Sorry it's been a while since my last update, but I'll fill you in briefly on our holiday season here, with more to follow soon. We had a huge influx of parents, siblings and boyfriends over the holidays which made life quite different. We celebrated a Salvadorean Christmas on the 24th (that's when they celebrate it here) by sitting on our roof and watching a massive, chaotic display of fireworks all across the city. Our whole team along with a bunch of siblings sat up there and watched the show begin at midnight and we sat with our jaws hitting the floor at the panoramic view of flashing lights and the incessant sound of popping and crashing. They celebrate the Savior's birth in style! And they also have very few safety regulations, and besides, no one ever gets in trouble for anything here, let's be honest. We played it safe with a safe with a few -- well, 100 -- sparklers of all sizes.

Christmas morning was quite different, but still fun. All the families that were there (3 of em at this point) came over in the morning and we made a big breakfast and sat around and watched those that had them open presents. It was funny being with my team and a bunch of parents and siblings, but not my own for Christmas, but it was still a good time.

My family came on the 26th, flying in early with Kristen Potter's family. We decided to rent a big 15 passenger van to cart both families around together for the week, as Kristen couldn't envision anyone in her family driving around this city with these drivers, with me as the driver. We thought we were originally just getting a 10 passenger van, but we ended up with this beast. People on the side of the road were trying to wave us down thinking it might be their bus! JK.

The first couple trips we did with it involved fully packing it out with people, so as to minimize cars we were taking. It was fun dodging the cars coming at me in my lane as they tried to pass, the stray dogs, and the buses who cut you off without thinking twice. But then it was just the two families. My family was staying at the Hilton so I decided to stay with them which made logistics much easier with us meeting and getting around. So we ended up just hanging out there a lot of the time, which was quite relaxing and made me feel like I was on vacation and not even in the same city I'd been living in for the last 4 months. So weird.

New Years was one of the most fun I've ever had as my family and the Potters celebrated together, and watched the fireworks (even crazier than before) from the Potters' hotel room on the 9th floor.
Olesons and Potters at the beach.

Luke Potter, making a sand castle.