Adios Antigua

Early this morning about 2:00 am we arrived in Minneapolis, MN.  We had a wonderful time in Antigua, Guatemala learning Spanish and making new friends.  We are  so grateful to our teachers and everyone at La Union for helping us learn Spanish... your job was not easy.  We never imagined how precious our time in Guatemala would be.  Thanks to everyone!

We will be here in Minnesota until Christmas.  After that we are off to Tennessee to visit with the Amy Family and finally to Arkansas for a few days.  We are so excited to be home for a while and hope that we will get to see all of you soon!

Mayan Ruins of Copan

This weekend we were able to go to Copan, Honduras with our school to see the Mayan Ruins. It was really incredible! This is our attempt at a mini-tour for you.

This is where the royal or rich people lived.

This was an altar for sacrificing jaguars.

This is where they played games. Whoever was voted the best player had the honor of being sacrificed to the gods.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... Everywhere we go

Everywhere we go is a reminder that Christmas is near which means we are coming back to the States in ONE WEEK!!!! Needless to say we are extremely excited. We even helped decorate the guest house where we live. Here are a couple photos of Guatemala's version of Christmas.

A Tour of Antigua

Since our days in Antigua, Guatemala are coming to an end we have been visiting a lot of the tourist attractions in the afternoon. Most of these are Catholic Churches or ruins of Catholic Churches. It has been a blessing to learn Spanish while being immersed in the culture. We have learned a lot of Spanish while we have been here but, also have learned so much about Latin culture.

Un Dia con Mama Estela

Yesterday we went to a nearby pueblo to spend the day with Estela and her family. Estela is our mom here in Guatemala. Everyday she cooks for us and helps us practice our spanish. First she took us to her mother's fruit planation and then we went back to her house for a wonderful lunch. We had a wonderful time with the family.

The Fruits of Our Labor

As mentioned before we won a trip to the beach for our participation in the Halloween costume contest. On Saturday morning we left for Monterrico, a black sand beach about two hours away from Antigua. We were able to see lots of beautiful things and even release baby turtles into the wild. These all maybe communicated better with pictures than words. Enjoy..... we did!

Dia de los Muertos

Sunday was the day of the dead here in Guatemala. The people here celebrate the lives of their relatives by decorating and painting their graves and spending all day in the cemetery. I know it sounds a little creepy but, it wasn't at all. We were able to go visit a cemetery and everyone was enjoying the day with their family.

In the evening we saw a "float" being carried through town to celebrate the anniversary of one of the Catholic schools. The float was about 50 feet long and was carried by 80 men. They carried the float all through town for eight hours. It was really interesting!