Work or Play?

We are into week 6 of homeschooling this year, with Carrie in 7th grade, Elena in 5th grade, and Andrea in 3rd grade.  Veronica apparently wanted to get a head start on math, so she climbed up to watch the video on negative numbers with Carrie!

"I'm glad my big sister Carrie understands all this stuff!"

One Thursday, Elena went over to ASELSI to help at their free weekly medical clinic.  (Carrie had planned to go, too, but she was sick with a cold that day.)  Elena spent three hours there, taking patients to the pharmacy or lab after they had seen one of the doctors or nurses.  Most of the time was spent sitting and waiting, but Elena said she liked being helpful when she was able to lead patients.

You can look up ASELSI's ministry on their website, www.aselsi.org.  Our house is just down the street from their location.

Carrie enjoys tending a few beans we planted alongside our apartment.  There isn't much space, and our landlord already has a beautiful flower garden planted, but they gave Carrie permission to try out her green thumb.

Heather (Erica) had the pleasure of baking two cakes for our maid Micaela's grandson's first birthday.  They paid for the ingredients, but Heather went further and had fun decorating the cakes as a surprise.

Speaking of birthdays, August 12 was Elena's 10th birthday!  We invited our church members over to a covered area at ASELSI for party games and cake and ice cream.

We all had fun with relay races, the Hokey Pokey, building towers out of cups, eating, and visiting.  The Guatemalan kids in the photo are our maid's children.
Elena's favorite event at the party was when one of the missionaries brought her dog, Teddy.

Also in August, we took a road trip to Mexico.  After the first 90 days in Guatemala, we had to either renew our visas in Guatemala City or leave the country and return.  We opted to drive to the Mexican border at La Mesilla and then drive another couple of hours to the town of Comitán, Mexico.  We stayed two nights there, with a day of shopping at Walmart and eating at Burger King and Domino's Pizza in between.  The drive was absolutely beautiful, but there were some rather large obstacles to go around!

We had a nice trip, but we were glad to make it back safely to Chichicastenango!