Pelea con los ojos!

My spanish speaking skills never cease to provide moments of laughter. The other night was my host mom's birthday. Fun tico family time! My host brother and sister, Stephen and Tatiana, helped me bake a piña colada, coconut cake for Heidi inspired by our tropic context. Lesson number one- baking in a foreign language is difficult! There are so many specific words I had no idea how to say. The cake had been in the oven for 30 minutes now and I needed to check it. Umm how do I say oven mitts? I resorted to "Guantes, guantes!" I need gloves, gloves! Good thing my host sister always seemed to understand my sharades or frantic round-about way of speaking in Spanish. Lesson number two- listen carefully! So the whole family sits down to share a Pizza Hut pizza for our grand birthday dinner and it was really sweet. We went around the table and told Heidi the reasons why we were thankful she was in our life and then prayed before we ate. And we go on with normal dinner discussion. I'm them about my plans tomorrow to help out at one of the orphanages in town. So as usual, they commence with a Spanish lesson. They started teaching me phrases and such to say to the kids. For the unruly children they told me to say something similar to, "I'm watching" in spanish, but what I heard was "Pelea con los ojos," which translates into "Fight with your eyes!" Yep, I told them what I thought they were saying and the whole table roars with laughter. Then Heidi turns to me and crosses her eyes and puffs out her cheeks attempting to quote 'fight with her eyes' and we all start laughing again. This begins the contest of face making at the dinner table which then turns into the talent show of our face making abilities which results in me showing my host family that I can wiggle my ears! Yep, true fact. By this point I'm laughing so hard my stomach's sore. After we collect ourselves, its time for birthday cake! "Cumpleaños Feliz!" We sung and ate cake and took this picture here below. Tatiana is on the left, next to Stephen, then there is Heidi, and to the right is Wesley. They are a wonderful host family, whom I will miss so much when I return to the states.