In a Nutshell

So it's been 3 months since I really posted anything other than about our Guatemala trip. I feel like I should catch everyone up on all of our happenings. All of the things that could get a post of their own, will get a bullet point. Oh well. We can't be perfect all the time.

- 2 weeks after getting back from Guatemala I found out I was pregnant with baby #2. I'm now 15 weeks. (As you can tell I'm not big into the whole fancy announcement thing)
-I found out at girls camp because I started gagging when brushing my teeth.
-Shay is COMPLETELY potty trained. Including night training. We only had one big accident. Unfortunately it was all over a bench at church... We haven't had an accident since.
-Shay turned 3!! We did not have a party for her because this Mama was not doing well.
-Jon has a new job at Netflix. He put his two weeks notice in at Duff and Phelps in July . We spent a week and a half with family in Utah between jobs. He is loving his new job! And he's home around 6:30 each night, so we actually get to eat dinner as a family.
-We are moving to a 3 bedroom house in Santa Clara. That means I will have a washer and dryer and a yard!!! We're moving in 2 weeks.
-It also means we're leaving our ward. Something we aren't super excited about. But we're staying at this ward through October since I'm the member of the primary presidency who is writing the primary program.

Well I think that is us in a nutshell right now. Now I can maybe update this blog as everything happens.

Tikal... This is it folks.

Oh Tikal. We had a fabulous time there. We had to wake up around 4 am to make our flight to these beautiful ruins.

Breathtaking, eh? Don't worry this is one of the worst pictures. The night before we were talking to Jon's Mom and she found out I had been stung by a scorpion. She told me to wear 2 pairs of garments for extra protection. I chose to wear none. Judge not, lest you be judged people.

This is the plane we flew out there in. Propellers, people. Propellers.

 Oh and don't forget not to feed the crocodiles while you are there.

Doesn't it seem like my life was in imminent danger a lot while we were there? It probably was. But we made it back safe and sound for all of you to read about.

There isn't a whole lot to tell about the day. Pictures are worth a thousand words. I think we hiked 3 of the temples and we basically walked around for 6 hours.

 How do like this panoramic view? We were (for the millionth time that trip) quite literally in the middle of nowhere. The nearest town was an hour away.

 A lot of the ruins haven't been uncovered. There were so many times you would be walking around and realize you were walking on ruins that were still covered. Or that the grassy hill wasn't actually a hill. It was a Mayan structure of some sort.

We had a really knowledgeable guide. I wish I could say I remember anything he told us. I really don't.

I think Jon has been waiting for 3 months for me to post this picture.

Why yes. That is a tarantula in his hands. No I didn't hold it. But I was really brave and took a good picture of it.

Don't we look so outdoorsy? And quite disheveled by this point of the day? 

 There he is folks! Flying through the jungle! The pictures of me have been purposely omitted out of vanity. Just take my word for it. I did it. It scared me half to death at first but I was actually a little better at it than Jon. (Don't tell him I told you) There was a time when I was adventurous. While we were there, whenever we would meet people they were always surprised at two things. 1. that we were so young and married (and had been married for 4 years) and 2. That we had a 3 year old at home. We look young. What can I say. Did I mention I'll be pushing 30 this year? Yikes!

We had a fun 9 day getaway and it was a great thing for our marriage. We have a happy marriage, but there were so many times when I just looked at Jon and thought, "Oh yeah, this is why I fell in love with this guy." I highly recommend going. Scorpion sting, and all. At this point it seems like it happened a lifetime ago. What  a beautiful little slice of paradise.

Guatemala Continued-- The Coast

So I realize it's been almost 2 months since we got back from Guatemala. I have a really good reason for being so delayed... I promise... Anyway I've forgotten a lot, so this will be pretty short.

We drove down the very windy road all the way from Xela to Malacatan. Driving in Guatemala is a different experience. It is one of the most mentally draining things I've ever done. You will be driving down a 2 lane highway, through the mountains, dodging buses and trucks that are trying to pass someone in your lane, also dodging the people on the side of the road and sometimes walking or standing in the middle of the road selling goods, dodging potholes and speed bumps that are BLACK and of varying sizes that you can't see until you are right about to go over them ( A slight miracle our rental car came back in one piece, no?) and then you throw in rain like this:

That is what it looked like with the wipers on high. We were sure we would be involved in a serious accident and possibly not come back alive on many occasions. It didn't help that we had experiences like the scorpion and Jon's allergies.

We arrived though and stayed in a decent little hotel. It was honestly the nicest one around. What would be considered a dive in the States was our nicest hotel in the area. The real kicker for the hotel was that it had air conditioning. A huge plus when you are in a place that is near a 100 degrees and 100% humidity. We had a good time. Visited some of the families that Jon knew on his mission. The other nice thing about our hotel was that it had a little restaurant on site. It was one of the few places that Jon and I ate where we didn't end up with a serious case of what the missionaries down there refer to as boo. So we stayed there both nights because of the air conditioning and the great, sanitary cook. (TMI?)

We arrived in the evening that first day and ate dinner, found a little store where we bought a whole bunch of candy (Most of which is sitting in my cupboard as we speak) and laid low for the night. We had just come from the temple that morning. Jon gave me a car tour of Malacatan and we found the LDS chapel. It was one of the largest buildings in the city, so pretty hard to miss!

The next day we drove down to the beach, it was about a 45 minute drive. It was HOT, HOT, HOT, I have never been somewhere so hot in my life. It was a black sand beach so the water looked grey but when you got in the water it was so warm.

Look at us, aren't we hot:

I'm actually a little shocked we didn't get roasted there. It was melt your face off hot. (How many times can I say hot in one blog post? Don't worry more to come. There is just no way to adequately describe how hot it is, other than to say hot. If we were talking I would be saying hot with an emphasis.)

Here are some pictures of the beach. It was kind of dumpy, very third world, but beautiful in it's own way.

We ran into some missionaries there, walking the road, looking hot and miserable. We offered them a ride and they took us up on it. We were actually seeing if they had keys to a church building so we could use a sanitary toilet. Those are hard to come by when you are out in the middle of no where! So they helped us out and then had us drive them around for a bit. I don't know that they had anywhere to go really, but they were so grateful for our air conditioned car in the middle of day in Tecun Uman (sp?) You should just be impressed I've been able to spell everything else correctly so far! Actually one of the missionaries was stung by a scorpion while we were with them. I'm pretty sure the scorpions were all out to get me that trip. Needless to say I was a little freaked out.

We headed to Coatepeque after the beach and visited some of Jon's favorite people he taught there. We were glad we did, because their family is facing some serious trials right now and I think it meant a lot to them to see Elder Laudie and have someone care about what they were going through.

This is Lucy and her Dog. She sat on my foot and wouldn't let me leave when we tried to go. She also would switch between Jon and I having us scratch her ears. She loved to be loved! She was a great guard dog too. Every time someone came by the place she was on full alert until they were safely past and she knew her home was safe.

This is her daughter Wendy and some of her family. We were able to visit with them for awhile as well. Wendy met her husband, who was a member of the church, after Jon had baptized her. They are the upper class in this town and were living a happy life until he was diagnosed with cancer. The prognosis is a little bleak, but they are hopeful he will pull through.

Back in Malacatan we went through an outside market looking for goods to bring home and walked away with some clay serving dishes that I had seen and fallen in love with at one of the restaurants we ate at. Perfect for serving salsa and guacamole in a stylish way. I love them. We also walked away with a lot of other cool  souvenirs including a mask that Shayla refers to as the monster mask. She loves to put it on and roar at me. It was an interesting experience and I love so many of the souvenirs that we looked at. One thing I didn't love so much was dodging men carrying large slabs of raw meat on their backs. It was different than it is in the U.S. It was also blasted hot under the tents and Jon and I had to just get used to being sweaty the whole time we were there!

This was our only ride in a tuk-tuk during our trip. a little cab that is attached to a motorcycle looking thing. It was an experience!

Again we are so hot... I know I said this would be short. I lied. Oh well. I'm sure you're dying to hear about Tikal! After this we found our rental car (We took it to a mechanic to have him glue a plastic piece back on... darn speed bumps. I guess we almost made it back with it in one piece.) and drove back to the capital, Guatemala City, so that we could catch a plane the next day to Tikal. Oh the adventures!

Mommy Wow!!

I obviously do not have time to write the long novel blogposts about our time in Guatemala right now. Don't worry those are coming. They are really so that Jon and I remember everything... But I interrupt those posts to tell you Shayla is a big girl. And I quite possibly have the easiest child in the world.

Tonight Shayla disappeared telling me she needed to go to the bathroom. Not thinking anything of it I continued to NOT pay attention to my child as I tried to get a million things done today. The next thing I knew she walked out with out a diaper or her pants on and said "Mommy! I went peepee in the potty!"

Sure enough she had taken the initiative to potty train herself and had gone in her little potty. We'll see how the next few days go... I leave for girls camp on Monday... timing is not ideal....

She was rewarded by getting to wear her cinderella panties. She is currently proudly sporting them around with only a shirt on. Ah to be almost 3 in the summer. What a girl!

Xela (Pronounced Shayla- now you know where we got her name!)

You'll be happy to hear our trip got better after we left the lake. We headed out from Lake Atitlan early Wednesday morning. In fact we didn't bother showering or eating breakfast. Not that we could have if we wanted to... The power was still off. So that meant no running water. From the little casa we headed to one of the other little villages, Santa Catarina, on an errand from Jon's Mom to pick up some corte fabric from that region. We found a place to park the car and walked through their market place. We picked up a few things here and there and enjoyed about an hour walking around their market. As we tried to pull out of our parking spot a police man blocked our way and told us that we needed to pay him 5 Quetzales for parking in that spot. Jon told him to get out of town and that he was just trying to charge us because we were gringos. I was a little afraid at this point that he would throw us in a Guatemalan prison and that no one would hear from us again. But he smiled, agreed, and let us go on our way. Jon felt he had won a huge victory and drove away feeling like the king of the world.

We arrived in Xela and found a hotel to stay in. Hotel 6. Not to be confused with the American chain Motel 6. But probably named after it... Guatemalan's love everything American. Showered and started exploring some of Jon's old area's. He was surprised to see a Wal-mart, Subway, Taco Bell, Wendy's and a few other American establishments that had made their way into this town since he had last been there. We ate at the S ubway and then traveled into Totonicapan. A little village up in the mountains where Jon spent some of his time. We toured most of this part of his mission in car and found old apartments he had lived in.

We did get out of the car to explore the town square in Xela, and took some pictures of the old Catholic church there. The architecture here is amazing and all of the details are so fascinating.  I loved seeing all of the ancient buildings. Guatemala is a very dirty, but absolutely breath-taking place.

That night we went to see the temple at night:

These are the stain glassed windows with the mayan design. Very fitting for this temple.

I love seeing temples at night so I asked Jon if we could go look at it. On Thursday morning we headed back to the temple to do an endowment session.

The temple is even more spectacular in the daylight. The endowment room is painted with scenes from Guatemala. You see the lush jungle and even a depiction of Lake Atitlan and a Quetzal bird. While we were in there Jon ran into quite a few people he had known on his mission. So as I sat in the endowment room with my very limited Spanish it was a huge home coming for Jon. It was fun to see. When we arrived we were surprised to find out that they don't rent out temple clothing but they offered to let us borrow some. I had to go into the women's dressing room with women who spoke only Spanish and try to let them know what size I needed all my clothing in. Jon was a little worried I wouldn't make it out of there. So was I. But I struggled through with hand gestures and a little Spanish here and there. And of course a kind smile to make up where my language ability lacked. I was pretty proud of myself when a woman asked why I was in Guatemala and I explained (in Spanish nonetheless) that Jon had served his mission in Xela 6 years ago.

Many of the people in the temple with us had been in there since it had opened and were planning on being in there for a few more hours. Jon was sad (I was oblivious) because everyone from our session was on their way to do sealings but we had to check out of our hotel so we had to hurry off right after the session.

We had been sent with a mission to try and locate a missionary in one of Jon's old areas. - side note- while in the temple Jon learned that his first area(the area where this missionary was now serving), where they hadn't had a lot of success was now booming. There were 4 pairs of missionaries in one ward and they were going to have to split a ward that eight years ago had been struggling with attendance.-- We tried to find the missionary, and on our way out of town gave up and left some goodies from home for him in the mission office.

As we were driving away and through Esperanza, who should we run into? But the missionary we had been looking for! We had almost gone through the center of town looking for him one last time, but had decided since we no longer had the goodies to continue on our way. So it was on a side street, on our way out of town that we ran into him.

 As we pulled up he called Jon, Ben. (Jon's 16 year old brother) Which really threw Jon. He's used to being mistaken for Jim and Mike. But being mistaken for Ben was a first. He was able to chat with the missionary about the area and found out that one of the girls Jon had baptized right before he left wasn't really attending church anymore. So we changed our plans again to drop by her house and see how she was doing. It wasn't a come to Jesus visit. But Jon was hoping that seeing him would reignite the testimony that he knew this young lady had. We left Elder Wimmer with a few tastes of home we had stashed away in our backpack and headed to see this girl. She was really surprised to see Ex-Elder Laudie sitting on her couch and we had a great visit with them. What a tender mercy we had running into Elder Wimmer. I truly felt like we were being led by the spirit and that we were where we needed to be at the right time and the right place.

More to come on the trip. I still have to blog about the coast and Tikal (My favorite day of the whole trip)