UGH!!

Well we were supposed to go to Guatemala the first week of February (next week)....then Chris was going to go and the kids and I were going to follow on the 13th....now, who knows!?!?! We have sold off most of our furniture, packed up everything else and we're pretty much living out of suitcases right now. This whole being in limbo is really getting old. It doesn't help that we get to see Chris for 1 day out of the week since he has to drive back and forth between here and Salt Lake City every week.
On a more positive note though....Cole is getting baptized on Saturday. We are really excited for him and the decision that he made. He's a pretty good kid.

1/15/09 cont

The banana trees along the road come in many varieties.

Day 4 1/15/09

I think we'll be able to survive living in Guatemala. It is going to be a HUGE adjutsment!! Not just the physical differences, the language differences, the driving differences, and the eating differences....to name a few. It was pretty funny when we went to dinner last night there was a sign out front that said if you are smaller than this height you get to eat for free. Chris pointed out that none of our kids (Not even 3 year old Laina) were short enough. I guess that's one drawback to having tall kids....no free meals for them!! Today we went up to the temple site. It was so cool to stand up there and take pictures. (Yes, I'll post them when I get home). The soil testing people dug a couple huge holes about 15' each. Anyway, one of the holes was growling at us. Come to find out a wild dog had fallen down the hole. There were wild dogs all over. They rank up there with pigeons for me. YUCK!! The lot below the temple is a big field also, There is a squatters tent under one of the big trees. While we were there a bunch of police officers came over. We just assumed that they were being kicked out but after about an hour and ten million more cops, reporters and vehicles later, we realized that somebody had died in the tent. The funeral home trucks were all lining up to take the body away. It was pretty sad to see how severe the poverty is. Hopefully while we are in Guatemala we'll be able to find ways that we will be able to help the community and to also get out a little bit. It is definitely going to be difficult to make friends there. I already told Chris that I'm making chocolate chip cookies the first day to give to the security guard. I definitely need to have him on my good side. We decided not to bother looking at the other houses today. We're pretty much set on the first house we looked at. It has a park and areas for the kids to run around and play. There are also construction people working on other houses. I asked Chris if they would pay Cole a buck to help out. He laughed at me and said that they don't have an extra buck. I asked if Cole could pay them a buck to let him help out. Cole really seems to enjoy having a job! We also went shopping to get an idea of how much it will cost to furnish the place. It was pretty reassuring to see that the stores have EVERYTHING we could ever need. We even went to a toy store!! They had the Simpsons operation game in spanish. After our shopping, it was time to drive back to Guatemala City. When we drove to Quetzaltenango, we took the high roads. (Up north in the mountains or highlands). For the drive back we decided to take the coastal road. I am so glad that we did. It was still very windy and crazy drivers but it was GORGEOUS! I can not wait to get my pictures downloaded. Granted they are all taken from the back seat of a car driving super fast and winding all over. There were fruit/vegetable stands all over. At one point a lady pulled some vegetables out of her garden area and ran them out to the truck waiting on the side of the road. We saw banana trees which I have been waiting the whole trip to see. They have a ton of varieties of bananas here. We also saw what we think were coconut trees. There were tarzan vines that someday I am going to stop and try to swing on. They also had rubber trees. Not exactely sure what they use them for. (Duncan no comments please!! (: )The drive also took us through the sugar cane fields. It is harvesting season so the roads were full of huge trucks loaded up with sugar cane. A lot of the pieces would fall out of the trucks so they had workers going down the road picking up the pieces. We pulled over and grabbed a piece to check out. It was weird to think that sugar comes out of those things that look like a stick! We made it back to Guatemala City in about 4 hours. It has been a long exhausting trip and I am very excited to go back home and see my kids, sleep in my own bed, and eat something that I don't have to learn how to say in Spanish!!

Day 3 1/14/09

Everything is so strange. We went to look at a microwave and all of the commands are in spanish. I am trying to type on a keyboard with everything different. I still can{t figure out how to get the apostrophe. I had to have somebody show me how to do the @ sign. I have to push alt64. How random is that?? Anyway, if you see { instead of an apostrophe, it{s the best I can do!! I can{t remember if I wrote that they have people (even little tiny kids) that go up and down the streets trying to sell stuff. My favorite so far is the guys with the bags of cotton candy like in a sports stadium. I told Cole about it and he was disappointed that I didn{t buy any! To be honest I{m a little hesitant to open the windows!! Today we went house shopping. We looked at 3 places and we{ll look at a couple more tomorrow. The first one was a little ways out of town in a guard gated (A guy holding a shot gun!!) community. The only problem is that there is only one completed house so far. The house is gorgeous though. We{d definitely have to get an alarm system and if the kids get their way, a dog also!! The second house was well.....there. It was actually probably the craziest building I have ever been in. Here in Guatemala they build until they run out of money. They{ll put in a first floor but have rebar sticking up to do a second floor. If the house isn{t finished then they don{t have to pay taxes. When they get enough money then they build the next floor and so on. Anyway, this house had so many levels that I lost track. There were 5 bedrooms 4 baths. The stairs were just barely staying up by a single nail. By the top level, I was fearing for my life. That house also came with free pieces of random furniture and pigeons. There were holes big enough for full size pigeons to fly in-out. DISGUSTING!! That house is definitely off our list.The third house was a combination of the two. It had definitely been thrown together but was a little nicer. It did feel like I was in a big prison though. Their security guard only had a pistol though!! It cracks me up how common it is to have armed security guards EVERYWHERE. You can{t even park without going through a security guard. I guess it should make me feel safer! We went to the mall today and I was surprised and how much it was like an American mall. I was able to order Subway all by myself!! (I am so proud of myself!!) There was even a movie theatre.One thing that I really have a hard time with is that the streets have walls built up on both sides that hide what{s on the otherside. They have little shops and stuff in them. It{s really hard to figure out where you are since everything is so closed in. The cobblestone streets are pretty cool though! Tomorrow we{ll go look at a few more houses and then we{ve got to make a decision. We{ll head back to Guatemala city tomorrow to fly out early Friday. We{re actually going to drive back a different way going along the Pacific coast. Apparently it is sugar cane harvest time and we{ve been told that there will be lots of trucks loaded with sugar cane. Crazy stuff!!

Day1 and Day 2 1/12/09-1/13/09

Day 1 (Monday): Chris has meetings all day so I was left in the hotel to fend for myself. It was very nice to get to take a nice nap with nobody to wake me up. Once I woke up though, I had to face the reality that I needed to order some food....in Spanish. It was pretty funny, embarassing, confusing, but I managed to most of my order right. After the meetings, the architect from Guatemala took Chris and I to have dinner with another American family living in Guatemala City. It was nice to get to ask them questions and see what it is really like to live in a foreign country. Day 2 (Tuesday): This morning we (Chris, me, and Dave) took the rental car to head to Quetzaltenango. I can not say enough about how crazy the driving is here. A stop sign is a yield. People just pull out wherever they want. I have to close my eyes half the time. Well, we made it out of Guatemala City and headed for Quetzaltenango. It is a good thing that I do not get motion sickness because the roads were horrible. They were sooooo curvy. We saw two big huge trucks overturned in the middle of the road. (In two separate places!!) Chris was really suffering! It was so cool to see the people on the sides of the roads with their mayan clothing, baskets on their heads, babies in pouches on their back, etc. Not to mention all the wild dogs. (Boy are they UGLY!!) We also saw pigs, sheep, cows, etc on the side of the road. The mountain sides are in sections where each family farms. It is pretty crazy. We made a stop at Lake Atitlan for lunch. I once again got to attempt to speak spanish with the people trying to sell goods. I do have to say that in just the past two days I have been able to say small things like gracias without mumbling under my breath and without having to look down!! I am making babysteps!! Anyway, the restaurant overlooked the lake and its volcanoes. It was very beautiful! I will try to add pictures later. After lunch it was back on the road for more curving and winding and ups and downs and all over the place. We finally made it to Quetzaltenango. Wow. All I can say is that it has been a real eye opener!! I can not even begin to describe it. As Chris says, we are on sensory overload!! We did find the temple site, a mall, the slums, more slums, the market and finally our hotel.Well, we are finally in our hotel and as tired as can be.I will try to describe more tomorrow.

1st Day in Guatemala 1/12/09

We (Chris and I) finally made it to Guatemala at about midnight last night. Our flight out of Vegas was delayed so by the time we got to Houston our next flight was boarding. We got on but ended up sitting on the plane for 2 hours since there was a poor lady traveling with 4 kids by herself. Two of which were lap kids....twins less than a year old who were both screaming bloody murder. I felt soooo bad for the mom!! Anyway there were all these safety issues and after leaving the gate we ended up having to go back and let her off the plane. Then we had to sit for another hour while they unloaded all of the bags to find hers and then reload the bags. We got here and went through immigration. It was pretty weird trying to understand what people were saying to me!! All of our luggage made it and we were off to the hotel. We're staying at the Holiday Inn Guatemala on the 17th floor It is really weird that they just have vents to the outside and the windows don't line up so there are gaps everywhere. It is VERY noisy!!! I was taking a shower this morning and I thought for sure and airplane was flying into the bathroom!! We have a nice little balcony to look out over the city. There are three volcanoes. I took some pictures but failed to bring the cord to download them. The drivers are crazy. We got about 5 hours of sleep last night (who am I kidding....I couldn't sleep with my mind racing!!) Luckily for me though, all the guys (Oh, we are traveling with Chris' boss, Dave, and their estimator, Brett) have meetings today. We all had breakfast then they took off and I get to hang out in the hotel all day. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep a little. The people have all been nice....the only interaction I've had so far has been immigration and the hotel though!! They are definitely a shorter group of people. I am trying my best to move out of my comfort zone and attempt to speak the language. Cole....I couldn't remember the word for eggs this morning!! I did learn how to say toast though...I think it is tostada. I'm probably wrong though. I have been trying to remember to say gracias instead of thank you. It is really weird how certain things just automatically come out of your mouth. Tomorrow after meetings, we're heading to Quetzaltenango for two days then back to Guatemala City. Tonight we are having dinner with a family that lives here working for Wal=Mart. They are hopefully going to answer some of our quetions.I am going to try to keep a journal/blog for the time here in Guatemala. That is definitely not one of my strengths so if I actually do it, it'll be a miracle!!