(Sung to the tune from Annie Lennox) On Saturday we decided to walk on a live volcano. The rules are a little different in Guatemala so when our guide said that we’d be “playing with molten lava” I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. It ended up being a great day. Only an hour or so from Antigua is the trailhead for the Pacaya Volcano. We drove past Guatemala City and up into the mountains, leaving the car in a parking lot full of horses that are available to take tourists to the lava. We decided to huff it up there [View Full Entry]

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Oh, the weather: You've all probably heard of the dry and rainy seasons in tropical climates. I've never really thought much about that - as a Northwesterner I've grown up with the 4 very distinct seasons, and thought that pretty much the rest of the world experienced similar climates. I remember the wonderment of a college friend from Los Angeles, on her first sight of "red trees" because she had never in her life seen the colors of autumn leaves before. Well, today was my "a-ha" day on what the rainy season means in Guatemala (or at least, Antigua). In the [View Full Entry]

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Sunday marked the first opportunity for us to explore the local churches and we were invited to join our new friends Philip, Christine and kids at the Catholic Cathedral in town. The mass was held in what was a chapel portion of the massive Cathedral that was destroyed in one of the earthquakes. The chapel has been restored and holds about 400 or so people so it is really tiny compared to the overall structure. We have a lot to learn about the order of mass in Spanish but the priest spoke clearly enough that I think we’ll be able to [View Full Entry]

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Friday was a pretty fun day for all of us. The stage was actually set the day before. This being the rainy season, yesterday (Thursday 8/16) we got caught in a rainstorm and took refuge in the lovely Projecto Cultural El Sitio to sit out the downpour. This took us about 10 minutes, and I got a shot of some rain coming down the spouts. The nice thing about this weather is that despite the rain, the temperature doesn't change much. You go through the whole day in shirtsleeves and never consider yourself too hot or too cold. And they consider [View Full Entry]

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Just before we left our house in Seattle, Grace and Lucas' Aunt Liane and Uncle Randy gave them a beautiful new camera for taking pictures of their time here. In "read full article mode,"click on the video icon to the left to see the video. Grace immediately set about making a little video and photo essay of the house to show to Liane. Here is both her pictures and her video! (Note the perspective from about 4'11" - Grace is a pretty down-to-earth gal...) [View Full Entry]

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One of the amazing things this year (leading up to our departure from Seattle) has been the people we have heard about, talked to, or met, whose primary connection to us is Guatemala. I love that our social nature brings out of us all what Malcom Gladwell calls Connectors. Last Spring I wrote a little blurb in our school newsletter "signing off" as board chair and mentioning that our family would be moving away for a year in Guatemala. A few days later, a school parent emailed me saying that her sister lives in Guatemala, and she wondered what town we [View Full Entry]

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The first day of school wasn’t just a big deal for Lucas and Grace. All of us were a little nervous about this important step. Julio (who works for Hugo) picked us up at 7:30 for the ten minute drive and then we sat in the lobby near the secretaries’ desks waiting for the director to arrive. It was fun to notice all of the similarities between here and home. The two secretaries clearly run the place! Parents and kids racing in and out with questions to answered, calls to be made, projects to be stored and problems to be solved. [View Full Entry]

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Sunday was truly a day of rest for us. Even though we don't have any real workload, we easily get tired after just walking around, trying to figure stuff out with our very basic Spanish. On Sunday morning we decided to get a better sense of our little SW corner of Antigua. We wanted to check out a few locations, in particular find places for us to swim some day. We first found the Gymnasium, and later the beautiful Porta Hotel Antigua. There we saw the lovely pool and grounds, filled with lots of families enjoying Sunday brunch. As we strolled [View Full Entry]

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Our travel to Guatemala went just as planned. It is really only 7 hours of flying plus a 2 hour layover in Dallas on the way down. We landed in Guatemala City at about 8pm on the 8th and stayed the night at an airport hotel because they had a shuttle for us. It is a good option for a quick overnight with a local feel and free breakfast. The morning of the 9th, Hugo Suarez of Expeditions Guatemala picked us up and delivered us to our house in Antigua. Last year when we came to visit, we stayed in the [View Full Entry]

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As we move nearer to our departure date, we are frequently asked what we are doing to prepare for this. Over the course of the past 4-5 months we have jotted rough notes to create something of a list to keep us on track. Some of you will recognize since we have been qvetching about it for a while, and others are somewhat mind-numbing. One thing is for sure: moving out of your house is a great way to catch up on the great household To Do List! (B&C refer to Steve's sister Christy and her husband, Brett, who will [View Full Entry]

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