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Hello to our faithful followers. We are sad to say that this will probably be our last post. Joe and I are home in Iowa and will not be returning to Paraguay. In February we were surprised to find out that I was pregnant and that we would soon have to return home. We could stay in Paraguay until I was 3 months pregnant and then we had to leave. I am due in September. We were sad to leave our community and friends but are very excited to be parents. When we left we were relieved to find out that a new volunteer would be going to our site at the end of April and would be working in health for 2 years. The new volunteer can work on the brick ovens that Joe was busy building.

The most fun for us was returning home because we only told Paul, Emma, Toni, and Jenni that we were coming back. They came to get us at the airport in Sioux Falls, Paul and Emma came with some Pizza Ranch pizza. And Lane was proudly holding a sign saying "Welcome Home Aunt Kendra and Uncle Joe". We first went to my mom's house and sat waiting for her to return from the store. She just kept asking what I was doing there. After that we went to my dad's and I had to pinch him so he knew he wasn't dreaming. Sunday morning we waited at the Heitritters' to come home from church. Steve just asked what the hell we were doing there. Laura stood in the doorway, her jaw hitting the ground. Before she even said a word she started to shed tears. Then Shega shared she was going to be an aunt. It was a lot of fun surprising our family and seeing everyone again.

Now we are starting to look for jobs, cars, and eventually a home. I am busy filling out teaching applications and hoping to find something. We are enjoying our time with family and friends. We are especially enjoying home....a washer and dryer, carpet, good food, driving, television, and the list goes on.

More Pictures from Paraguay

Joe and Tom building brick ovens.

Heber and Jose

Big Jose and Little Jose with the almost finished oven.

The chimney

Another brick oven being built

The kids checking out the books.

Some students with the new books.

Teachers and kids looking at all the new books.

Familiar Faces in Unfamiliar Places

The beautiful falls, I caught a rainbow!

We were in a boat like this one that went right up to the falls.

The Heitritters

This ones for you Laura

Wow. Fabulous

Finally some sun in Uruguay.

A sea lion just sleeping on the sidewalk.

Joe with the giant hand.

A building in Buenos Aires with a nice sunset.

I am sorry that this blog has taken me a while to post. Joe and I have finally started working again from a long hot summer and then vacations with Paul and Emma. It was great seeing some familiar faces. Paul was the first to arrive in the middle of February. We were so happy to spend some time with him. We started off our adventure to Buenos Aires in Argentina, for 5 days we explored the city visiting different neighborhoods. We saw a famous cemetary, ate delicious pizza, and did a ton of walking. At first we were unsure of what to see there but once we started walking around we saw all kinds of buildings and shopping centers. One avenue was called Florida Avenue and it was full of shops and people selling things on the street. Next we got on a nice passenger boat to Uruguay, I had no idea what was there but we were anxious to see. We went to the capital, Montevideo...there was not much to see there and it was a good thing we were only there for 2 nights. The last leg of our trip I was the most excited for, Punta Del Este in Uruguay. It is a beach resort city that was known for its nice beaches but we only got to experience the beach for 2 hours. It rained almost the whole time it was there, it stopped raining and the sun came out so we ran to the beach and did some body surfing in the ocean. At one beach there is a famous statue with fingers coming out of the sand. We got back to Paraguay with no trouble and went to our house for a while with Paul. We played card games and just spent some time sitting on the porch together.

After the Argentina/Uruguay adventure Paul, Joe, and I went to the capital of Asuncion to pick up Emma. At the airport Paul and I jumped up and down yelling Emma while Joe tried to hide and scare her. All four of us together went back to our community and visited the school, played cards, and walked around our site. When we went to the school we brought all the books that family, friends, and Thomas' school had sent us. The kids were so excited they began to flip through all the books. It was great to see the excitement and joy the kids had for the new books and we cannot wait to use them with the kids. From our site we went to Cuidad del Este and hopped a boat to Argentina. We went to the Iguazu Falls in Argentina, they were the most beautiful site I have ever seen. There was waterfalls everywhere, we even got a close up look at the waterfalls on a boat which got us soaking wet. I was so glad that we went to see the falls, it was something I will never forget.

Hot and Boring Days

Hello family and friends! It has been a while since I last blogged but there is a reason for that, the reason is I haven't had much to blog about. January and February are pretty boring months; there is no school and its too hot to do anything. We sit on the porch in the shade with a fan on us a lot. After our Chile vacation we haven't been doing too much. We had have some commission meetings and it looks like we are going to get the materials to make brick ovens in March. School is starting a couple of weeks so we will have something to do. We are going to try and paint a World Map on the side of a school building with some of the middle school students. I have also been getting a lot of books sent from our wonderful family at home that I am very excited to use with the students. We had a "One Year in Paraguay" party with the volunteers in our group. We have about 20 people stay overnight. We played wiffle ball and other games, swam, and had a BBQ. People brought hammocks and we got extra mattresses for people. Don't worry Terry Conkwright, Tom was under control.

Right now we are most excited for Paul to come on Saturday the 13th. He leaves tomorrow, Friday, Feb 12th. We are going to go to Buenos Aires and Uruguay. After 2 weeks with Paul, Emma is going to fly down and be with us for a week and all four of us are going to Argentina to see Iguazu Falls. http://www.iguazuargentina.com/english/.
Thank you so much family for sending us packages. We are so blessed to have amazing, caring family. We will have to blog after our vacation and add a lot of pictures! We love and miss you!

More pictures!

After we got soaked in champagne at New Years

All those grapes to make wine! Yum!

Colorful houses

Skinny house

Our cabin in the woods

me with an Easter Island head

We got fried at the beach!

Finally Chile Pictures....Warning There Are A Lot

We went white water rafting, the water was so cold
The rapids

We hiked to this waterfall.

Us in the wilderness

Walking on the beach

The beach with the mountains in view

Valparaiso, our second spot, the city built on a hill.

The amazing fireworks, set off from 5 different places along the bay.

Beautiful view

Out for our 2 year anniversary at a resturant called The Fat Cows

With all the wine

Joe with his compelto. A hot dog, guacamole, mayo, and tomatoes. A traditional Chilean food.

The 4 of us with the city of Santiago in the background.

The Andes from the airplane

Not Chilly in Chile

Chile was amazing! We had such a great time. It started off stressful....we came into Asuncion the day before we were going to leave hoping that our credit card would be in the mail. We were sadly disappointed when we had an empty mailbox. After talking with the Heitritters they wired us money from Walmart, ironically my dad was at Walmart at the same time and sent us some money as well. We were happy to have some money but very careful that we wouldn't lose our American dollars. We happily made it to the airport the next day and our flights we smoothly. We could see the Andes mountains as we got closer to Santiago. We stayed in Santiago, the capital of Chile, for a couple of days. We enjoyed seeing the city, taking the clean metro, wine tasting, and eating delicious food. We went on top of a hill to see the beautiful city. After Santiago we hopped on a bus to Valparaiso.
Valparaiso is a city built on a hill. We walked up and down the hill many times. It was interesting to see the colorful houses, some of them were very skinny, and we also got to see the port. On New Years we were in Valparaiso because we heard it has a huge party, which was true there were people everywhere. We got to see some amazing fireworks, we were up from the bay and there were fireworks right in front of us but also fireworks were being shot off from 5 other places along the bay. We took a video and will have to put it up soon. It was one of our favorite parts of the trip. When it turned 2010 we were sprayed with Champagne and hugged by random Chileans. We then went to a party in the giant plaza when a band and people dancing, it was a memorable way to welcome 2010. The rest of the time at that spot we just walked around and enjoyed the city.
I was so excited for our next stop. After 5 hours on a bus we arrived in La Serena, a city right on the beach. I couldn't want to spend some time in the sand on the Atlantic Ocean. Our hotel consisted of apartments and was right across from the beach. We spent every day at the beach enjoying the sand. We got pretty burnt and Joe is still peeling skin. We didn't care though we were so happy to be there. We went to an Archaelogical muesum that had mummies and one of the giant statues from Easter Island. Also on the trip we went a supermarket called Jumbo, it was like a Super Walmart. We were so happy to see American products (lately we get pretty excited about dumb things like that) we bought Doritos, Lays Potato Chips, Starbursts, Gummy Bears, Mountain Dew, Dr Pepper, microwave popcorn, and chips with salsa. We can't find those things in Paraguay so we stuffed our faces. After La Serena we took a bus about 7 hours back to Santiago and then went about an hour south to a nature perserve with cabins.
Next we relaxed in the valley of the Andes foothills and stayed in a cabin for a couple of nights. We hiked around, went swimming, had a campfire..with marshmellows, and went white water rafting. One day Joe and I went with a group on a hike and we went right by a water fall, it was beautiful. White water rafting was a blast, we rode some huge rapids and got pretty wet in the freezing cold water. I loved it and wouldn't mind doing it again.
Our trip ended with a 22 hour lay over in the Buenos Aires airport. It was so long! Joe and I luckily slept for about 5 hours and played many cards. We ate a lot of Doritos and drank a lot of Pepsi. We are safely back in Paraguay...back to the humidity and heat. When I came back to the Peace Corps office the credit card and debit card were in our mailbox, at least we will have them for vacation with Paul and Emma.
I cannot add pictures. I would love to but our camera broke, we are going to take it to get fixed tomorrow. Luckily our friend let us use his camera and I will try to post pictures as soon as possible. I miss you all so much and hope you are staying warm! We love you!