Lauren's Visit

After our mission Christmas luncheon Lauren spent the rest of the week with us.  It was our first chance to spend extended time with her since she arrived and we loved every minute of it.  Lauren is an IMB journeyman who is here serving a two year term but in an area about three hours away. She just arrived on October 1. Here is a look at how we spent our time together.

She is still in language school but was able to do her classes virtually that week.  She would spend her mornings in online Spanish class and then we would spend the rest of the day hanging out and exploring Antigua.

 

On one of our outings into town we introduced her to Wendy's Frosty-ccinos. Yum!

 

a photo in front of our Central Park fountain

 

Ben enjoying a frappe from Cafe Barista

 

an arch photo

 

the fountain and volcano view from McDonald's

 

shopping in the artisans market

 

 

One afternoon we drove over to Finca Azotea and rented bikes.  We love biking through the coffee farm.

 

 

 

 

The boys put plastic bottles and cans on the bikes to make noise.

 

This photo makes me laugh.

 

 

Looks like someone got tired.

 

We also spent some time on the ropes course.

 

What time is it?

Coffee time!

We stopped for a coffee break.

 

 

We walked through the drying pads to see the coffee beans and visited the gift shop.  We ended our time with a little play on the zipline swings.

 

One evening we visited a nativity exhibit in Antigua.

 

 

 

Part of the exhibit featured nativity sets from around the world. Looking at all of them was my favorite part.

 

 

 

 

Towards the end we used homemade instruments and played them while singing a Christmas song together with the others in our group.  Cruz was excited to have permission to touch something.  If you'll remember on our last museum visit he set off the alarm by touching a turtle shell drum.

 

Enjoying an evening coffee stop at & Cafe. Their seasonal Christmas toffee coffee was delicious! 

I did a lot of cooking that week and we enjoyed some great meals around our table.  We also spent several evenings watching marathons of America's Funniest Home Videos.

 

After a week long visit we dropped her off at the airport where she flew to Mexico to spend Christmas with some other IMB families she had met in training.  We were a little sad to let her go.  We had really enjoyed her company.  We can't wait to host her again!