3/11/09

WHAT A DAY!! Holy cow!!
We started our day at 1:30 a.m. when I found out there was no water to the house....again! I tried to go back to sleep but knew I had to be up by 4:00 so I didn't get much sleep! Chris and I got all four kids up and took them over to the Cheney's house (the family here working for the church) at 4:45. We left the kids there with their daughter while Bro/Sis. Cheney caravanned with Chris and I to Guatemala City. We took the highlands and got to go through lots of construction. The first hour of driving was pitch black through the mountains. The roads were insane. Several times there would be loads of rocks sitting in the middle of a lane with a twig as a warning marker! I don't know how many times the roads went from two lanes to one with no warnings. Or from being one direction to both directions! Needless to say there were a lot of prayers!!
Once the sun started to come up, it was absolutely beautiful! We were so high up that the mountains were sticking out above the clouds. This place is gorgeous!
In Guatemala City, we were able to exchange our little piece of junk car/van for a real minivan. It seems SOOOO huge after driving that other thing for two weeks! After that, Chris and Bro. Cheney went to do some work and I went shopping with Sis. Cheney. The stores and selection was so much better than in Quetzaltenango! I found a few things that I couldn't find anywhere else....cooling rack, bread crumbs, root beer, etc. I still didn't find Kleenex or an oven thermometer though.
To bypass all of the construction, we opted to take the lowlands/coastal road back home. That wasn't a very wise decision. We ended up getting sent on some detour and then we ended up behind ten million semi's trying to go up through the mountains. It is so scary how people pass on the roads here. They don't care one bit if an oncoming car is in their way. Especially the chicken buses....they seem to have the right of way everywhere. Chris kept telling me to do something on the computer or go to sleep but there was no way I could do that with the nonstop stress of the driving!! Chris said that he now knows where they get their inspiration for all of the car racing video games. We also decided that the roads/driving is 10 times worse than the Sterling Hwy (before all of the improvements!) and the Alcan combined. It's a miracle that people don't die every day on these roads! On a positive side though, there seems to be very little road rage. (:
It was after 7:30 by the time we got back to pick up the kids. They had had a blast with Alaura (spelling??) . They did nails (except Cole, he read), watched a bunch of movies, played with the dog, etc. About 10 minutes before we got back the water and power to their house went out. At least it's not just us that is having problems!! Our water problem ended up being a broken water main to our house. It was fixed while we were gone!! We now have water again.