Guatemala Summary

the team (left to right, you figure it out): me, John, Jillaine, Edwina, Kim, Jim, Deb, Megan, Lupe, Heather, CJ, and Marvin (our cool driver for the week)

phew! so it's been an extremely busy 2 weeks since I've been back home. with our long Texas trip and then my trip to Guatemala 2 weeks later, I've been swamped at work and home. I promise I'll put away the laundry tomorrow Dana! :-)

First off, I want to thank Dana for the fantastic posts! it was great to see all the funny videos when i got home (Aria was asleep).

so let's see. my last post (when i was actually there) was from the city of Panajachel. if i had brought my blackberry charger, i might have been able to keep sending posts. I tried to send a post that Monday, but that's when my blackberry decided it didn't have enough juice to email 2-3 pictures and a nice chunk of text. that post in its entirety is here now:

7/14/2008
"Woke up early this morning and had a delicious breakfast, then drove from the catholic retreat in Xela to the village of Xiabaj (She-ah-BA) to meet the children at their school as well as the teachers and principal. The Highland support project has several people teaching the women in the village how to create jewelry, so they can have another form of income.

"The children at the elementary school had presentations for us from each grade. The kindergartners sang songs and played little instruments, other grades showed how they weave detailed patterns from memory, others danced, and still others made masa (a type of dough from corn) and cooked tortillas over an open fire inside a classroom!

"Now we are heading to meet the families with whom we will work with to build the stoves in their houses. Another 2 hour bumpy ride, yay!

"Interesting to note: I didn't realize, but Xela is 8k feet above sea level, and Xiabaj is 10k! At that altitude, shortness of breath is easily attained :-)

after meeting the families, we went back to the retreat where we had a nice dinner and relaxed, preparing for the next 3 days of work. the team started our devotional routine where we would talk about what affected us the most that day, and then we would have our "medicine" — tequila shots FTW!! seriously, we were told tequila kills the bacteria that can cause "problems," and no one had "problems" all week.

I've stolen some pictures from my new friends' facebook albums, here they are!

walking back from the school at Xiabaj: at 10k feet, it's cloudy most of the time

Drink your medicine...

The beginnings of our first stove — Jim and I built 1.75 stoves in 3 days...

The family at the second house where we built a stove

the cake — for one of the mason's surprise 69th birthday party. the scar on my face — they told me to come up with a cool story, but the quick and dirty of it is i fell on my face. yeah.

Fun weekend!

We had a fun packed weekend. Friday we went to a free concert at a neighboring town, which was nice, and Aria even stayed up a little past her bed time (we lived to talk about it, haha). Saturday we went to a friend’s house for a BBQ and we got to meet baby Eve who is 1.5 wks old! Sunday Goofydaddy and I parted in the morning so he could go with Aria to our church and I played in the flute choir at another church. We met up for lunch at our church picnic. Goofydaddy took Aria in the pool and she enjoyed it. It was hard to get her to take a break for lunch! I arrived with enough time to take a dip with Aria, put her in the stroller for a nap, get a bite to eat and then the skies opened up! It worked out great for Aria’s nap getting home so quick and well…we ended up taking a nap too on the couch while relaxing in front of the TV. We ended the perfect weekend with a fun bath too! My Aunt gave Aria some color tablets for the bath (sounds weird but I believe they are all natural). She loved it and I’m teaching her that red and blue make purple! Way cool. Thanks Tante Pia and family!

Goofydaddy's Return - Quick Update

Poor Goofydaddy. When he got home he gradually felt worse and worse. He thinks he ate something a little "off" on the way home. Our plans of going to my G-pa's memorial service together had to change. Goofydaddy stayed behind to get better, while Aria and I headed out Sunday evening. Separated again :-(

Aria did really well with me. I'm a pro at flying solo by now, so I didn't even think twice about going alone with her :-) She was really good. Thank goodness.

We are home now and I'm trying to get things back together and take care of some much needed cleaning.

So, WELCOME HOME GOOFYDADDY! And we are glad you are finally feeling better.

Here are a couple pictures from our trip:

Aria fiddles on the piano with my cousin before my G-pa's service

My sister poses with Aria and all her buddies

Day Seven & Eight

Yay! The last two days are done. Aria was surprisingly grouchy these two days and I'm pretty sure she's getting sick of me. We need to mix some Daddy in there desperately.

Aria offering me "wine" with her cheese

Yesterday was fun because we had a neighborhood street Happy Hour. This is always nice because Aria plays real hard and then goes to bed easily. It's just out front so I get some adult interaction with the monitor right there if she needs me (which she hardly does). Today we did the mall playground circuit - we hit the first mall early and then met up with Austin at the 2nd mall. That was fun because she was totally entertained with little help from me and it was climate controlled!

Aria and Austin taking turns on the slide

Happy Aria!

She had fallen asleep in the car, so when we got home she woke up too much to take a nap (she tried for an hour). This like never happens! So later in the afternoon we went to a grocery store and she slept through the entire thing - even going from the car seat to stroller and back. This evening was nice...Austin's parents invited us over for dinner and the kids had so much fun. They were REALLY interacting for pretty much the first time. It was the cutest thing...of course it's the one time I forget my camera. They got a couple shots, so I will have to get those from them.

Goofydaddy should be showing up in the middle of the night tonight. I'm so excited. I made it through the week. I knew I could do it, but I was just nervous about doing it all alone for so long. It made it much more manageable with all the help from my neighbors. You guys are the best!!!

I'm glad I have the week documented with the blog for Goofydaddy because I can barely remember yesterday! He has so many of her new things to catch-up on. I can't wait to hear his opinion of how much she's changed. And I can't wait to get the details of his travels.

Over and out!

Day Six - "A Big Froggy"

2 more full days to go! I can do this :-) Today she was pretty good and just routine. On the way home we stopped at a store and they had water toys on sale. So, I picked out a frog pool, squirty thing. Aria loved it even without the water.

A face only a mother could love - HAHA!

We went over to Austin's to play with the frog and the pool he has. Austin's dad sang Ring Around the Roses and it was so cute that Austin and Aria held hands. The evening went by so fast and soon it was bedtime. I had a fun time being with adults after work.

Ring Around the Roses

Aria gets squirted in the face!

Aria and Austin take a little break

Kevin finally sent a short e-mail. He said he scraped one side of his face...yikes! Hope you are ok Goofydaddy. We miss you soooooo much!

Day Five - "I lub Daddy!"

I LUB DADDY!

Ok, we're ready for you to come home, Goofydaddy. Things are going alright, but life if so much better with you around!

Aria slept in a little later this morning (7:15), which was nice. I was so worried about getting ready in the morning and it hasn't been bad at all. She had a good day at school too. The teacher caught on to Aria's poo schedule...I was being greeted since the end of last week by a poo diaper and not realizing it until I went to pick her up to take her up the steps (GROSS). One day it got all over my arm! Apparently Aria's got a clock in her pants, so the last two days they've changed her diaper before I got there. It's cool they figured it out and are on the look out for it (the last place would have never adjusted in this way). They are changing her earlier that hour as well, but she is just going RIGHT before I picked her up. So today when I arrived she was getting her diaper changed and I had a nice talk with the teacher. One thing she said is that Aria is one of the last kids to fall asleep at naptime. She talks and talks and says "nite-nite" like 50 times, haha! The teacher said it she's not keeping the other kids up because they are used to noises (thank goodness). Then she's one of the last to wake up, which seems to fit the nap-time Aria I know.

When we got home we went to the playground. She climbed up the stairs and went down the slide all by herself (with me waiting for her at the end of the slide).

Then after dinner we went back out and played in the neighbors sprinkler :-) I call it her pre-bath to get the bug spray and sunscreen off, hehe.

Day Four - "I fall down"

Folks, we have a faker on our hands.

Today is another good day. Although, Aria got upset for the first time this morning when I dropped her off. She seemed a little crankier than normal this morning. She just cried for like 30 seconds when we got to her classroom, but then I handed the little broom to her and she was fine.

This morning she also said to me after I pulled her out of the crib, "See Daddy." Awwwwww.

After school we pulled out the bubbles and Aria actually blew bubbles. I didn't know she could do this yet. She always used to put the wand in her mouth instead of up to her mouth. Just a couple weeks pass and there we have it...bubbles!

This evening I had flute choir practice and after going down the list of neighbors and friends to baby-sit for a couple hours, my wonderful neighbor Julie and her daughter came to the rescue (again)! She said Aria was good and I'm glad! I came home to a sleeping baby, so I'm happy with that.

Kevin e-mailed and said that his Blackberry is almost out of juice and he won't be able to blog. Apparently there is an internet cafe they can get to, but it's just a matter of finding the time. :-( I miss having contact with my husband!