Wow, this blog posting is really difficult. It's time to say good-bye to Guatemala, after all this time. Tommorrow morning at 5:30am we leave our house to go to the airport. It's been a very busy and emotional day. When I think about this year, there are some major themes that strike me as being so meaningful to me, and to our family. The first is how wonderful the actual country of Guatemala is. Before we came here, we thought of Guatemala as some poor developing country that was stuck in a tragic history of poverty and civil war. And although the sad truth is that Guatemala is experiencing all the pains of a developing country, it has so much more to offer. First and foremost, the people we have met during our time here have ... read more

As I mentioned in our Semuc Champey entry, we wanted to take a couple more roadtrips before we depart this lovely country. Our final item on the list was a trip out to Todos Santos, way out northwest in the highlands. It's considered fairly remote and isloated, so doesn't get a lot of visitors. We decided to time the trip with the visit of our friends Carlos and Djuna, who were visiting us from Seattle, as it's always fun to share these roadtrips with friends. So on Friday afternoon we went, car fully packed, to the kids' school to pick them up and head on out. As Lucas and Grace were getting in the van, Hugo's son Carlos Roberto came by to say goodbye to his dad for the weekend, as we had hired Hugo to ... read more

For Mother's Day, which is actually celebrated on May 10 of every year, as opposed to second Sunday, Lucas and Grace's school put on a little show for us moms. With a scheduled start time of 10am, the event started promptly at 10:45 or so, with a pretty entertaining performance by a nationally known singer, "Elisabeth." (Hey, she must be good: you can find her in Wikipedia, AND she's got only one name). She is a very talented performer of the old-school type: a sort of Edye Gormet sort of singer, and charmed the audience of several hundred women. Then came the highlight for me, Lucas' debut as a supermodel! The school had decided to put on a fashion show. (How this relates to their education or honors their mothers, I'm not quite sure). He was ... read more

Today we became landowners! Steve and I casually started looking at real estate in December, shortly after we returned from New Zealand. It was the standard procedure: Steve and I start dreaming about owning a vacation home, we look around and see what's available, and then we come down to reality and talk ourselves out of it. This has worked so well during these past 18 years of marriage - we never once actually pulled the trigger on a vacation property, but really enjoyed the process of dreaming, looking, visiting, and dreaming some more. But to actually buy something? Why would we want to do that??!! Who needs to be burdened by all the responsibilities of ownership? It's much better to keep your freedom and visit a variety of places than to be bogged down by ... read more

Steve: "Holy" Sonja: "Seeped in culture" Grace: "Outstandingly beautiful" Lucas: "Surreal" These are the words we have each chosen to describe Semana Santa, or Holy Week. In the weeks since the last procession on Easter Sunday, I have repeatedly gone back to my memories and tried to come to any sort of clarity on how to describe it. Words will likely fail, so this entry is heavy on pictures. If you do nothing else, please view the pictures in their enlarged view, as they look too small for the job in thumbnail view. The videos give you a small taste; I have compressed them so that they will stream faster to your PC, so although the quality is a little fuzzy, you'll get an idea of how the floats move and sound. Semana Santa is THE ... read more