In my post about Carlos and graduation, I promised a little update on my other two kids, who I also saw during the graduation trip.

Paulina is doing well and getting excellent marks in school.  Here she is wearing a medal she won in a speech contest.  Now to say I’ve watched Paulina come out of a shell would be an understatement of great magnitude.  With a lot of encouragement from one of her teachers, I think the word she used would be roughly translated as badgering, she agreed to enter this contest with great reluctance.  She seemed to get all nervous all over again when talking about the days leading up to the contest.  But she won second place in her age category and I think you can tell from the picture how proud and happy she was with her success.  The other thing I want to tell you about Paulina is what an incredibly nice girl she is.  Her older sister is exactly the same way.  Her mom is doing a great job raising these two girls on her own.

I thought you’d enjoy this picture.  These are some little friends from next door to Paulina’s house.  They often come over to visit and hang out whenever the giant gringo appears. 🙂

Edgar is also doing very well in school.  He’s absolutely driven to get the best grades and he’s disappointed, maybe a little too much, when he is not the top in every subject.  His younger brother, Ericsson, not so much.  But he still does well in school too.

The whole family is very musical.  I’m pretty sure I told the story about the drum set in my first Padrino post.  This is a pic of the two boys, that’s Edgar seated.  During this visit they both sang a song solo and once together.  They have beautiful voices and their duet brought a tear to the eye of the social worker, Alma, who accompanies the visit.

During this November visit I told them I would be back to Guatemala  for a couple of months very soon, and we made a plan for me to come to Ericsson’s birthday party on March 2nd.  Look for a post about it then.   I promised to bring the cake.