Well, the troops are on their way home.  They spent the day at Cotopaxi National Park yesterday.

Cotopaxi Volcano

They were up super early for their 5:30 flight home this morning.  We leave in a few hours for the airport.  We'll be happy to have her home...it has been super quiet around here.  Expecting more snow tonight so will probably get a snow day tomorrow which will be a great catch up time around our house, laundry, pictures and a big fire in the fireplace.  Actually looking forward to a snow day...our 15th this year.

We actually went snorkeling again, and I saw a shark!!! It was sooooooo cool!! We also saw rays, a turtle and more pufferfish, more sea lions and more fish. I saw these cool fish that were fluorescent purple and orange, little things. 

Tomorrow, when we go back to Quito we get down time at the hotel and we get to just swim and relax all day until dinner. I'm sooooooo looking forward to it.

I love you guys!! See you in a couple days!!

We all got really badly sunburnt today (yes, I did put sunscreen on!!) but we saw baby pufferfish, pufferfish, sea lions, 15 sea turtles, sharks, and lots of fish and birds.   Tomorrow we go to the plazas islands to see flamingoes, frigate birds, blue footed boobies, sharks and penguins. Today we went snorkeling in this famous place known for snorkeling in the galapagos. We were supposed to see sharks and there were 3 kinds, including hammerheads, galapagos sharks and white tip reef sharks. They told us they were harmless, and not interested in people, which they weren't, otherwise they wouldn't have let us go snorkeling there. Our guide said that the white tip reef sharks only eat little fish, and so do the hammerhead, because their mouths are so small. I thought I saw a shark, but I wasn't sure, but people in the other group of our class said that they saw them.

I was absolutely terrified, along with everyone else. When we jumped in I couldn't believe that I had made this horrible decision. I swam over to Mckenzie and we held onto each other for support. I saw a glint of gray and was terrified, I was sure that it was a hammerhead coming to get me. Then, the gray thing moved closer to us and we almost cut off the circulation in the other ones arm, but then, it came even closer, and we could see that it was a turtle. After that, I knew that every little thing, was going to be alright. The fish were beautiful, but the water was not as clear as when I snorkeled  in Panama and the fish weren't quite as cool.