Kierstin: 1 Ants: -300

That's right.  I am winning the battle against the ants.  All thanks to an amazing, and I'm sure extremely bad for my health, product called Bygone.  Monday morning, I decided to spray some of this product in two spots where I had tracked the ants back to.  When I returned home, this is what I found!  Yep, that is a photo of hundreds of dead ants that essentially fell out of the crack in the wall after I sprayed it.  And now, I have to clean that up.  But at least the ants are gone, right?

The rest of the day on Monday was quite good.  I was busy at work with financial statements.  At lunch, I met up with Robert and Mari for some food at Pola, which wasn't very appetizing, but edible nonetheless.  We wandered over to Sweet Bakery after and ended up seeing one of Robert's colleagues in auditing who we are hoping will take us to a baseball game sometime in the near future.  After espressos, I couldn't help myself, so I bought this appetizing brownie.

After I had paid, Paula asked me how to say coin in English.  Then she asked me what Buen Provecho was in English.  This is tougher, since we don't have an equivalent in English.  So I told her, we actually use French and say bon appetit.  Then I spent the rest of the day trying to think of what we do say in English after we serve someone food.  The best I could come up with was, "Enjoy!"

I ended up having a meeting with Sr. S, O and J in the afternoon.  Sr. S did the entire thing in Spanish and I understood essentially everything he said.  It is so nice when he speaks because he is sure to speak clearly and slowly for me.  But then O or J would say something and I would have no idea cause they speak much faster around me.  Anyway, as it turns out, Sr. S wants O and I to go to Jarabacoa to check out the area for one of the projects we've been working on.  I'm pretty excited about that.  Although, sometimes these things don't pan out.  Regardless, it is supposed to be the first week in January.

In the evening, I wandered over to the old colmado to pick up some beer before heading over to Robert and Mari's for St. Lucia Day.  I miss the colmado.  My new colmado is scary and noisy.  Anyway, I was the first one to arrive, of course.  Robert and Mari were prepping carrot cake.  Here's Robert grating carrots:

Then Gerardo and Marlon arrived.  It was just the five of us for most of the evening.  We made Lussekatter!  It was a lot of fun.

Gerardo and I went to pick up Maria, who had just gotten off work.  She brought Luna over and all of us had way too much fun playing with the 3 month old chihuahua!  I'm not a big fan of small dogs, especially chihuahuas, but Luna has already found a way into my heart.

Another lovely evening with friends.  Gerardo gave me a ride home and I had to say goodbye to him.  And yet another friend returns to their home country.  When I went to go in the door at my apartment, I couldn't get in.  They had locked the latch as well as the deadbolt.  So I started digging out my phone to call Delaine, although I felt horrible since it was 11:30 pm (although I shouldn't feel horrible since it wasn't my fault that I was locked out!).  I thought I could hear Allison coming towards the door, and sure enough she opened the latch but then locked the deadbolt again, which I think was either because she thought it was still locked or she was doing it to make sure that it was me who was coming in the door (requiring a key).  By that point, Delaine was on the phone, and I think I had woken her up.  Ugh.  Ah well, such is life.