January 02

Happy Holidays!

Isabella and I celebrated our first Christmas together this year, and we only cried a little bit. We were kept busy both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day by wonderful friends here. Christmas Eve we went to Mike and Allison's house to celebrate with a group of adopting families. We had a white elephant gift exchange and we ended up with a box of delicious chocolates from Chocotenango. Melt in your mouth, to die for chocolates. When we got home we talked to Daddy, Irene, Gamma, and Gampa for a while and then went to bed. In the morning, the first thing we did, of course, was open the presents Granny had sent. We called Daddy on Skype and everyone there was able to watch Isabella open her first Christmas presents. She liked the paper the best and ate quite a bit of it! Afterwards we went to visit our friend Traci and her family for Christmas dinner. Epicure, a wonderful deli here, catered the entire meal for us and it was fantastic!

This week has been very busy in Antigua. There are lots of people vacationing here and the streets have been packed every day. It's hard to get around when there are so many people, so we've hung around the house more than normal. To make matters even more interesting, Guatemala is having a small cash crisis and all the ATM's are empty. Everytime money is added to the machines, the line wraps around the block. I sprained my ankle again last week so needless to say, I wasn't willing to wait for hours in line for 1,000 quetzales. I'm cashless. I'm becoming an expert at living here without any cash!

Every morning we wake up to new piles of firework debris lining the streets. The Guatemalans love fireworks and this week is the Grand Finale of the entire year. Our rooftop deck is the perfect place to watch the shows. All we need to do is stand in one place and turn in a circle... the fireworks go off in every direction. Some things about living here I will never forget. This is one of them. Beautiful.