Cockroaches and Irregular Verbs

Last night, I dreamed of cockroaches and irregular verbs. Nice, huh? Our house had been sprayed for cockroaches before we came, but we have killed 6 or 7 in the last 2 days. There is nothing like reaching for silverware and having a cockroach scury around in the drawer. Yuck! Funny, I didn't see any staying in a dorm in Nicaragua, but here, in a nice house in San Jose, we see them all the time. I have decided I really appreciate Michigan! If cold and snow equals no cockroaches, I think it is a pretty even trade.
Jeff and I are studying verbs this weekend. We have a test on Wednesday of over 100 regular and irregular verbs. For those of you who didn't take a foreign language, let me explain a little. In English we conjugate our verbs like this:
I say
You say
He/She says
We say
They say

See how the verb only changes for the third person (he says)? Well in Spanish it goes like this:
(Hablar: to speak)

Yo hablo
Tu hablas
El/Ella habla
Nosotros hablamos
Vosotros hablais (Vosotros means you plural if you are in a formal situation.)
Ellos hablan

You see how the ending changes for each pronoun? That is how you conjugate regular verbs ending in AR. (Hablar: to speak, Bailar: to dance,etc.) Now, add to that verbs that end in ER or IR (Comprender: to comprehender, Servir: to serve). They have different endings. Those are only the regular verbs. Then just like in English, you learn one rule and 10 exceptions. There are a ton of verbs that don't follow that pattern. For our test on Wednesday, we have to know over 100 hundres verbs, what they mean, and how to conjugate them! Luckily, I have Maria to help me!

Speaking of Maria.... We told you that Juan Pavon's daughter, Maria, was coming to stay with us from Nicaragua. She has been here almost a week. She is so wonderful. Ellie and Karis smother her and she actually seems to enjoy it, or she's a really good actress! We went to the fruit market the other day and Maria asked some questions for me in Spanish. Ellie looked at her in surprise and said, "Wow, Maria, you're really good at Spanish!" It was pretty funny.

We rented The Sound of Music the other night for Maria. She had never seen it and I always sing "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" We had a girl's night. It was so much fun. I loved watching all three girls, Maria, Karis, and Ellie, see it for the first time. Maria has such a wonderful innocence about her. I don't know how to describe it exactly, but you probably know what I mean. For most of our American teenagers, nothing is new, nothing is exciting. We know what is going to happen in almost every movie. There is so little that can surprise us. You know how it is to watch your children really enjoy something for the first time? That's how is was to watch a movie with Maria.

The kids are enjoying school. Everyone loves their teachers. Camden is playing soccer. Karis and Camden are doing gymnastics. Mason has a good friend already. So life is good.

Love to you all and keep praying, especially on Wednesday!

April