Greetings!
I can't believe April is just about gone...tomorrow is the last day of April, at least where I'm at. And 5 weeks from today, I will be on a plane headed home. 5 weeks from tomorrow I will be arriving in Atlanta! WooHoo!!!!!
I'm diligently working on crocheting bookmarks for the kids, as an end of the year gift. Thanks mom for picking out and sending the pretty yarn! I'm also collecting gifts for an end of the year game. Mrs. Buck did it with our Sunday School class at the Christmas party. I will be getting a story with the words right and left throughout the story. The kids will each get to pick a wrapped gift from the pile. Each time I say right or left they have to pass it that direction. They will wind up with a different gift at the end of the game than they started with. Then, they can swap gifts if they want to. I ordered several things from christianbook.com back in early January. It still has not arrived. So, I contacted them, and they issued a refund. I reordered and got some of the same things and some different items, this time I had to pay a little more for shipping in order to get the priority shipping. I hope to have it in about a week. We shall see. I even found a few things at the seniors yard sale this weekend. I found 2 card games...phase 10 and blink...both brand spanking new. The cards were still in the plastic. Each game was $.50. I also found a like new "Treasure Island" book (a classic)...one of the illustrated versions, for a $.25~I have about 23-24 things so far. I was thinking for the other items I would get packs of cookies or some candy. Mrs. Buck suggested some of the little cans of fruit, which will cost about the same. She said they give them out sometimes, and the kids all tell her they don't get that stuff very often. So, I will be picking up some of those as the rest of the gifts. 
As the school year is winding down, time is speeding up. We have a lot of things to do between now and the end of the year. A few things just this week...Wednesday is May Day, also known as Constitution Day. We count it as a day, but we don't actually come to school. We meet in town and walk to the Capital building. Once we hear presentations or whatever, we are free to go. I plan to have some money. The Sr. are selling BBQ plates, and apparently, there are a lot of booths around. So, I want to see that. Then, Thursday, May 2 is National Day of Prayer that we will be recognizing as a school. Friday, May 3, is the 6th-12th grade Field Day. So, we have a busy week. To top it off, not only is May 4 the first Saturday of the month, in which we meet together as a church at 7:30 am for prayer time and after that work/clean day around campus and church, but this Saturday is also "MBCA loves Majuro Day". We did this a few weeks ago. We are asked as a school to help clean the island this day. So, busy week and weekend! Maybe I will get to rest Sunday. :) Then at the end of the month there will be k5 graduation and high school graduation. Next week is the Sr. trip. They are going to an island called Arno, I think. There is no electricity there, but people live there. So, all of their foods will have to be cooked before they leave. Many of the outer islands from Majuro, the capital, actually do not have electricity but are inhabited. Most people on the outer islands do not speak any English. They will be traveling by boat. One of the parents were going to let them borrow their boat...the sr. would have to pay for the gas. When they checked into it, it would cost $3,000 just for the fuel! They can rent a smaller boat for $500 dollars. Big difference~ They pay for the whole graduation and the trip. And they do tons of fund raisers to help with the costs. 
After the last set of boxes I sent home, I definitely decided to use only flat rate boxes for as much as I can. From the island no parcel post is offered, so everything is expensive! Thou we use the U.S. Post Office, not all the services are offered. They do not even carry the flat rate boxes...they don't make any money off of them. However, we can order them. So, that is what I did. I ordered a set of the Large flat rates, Medium flat rates, and on the website I saw another kind of flat rate...they are called large game board flat rates. They are longer but thinner...for a game box to be shipped in. I ordered a set of those too because I have some longer things I will be sending home, but I know I will be able to fit other things in there too. So, for now, I'm waiting on the boxes to arrive before I pack anything else to ship. I am going to be setting aside all school related items to see if the Bucks want to look through it and purchase it from me instead of paying to ship it back. I'm also going to be asking about a few things from the apartment...that I've either sent or purchased here about them purchasing instead of sending back. Some of the stuff is cheaper for me to sell and rebuy when I return home than it is to ship it back! 
Anyway, thanks for stopping by. A few more weeks and I will be in the same time zone of many of you!
Blessings,
Sarah