Shutterfly account, I received 50 free prints- wow, I LOVE free stuff :)

So far I've ordered those 50 free prints, I also just ordered 41 more free pics from other free Shutterfly codes- these with even free shipping, and now I'm finishing up our Wedding photo book, our honeymoon photo book, and our 18month calendar :)

Then today I'm browsing Shutterfly's facebook page & see the discussions going on. I find that there's now an offer for anyone with a website/blog for 50 free holiday/Christmas cards- how awesome! I can't wait to receive my code for these & take pictures for our Christmas cards this year :)

If you haven't tried Shutterfly yet, but have a lot of pictures that you'd like to put together & keep for yourself or give as a gift I highly encourage you to try them! They make it so easy to make great looking prints and projects! I have been super impressed & pleased with their free codes, customer support, shipping times, and quality! They also have a 100% quality guarantee if you are not satisfied with your prints! Also, if you think you're interested but just not quite convinced yet, comment on here or send me and email with your email address & I can send you a code for a free 7x9 photo book! Here are some other links for different types of projects you can EASILY create on shutterfly:

holiday cards http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards

photo Christmas cards http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/

desk calendars http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/desk-calendars

new years invitations http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/new-years-cards

photo albums http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-books/simple-path

mother's day cards http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/mothers-day-cards-stationery

and a lot more! With the holidays coming up, it's a great time to check them out!

I hope everyone has a great day! I hope that after these projects, my next project will be an Oaxaca photo book and I will post the pictures on here and/or facebook :)

HERE WE COME-Homeward bound!

We are in Houston now waiting for our last flight!!! It took forever to get through immigration, customs, and security!!! We just had a long yummy lunch and now heading to our gate to wait and come home :-D
can't wait to see everyone soon!!!

Our time here is flying by!!

Hi again :) Sorry I didn't update this all weekend, the internet at our house is out and the university is still
on strike so I'm having to do this from my phone at a coffee shop.. We had a great weekend and thankfully the rain didn't mess up our plans :) Friday was our (3 of us) last day at the peds hospital and we watched surgery (quirofano). I watched one on a 12/13 yr old girl and have never seen (except maybe in a book or on tv) a tumor so big and four more smaller ones-poor thing, but maybe she will be okay and they aren't cancerous!
Saturday and Sunday were full days!!! Saturday we went to Monte Alban and had an awesome tour guide-he was very very sick a few years ago and at the ICU here and KSU nursing students donated blood to help save his life-such an amazing story :)
then we went to Arrazola which is a pueblo (small rural town) somewhat near Monte Alban (you can see them from each other) and the entire pueblo makes Alibrijes (wooden carved animals that are painted very beautiful, bold colors). I took a lot
of pictures of both places because my descriptions couldn't begin to do either place justice! So, I will
post those when we get back home. I bought 2 Alibrijes :)
Sunday we went to San Bartolo Coyotepec at the Doña Rosa house and their famous Barro Negro (black pottery) and they make all of it by hand-no machines -even a manual potters wheel and the black clay is natural not dyed and depending on how long it is fired determines if it is black (9-12 days) or more grey and able to hold water (13+days). Then we went to Teotitlan where they weave rugs, placemats, napkins, purses, etc and they do EVERYTHING-spin the wool, dye the wool (all natural-from bug eggs from a cactus plant, adding lime juice or sodium bicarbonate, from natural indigo rock, etc) and then they weave it on a huge machine (the rugs at least) using their feet and hands-it's so amazing & so much work!!! We were given a demo and she said that it takes about 6 months for a 2 meter size rug-amazing!!!
We also had lunch each day and Sunday I tried a chapuline which is a delicacy here---also known as grasshoppers!!! It was really salty I thought! It was so small it was hard to really even taste it!
I came back to mi casa Sunday afternoon and passed out for a couple of hours-I was so tired but it was a lot of fun and I took a lot of pictures and videos :)


Well I never got to finish the other night-now I'm at mi casa Thurs (Jueves) night and we have Internet again...
Monday we started at Hospital Civil and the other 3 went to the peds hosp. I went to the ICU (UCI) and the other two to labor & delivery (partos). We only had one patient but he had tetanus-very interesting! Then he developed diabetes insipidus-very sad, but very very interesting since we don't really see either of those in the US. Then yesterday (Wed) I went to partos with the other 2 and it was awesome! They said they have on average 30births every 24hrs-BUSY!! We saw 2 births and 1 c-section with twins then a tubal ligation-so cool!
Today and tomorrow are our "free" days. We went to the Santo Domingo museum today and had lunch with the assistants of the secretary of health from the entire state of Oaxaca-high up people! Tomorrow I think we are going to an art museum and Hotel Victoria which apparently we can go to the top and see the entire city :)
We have also still been having our Spanish lesson every week night for an hour and we began Tuesday partnering up with our intercambios-Mexican students learning English in the University (to become Eng teachers here) and that has been so great because we can really learn practical phrases/slang/sayings, etc and they have been so nice and helpful! Hopefully we have helped them as well! Last night (Wed/miercoles) the director of the language center took all 6 students and Dr. Wilson out to dinner and gave us our 'diplomas/certificates' for the Span classes :) the dinner I thought was very very good and a very healthy place-called 100% natural-I had Jamaica con piña juice which is hibiscus water (literally they soak the hibiscus flower in hot water& then cool it) with pineapple-YUM! Jamaica bybitselfmis also very good-I had it at mi casa and at La Capilla Sat-it tastes like fruit punch. Today Dr. Wilson and one of the students left.
Then Saturday we leave our casas and familias oaxaquenos for the airport at 630am--to early!! It will be a long day of traveling but we should be home Saturday night :-D I'm excited to get back home to see hubby & my family & friends-yes that means you mom ;) but I'll miss my oaxacan family and Oaxaca itself-I've felt so welcomed here and everyone I have met has been so nice and just truly genuine-it was a very refreshing difference unfortunately than what sometimes I see in the US! I cannot wait to come back and see so many other places we just didn't have time to see...as my host mom said tonight "¡la falta es el tiempo!"

I hope to post at least once more and add pics soon after we get back! Thanks to everyone for your prayers, thoughts, love, & support! Hope to see everyone soon! ¡Que se va bien, cuidate!

Me encanta Oaxaca :-D

So sorry I haven't updated this more...it's been a busy week-and a great one! The people couldn't be nicer, of
course there are 'bad' people everywhere I just feel
like the people here in general are so loving, caring, & giving! Three
of us (incl me) have been at the pediatric hospital this week and tomorrow is our last day-it's flown by, I can't believe it! I
have been in the NICU (here its called UCEN) and they have a lot of the same technology equipment that we have. They have some IV pumps like CHOA and some like the ones we use to practice with at school. They have incubators that have a screen that constanly reads the temp and humidity inside it and alerts us if it is higher/lower than the limits. The same
monitors we have (HR, BP, MAP, RR, Pulse Ox, etc), CPAPs, vents,... Some of the babies can feed by mouth and others
by oral tubes (I don't think I saw any NGs). Spina bifoda, hydrocephaly, meconium aspiration, PAC, but the majority prematurity and complications of that (26 & 30 weeks). Twins and singles.... I learned from my RN today that many women give birth at home
with parteras and only come to the hospital if there's a problem.
My 2 friends that are in the ER have some good stories too but...I'll wait and they can post on fb! For our last 1-2 hours today we went to the cancer and surgery units and talked and played with the kids-with finger puppets (marionetas), paper and crayones (para dibujar), & stickers :). It was so great to see them smile and have fun! There's was one lady though that I can't get off my mind...right before we left she came & sat down in the cancer unit crying very hard and (thanks Jenny!!!) I asked her what was wrong-her grandaughter was only 3 yrs
old had some type of test and the results weren't good...she was so sad and scared. I told her we were so sorry and asked if we could
pray for them...I hate seeing people so upset...
The university here went on strikes (one of the professors unions) so everything is cancelled for the university...which means we can't have our Span class on univ grounds anymore...entonces, we have had our class at a coffee shop the last 2 days and also
tomorrow. I think we all like better anyway-not only is it outside and cooler than the building, but the univ here has bought us coffees the last 2 days :) Our Spanish is improving--we talk I'm Spanglish a lot
of the time now-which just makes us sound dumb, but it's really a good
sign haha :)
Tomorrow we go to the gallgetza (sp?)- the folkloric ballet and dinner,
so that should be a lot of fun! We all bought 'oaxacan' outfits to wear to it :)

There's so much more I have to see but it's late and I have to wake up at 6 every morning this week...we will be in surgery tomorrow at the peda hosp!!!
Oh, it stared storming/raining tonight and there's a chance of it every single day until we leave, so please pray that it doesn't so our 'excursions' don't get cancelled or changed this weekend and at the end of next week!!!!

Buenas noches y que renga un buen día :)

Feliz día de los madres!

Happy Mothers Day-in the US anyway...May 10 is always Mother's Day in Mexico, so our host families will be celebrating tomorrow. We are here safe & sound obviously :) I just found out my host family has wifi so that's great news :) Im posting this from my phone now in mi cuarto. I can't speak for everyone else because I haven't talked to them yet, but I'm having a great time so far. I miss my hubby & family but am so glad to have this experience! My host family is very very nice and I'm living with my host mom, her daughter (late 20s), her teenage son, and her daughters husband and their kids (6son &7daughter). They are all very nice and the kids couldn't be sweeter :) the little girl & boy have been teaching me some things :)
So far the food I've had has been very yummy! And a lot of food (so mom don't worry!).
Yesterday we went to the zocalo (town square) and the market-I'm going to have to be careful there-I saw a LOT of things I'd like to buy!!! It's hot here but not humid at least and when there's a breeze its pretty nice! En mi cuarto el ventillador is my best friend haha!
The exchange rate for dollars to pesos here is a little over 11 which is better than at the airport or in the US according to Dr. Holtz.
Today we will go to a museum close to here and hopefully I can go to sleep fairly early--we have to meet mañana a los fuentes a las 7 de la mañana-3 of us will be at the peds hosp this week with Dr. Wilson and the other 3 will be at hospital civil.

I'll try to blog again tomorrow and be able to put in my classmates' inputs too :)

¡Hasta mañana, cuidate!

Half way there

We are waiting to board our connecting flight now then on to Oaxaca :)
Our host families will be waiting for us at el aeropuerto and we will have the weekend to get acquainted and learn our way around the area :) We start at los hospitales Monday!

Here we come!

I can't believe the time is already here to leave for Oaxaca! I'm really excited and a little nervous/anxious :)

Tomorrow will be all day traveling and then the weekend will be for getting acquainted with our host families, the town, and maybe some local food & shopping! I hope to post at some point over the weekend or at least by Monday. Hope everyone has a great weekend :)
Dios nos bendiga!

Oaxaca, Mexico

This is Oaxaca, Mexico and will be my home for 2 weeks in May 2010. It's about 5000ft above sea level and, from what I've heard, has great weather!

We'll be working at the 2 main hospitals M-F: hospital civil (general/adult hospital) and the pediatric hospital (name to be posted later). At night we'll go to the Universidad de Oaxaca and take a Spanish class.

We'll each be living with a different family, but close to each other and within walking distance to hospital civil.

On the weekends we'll be visiting different places around Oaxaca including Monte Albán and the folkloric ballet.

I'm super excited about going and hope to become more fluent by the time I get back :)

Estoy muy emocionado de mi viaje y espero que me hago más fluido cuando regreso aquí.