it's been awhile...

hi friends! i know it's been quite awhile since i've posted anything, but i am still alive. :) things here have been a bit crazy (as they always are) but great. if you aren't receiving my email newsletter, email me at Kimberly.Simpson@gmail.com and let me know. while i'm not great at sending that out often either, i'm sometimes a little bit more faithful with it (i try to send it out about once a month) and it usually contains better updates about my ministry here. instead of trying to tell you what i've been up to these past few weeks, i'll just show you. enjoy!

one day while i was at david and becky's house, this lil guy flew into the house. the kids were able to get him out, but he had literally exhausted himself and couldn't fly for awhile. we nursed him back to health, fed him some sugar water and he eventually flew off. i laughed a lot that day...rescuing a bird is a part of just about everyone's childhood, but only in mexico is it a hummingbird that you rescue!the university team that came down from Powell worked hard. we put in some intense hours playing jenga and, here, "heads up 7 up" :) it was fun to be silly with a group from home!they also worked hard while they were here. here we are with some of the students we met on campus. they were so much fun!ministry means dirty feet most days!about a week later i left for the "Central Field Retreat" it was a beautiful drive out of the city into the mountainsit was also a great time to hang out with other missionaries. here i am with Becky (the mom of the kids i teach) and Peggy (another missionary from GDL)it didn't hurt that we stayed at a beautiful resort!this becky, patti and patti's mom. patti is a good friend of david and becky's and quite possibly the most fun, sweetest, craziest lady i've met since i've been here. she was kind enough to translate EVERYTHING on the menu one night when we went out for tacos....including (but not limited to) brain, tongue, cheek, roof of the mouth, outer ear, inner ear, and palette of the mouth. appetizing, huh?here i am with the kids i teach every thursday night. they are so sweet and i love getting to hang out with them!these are a couple of kids from david and becky's church. their church has a feeding ministry and i got to help one day. they served this chicken soup stuff which contained the ENTIRE chicken...including feet!when i came to GDL for the first time (with MFUGE in 2005), everyone who came to camp brought a can of green beans for david and becky because they couldn't find them here at the time. becky recently came across several cans left over from that summer. she gave me the two cans in the front...my favorite! kitchen sliced! funny how what "goes around comes around" :)amy (a journeygirl from Puebla) came to visit for a few days. we took a bus tour of the city and it was a lot of fun!we also went to the beach. here laura and i are about to have a yummy breakfast at our hotel restaurant. they had "exceptional" toast! ;)laura and i are dancing to "Stop the wedding!" by etta james. its one of our favorite dance party songs. if you aren't familiar with etta, you need to be. go download the song. right now. don't look at the rest of this post. it will still be here and you will enjoy it more while being serenaded by etta.laura and i were trying to take a few silly pictures when the water suddenly came up way higher than it had been. things just got sillier!i was getting soaked and laura refused to get down!notice that i'm no longer holding onto her. in fact, i think i was trying to shake her off so i could run to higher ground!but she just wouldn't get off! AND another round hit!laura doing a lovely cartwheel on the beachand amyand here is my attempt. notice that all you get is the "before" shot. that is because i cannot do a cartwheel and when i tried, i fell in the sand. it was funny, but didn't make for the greatest picture! ;)and here we all are together looking lovely (even if we are a bit wet and sandy)the beach had great wavesand i always love the water and dark sandyah, not sure what this is except that we were all bein a bit silly that nightthese are our friends at the beach. apparently their family owns the umbrella we were using. oops! they were really nice though. he took this picture of himself (and his girlfriend in the background) when we asked him to take a picture of the three of us on the beach. nice.of course we wish you were herewhen we got tired of being sandy (or when the water came up too high and there wasn't much beach left) we came back to the hotel pool. it was great and not even too crowded!laura and amy had fun jumping off the stools at the bar in the poolyes, we are still kids at heart! laura and i had fun splashing each otherthis is amy and i just chillin in pool. isn't it gorgeous?i got this dress for about 11 bucks on the beach and was really excited!before we left the hotel on our last day, we showered off by the pool so we wouldn't be sandy. and yes, we even brought shampoo and washed our hair! we didn't want to feel gross all the way home on the bus!i got a pedicure the other day and was really excited. :) notice the lovely blisters too. i've gotten more blisters in the 3 months i've been here than i have in my whole life i think!things at our house get a bit crazy at times. occasionally there are roommate "conflicts" like in this picture. be afraid, very afraid.most of the time we get along though! ;)and even look pretty cute on our red couch!it's been a crazy several weeks and i've stayed pretty busy, but mostly there's just been a lot of this. :)