Guatemala Videos

Here are a couple videos I wanted to show.


This one is of the beautiful natural hot springs. There are three pools, the first is really hot, though the further from the spring in the mountain, the cooler it gets. That water flows into another cooler pool, and then into a third, the coolest, which is still pretty warm.



This is a videos we took from a high vantage point of the mountains/volcanoes Santa Maria and Santiagito (which routinely lets out gusts of ash). Not something we see in Texas!

Scary

I have some stories to catch up on, but here's a good one about Guatemalan traditions for anyone who wants a laugh. The first week we moved into our house in the city, we were getting stuff set up, borrowed a pack-n-play from our neighbor friends for Lucas, and getting all the necessities for living. Lucas was sleeping in our room because he was still only two months old, by the window you can see at the front of the house second level. About four in the morning, still totally pitch black outside, we heard gunshots...like rapid fire! James jumped up to go to the window and I told him "Get Lucas and get down!" They stopped all of a sudden and nothing else happened. It had to be right outside of our window, but that didn't make sense cause we live in a gated community with a 24-hour guard at the entrance. We finally went back to sleep and later I asked around about it... turns out that it's a tradition on someone's birthday to set off fireworks on people's front porch anywhere between 4 and 6 in the morning, and all day long on holidays. Go figure...

Spanish

This morning Cobin asked for some cereal, and water, but he did it in spanish! He's learning so quickly it astonishes me. He may be learning to speak spanish better than english from now on, though I'm pretty sure that he understands way more english. We want him to learn both languages well, and the best way from what we've heard is for one parent to speak entirely one language, and the other parent anothe language. So I'll be speaking english and James spanish. It also helps that the maid speaks in spanish to him.

Post Number One

Hey everyone! Venturing into a new way to share updates of our family via web to family and friends... since we are in Guatemala, I wanted to try this to stay connected to those we love. Needless to say, James isn't into this kinda stuff, so it'll always be me, Lauren, writing posts...though he supports me in it because he agrees that families are the most important thing in the world. So I hope that our family enjoys the updates as much as I will writing them!

Lauren

Also, if you havent' seen it yet, we have a web page devoted to pictures. Here's the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/Lauren2113