The past couple days have been really fun! On Wednesday, several us went to Coco Beach (a local beach about 10mins away). I found several shells that were pretty cool, so I was excited about that! Then in the afternoon, I went over to the Hospitality Center. This is where patients who live far away from the ship, can stay before surgery &/or afterwards...if they are needing dressing changes, etc...whatever the situation is. So I got to play with kids all afternoon! Kids that are absolutely starving for attention and love! There were several kids with both legs casted. haha...you should see them try to run! And I'm not making fun of them, because they were actually quite good at it! Its just slightly scary to see them take off...in this hobble/run, but I never once saw a kid fall! So they've become quite good at getting around in them. And talk about recycling...someone had the genius idea to make 'shoes' for them out of tires. They took a small piece of rubber tire, tied some string over the top of the foot...and you've got a shoe. Pretty neat! Anyway, there were also several kids who've been burned. Our plastic surgeon just got here last week, so now we are done with ortho and onto Plastics. This includes all types of stuff...but not necessarily the cosmetic surgeries we so often think of, with plastic surgery. There was one little girl that just broke my heart...her face had been burned. I don't know her story, but she was missing part of her right ear, had no right eye, no nose and the whole right side of her face was pulled into a mess of scar tissue. The neat thing is though, she was SO full of joy! That little girl ran, played, laughed, smiled, etc...with the rest of the kids and with me! It's easy to get sucked into the despair and depression of the life/stories/patients/etc here...but there is soo so much joy here. Patients who get to look into a mirror after surgery and see that the football sized tumor covering the right side of their face, has been removed! Patients who had severe contractures from burns are now able to extend their arm! Patients who had club feet, are now able to walk normally! The stories go and on...and I promise to have pictures to prove these stories to you soon. I just pray that the joy never ceases here...its amazing.

Then yesterday, I went back to the pool down the road. We've found out that they have a water aerobics class in the mornings, 3x/wk! It was so much fun!! And nice to get a much needed workout in. It was pretty humerous to me, at the beginning though. The leader hopped in the pool, in a speedo, and proceeded to start hollering out in French (and of course, none of us that went could speak a word of French...let alone understand it being spoken). haha...it was great! We caught on pretty quick though...and we could just watch to see what everyone else was doing. It was just fun to do something different!!

Today's love: Getting to talk to some of my family last night :)