MY 25TH BiRTHDAY CELEBRATiON...AND LiTTLE KEViN

We celebrated my big 2-5 birthday this past Friday (Feb. 29) It was a good birthday celebration. Tamara treated me to a pedicure which cost around $2.50-2.75!! Then she took me, Chele, Luis, and Dennis to El Sesteo, a restaurant in central park. After that, we rode the Bus Palon (sp?) around town. It's the bus without a top so you can enjoy the air and it goes all around Leon.

It was a good thing we celebrated on Friday b/c I spent my actual birthday in bed (& in the bathroom with vomiting and diarrhea). I might not eat beans and rice for a while now!! yikes!! :) ....also, at the end of the day we found out that little Kevin had passed away. He wasn't doing good Saturday morning and so Cheryl was going to take him to the hospital. But his mom came and refused to take him to the hospital, b/c when he was little she took him to the hospital for dehydration or something relatively small and they ended up cutting him open to do a surgery that wasn't for him. So the mom took him home and he lived about 5 more hours before his little body gave out. The mom had called Cheryl and asked her to come to the house b/c Kevin wasn't doing good. So I stayed with the kids...Then, Luis and Eugenio come to the house and tell me that Kevin had passed away. And Magaly heard him. So I got to play mama. I had to console her, who was attached to Kevin from the second he got to the house (they both had cerebral palsy). Then the other kids want to know what is wrong with Magaly, so I have to tell them about Kevin!! Talk about a real mom moment!! That was hard. And then that night I rocked Gabby to sleep in the hammock, and then Magaly (they are the ones that had the hardest time coping with it)....then yesterday (Sunday) we had the funeral, which lasted pretty much all day long. They are much different here than in the U.S.....we left the house yesterday morning at 9:30 and went to Kevin's house, where we sat around until 2:30ish. That was part of the wake and family members were coming to visit. At 2:30, they loaded the casket into the back of a pickup truck and we took the family in the bus to the cemetary. At the cemetary, they had dug the hole for the casket (where anyone could walk by and fall in) and the guys that dug it were sitting to the side with their shovels, waiting for the service to be finished. Eugenio spoke a few words and Carlos sang. Then, while we were still there, the guys put the casket in the ground and started throwing the dirt on top. Talk about a hard sight to see!! BUT, Kevin is now a perfect little boy in Heaven, Praise God!!!

Here's a couple of pictures: