Our Trip To Sololá

This past week when we drove to Guatemala City for my doctor's appointment we decided to drive the extra 2 hours to Sololá to spend some time with the Boggs. They have been missionaries to Guatemala for over 30 years and our missionary mentors. We may share the same country, but since we are 9+ hours apart we don't see each other very often.

{Claire}

You can see my baby bump a little in this photo. I am also holding a freezer pop. I have been having a craving for those for the past month. I haven't seen them here before, but on this trip I noticed some at Pricemart... and proceeded to go a little nuts. I was still loading up boxes as Jimmy was pushing the cart away. I bought over 200 of them and they are supposed to be split in half, so in this heat, they might last us the whole month!

{Jonah with his first freezer pop}

Jonah and Silas love them! We share with Daddy too. Since I've been pregnant Jimmy actually asks now before he eats my food... he's not stupid!

We always have fun fellowshipping with the Boggs. They both have a great sense of humor.

The boys really liked playing Claire's piano. I think it reminded them of their Papa's piano. They knew that they were supposed to have music in front of them to look at.

On this trip we got to meet a new family that has come to work with the Boggs, the Blocks.

They just arrived 6 weeks ago. They currently are in language school and will be working with the Boggs' orphanage. UNICEF unfortunately put a stop to international adoptions so any child that comes to the children's home will be raised there until someone sees the light and this law gets changed. We really enjoyed our time with them and hope they can come visit us one day soon! Their youngest, Haven, is the boys' age.

We also got to meet Keely (next to Larry) who helps with everyone's homeschooling and the children's home kids with their homework. She knows sign language. If the Boggs read this, NO we did not invite her to Petén, but if she decides on her on to come work in Becca's deaf school, we wouldn't mind a bit!

{Some of the Blocks' children}

{Our walk back to our truck after lunch}

On Sunday Jimmy preached at the new church at Eagle's Nest.

Nehemias is the pastor (on the left). He visited us a couple months ago when Amy and Colonel were here and helped out with that week of outreach. He seems like a great fit for this new work. We enjoyed seeing him in his element!

Poor Jonah and Silas didn't want to miss a thing on this trip, so they didn't nap much. They were so tired by Sunday that Silas was running a low grade fever.

They stayed with the Boggs while we went to go pack up our stuff and this is where we found Silas when we got back!

In Sololá they have some unique carpentry shops. They make ornate furniture that is a little on the rustic side, but very beautiful and inexpensive. (I'd rather buy shoe polish stained handmade furniture off the side of the road than particle board generic big box stores' furniture any day!) As we were passing all of them on our way out of town I was reminding Jimmy that we were 9+ hours away from home, so he really should stop and let me look. He was sweet and I got a 5 minute stop! I made it worth my while though.

This huge dark frame is for the mirror over the vanity in our new master bath. In the shop it didn't look that big, but now I don't know if our master bath is as big as this frame! If not it will be a beautiful floor mirror.

It was wrapped in plastic bags and tied to the top of our truck for our ride home in the rain, so I thought it held up pretty good. We will have to touch it up a little and add a coat of poly.

I also found 2 Jonah and Silas size chairs! If the weave ever wears out I thought I could redo them with some cool rope.

The boys were thrilled. Silas thinks it is his reading chair!

We even found a present for Jay at this stop! In the artisans' markets they always have things typical of southern Guatemala, but Petén is very different from the rest of the country. Instead of bright school buses, which we do not have in Petén, I found cattle trucks!

Petén is full of those. I got one for Jay's missionary display table and one for ours. Now we just need some plastic cows and to paint on some manure dripping out the back to make it realistic!

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: So the boys conquered forks a while back, but I have been reluctant to give them free reign with spoons because of the mess. With my baby nausea I cannot stand to smell whatever they ate on them the rest of the day and for some reason spoons just make them want to rub the food all over themselves. This was Silas after a little bit of pudding: