My 30th Birthday!!!!

I celebrated my big 3-0 birthday back in May! I knew it was coming up all year and I kept thinking about how I wanted to celebrate it here in Guatemala. I wanted to do something memorable, something fun and something different. One night we were out and this trolley bus passed by with people yelling out the back and looked like a big party on it. At that moment, I knew, that was what I wanted to do for my 30th birthday!!! Well, I did it! It was so much fun and there was a wonderful group of friends that helped me celebrate and welcome in a new decade.

Jaime and I outside the bus before we left!

The party going on inside the bus!

Sharon and I!

The outside of the bus, it was so fun!

We had jello shots and when we stopped for a bathroom break at a gas station, Kari gave this mariachi band some jello shots. They loved it!

The back was open so you could ride back here!

Jaime, Fernando, and me! Fernando promised me a few birthday "presents" and showed up with like 4 or 5 Guatemalan guys on the trolley!

Dancing in the trolley!

This was after midnight so I was getting birthday hugs! (We went on Saturday May 16, so it officially wasn't my birthday until midnight!)

It was sooooo fun!

Service Learning Projects

Each year the different grade levels at our school take on service learning projects. In seventh grade this year, our topic was health and we were partnered with a sister school here in town that we were to help out. We spent the first part of our project teaching the kids lessons on different aspects of nutrition. Then we spent the next half of the time having the kids come up with a little workshop with an activity to teach a small group of students from our sister school their lesson on nutrition. The kids worked really hard and got really into it. They all had penpals that they had written letters back and forth to and were looking forward to meeting the kids when they came to our school. Well, due to the glorious SWINE FLU, our school decided to cancel all outside activities with other schools, all sports events, all academic activities, including our service learning project! So the week of, we had to tell the kids that we weren't going to be able to host the other school to participate in their workshops. The kids were pretty disappointed but we ended up inviting elementary classes to come and go through the workshops so that the kids felt like their hard work was for something! It was still fun.

Millers in Antigua

Like any good Guatemala tour, we made a trip to Antigua. It is just such a unique town and so different from Guatemala City. The architecture there is beautiful and when it is clear and you can see the volcanoes, it's so nice!! So we got back from Rio Dulce on Saturday night and got up Sunday morning to head to Antigua before Mike and Gretchen had to fly out on Sunday night. We had beautiful weather and a nice day full of shopping and fun! They even got to experience some Guatemalan classics while here, we passed two dead bodies on the side of the road on our way to Antigua and they felt a tremor while shopping in Antigua!!

Mike and Gretchen with the famous arch in Antigua. This arch was built for a church so they could pass over from the church to where they lived without having to go out in public and cross the street!

One of my favorite pictures of the arch, with the blue sky and the volcano coming through behind it!

Of course a trip to the Sky Bar, one of my favorite places to visit with a nice view!

It was so fun to see the Millers and get to spend time with them!!! In Korea everyone asked if Gretchen and I were sisters. Since we are both from Missouri and we have a lot in common, we just started calling each other our long lost sisters!

Sisters!!!

When we got ready to leave, there was a parade of some sort going on. Well we followed it......all the way back to our car!!!! It took us another 45 minutes to wait out the parade before we could move the car and leave!!!

Boat (Yacht???) Ride

Friday night while we were eating dinner at the restaurant, this little boy and his father come up to Stephanie and say, "Hi Miss Moy." He is a second grader at our school and they came up to say hi! We chatted with them for a few minutes and then the dad proceeds to invite us all to come on their boat with them tomorrow, because they are going to go to a finca (farm) to eat breakfast and then on to the hot water fall. Sure, we said, not sure if it would really happen or not. They said to meet them by 7 am down at the dock. They told us their boat is there and they would be sleeping there that night. Well, nosy us, we meandered our way down there that night and saw this nice LARGE boat sitting there! So we packed up early and went down to the dock where the captain greeted us and let us on the boat and served us a beverage before heading off. We had a great day hanging out with the kids. One of the older girls will be in my class next year. The family was so nice and generous to us all day. It was a super fun day. Then they dropped us off at the car and we headed home! (They headed home on Sunday in their helicopter!!!)

Gretchen and I on the boat!

This was where we stayed, a view from the river. We were in the cabins on the other side though, not quite this pretty of a view!

Here is the Castillo de San Felipe, the Castle of Saint Philip. We didn't stop there but we heard it as just as impressive to drive by and look at as it was to actually go in!

The second grader deciding to go inside the boat, no problem, just climb up the front of it!

The boat.....or yacht, as we referred to it!

We ate breakfast at this farm and then we all piled into the back of this tractor and it pulled us down the road until we got to the path to get to the hot water fall.

This was the weirdest sensation. We went swimming in here and the water coming down from the waterfall was very hot. The water in the pool was cool, so it was this weird hot/cold feeling!!!

Then after about an hour swimming in the waterfall, we came back to the boat and the kids wanted to go for a ride on the banana boat, there was one more space, so I got volunteered to go with them!!! It was fun though!

I had already gotten changed or I would have done this too, but then the kids climbed to the top of the boat and jumped off into the lake!!! So fun! Action shot...

Just lounging around on the Yacht!

Rio Dulce with the Millers (and others)

Mike, Gretchen, and I, along with my neighbor Stephanie, piled into the car on Thursday, the first day off school, and met up with two others cars to caravan to Rio Dulce. We stopped at the ruins, as posted below, and then finally made it to the hotel at Rio Dulce. Rio Dulce is the river that connects Lake Izabal to the Caribbean Sea. It ends right near this Garifuna town of Livingston. Garifuna is a mix of Caribbean and African people who live along the Caribbean coasts of Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and Nicaragua. It was a really cool little town, with a kind of Jamaican feel to it. We got to our hotel on Thursday late afternoon, took a refreshing dip in the pool and hung out there all day, eating dinner at the restaurant that night. Then we rented a boat for the day for all of us, and it took us all the way down the river to Livingston, making some cool stops along the way. We had lunch in Livingston and then came back. Here are some pictures of our day:

In the boat on the way out!

Mike and Gretchen getting blown away!

We came upon this tree and if you look closely it is inhabited by tons of white egrits.

These birds are cormornats. They are taught to dive down into the water and catch fish and then they have to stand here and dry off their wings before they can continue diving. They are pretty cool. Rachel (the science teacher!) was telling me that in Asia they tie their necks so they can't swallow the birds and they use these birds to help them fish. I actually saw it on the Amazing Race later!

No idea what these insects were, some type of grasshoppers or something, but they were all over these plants!!!

Then our boat driver decided to pick one off the plant so we could get a closer look at it!

Then we went to this place where there were lily pads EVERYWHERE!!! It was beautiful!

Finally made it to the town of Livingston.

The beach at the Caribbean Sea. We didn't go in!

Mike, enjoying his "coco loco." These are pretty popular here, coconut milk and rum!

Mike eating his lunch of the local soup, with an entire fish in the soup!

We stopped along the way home so we could swim in the river. Gretchen and I decided to get in for a little bit, even though it was really cold and I'm sure we were the entertainment for the day for the Mayan women in the background.

Quirigua Ruins

My good friends Mike and Gretchen came to visit me over a four day weekend at the beginning of May. I went round and round trying to figure out what to take them to do. They really wanted to go visit Tikal, but it really wasn't logical without flying there. The roads are really curvy and dangerous here and it didn't seem wise to be driving for 16-20 hours within a span of 3-4 days. So I decided to take the to Rio Dulce, somewhere I also wanted to visit, and we also got a short stop at some Mayan ruins on the way up there as well. There were two other couples and Stephanie that we carpooled with to get there. It was a great trip.

Quirigua was the Mayan city state that defeated Copan, but the ruins here were not as impressive as those in Copan. It was still cool though and I'm glad that Mike and Gretchen got to see some of this too! Quirigua is famous for its stellas, which are the carved stones that stand tall.

The leaning stella of Quirigua! (Not the real name, just made it up! ha ha)

Mike and Gretchen with a stella.

Mike Gretchen and I on the steps of the acropolis.

Gretchen being silly!

Gretchen and I by a really large tree!!!

Introducing Gretchen to Guatemala's own cerveza, Gallo!

Student Teachers

We had two student teachers at our school this spring, Laura and Leslie. They were both from a university in Wyoming, who had the opportunity to come do their student teaching at out school. They are such sweet girls and it was fun getting to know them. I'm not sure if I would have ever taken the opportunity but I wish I could have student taught overseas somewhere!! I am so glad they took advantage of this and came! We had a dinner for them before they left and took them out to eat at a favorite restaurant of ours, Tamarindos. It was very yummy!

Me with Leslie and Laura

Sharon and I!

Good luck girls, in whatever you decide to pursue!