Sarmiento Aventuras: February to May......ramblings, kids and travels

I just finished reading Mark's blog, and see after a hectic winter he has settled down to write again. I love reading his blog. I especially enjoy reading about Stan.....I hope he is starting to feel better and GO METS.

I, of course, am writing on the family computer which does not have an exclamation key, so when I capitalize....it means EXCLAMATION. ja ja as they spell haha in Spanish.

JVANUS Caracas MS tournament

Xela and Coach Pibe from Argentina (tough tough coach)

We have made through most of basketball and soccer season. The Middle School soccer team, first time in history of the school won the JVANUS tournament which are our big tournaments for sports in Venezuela. Isabella and Xela were both a part of the team and did their team proud with lots of goals, assists and being upbeat and positive.

Other sports moments have been traveling to Matarin for the 4/5 tournament which is HOT and FLAT. There is an international school in the middle of nowhere because that is where there are is a lot of drilling. There are quite a few international oil companies there. I ended up with a heat rash for a week just from sitting in the shade and watching the games. I wasn't even out there, running around playing 4 games of soccer in one day. haha.

We are in the final 2 weeks of basketball. Isabella has been the star (THANKS COACH AL and OPHIR) on both the MS and HS team. She just played in a MS and HS tournament last weekend and won MVP of the entire tournament. Both teams won the small tournament. Thankfully only one more tournament in 2 weeks in Maricaibo, Venezuela and the MS/HS season will be over. Next year will be easier, with only one kid in MS playing and one kid in HS playing. It was too much to have Isabella and Xela on two teams. But, they held their grades and did fine. Xela decided to stop MS basketball and wait for next year. She feels more comfortable waiting a year to get serious about MS basketball....

We got our passports finally......of course, we are here on tourist visas so we need to "leave" the country every 3 months. The way the representatives for Victor take care of this is by simply taking our passports to immigration, use a "fixer" and miracles of all miracles our passports are stamped and we have had a lovely visit into outerspace and back into the country. Right now, our brand new passports which were such a pain to acquire are now in the void of fixers and payoffs. Please come back passports....pleeeeassse.