Heat...more heat...and umm some sun?

I hear that the weather in Ottawa is less than warm, so I thought I would tease you with the out door activities i have been participating in.

2 weekends ago we went to the beach. There were originally 5 adults and 2 toddlers, but after getting lost in Guate city for abouut 4 hours, one adult bailed (Jeff, the highschool principal- be certain that whenever I see him in the halls at school i simply shake my head at him). So Colin, Laura, Makenzie and the girls and I continued on. When we FINALLY reached our destination, at about 1130 pm Keira woke up (she's 2), looked around and all she had to say for herself was: Jeff? Jeff? That definately lightened the mood.

So we were off to bed, and woke up the next morning to GLORIOUS sunshine. Into our bikinis we hopped and lay by the pool and played with the girls in the water... There was a football game that Colin wanted to watch, so we were on the search for a restaurant with a TV. We quickly found one- it's cocktail list was acceptable to us girls as well.

We lay around with Keira and Maya then took Keirs for a walk on the beach. She was wuickly the main attraction with her beautiful blond hair. All of the locals wanted to hold her and stroke her hair. She made friends with some little kids and played with them for an hour or so. Her spanish is good because her nanny is spanish speaking, so she was chatting away. When the sun set and the kids had to go home, Keira cried and cried, hitting me and asking for her amigas back... what an adventure. SUnday was much of the same, but we stayed around our hotel and swam..the sun was deadly hot... you couldn't sit in it for more than a couple of minutes without sweating. We left around noon and stopped for coconuts! YUM YUM!

This past weekend we stayed in the city. Friday night we had a double birthday party for 2 staff members. On Saturday Makenzie , Jessica her boyfriend Diego and I went to the American club for lunch. Its this members only country club, to which Diego is a member. I had delicious ceviche!!!

That night we went out to another birthday party, but bailed early and I was in bed by midnight.

this week the kids are writing exams (I know, grade 2 exams!) and are not being very good listeners, so it is challenging. But we are managing.

No plans yet for this weekend, other than report cards, as they are due to the office on Monday!

Hopefully we will venture out to do something cool on Saturday, perhaps Antigua- who knows!

Stay warm friends...stay warm!

Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh My!

Back in Guate for a week now. The week has flown by, but also seemed very long. The kids had school Tuesday-Friday and were all very excited to see me an each other. There were some memorable quotes of the week... namely Rodrigo who just loved my boots! and Mariana who wouldn't tell the class what she did over vacation until she asked me the most important questions ever: "but Miss, what did Santa Clause bring you?" haha. cute kids.

The week went by with out a hitch. Friday after school a bunch of people (from the embassy, from Colin's rugby team and from our staff) came out to play touch rugby. It was a lot of fun actually. I was mostly terrified of having the ball, because I thought the big men would forget it was touch and kill me...but they were actually more afraid of hurting us girls than anything. Here is a picture of all of us.

On Saturday I went out for ceviche with some friends then back to the apartment where there was a gathering of some families from the staff (Colin, Laura and their girls, and Katrin and Victor and their daughter Lea and 2 week old Noah Estaban) on our roof top patio!

We had great weather and just soaked up the rays, had some pizza and beer and played with the kids. it was very enjoyable! I stayed in Saturday night and went to bed early. Sunday, Makenzie, Katie, Ashely and I decided to venture out to the Zoo here in the city. We felt very Guatemalan in our endeavour as it was very busy with many Guatemalan families enjoying the sunny weather and captive animals. The giraffes were cool to see... but then I just felt back for them... so far from home...with really no where to go...I remembered why I don't particularly like zoos. BUt if nothing else, it was WONDERFUL to walk around outside and be safe! So for that reason alone, I believe we will probably return to the zoo for other visits.

So weird, but as we were looking at the animals we noticed this sign:

Looks like the school donated animals to the zoo? "He wants to take his monkeys to see the kids at the zoo" jajaja

Tomorrow is back to work. Nothing huge to report I don't think. A regular week. We plan on playing Rugby again on Friday and then going to the beach. I am looking into shuttle services so that we can all go in one vehicle, I think there will be about 10 of us. So that is something to look forward to!