Spanish Classes

This year our school has started offering us Spanish lessons on campus. It's great. It costs about $100 for lessons for the entire year, two days a week after school, right on our campus. It's awesome. I'm in a class with about six other teachers, we have a fun, easy to understand teacher and I get to work on understanding and speaking Spanish for an hour. Quite the deal. I have really enjoyed it so far. We just started a few weeks ago and had our third class today. So, I get to class, exhausted, sit down, am talking to my friend, we start class, our teacher is telling us what we are going to do at first, he tells us to write one sentence in our notebook answering his question, and we're off. He takes off his jacket to settle in, I look up as I begin writing, and lo and behold what is he wearing??? A Kansas City Royals t-shirt!!!! I couldn't believe it! The Royals!!! I of course asked him about it! I said, "Royals, verdad, los Royals???" He said, "oh, si, de Kansas City." I said, "Yo se, es mi cuidad, es mi equipo!!" (I know, it's my city, my team!) I couldn't believe that I was witnessing someone with a KC Royals t-shirt on in Guatemala. So of course I had to take a picture of my teacher, Juan Carlos, and I in his Royals shirt! Too funny!

Writing Course/Therapy

Tonight I just finished my sixth master's class out of nine in my program. This was one of my favorite classes. We had an awesome professor which makes a world of difference but also I loved the course. It was called Teaching the Writing Process. And boy did we write. It was great. We wrote from picture prompts, we wrote from story starters, we wrote from our heart. Writing for me is kind of like therapy. I can dig deep and write and possibly share it but it is more for me to just get some feelings out and let those things off my chest. I really used this class for that! :) Just trying to get my money's worth! We also talked a lot about going through the whole writing process. I am definitely a "I like to write one draft of something and turn it in" kind of writer so it was kind of hard for me to actually go through the whole process, but it was great. Conferencing with other colleagues, revising, revisioning our papers, getting other's opinions, making me dig deeper. Tonight was our last class. Our professor had asked each of us to write a piece, go through the writing process with it and share it in class tonight. I decided to write a letter to my nephew, Noah, who we lost almost three years ago. I wasn't sure I could read it in class without crying so I recorded myself reading it and put it to music and pictures. Despite my quick and nervous reading, I was pretty proud of the way it turned out. Just thought I'd share! Hope you enjoy as much as I enjoyed remembering our precious Noah and getting to write to him.

Ready to Go Home!!!

It's always about this time of the year that I start getting really ready to go home!!! Christmas tickets are bought so early and I kind of forget about it for a little while! Then I make it all the way through October and all the sudden November is here. Wow, it's November 2 today! Crazy. Then I start thinking about Thanksgiving and needing to find something to do for that long weekend and then suddenly I realize that after Thanksgiving there is like two more weeks left of school before I will be leaving to come home for Christmas break!!! When it's so close, it makes it hard to wait!!! I just saw all these really cute pictures of my niece and nephews dressed up for Halloween and it made me really miss being home. They are getting so big and sometimes I feel like I am missing so much of the day to day things. I came across this picture from the summer and it reminded me of how much I love each one of these little lives. They are so precious to me. I can't even imagine what it must feel like to know that this life is actually a part of you. I can't wait to go home and spend every minute spoiling them and loving on them. And of course to see my parents and my sisters and brother in law too! :)

As I was looking at this picture, it reminded me of a conversation I had with Sam this summer in the car.
Me: "Sam, I don't want you to grow up. I just want you to stay small forever and be my little Sam."
Sam: WHY?
Me: Because when you get big, then when I come home you won't want to do things with your Aunt Kammie and you will just want to hang out with your friends and not spend time with me when I'm home in the summer and for Christmas.
Sam: (Crazy laugh) No I won't Aunt Kammie. I will always invite you to my birthday party.

Awwww, the innocence of a young child. I hope he always wants to hang out with his crazy Aunt Kammie! :) I am so ready to be home and to see all of them and give them all a giant hug!!

Work Group

Last Sunday, I went to Antigua to work with a group from Blue Springs, Missouri that was here. I met Emily last year when she and her husband were here adopting their son. I knew them through a few different connections and met up with them to have dinner one night. I found out that Emily was bringing a group from her church to come down here for a missions trip. Then I found out that an old old lifelong friend and her mom were also on the trip. I have known Lisa and Amie for pretty much my entire life! Amie is a year younger than me but our parents even go way back. I grew up with them. I hadn't seen either of them in several years but it was really fun to reconnect and see them in Guatemala!!! I met their group on Sunday morning and helped them out with construction at a small school outside of Antigua called Kairos. We mixed and carried buckets of cement for the good part of the day. It was hard work but it's always nice being able to serve with one another side by side. It was a hard day but as always good fun was had as well!

Roatan, Honduras

I'm going to try to get back to blogging. I do the same thing time and time again. I get so overwhelmed at everything I feel like I want to blog about and then just don't do any of it. Baby steps, baby steps. I am taking a writing course right now in my master's program so it has inspired me to start writing more. We'll see how it goes.

We had a four day weekend in October for Revolution Day here in Guatemala. About three weeks before, I got an email from a co-worker that said, anyone interested in going to Roatan Honduras (a beautiful Caribbean island with white sand and clear water beaches...aaahhh)? She said, we are going to charter a plane there. I was like WHAT?!?!? A chartered flight. Well, when it came down to it, it was cheaper if we could find 19 people to go to fill up the seats on the flight than it was to buy a commercial plane ticket. And the flights on TACA airlines make three stops and take about 5 1/2 hours where our flight made no stops and took an hour and 15 minutes. Oh and we could pick our departure times for coming and going! So I signed up, and 19 of us were headed for paradise for four days! Chartered flight and an all inclusive resort, doesn't get much better than that in my opinion!

This was our plane that took us to and from Roatan. Just us and two very young pilots! :)

Here we are getting on the flight! No going through security, no getting to the airport two hours early, nothing. The company did all of our departure taxes and passport checks in Guatemala before we left. We just showed up about 6:30 and were in the air by 7. Oh and they even have a parking lot where we could leave our cars right by the hangar.

Because of our early departure time, we got the resort, had breakfast, and were on the beach in paradise by 10 am!!! It was awesome. The beach was absolutely beautiful, not too crowded. Maybe partly due to the political turmoil in Honduras, but we didn't mind at all!

Where I spent a lot of my vacation!

What more can you ask for, even the ice cream man walks up and down the beach?? :)

So beautiful, I couldn't get enough!

Cold beer, waiting for us at the all inclusive!!!

Each night, the resort had an "activity" that you could take part in. On Saturday night it was a beach party! It was so fun, they had fire spinners and then dancing in the beach bar with a dance off and all. So we were dancing and the girl with the microphone was calling out different places and getting you to cheer if that was where you were from. There were three of us girls there and we were cheering for Guatemala. So the girl says, hey there are some more friends from Guatemala back there, come up here and dance with these three girls. So these two guys came up, Steph and I were dancing with them. I asked him what he was doing here, for the holiday? He said no, for work. I said, oh so you live here? He said no I'm just here for work. I asked how long he said he arrived that morning and was leaving Tuesday. I said, oh me too. I asked what he did for work and he said he is a pilot!!!! They were our pilots!!! haha. It was too funny. So we hung out with our pilots for the weekend too! They were fun! Then one night was karaoke night. They only had songs in Spanish so a few of us tried them out. Yes I even sang! haha. They had wigs and all for us to wear. Here is our pilot in a different uniform. haha.

The beach bar where we spent most of our time. It started storming on Sunday afternoon and rained all Monday and the rest of our time there, so we spent a lot of time here playing games, cards and hanging out. Dance lessons, games, drinking, so fun!

Even in spite of the storm, we still managed to get a little more beach time. Here is my famous feet on the beach shot! :)

We had five kids in our group of 19, so I had fun being Aunt Kammie for a few days. They were so cute and so fun to watch play and interact with each other. They had a blast playing in the sand.

Playing cards on the beach!

And of course I always enjoy getting to know the locals a little better! :)

Flying back home. We met some other people that were stuck on the island. TACA was not flying any planes out of Roatan when we were scheduled to leave. People were stuck in the airport for a few days. Because we had our own plane and we did not have to make the stops in the places where the visibility was also bad, we were able to wait until the visibility cleared in just our area and then we ran out to our plane and took off! It was only a little bumpy at first for like ten minutes and then we were in the clear the rest of the way to Guatemala.

So on our plane ride home, I really had to use the bathroom. The small plane had no bathroom, just a place in the back where the luggage goes. I knew I wasn't going to make it the hour more that we had in our trip. So I ended up having to have one other lady stand in front of me while I dropped my drawers and filled a cup and a half up with pee in the back of the plane. No shame here. Then I was in another dilemma, what was I going to do with two cups of urine for the rest of the plane ride. No fear, we had a couple empty bottles that I had to dump my pee into. It was quite the experience and I can now say I have peed in the back of a plane. haha. Something to be proud of. Right...... So here I am with my bottle and a half of urine. Never would have guessed that I could pee that much in one sitting. Over 20 ounces. :)

Deep Breath

Here I am, back in Guatemala, finding myself having to stop and take a deep breath now and then. It has been a non-stop whirlwind since returning August 11. Wow, just about two weeks, it feels like about two months! Which is strangely enough about the time elapsed since my last blog entry! I have so much to say, so many pictures to share, yet so little time and energy to do it! So my summer in a recap, which hopefully I will get some pictures up soon to show you what I did.

Summer 2009, probably one of the best so far:

*Spent two weeks at home getting to see old friends, new nephew, three other precious niece and nephews, sisters, parents, shopping, eating American food, "enjoying" heat indexes of over 100 degrees, "enjoying" Missori humidity in the summer.

*Left for Madrid, Spain June 30. Had a 10 hour layover in Atlanta, so I spent the day in downtown Atlanta, touring the World of Coke, the CNN headquarters, walking through Olympic Park. Fun times. Made a new friend on the plane who kept me entertained. He was going to Pamplona to be a tour guide during the running of the bulls. Interesting guy.

*Arrived in Madrid on July 1 in the morning. Took the subway to meet up with Laurie (colleague, neighbor, and friend here in Guatemala) at her daughter's apartment in Madrid. Spent about 24 hours with them. We walked around, Maggie introduced me to some really great Spanish food, which I really enjoyed.

*Left for Rome on July 2. Spent two days getting spoiled by Rebekah and Jared with amazing pasta and pizza, Italian style. Really amazing. I am usually not one to go on and on about the food in a place, as I am a really picky eater. I usually prefer to find the McDonalds in foreign countries. Rebekah's lasagna was AMAZING. I am not even usually a huge lasagna fan. I like it but would never brag about it. This was AMAZING. It was so fun getting to hang out with her kids, read books to them, spend the day just chatting with Rebekah and really enjoy my time with her and her beautiful family.

*Left for Kenya on July 4. Connected in Cairo and really want to go there for a visit. Arrived in Nairobi about 4 am. Made a German friend on this flight. He was visiting his brother who worked for the German embassy there. His English wasn't great but he was cute as a button, as this was his first time flying. He looked like he was in his early 20s. He asked me if it was safe to leave his bag under the seat. Spent a week in Kenya visiting my friend Wendy from college. It was so fun to see her there and to experience Africa. WOW. I got to see the campus where she teaches, hang out with some babies at the local orphange, see lots of animals, go on a walking safari on Crescent Island, go to an elephant orphanage, to the giraffe center, drive to a game park, experience a car breaking down, visit a tea farm, and do some shopping at the Masai market. Wow, what a full, fun week.

*Flew back to Rome with Wendy on July 12. We spent three full days touring Rome in full tourist style. Rome was incredible. There was nothing that I did not like about Rome, except maybe the heat. :) I mean, it was just so cool. Saw the Coliseum, the Pantheon, went to the beach, sat on the Spanish Steps, walked down the Via del Corso, ate pasta, ate pizza, ate lots of amazing gelato, saw the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City museum, St. Peter's Basilica, hung out in some piazzas, threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain so I can return one day!

*Went from Rome to Belgium on July 16 and got to see Laura and Ian for a week!!!! This was such a relaxing part of my trip, getting to catch up with Laura (it had been over a year), enjoy time with Ian, and seeing this beautiful country I had heard so much about from Laura! Belgium is an absolutely beautiful country with some amazing waffles, frits (fries), and chocolate of course! While there, I took a day trip to Paris, we took a cruise down the Rhine River in Germany, went to Brussels for a day, went to the town of Brugges for a day (a beautiful preserved medieval cities, saw cows in Laura's backyard. This was a wonderful week of my trip.

*Left Belgium July 25 to head back to Madrid. Spent three days seeing the sights of Madrid, spent some time with Laurie and Maggie, met some of their friends, drank the best sangria I've ever tasted, enjoyed thee last few days of my vacation.

*Left Spain on July 28 to come back to Missouri. Got upgraded to First Class and it was absolutely amazing. I've never gotten upgraded on a long flight like that before. I slept so good, ate some good food (for an airline) - New York Strip, ice cream sundae, fresh bread, fruit plates. I watched a few movies and enjoyed being all stretched out! It was the best news I could have gotten getting onto the plane!

*Spent two more weeks at home, shopping, time with family and friends.

*Came back to Guatemala August 11 and have hit the ground running! I played in my slowpitch softball game the evening I arrived. My plane touched down at 7 pm, I was on the field playing at 9:30 pm! I had one day without work, hung out with some friends, got unpacked. The next day I was back at work, as the new 7th grade coordinator. I had five days at work before the kids came. I was so not ready for the first day! I had coordinator meetings, then trying to get everything ready for our team for the beginning of school, my classroom preparations were a little on the lacking side.

Ready or not, the first day of school came and went. It was so fun to see all the faces from last year returning and knowing the 8th graders this year. I loved seeing them all again. We have a great group of new 7th graders this year and I am really excited about getting to know them and teaching them this year.

We just finished day 6 of class and tomorrow is Friday!!!!! Woo hoo. I am awake at almost 1 am, due to falling asleep around 7:30 tonight and not making it through the night! I tried to stay awake but I couldn't! I will post pictures soon, maybe this weekend I will muster up some energy! I am starting to get things a little more well planned in my classes. We do have Open House to get ready for next week!

Home Sweet Home

There is a reason for the saying, "Home Sweet Home." Besides it being blazing hot here in Missouri, it has been nothing but home sweet home. I have spent oodles of time with my sister and my niece and three nephews and it has been wonderful. It's a little crazy around their house, but what more can you expect with four kids under the age of 6?? :) I love it though. I have eaten at IHOP already a few times with them, we've played glow in the dark mini-golf at the mall, my nephew thinks I'm really good at Scooby Doo video games, I've gone to his t-ball twice, we've played outside in the small pool, we've gone to the neighborhood "big" pool, I've spent countless hours holding a sleeping sweet precious baby boy, and on and on. I am seriously enjoying every minute of it and soaking it all in. My niece and nephews are all getting so big and so funny.

Grace just finished kindergarten and her little mind works 24 hours a day. She is very observant and takes note of every detail, especially when you get something wrong, she loves to correct you!

She likes to take pictures, so this is her attempt to take a picture of us together!

And she likes to cut coupons! (Especially for candy or gum!)

With Mimi and Poppy at the play area at the mall!

Sam just turned four and he is quite the little character. His favorite phrase now is "You're not the boss of the car.....or of the couch......or of the basement." etc etc. So I finally said to him, "Sam, I don't want to hear you keep saying that to me or Aunt Kammie won't take you anywhere." Now he likes to remind me often, "Aunt Kammie, you're the boss of the couch. or Aunt Kammie, you're the boss of us right now." ha ha. He's so funny. He loves to 'play' video games. More, he really likes to watch someone else play them. Well, since I am quite the mature 30 year old, I still enjoy the video games. So we get along great. He loves to watch me play the Scooby Doo game. I do think I've gotten my name on most of the top scores so far. ha ha.

Getting ready to hit at t-ball!

Not sure if he's relaxing or waiting for a ground ball!

Sam loves his little baby brother and is a good helper!

Nate, who is 2 1/2 amazes me more and more every time I see him. He is growing so much and looks so much bigger and older to me each time I am home. I know that obviously he is just growing up, but coming from his little micropreemie status, it still just amazes me each time. He truly is a miracle to our eyes. He is jabbering now all the time. He will say "Tia" but not Kammie! That's ok, I'll take tia. :)

He insisted on having his goggles on in the baby pool in the back yard!

Gotta love those big blue eyes!

Just looking so big!

And little Preston, he is just a bundle of love. I am so in love with him, it's unreal. We missed out on a lot of the typical "baby" stuff with Nate, so it's so much fun to have a snuggly, cute, sweaty baby to love on!!! I just love letting him snuggle up on my chest and love on him!

Even though I love letting him sleep on me, I sure do love him even when he's awake too!!!!

Love the snuggly time!

Love it!!!

There's just something to be said about knowing my way around town and where things are and where to find things and feeling "home" again. No matter how long I've been gone and how much time has passed that I haven't even been in Missouri, I still feel somewhat at home here. Of course things change and it feels weird that I don't live here, but a part of me will always feel home here.

I've gotten to see some old friends, some people that I normally don't see and others that are my regular people to see! I have hung out with friends that I have known from kindergarten, friends from high school, and friends from junior high. I know it sounds stupid and my mom will never get it, but seriously, I am reconnecting with old friends due to facebook!!! It's so fun. I am getting together tomorrow night with five girls that I played softball with when we were like 14 years old and younger. We started playing together from the time we were in like 1st grade and we played together for several years. Softball was my life and these girls were a huge part of my life. I spent my entire summers at the ball field. I am so excited to see them and reconnect with them. I am also having lunch with my kindergarten teacher on Monday! How crazy is that??

I leave on Tuesday to embark on my long journey around the world. ha ha. I am so excited about seeing some other friends and seeing some other parts of the world. I will see Laurie in Spain, Rebekah in Italy, Wendy in Kenya, and Laura in Belgium!! I can't wait!

Gum Scrapers

We started having a really bad problem of students chewing gum at school, so even though this policy started a little late, we started making the kids who got caught chewing gum scrape gum off the bottom of desks and the sidewalks. So, like any good teachers, we took pictures of them and put them in the end of the year slideshow today!!! :)

My 30th Birthday!!!!

I celebrated my big 3-0 birthday back in May! I knew it was coming up all year and I kept thinking about how I wanted to celebrate it here in Guatemala. I wanted to do something memorable, something fun and something different. One night we were out and this trolley bus passed by with people yelling out the back and looked like a big party on it. At that moment, I knew, that was what I wanted to do for my 30th birthday!!! Well, I did it! It was so much fun and there was a wonderful group of friends that helped me celebrate and welcome in a new decade.

Jaime and I outside the bus before we left!

The party going on inside the bus!

Sharon and I!

The outside of the bus, it was so fun!

We had jello shots and when we stopped for a bathroom break at a gas station, Kari gave this mariachi band some jello shots. They loved it!

The back was open so you could ride back here!

Jaime, Fernando, and me! Fernando promised me a few birthday "presents" and showed up with like 4 or 5 Guatemalan guys on the trolley!

Dancing in the trolley!

This was after midnight so I was getting birthday hugs! (We went on Saturday May 16, so it officially wasn't my birthday until midnight!)

It was sooooo fun!

Service Learning Projects

Each year the different grade levels at our school take on service learning projects. In seventh grade this year, our topic was health and we were partnered with a sister school here in town that we were to help out. We spent the first part of our project teaching the kids lessons on different aspects of nutrition. Then we spent the next half of the time having the kids come up with a little workshop with an activity to teach a small group of students from our sister school their lesson on nutrition. The kids worked really hard and got really into it. They all had penpals that they had written letters back and forth to and were looking forward to meeting the kids when they came to our school. Well, due to the glorious SWINE FLU, our school decided to cancel all outside activities with other schools, all sports events, all academic activities, including our service learning project! So the week of, we had to tell the kids that we weren't going to be able to host the other school to participate in their workshops. The kids were pretty disappointed but we ended up inviting elementary classes to come and go through the workshops so that the kids felt like their hard work was for something! It was still fun.

Millers in Antigua

Like any good Guatemala tour, we made a trip to Antigua. It is just such a unique town and so different from Guatemala City. The architecture there is beautiful and when it is clear and you can see the volcanoes, it's so nice!! So we got back from Rio Dulce on Saturday night and got up Sunday morning to head to Antigua before Mike and Gretchen had to fly out on Sunday night. We had beautiful weather and a nice day full of shopping and fun! They even got to experience some Guatemalan classics while here, we passed two dead bodies on the side of the road on our way to Antigua and they felt a tremor while shopping in Antigua!!

Mike and Gretchen with the famous arch in Antigua. This arch was built for a church so they could pass over from the church to where they lived without having to go out in public and cross the street!

One of my favorite pictures of the arch, with the blue sky and the volcano coming through behind it!

Of course a trip to the Sky Bar, one of my favorite places to visit with a nice view!

It was so fun to see the Millers and get to spend time with them!!! In Korea everyone asked if Gretchen and I were sisters. Since we are both from Missouri and we have a lot in common, we just started calling each other our long lost sisters!

Sisters!!!

When we got ready to leave, there was a parade of some sort going on. Well we followed it......all the way back to our car!!!! It took us another 45 minutes to wait out the parade before we could move the car and leave!!!

Boat (Yacht???) Ride

Friday night while we were eating dinner at the restaurant, this little boy and his father come up to Stephanie and say, "Hi Miss Moy." He is a second grader at our school and they came up to say hi! We chatted with them for a few minutes and then the dad proceeds to invite us all to come on their boat with them tomorrow, because they are going to go to a finca (farm) to eat breakfast and then on to the hot water fall. Sure, we said, not sure if it would really happen or not. They said to meet them by 7 am down at the dock. They told us their boat is there and they would be sleeping there that night. Well, nosy us, we meandered our way down there that night and saw this nice LARGE boat sitting there! So we packed up early and went down to the dock where the captain greeted us and let us on the boat and served us a beverage before heading off. We had a great day hanging out with the kids. One of the older girls will be in my class next year. The family was so nice and generous to us all day. It was a super fun day. Then they dropped us off at the car and we headed home! (They headed home on Sunday in their helicopter!!!)

Gretchen and I on the boat!

This was where we stayed, a view from the river. We were in the cabins on the other side though, not quite this pretty of a view!

Here is the Castillo de San Felipe, the Castle of Saint Philip. We didn't stop there but we heard it as just as impressive to drive by and look at as it was to actually go in!

The second grader deciding to go inside the boat, no problem, just climb up the front of it!

The boat.....or yacht, as we referred to it!

We ate breakfast at this farm and then we all piled into the back of this tractor and it pulled us down the road until we got to the path to get to the hot water fall.

This was the weirdest sensation. We went swimming in here and the water coming down from the waterfall was very hot. The water in the pool was cool, so it was this weird hot/cold feeling!!!

Then after about an hour swimming in the waterfall, we came back to the boat and the kids wanted to go for a ride on the banana boat, there was one more space, so I got volunteered to go with them!!! It was fun though!

I had already gotten changed or I would have done this too, but then the kids climbed to the top of the boat and jumped off into the lake!!! So fun! Action shot...

Just lounging around on the Yacht!

Rio Dulce with the Millers (and others)

Mike, Gretchen, and I, along with my neighbor Stephanie, piled into the car on Thursday, the first day off school, and met up with two others cars to caravan to Rio Dulce. We stopped at the ruins, as posted below, and then finally made it to the hotel at Rio Dulce. Rio Dulce is the river that connects Lake Izabal to the Caribbean Sea. It ends right near this Garifuna town of Livingston. Garifuna is a mix of Caribbean and African people who live along the Caribbean coasts of Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and Nicaragua. It was a really cool little town, with a kind of Jamaican feel to it. We got to our hotel on Thursday late afternoon, took a refreshing dip in the pool and hung out there all day, eating dinner at the restaurant that night. Then we rented a boat for the day for all of us, and it took us all the way down the river to Livingston, making some cool stops along the way. We had lunch in Livingston and then came back. Here are some pictures of our day:

In the boat on the way out!

Mike and Gretchen getting blown away!

We came upon this tree and if you look closely it is inhabited by tons of white egrits.

These birds are cormornats. They are taught to dive down into the water and catch fish and then they have to stand here and dry off their wings before they can continue diving. They are pretty cool. Rachel (the science teacher!) was telling me that in Asia they tie their necks so they can't swallow the birds and they use these birds to help them fish. I actually saw it on the Amazing Race later!

No idea what these insects were, some type of grasshoppers or something, but they were all over these plants!!!

Then our boat driver decided to pick one off the plant so we could get a closer look at it!

Then we went to this place where there were lily pads EVERYWHERE!!! It was beautiful!

Finally made it to the town of Livingston.

The beach at the Caribbean Sea. We didn't go in!

Mike, enjoying his "coco loco." These are pretty popular here, coconut milk and rum!

Mike eating his lunch of the local soup, with an entire fish in the soup!

We stopped along the way home so we could swim in the river. Gretchen and I decided to get in for a little bit, even though it was really cold and I'm sure we were the entertainment for the day for the Mayan women in the background.

Quirigua Ruins

My good friends Mike and Gretchen came to visit me over a four day weekend at the beginning of May. I went round and round trying to figure out what to take them to do. They really wanted to go visit Tikal, but it really wasn't logical without flying there. The roads are really curvy and dangerous here and it didn't seem wise to be driving for 16-20 hours within a span of 3-4 days. So I decided to take the to Rio Dulce, somewhere I also wanted to visit, and we also got a short stop at some Mayan ruins on the way up there as well. There were two other couples and Stephanie that we carpooled with to get there. It was a great trip.

Quirigua was the Mayan city state that defeated Copan, but the ruins here were not as impressive as those in Copan. It was still cool though and I'm glad that Mike and Gretchen got to see some of this too! Quirigua is famous for its stellas, which are the carved stones that stand tall.

The leaning stella of Quirigua! (Not the real name, just made it up! ha ha)

Mike and Gretchen with a stella.

Mike Gretchen and I on the steps of the acropolis.

Gretchen being silly!

Gretchen and I by a really large tree!!!

Introducing Gretchen to Guatemala's own cerveza, Gallo!

Student Teachers

We had two student teachers at our school this spring, Laura and Leslie. They were both from a university in Wyoming, who had the opportunity to come do their student teaching at out school. They are such sweet girls and it was fun getting to know them. I'm not sure if I would have ever taken the opportunity but I wish I could have student taught overseas somewhere!! I am so glad they took advantage of this and came! We had a dinner for them before they left and took them out to eat at a favorite restaurant of ours, Tamarindos. It was very yummy!

Me with Leslie and Laura

Sharon and I!

Good luck girls, in whatever you decide to pursue!

Teacher Prom 2009

The teachers at our school have a Prom each year. Not a prom, like a dance for the kids, but a prom as in let's all act like we are seniors and have our own prom! And that we did. It was so much fun, probably even more fun than my own high school prom! We all got dressed up, some in old bridesmaid dresses (me!) and some in rather hideous dresses bought at thrift shops here in Guatemala while others wore dresses that were in style from the year that they went to prom in high school. It was a fun time had by all. I wore a dress that I have now gotten about 3-4 wears out of, first at a New Year's Eve fancy party, then at my sister's wedding, and I believe I wore it to another occasion that I can't recall. And now for prom 2009!!!

Several of us even got our hair done! One girl has a friend who is a hair dresser here so we paid her about ten bucks to fix our hair! She did a great job!

These two girls bought matching dresses at a Guatemalan thrift shop! So cute and 80s!

Me, Jaime, and Steph, ready to party!!!

All of the girls all dressed up for prom!

More friends, Manoela, me, Melissa!

After we got kicked out of the party room, we went to one of our favorite bars in Guatemala to continue the party! A few people changed clothes but most of us went in our prom dresses! We were quite the crowd!

Party is over!

Copan Ruins

We spent Saturday night in the town of Copan, which is this really cute, quaint town, and then Sunday we left early to go explore the ruins. The Copan ruins are the largest ruins in Honduras, and are home to an ancient Mayan civilization that thrived between the 2nd and 9th Century AD. It was one of the strongest city states until it suffered a defeat by the Quirigua in 738. I actually visited the Quirigua ruins about two weeks after I went to Copan when Mike and Gretchen came to visit me! The Copan Ruins went from the time they were abandoned in 984 to almost 1000 years later when they were first written about in 1834. They began to excavate this site in 1934. The buildings did not have roofs as they were destroyed by earthquakes and other natural disasters. It's pretty amazing to see the ruins that were unveiled by a city that existed almost 1000 years ago!

Mom and I climbing up the plaza.

One of the ruins.

You can see the structure of the buildings and how intricately it was designed. Pretty amazing for over 1000 years ago!

This is known as the hieroglyphic staircase, which was destroyed by an earthquake and was found all in pieces. They are going through and doing a lot of work on it right now and getting it all put back together.

There were cowboys everywhere and I thought they were so cute! Here is a picture of me with two of the cowboys that worked there at the ruins site.

After I took my picture with the cowboys, our old tour guide with about four teeth left got jealous and asked for his picture with Sharon, who had joined us on our trip!

Mom taking a rest at the top of the buildings.

The acropolis.

It was a pretty cool site to see. On our drive home, we stopped at a gas station right across the Guatemalan border and I asked for "llena de regular" (full of regular). The gas station attendant didn't understand what I was saying. I said, "regular" in my Spanish accent! He said, "Super?" I said, no regular. He had the super pump put into my gas tank already without pumping it yet. I kept saying, no regular. He acted like he had no clue what I was talking about. He called his buddy over and then they were SMELLING the gas cap and trying to tell me that there was super gasoline in my gas tank. It took about five minutes to convince them that I had never put super gasoline in my gas tank and it was really just regular gas!!! It was quite the fiasco! But finally they obliged and put regular gas in there. I think there must have been some prize for the person who sold the most super gas in a day or something. They thought they could convince the stupid gringos or something! ha ha

Copan Honduras

While my parents were here we also took a little two day trip out to Copan Honduras. There are some old Mayan ruins there, which are supposed to be second biggest after Tikal. It was pretty neat there but sooooo HOT! It was a fun side trip though while they were here.

Here we are crossing the border.

When we got there, we went to a bird park the first day. This is a big toucan!

Dad liked holding all the birds!

This was as close as I would come to them. I'm not a big fan of birds! He's actually not as close as he appears in the picture! ha ha

My favorite place at any excursion!!

The place we stayed was the Casa Jaguar, so as we were driving around and couldn't find the place, Mom saw this jaguar and said, that's it - I remember seeing that picture on the website!!! Well, she was right, this was where we were staying!

Whenever I am meeting new Guatemalan friends and they ask where I am from, I like to respond to them, "Soy chapina," meaning, I am Guatemalan. Of course they always laugh and I know I look nothing like a Guatemalan. Well one time a friend told me that they do have blond haired, blue eyed Guatemalans but they are all from Zacapa, so if I say I am chapina, I need to say, "Soy de Zacapa," meaning, I am from Zacapa. Or, I could just say, "Soy Zacapaneca," meaning I am a person from Zacapa. I liked learning to say this word, so now that is what I tell pepole when I meet them and they ask where I am from. It's a nice ice breaker to a conversation! ha ha. So on our way to Copan, we had to pass through Zacapa, so I took a picture by my "hometown" sign! :)

Parent's Visit

It was so fun having my parents here and being able to show them around Guatemala and introduce them to a few new things!

One of the things I made sure to introduce them to for their first meal here in Guatemala was Pollo Campero, Guatemala's finest fast food fried chicken place! We have most American fast food chains here except KFC. :)

In Antigua, there is a really nice hotel there called Casa Santo Domingo. It has beautiful grounds, so I took Mom and Dad there to show them around. Here they are with the birds!

Mom and I in front of some nice flowers there!

And of course I had to take them to the new mall! We had breakfast there one morning before heading down to zone 1.

This was inside the national palace, which we took a tour of. Looking out one of the doors.

They had an art exhibit there with all these pictures of quetzals. Stephanie and I really want to see one, so we weren't sure if this was as close as we'd ever get!!!

Nice quetzal!

Semana Santa Processions

Along with the alfombras being made, there were several processions along different routes in Antigua. Different churches would sponsor these processions and each one consisted of several people either dressed in purple or in black or in white carrying different floats. I'm not sure what to call these things they carried. They all depicted different scenes of Holy Week, usually either of Jesus or of Mary. The men carried the ones with Jesus, while they women carried the ones with the virgin Mary on them. It was all accompanied by music, usually very solemn, with all sorts of tourists in the road taking pictures! There would be incense along with the processions. These processions would go very slowly along the routes, most of them lasting for several (like 8-10) hours. The people would pay a fee to their church in order to have a part in carrying, as part of their penance, I've heard. Very interesting. There would be a person at the front carrying a number and when you saw your number up there you knew it was your turn to go find your spot and take over for the person carrying.

There would usually be people that came to line the sides of the street before the procession came through, like below.

Here is an example of one such "float" depicting Jesus carrying His cross.

Here are the Roman soldiers lining the streets before this procession came.

Even small children would be dressed up in the same attire and be accompanying fathers, brothers, uncles, etc on the sides.

This one was HUGE. I think there were like over 100 marked spots for people to be carrying this one.

Doesn't this look fun?