I give THANKS

So much to be grateful for in this time of thanksgiving.

Fresh on my mind is my gratitude for parents who love me and truly would do anything for me. Gratitude for the priviledge of being a parent of two exceptional children who's pure hearts teach me every day. And gratitude for the blessing of sharing this life journey with a wonderful man who is not only my love, but my best friend too.This is us after the delicious feast looking at the ads for the day-after-thanksgiving day deals! My sister and I went out again bright and early the next day, this time at 5am.

Tradition!

Guatemala...The Final Chapter

The last full day in Guatemala was Friday and we left at 5:30am for a day trip to the eastern part of the country. Along the way we saw some amazing things and I was glued to my car window marveling at how drastically the scenery kept changing. First very green forest, then dry almost desert like (well as close to desert as a tropical country can get) and then lush, rainforest-esk. My favorite sight was during this jungle type area that I suddenly saw a monkey jump from one tree branch to another! And a closer look revealed a leash on him! Crazy, crazy stuff. We stopped and had some yummy liquados on the way which was on my list of foods. Our first stop was the town of Chiquimula, which is where my dad was born. We visited the grave of my great grandmother and it was nice to see it has been kept up very well.

My dad comes from a very poor background. He took us to the house where he lived, it was down this dirt alley. It just amazes me each time I hear his stories of poverty to think that he has been able to accomplish so much in his life and come so far. I love that legacy.

The next stop was a the town of Esquipulas. Now, this town is famous because it is here that resides the very famous Black Christ. People come from all over the world to see this. I had only been here once before. The temple that it is in is absolutely gorgeous and this picture was taken from an overlook above the city.

My parents told me some really cool stories of how people come here in the middle of January in throngs to worship at the feet of the Christ and they sometimes walk on their knees all the way from the bottom steps, and there are like a hundred, to pay penance for thier sins. My dad told me that twice in his childhood he walked all the way from Chiquimula to Esquipulas (the distance we had just driven all up hill practically) in a form of pilgrimage.

I loved hearing these stories and so many more.

Then we met my uncle and his wife and sister in law for lunch at their house in another town called Quetzaltepeque. This is the same uncle that we stayed with in the city, they live in both places part of the time. After lunch we visited the cementary where my dad's two siblings that past away are buried. Then they took us to another cute little town called Olopa way up so high that I thought our tiny little car would just give up and slide back down the mountain but it didn't, it pushed and pushed and made it all the way up!

I love this picture I took of a man walking in Quetzalteqeque. It is such a tribute to the hard working people in this impoverished country, each one just struggling to survive day in and day out. It was sights like this (and there were so many), that truly made me just say a silent prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving for what I have in my life. I am so blessed.

And long last our day was almost through, we just had the drive home left. I was so tired I wanted to sleep but truth be told I was worried that my dad would fall asleep so I chose to stay awake and talk to him. And now, documenting this, I realize how much I would have missed out on had I chosen to sleep. We talked about the story of how they came to the United States and why they did so, and I never ever tire of hearing this story. The way they sacrificed so much, the way they had the courage to leave what was familiar and comfortable for the unknown in a strange land with a strange language just to give thier kids (me!) a better life. What can I say? Tears well up every time.

And I was fortunate to capture our last sunset on Guatemala:

Then next day was Saturday, my mom and I got up early and packed all our bags, we were leaving a day and a half earlier than my dad.

I still had a couple of things left to buy so my parents were nice enough to drive me to the downtown Mercado Central to get them. Then from there we went to visit the home that my parents still own and rent out. And even though I never lived there, it is always cool to see. Here is the outside of it. In the city all homes have an outside wall on the perimeter of the property.

After that we went straight to the see the Guatemala City LDS Temple. Beautiful right?

This was something that I really wanted to do on our trip and I am so glad that we were able to sneak it in before our flight!

And now, as I see the whole picture of our trip, I see how fitting it was for us to go at the very start of our trip to the church where my parents met, were baptized, and were married civily, and end it here, the temple, which represents the success of the church in this region. You see, my parents were pioneers of the LDS church in a time when the closest temple to Guatemala was the Mesa, AZ Temple. (There were no temples in all of Mexico!) My parents indeed had something to do with the building of this Temple!

After that we got a bite to eat and a banana split at "Pops" and then off of the airport. It was really sad saying good bye to my dad and he said that it wouldn't be the same without us there.

From there we made it to LA and how fitting is it that the missionary that baptized my mom all those many years ago came and picked us up and we stayed with him and his wife that night! Then we flew home on Jetblue the next day. And that was the end of our wonderful trip.

Words can't describe the gratitude I feel toward my parents for giving me this once in a lifetime opportunity to learn so much about my heritage, to connect with the place of my birth, to grow closer to them than I ever thought possible. They are so important to me and the whole time I was with them I kept giving thanks that I get to live so close to them. I will forever be grateful to them for this gift and most of all for their sacrifices!

Guatemala Part 2

The next day Wednesday I think was my favorite day of the entire trip. I have never spent a Halloween quite like this before.

This was the day we were supposed to go to the towns west of the Capital City including Lake Attilan which is a popular, beautiful site. However, my uncle had given us the bad news that the road to the lake was being repaired and it would not be a good idea to go. I was pretty bummed, but it gave us a good chance to do something a bit different and fun.

We decided to go to the beach!

On the way we stopped at this cute little town of Iztapa and I drank soda out of a baggie like I used to do on our roadtrips through Mexico. Ah, that brought back memories!

But the beach that we were planning on going to didn't work out, they didn't let cars through anymore and that's when I took advantage of my online research. I had heard about this town called Monterrico. So many people raved about how beautful the beaches were, etc. So I pulled out the map and got us on track!

Well, what seemed so close on the map turned out to be a very long and bumpy ride. We finally made it though, and my parents were such troopers although they must have been thinking "where is our daughter taking us?!" It was definately worth the drive!

As soon as we got to the town, a bunch of kids swarmed us with offers of parking for our car, with shade, etc. One such girl, about 10 yrs old, I will never forget. She was so persistant and when my dad told her we would follow her to the parking area, she took off running ahead of us. She was covered in sweat and probably quite dissapointed when we told her nevermind. It was too far and we had to be close to the car (for safety reasons). My dad gave her a few cents for her time though, and after we parked I motioned her to come to me. You see I had brought with me some cute hair "pretties" (as my friend Leah would call them) just for this type of situation. I gave her a sparkly little clip and she seemed happy with it. Well quite a bit later as we were walking through the town, we ran into her again and instantly she looked at me, smiled and touched the clip in her hair where she had fastened it. I love that moment.

I wish I had asked her to take a picture with me but instead I just have this reminder of her running in the intense heat.

Well the beaches in this cute little town sure lived up to the hype, it was gorgeous!!! Wow, and the waves were enormous. We had so much fun watching them crash onto the dark black sand. Black sand, because of the volcanic activity. I was especially impressed with this beach because the only time my parents had taken me to the beach in Guatemala it was dirty and unkept. This was well cared for and so pristine.

This town also has a turtle sanctuary but it was closed, but we did get to walk around a bit. They safeguard the turtle's eggs there and even let tourists release the baby turtles in the ocean when they are ready! So cool to see the good that was being done there.

I kind of fell in love with this town. It was full of these cute murals and pretty little inns and spanish schools. I would love to take Jonas here.

But probably the most memorable part of this day was the "Lanchon". Let me explain. We didn't really want to go back home the way of the bumpy dirt road that we had come so we went to see if there was another way. And sure enough there was. A "ferry" a local reassured us, just around the corner. Well ferry, looked more like a really big canoe. Yeah, we were supposed to put our car on this thing with one little tiny motor. I was sure it would sink. But then we saw them load a 4 Runner on one of those babies and I thought okay, our tiny little car might make it. And it did! I have the pictures to prove it! My parents and I were laughing nervously the whole way. Okay, mostly my mom and I.

Then later that day we got stuck in traffic forever but at least we got to see the Quetzal painted on this rock.We finally made it to Antigua where we had dinner at the cutest little restaurant and my alltime favorite picture was taken from the balcony by our table:

This night was when we saw the kids trick or treating and that was hard as I missed my family so much, but it felt good to talk to them too.

The next day was Thursday and it was a Holiday. Dia de los Finados, which is kind of like Memorial Day where everyone goes and pays their respects to their loved ones at the cementary. My parents took me to the oldest cementary in the city so that I could see the crowds and boy were there crowds! Amidst the solemnity of the event, there were people selling everything imaginable under the sun. I saw clothes, birds, cotton candy, toys, movies, etc etc etc!

These are the graves where the poorest of the poor are buried, one casket on top of the other.

We were just weaving our way through the throngs of people. Jonas thought it was wrong that I buy clothes at the cementary, but what I bought was outside the cementary, not inside. There were very cute clothes for cheap!

After the cementary turned circus event, we went to see my uncle and his family again and we had the traditional meal of fiambe outside on thier patio. It was the perfect day for it, perfect weather, no wonder Guatemala is called the "land of the eternal spring". Check out this plate of food, it was so much! I had never tried fiambre before but it was delicious much to my surprise, I ate most of it. My dad had gotten sick from something he ate so he wasn't able to eat very much but my mom and I got lucky and never got any stomach sicknesses.

My Trip to Guatemala--Part 1

I have struggled so much with how to document this trip. Because it was more then just a trip, it was an incredible learning experience. I learned so much about myself, about my parents, about where I came from. It was truly indescribable in words. So I took pictures. LOT'S of pictures. I have never had my camara tell me the memory card was full before, at which point I started using my parents camara. But the most important thing I will take with me are the feelings that can't quite be related to someone. I guess I will just carry them with me and hopefully they will motivate me to be a better person.

Every night I wrote a little journal of what we did that day so that I wouldn't forget. I had scrap pieces of paper for several different types of journals: (I didn't think to take an actual journal)

-one for our daily adventures

-one for stories that my parents would tell me about their childhood, past etc.

-one for notes and ideas for bringing Jonas with me there, what he should know first, etc, including a complete "mock" itinerary for our next trip!

-and one with lists; a list of what to bring people back, a list of foods I had to eat while I was there, etc (which I ate all but 2 of btw)

These little scrap pages are precious to me now, I should probably frame them or something :)

So here is a little tiny smidgin of our wonderful trip:

My mom and I left on Friday morning Oct 26th super early and got to the Long Beach CA airport at about 7:30am local time. The fact that we made it there was a bit of a miracle in and of itself. As of 4 days before the trip I was losing hope, as we were flying standby and it was UEA weekend, everything was booked. We thought Jonas might have to drive us to Las Vegas in order to get out. But because of the fires in California, many people cancelled their flights and what was a completely sold out flight ended up having 27 seats on it! My mom and I felt very blessed. So we had all day because our flight to Guatemala didn't leave until 1am the next day so we had nothing but time on our hands. About 11 hours to be exact. I had researched online (of course) and decided that it was in our be interest (the interest of fun) to take the bus to the beach and hang out there all day, browsing shopping malls, eating,

Then we ended up taking the wrong bus right off. Woops! But it actually was a blessing because it changed our day completely and for the better! Here's what happened. The bus driver kindly told us which bus we needed to take and that it stopped right across the street. While we were waiting the bus came a bit early and the driver was the nicest guy ever! He let us wait in the empty bus while he ran over the the store for a minute, he chatted with us and he even ended up telling us all the things that we could do right there in Long Beach. He told us about the bus system right downtown being free and so because of him we didn't even go to any of the places that I had planned, we just stayed there. We went to a farmer's market, we browsed Walmart, I bought postcards and mailed them to my family, we went to the oceanfront, we stopped at a hotel lobby and my mom even took a tiny nap while I paid bills over the phone! The most hilarious thing about this day was the fact that I was lugging my big suitcase the entire time! On and off the busses, in the stores, everywhere! And no one even thought twice about it, maybe that's why eveyone was so nice to us? But the best part of this day I think was that my mom and I got to bond so much! We talked and talked, we ate and had ice cream and we were both on the eve of the beginning of this great trip so I think we were so full of energy from that. It was so fun. We even went to a little internet cafe and I sent pictures from Walmart's website where I store them to the Walmart right there at Long Beach so that my mom could take them and show them to our family in Guate. That was perfect timing.

me and my suitcase, attached at the hip

Anyway, we didn't want to be out at dark so at about 6pm we took the long bus ride to the LAX International Airport and waited there for our flight. The crazy thing is that my dad had a layover there at LAX too and we were there at the exact same time but couldn't see each other because the airport is so huge we were in totally different terminals!

We tried really hard to sleep on the flight and it was so nice to have a confirmed seat next to my mom for once. But it made me so miss Jetblue when they wanted to charge me 2 bucks for a Ginger Ale! I love Jetblue!

We got to Guatemala City at about 7:30in the morning and my dad got there about 30 min after us.

This is where we stayed, my uncle has a condo on the seventh floor. It was really nice and we felt very safe there.

The Bellini has a terrace all the way at the top and my uncle took me up there to see the view...it was gorgeous!

The next day we went to church here.

This is the place where my parents were baptized, met each other, and got married!!! Wow, talk about emotional. We walked into the gym and my mom was telling me how she can remember my dad goofing off and sliding from one end to the other and crashing into the wall! She thought we was pretty crazy, but in the end he won her over!

Later on Sunday we went to see my grandmother's grave. It was difficult to be in Guatemala without her and so emotional. It was a beautiful cementary.

Then we did some shopping in a town called San Felipe and we ate tostadas from a lady making them in the marketplace. They were yummy!

And that night in the quaint little town of Antigua we were pleasently surpised that they were having two big Catholic processions. This was the smaller one but pretty cool since I have never gotten to see one of these before.

I love the town of Antigua! It is so picturesque. I guess that is why so many tourists flock there.

The next day Monday was downtown Guatemala City day. We went to the bank and my dad exchanged my dollars for Quetzales, at the rate of 7.80Q for every dollar.This is one of my favorite pictures, it is the Palacio Nacional or the National Palace. Funny how I didn't notice how beautiful the sky was that day until after I looked at these pictures!

I bought a blanket for Jasmine from this cute little lady in the commons area, and she agreed to pose for me.

The next day, Tuesday, we went to see the ruins of Kaminaljuyu in the city and then drove to Lake Amatitlan.

This is one of those places that has lot's of memories for me because I remember coming here everytime we would visit Guatemala as a kid. We would ride the little boats in the lake and ride the kiddi rides and ponies and eat pupusas at the little eateries there. This time we walked around the lake and ate pupusas, but we left out the kiddi stuff.

Halloween 2007

Well I'm back from my trip! But first comes Halloween 2007~

Before I went out of town, I was feeling pretty bummed about missing Halloween so I decided to get my kids all dressed up in their costumes and take them to a little Carnival that was going on at a Rec Center here. I'm so glad I did! I felt like I got to be a part of the holiday and they had fun of course.

Jasmine was Cinderella and Shayden was a "Slizard" (part snake part lizard, we weren't sure which one it was so we gave it a new name).

In Guatemala of course they don't celebrate Halloween (or so we thought). We were very surprised to see costumes for sell at the department stores, my cousins all going to various costume parties and we even some kids Trick or Treating in the town of Antigua! That was when I missed my kids the most but we got to stop at a little internet cafe and call them that night right before they went trick or treating with thier dad!

While I talked to Jasmine she said that she was a princess. I asked her if she was Cinderella and she said "No, I'm Snow White!"

hmmm....

Turns out that morning her and Jonas were out shopping and she saw a Snow White costume and charmed daddy into buying it for her! (Jonas argues that he bought it because it was half off)

So here are my cute little munchkins: