Life Lately December 2022

I have done several posts lately about our holiday celebrations.  This post will have all the other random photos I took during the month of December. 

I began the month hosting a mom's night out Christmas party in my home. We enjoyed a potluck meal and great fellowship around the table.  We played the white elephant game and each took home a small gift.

 

The following day we hosted the Waldraffs to watch the SEC championship game.  We knew Georgia would win but we still cheered for the LSU tigers.  I made this carrot cake with cream cheese icing to go with our pizza and popcorn meal.

 

 

David spent several days near Retalhuleu attending an Indigenous conference.  We had several Guatemalan groups represented as well as small groups from Mexico and Honduras.  Prior to Covid this was an annual event that took place in different locations each year.  We hope that it will continue to be an annual event going forward.

 

We met the Jarvis family for Friday night supper in San Cristobal and afterwards Cruz had an overnight stay with his friend Canon.  He had a blast!  

 

Pastor Apolinario's son from San Andres Itzapa got married and had a lovely Saturday afternoon wedding.

 

 

Fuego volcano was very active one Saturday night.  It started erupting before sunset and continued erupting through the night.  It was a cool sight to see from our patio.  The ash was so bad the airport in Guatemala City had to temporarily shut down. 

 

David washing the ash off of our car before we left for church on Sunday morning. 

 

We were excited to finish the first semester of the school year.  We took two weeks off for Christmas break.

 

 

Antigua had a jumbo screen set up in the Central Park to show the final World Cup game.  Most everyone here was cheering for Argentina.

 

 

 

 

 

It was a very lively crowd and we enjoyed being in it.

 

 

The moment Argentina won.

 

Our family watching the World Cup in Antigua.

 

That same evening we returned to town and watched Antigua play Coban in a championship game.  It was being played at the nearby Antigua stadium but they still aired it on the jumbo screen at the park.  The crowd was even larger for this game than for the World Cup game.  We were torn on who to cheer for since we love both Coban and Antigua.  In the end, Coban won. 

 

Antigua vs. Coban in soccer

 

Enjoying a late night coffee at Cafe Barista in town.  When you are on school vacation you can do that. 

 

The boys set up their gaming equipment in the backyard and had an outdoor game night.  They did this several times over Christmas break.

 

Lastly, we met the Jarvis family in Guatemala City for a lunch meal and then all went to Sky Zone for a fun afternoon.  It was also Ainslee's birthday so we enjoyed getting to celebrate with her. We are very thankful for this family's friendship!

Here are some links to my other December posts:

Christmas Kickoff in Antigua 2022

Christmas Luncheon with our IMB Mission Family 2022

Lauren's Visit

Miraflores Mall at Christmas 2022

Christmas Eve 2022

Christmas Day 2022

Guatemala City December 2022

New Year's Eve 2022

New Year's Day 2023

 

Some December Highlights

 

We began the month of December attending a beautiful Christmas concert.  It was our second time to attend this concert and now that we live here in Antigua I am sure it will become a December tradition.  It is so beautiful!  The songs are done in a mixture of English and Spanish.  I just love it and it is a wonderful way to start the Christmas season.

 

The concert takes place in the ruins of one of the cathedrals.  At the end there is a big fireworks display shot over head.  That is probably the boys favorite part and the anticipation of it helps them endure the long service.

 afterwards we went out for late night tacos

We decorated our Christmas trees.  This is the boy's tree.  Every year they get to decorate their own tree with ornaments that they either made or were given.  They love this tradition and get so excited to show it to our guests who visit during December.

 a photo of them with their tree wearing their new soccer jerseys they bought with Christmas money from family

They also helped me decorate our living room tree.  That evening we celebrated by building a fire, drinking hot chocolate, and watching a few episodes of I Love Lucy.  We have a DVD collection and are working our way through them one episode at a time.  We rotate with Andy Griffith.  The boys love them just as much as we do.

In early December David attended the annual Indigenous Conference.  This year it took place in the Pokomchi area in Alta Verapaz.  Several different Mayan groups were represented.  It was a great conference and plans are already being made for the 2019 conference.  It will take place in Copan, Honduras.

One Saturday afternoon we made a drive up the hill to visit Santo Domingo del Cerro.  We have heard so much about it and I was so excited to finally get to go.  It did not disappoint.  It is a beautiful place!  We walked through all of the museums and explored all of the grounds.  We didn't get to eat at the restaurant yet but have plans to return soon and try it out.  This is currently one of my favorite places in town.  

There are so many fun art pieces like this one all around.  The museums are free.  The only cost is parking which was just a little over $1.00.  I'm certain we'll return if for nothing else to give the boys a place to roam and explore.  I love any place that allows them to burn off energy.  

 On the drive down we stopped for a photo at the lookout over Antigua. 

Mid-month we hosted our new leader for our role with Americas Connect.  We had a great visit with him and learned so much about our new job.  We are excited about the days ahead partnering with U.S. churches and helping them be on mission here in Guatemala.  I plan to share more about that in our January newsletter.

A few photos of the boys with our Christmas tree- 

There is a place just down the road from us (Cre8 Antigua) that we have spent a lot of time at recently.  It is the same facility that hosts the homeschool meet-ups.  They offer several workshops for kids to participate in.  We have done two so far.   The first one was to make Christmas slime.  The boys were so excited!

Cruz's Christmas slime

We attended three different churches so far in December and one Sunday did our annual Skype call with a church in Tennessee to promote the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.  On one of those Sundays we were back at the Baptist church in Jocotenango.  Here are David and the boys with the pastor.  He resigned that Sunday and will be leaving at the end of the month.  Pray for him as he seeks the Lord for his future and for the church as they begin to look for a replacement.

My Christmas present was delivered mid-month.  We had a table built with seating for 8.  I LOVE it!  Our house here has a separate dining room.  That is something we have never had here before.  We have our smaller table in our kitchen and now have a more formal area to host guests.  I look forward to many meals shared around this new table in the future.

We hosted our annual mission Christmas party this year.  We were so excited about having it at our home.  Here is our group photo.  

The ladies- Jo, me, Karen,  and Lily.

enjoying our lunch 

It was our first time to use our new table.  What a great way to break it in.

 Our school Christmas break started last Friday (hooray!!!)  We celebrated with an afternoon trip to a local coffee shop for frozen frappes.

This past Saturday the boys attended another Christmas workshop.  This time they made Christmas houses out of chocolate rice krispies.  They really loved this activity and had the best time decorating their houses.  

What they enjoyed more than making those houses was getting to eat them.  They did not last very long once we got them home.

When you throw in homeschool, a little Christmas shopping, and endless trips back and forth to the grocery store it makes for a full month.  We have had a fun December and are learning more and more about our new area.  It is not our first time to live in Antigua but so much has changed since we lived here last.  (We lived here for six months when we first arrived in Guatemala to study Spanish and then temporarily lived here again for several months in 2010 when Cruz was born).  It is our first time to live in our current house though and we are loving it more and more each day.  We loved getting to spend Christmas here and start a few new traditions.  I'll share about our Christmas celebration in my next posts.

Indigenous Encuentro 2012

As I have already mentioned we spent most all of last week in the town of Sayaxche attending the annual Indigenous Encuentro.  It took place at the Kekchi Baptist church in Sayaxche and was attended by about eight different people groups from several different Latin countries.  It was a great meeting.  Each group got to share about their work, the good they are doing, and the struggles they are having.  It was good for them to hear what others are doing and to learn from each other.  They had morning sessions, afternoon sessions, and worship services at night.  Here are few photos I was able to take-

back row Baptists, haha

This is Bro. Nahum from Honduras sharing about the Chorti work there.  He is the pastor that David goes visiting with on Wednesdays.

This group was from Mexico

I loved the colorful dress that the Mexico ladies wore.  I also like their head wraps.  You would not have to worry about having bad hair days if you lived with them. haha

a few of the Kekchi men during a small group discussion time

We had a session on Bible storying.  One of the stories told was about the lost sheep.  A lady decided to use Cruz as the sheep to act out the story.  She put him over her shoulder and carried him into the church.  It was really cute.

This is mostly the group from Mexico.  They are from Chihuahua, Mexico.

another photo of the colorful dress the Tarahumaras ladies wear

having a prayer time

Cruz had a lot of fun running around and playing.  You would think he personally knew everyone in the building.  He never meets a stranger and let everyone love on him.  He was so sweet.  This was our first road trip since having Ben.  I must say it went very well considering we had a two year old and a six week old.  Both boys traveled well, slept well, and ate well.  It normally takes us about seven hours to get there but took eight this time.  Cruz started running fever and threw up twice in the car.  It was a nasty mess, but we survived.  He was fine by the next day and you would never know he had been sick.  I am thankful for boys that travel well!

This is the group representing our area.  Four of the men are from Honduras and one is from Guatemala.  Next years meeting will take place in Copan Ruinas, Honduras.  Bro. Nahum (on the far right) will be hosting it.  We will be looking forward to all gathering again for another good meeting next April.