2/14/10-2/20/10

Sunday, February 14, 2010 - Valentine's Day

The kids were so excited to take Valentines Day cards for their primary teachers today. While they were excited about taking their cards, I was enjoying the wonderful breakfast that Chris made!! What a great way to start the morning!

After church, I was talking to my friend Sully in Spanish. She is always so patient with me and really helps me out a lot. The funny thing was when she was talking to me, another sister kept translating it into English for me...not realizing that I was actually understanding!!

My Valentines Day afternoon was spent at a stake music meeting for piano players. I walked in and didn't recognize anybody. I didn't even know if I was in the right place! After a while the stake music lady showed up so I at least knew I was where I was supposed to be. I was quite surprised by how many people were there. I was pretty unsure of myself but tried to help set up. When they were starting the meeting, the stake music lady asked me my name and then asked if I would play the piano for the opening song. Talk about intimidating!! I wasn't even sure if that was what she was asking, then I didn't know what page number, then I found out it was a song that I'd never played in front of people before, and then I had to use her keyboard that I couldn't figure out how to turn on, and then I had to stand up because the table was too tall....oh boy, oh boy! With a little help from above, I was able to get through the moment and survive with limited embarrassment. Apparently the class was to try to help teach the piano players a little more. The guy that taught the class (from what I think I understood) has a lot of music experience. He taught a few basic things and then had everybody go to their keyboards to practice. I ended up letting a couple of other people use my keyboard and I just kind of wandered around and tried to help out as much as I could. I had several people approach me and ask me about the piano class. The class is already full of people from the ward so we're trying to figure something out to help the people on a stake level. The guy teaching the class (he went to BYU and can speak English) said that I was a professional! I sure have the people here fooled!

After the class, I ran into the ballet teacher from the school. She congratulated me on not being at the school anymore. I told her that Morgan, Alysa, and Laina want to take ballet lessons. Chris is supposed to call and get something set up with her!

The rest of the week:

Life got a little crazy this week so I'm just going to have to do a brief overview of the events.

This is a (sideways) video of a dust storm in our backyard. The dry season definitely produces a lot of dust! The house is always full of dust again! I think I prefer the mud during the rainy season!

At preschool this week, the kids had a Mardi Gras party. They kids all got dressed up. Alysa wanted to wear one of my old ice skating skirts over her clothes! Quite the outfit! A tradition they have here is to fill empty egg shells with confetti and then crack them on each others heads. The girls sure had fun smacking the shells on our heads. They also had fun with Gabby Thomas being at the school with them. There are more white kids than Guatemalans!

Teacher Lily, and the kids.

There is a place about an hour and a half from here that has a water park and an amusement park next to each other. Everybody raves about it and we thought we should check it out. We started at the water park which is called Xocomil. Alysa was not feeling good and was very upset and cranky. All the kids were disgusted when we made them take Dramamine before the day!! (Well worth it!!) We also had to use a ton of sunblock!

There were a couple different playground type areas with water slides for the smaller kids. It was a good warm up for the day.


It didn't take much encouragement for Morgan and Cole to go on the bigger rides. We couldn't slow them down!

There were some of the coolest plants there. It was closer down towards the coast so it was VERY hot and humid! This flower was actually a small one. There were some that were about 2 feet long!

A waterslide.

We were able to get the whole family on this ride! Laina and Alysa both had looks of pure terror until we got out and then they loved it.

There were cool decorations throughout the park.

We spent all morning and past noon at the water slides. Nobody complained once about being hungry! The second that we changed out of our swim suits everybody was starving though!

Our next stop was Xetulul. It was the amusement park side and was supposed to have better restaurants. We were so hungry that we just got some food at the first place we saw! We were still hungry and spent the rest of the afternoon looking for another restaurant that we all wanted to go to....in between going on rides!

Chris, Cole, and I went on a big rollercoaster. We should have had Morgan take pictures! That was such a bad decision because we were all queasy the rest of the time there! The heat didn't help matters either!

All the kids really enjoyed this roller coaster. They are in the back two cars.

There were a couple rides that were just perfect for Alysa and Laina.

The pyramids.


We enjoyed a relaxing train ride around the outside of the park. We got to see coffee plants also.

Once they got the hang of the cars, Morgan and Cole were maniacs.


It was crazy to think that Laina was our only child that was still small enough to go on this ride!


Even with the extreme exhaustion by the end of the day, everybody had a great time and we'll definitely need to go back again.




Our new friends, The Thomas Family, have a little boy that just turned 8 and got baptized. They invited us to his party at their house. They had a bunch of games and lots of neighborhood friends.

The first game was bobbing for apples. None of our kids would participate (I couldn't blame them!) so I was SHOCKED, to say the least, when Chris walked up at the end and dunked his whole head in until he came up with an apple. He said he had to take one for the team.



donut game
I actually enjoyed the next game quite a bit. Cole and I both ate donuts off a string with no hands. How can you turn down a donut??







Who doesn't love a powdered sugar face?



There were some other games. I was so proud of Cole and his willingness to try new things even though he wasn't very comfortable.
Following the games, there were a couple of pinatas. How can you have a party in Guatemala without a pinata? I guess I need to start thinking about getting a pinata for Alysa's birthday in a week or two!

We also were fortunate enough to get to attend Brigham's baptism. I was amazed at how many people were there packed into a tiny little room in a tiny little building! I was asked to play the piano for the baptism but I had to be smashed in the very back because there was only one electrical outlet in the entire room for me to plug the keyboard into!! (The chapel is so small that they don't even have a piano!) There also were no chairs tall enough for the tables that they had so my creative husband went and got a cushion off of one of the van seats and brought it in for me. He's great!

The baptism was wonderful and it was great to be with friends and to meet new people.

The piano class is going well....I think. There are a few people who are always laughing. I am not sure if they are laughing at me, because they don't understand a word I am saying, or if they are just happy! Choir is going very good also. We had over 40 people this week. I was very sad to hear that our choir president got in a motorcycle accident on his way home from choir though. From what I have heard/understood, he is doing o.k. but can't walk and can't work for a while.

Last week I attended a baby shower where I thought I was playing a game, but in actuality, I was volunteering to help the lady after she had her baby. I opted to go ahead and do my best rather than playing the "I didn't understand" card. I made some soup, bread, and goodies and with Chris' help we took a dinner into the family with the new baby, as well as the family of the choir president. Each chance that I get to serve and see the reaction of these wonderful people, it makes me want to do more and more. It has definitely been an amazing opportunity for our family to be in Guatemala and to learn from these amazing people!