Betty's Retirement Party

My (Patty's) boss Betty just retired from being the Director at the Neighborhood Center. She was a great boss but is now feeling called to move on. Now Gary shown in the picture below is the new Director at the Center. The kids love him.

We had a Retirement Party for Betty / Welcome Party for Gary last week. Unfortunately the pictures are kinda backwards, meaning the nighttime shots are first. We invited people from church and also lots of neighbors. Lots of people came (way over 100) and we had quite a potluck. We asked everyone to bring food. We had a huge variety of delicious food! (including beautiful cakes and we can't forget Gary's popcorn machine!)

Sharks Exhibition Game

Every year we have a street hockey tournament with the kids in the neighborhood. This year we took 2 teams and played at the arena in the parking lot on a Saturday. That night we all got to go to a Sharks Game. They lost but we still had a lot of fun. We were up in the nosebleed section which meant we could see just about everything!

Patty's Trip to France

Here are 2 videos of my (Patty's) trip to France. I believe the first one is in the first town we visited which was Colmar. This Cathedral was old and beautiful...absolutely awe inspiring! I will post more videos (I have 7 but they are no more than a minute each) in a week or so. Wait till you see (hear) the one with the accordian...so french!




This next one is of the Cathedral in Strasbourg. This Cathedral is very old and beautiful. It's so amazingly tall! The churches in France are huge on the inside. I could stand and look at the architecture for hours. Turn up the sound and you can hear an accordian in the background.

Tanda

Tanda - Spanish for group, turn, rotation, task, certain number of persons, gang.

This morning one of my workers handed another worker a $100 bill. I asked what that was about and he said they call it a tanda. He had no idea what the English equivalent would be. The above is from a Spanish dictionary. He says that 10-12 guys mostly here at work put $100 of their paycheck into a pot. Each guy gets a number and each paycheck the guys whose number is next gets the total pot of $1000 to $1200 dollors. Kind of a savings account. Only problem is when one of the guys gets the pot and leaves before he puts more back in.

Community. There is that word again. These guys get it. How to survive. (Hopefully they don't spend the pot on some luxury item like a flat screen tv!).

I think I have a name for my next small group.

Tanda.

Team Hoyt - Redeemer

A Little Friend

I found this little guy walking down the main road at the nursery. These things get a bad rap because they are ugly. Though their bite can be compared to a bee sting, their bite is usually harmless. None the less, I did not stick my hand next to him to show how big he really is! Mating season is in the fall so he must have been looking for someone. Could be a she running from a male!

Street Hockey Tournement

This post will be a repeat of last year when we were involved in the Sharks in the Park Street Hockey Tournament. Same shirts, a few different people, in fact more people. Last year we had one team and this year we had 2 teams with lots of subs! We were the first team to play Saturday at 8 am so that meant they had to be at the Center at 6:45! Doughnuts always helps. Below is a picture of a few of our older kids team with Reuben on the far right our outstanding goalie!

That is him again with our new interim director, Gary. (more on that later). They had a great bonding experience in the week leading up to the tournament by Gary buying Reuben his first cup. Ask him about it sometime.

Our 13-15 year old team! They may not have won any games but they looked good!




Our younger team (10-12). They won a game in overtime that was very exciting! But it was not enough to move on in the tournament. Both teams played very well and exhibited a very high level of sportsmanship and team play which we were very proud of!