Independence Day in Antigua

So more cool sites from Guatemala. We trekked around Antigua yesterday in honor of Independence Day. Saw some old churches...and had a picture taken outside San Francesco...we always stop at St. Francis churches to light a candle for Matt's dad (whose name was Francis in case you didn't know). This church also had a nave honoring St. Clare and so I lit a candle in honor of my Aunt Julie's first profession of vows at the St. Clare Monastery in Minneapolis. She and the other sisters there have prayed long and hard on our behalf...and we are grateful to have the chance to say a prayer of thanksgiving for their interventions.

The picture of Matt holding Mateo with Matt's Australian Walkabout Rain Hat on was while we were witnessing the parade in honor of Independence Day. By the way, my dad would be proud...some teenage boys took Matt's Mountain View Contruction hat out of the coche (baby stroller) and Matt chased them down with Mateo in arms to get it back, saying "No one steals Mike LaPlante's hat under my watch!!"

Mateo has to be the only kid who can fall asleep standing less than two feet from a drum line that was parading through the city. Our Band Teacher friend Frank Petrik would hang his head in shame, I am afraid (but on the plus side, we got some great video of it to show him when we get home!!)

And we spent some time at one of our favorite hangouts in Antigua...the Rainbow Reading Room. It has good food, a used bookstore where you can rent books (they lost a ton of money on me this week!!), and nice atmosphere...it also had a great happy hour, so last night, Matt & I imbibed in honor of missing Oktoberfest in Mt. Angel this week. Oh, here's hoping that will be the last time we have that experience (missing O'Fest, that is!!) We're counting on our friends to eat & drink to compensate for our absence.

Much to our surprise, we finally got to see the top of one of the volcanos...it has been such crappy weather here, you would have thought it was Oregon in January...but yesterday, the sun came out and we were able to take the picture of the volcano nearest to where we were staying. When we come back to show Mateo around in four or five years, we will make sure to take a tour to the top so he can see real lava flow.

Before we leave tomorrow, we will attend Mass in one of the restored Cathedrals in Antigua...to give thanks to God for our many blessings...our friends...our family...our son...and the many people who have loved him here in Guatemala...and the many people at home who will continue to shower him with love!

Anyway, enough for now...we have to go pack for the first stage of our journey home (to Guatemala City tomorrow). Thanks to everyone who has taken time to email us...or post comments on the blog. Your notes have made the days when we really miss home seem a little bit brighter.

All our love...We THREE Millers

Save the date & other stuff...

Hi friends,

I am sitting at the "Internet Cafe" on the grounds of our spanish school (read this to be 2 Mac computers sitting out on a covered patio in the open air) trying to make the photos from the camera import...which I can't seem to work...hard to know if it is because I can't use a MAC to save my life, or if it is because these computers are so old?!? Maybe some of both!

Anyway, couple of things to share...

In case anyone has missed it, we are planning to baptize Mateo on Sunday, October 1st at the 10:30AM Mass at St. Paul's in Silverton. Matt's mom, Louise, and his sister, Pamela, have been cooking and freezing a fine assortment of delectables for the post-baptism party at Louise's house. We went out shopping yesterday with our Spanish teacher who took us to the local Artisan's market where we found a lovely outfit for him to wear, that is a more traditionally Guatemalan affair. We will be sending invites next week upon our return, but Matt has been hounding me for a week to send a save the date note to everyone.

My dad and Cathy will be coming that weekend to enjoy the festivities and to get to meet Mateo...it will be nice to have some family around. My sister Rachel won't be able to attend because of her latest addition, three-week old Nathan, but we will be headed to Boise sometime thereafter to let the cousins get to know each other a bit. My dad brags on a regular basis about now having enough grandsons to field half of a basketball team (and he doesn't even like basketball!!)

We're told that our house is finally finished...the painting was done last week, and the factory window guys came to fix the leak (thus the recent scaffolding episode that those of you in Silverton witnessed). And to top it off, my dad has agreed to help Matt build a deck while he is visiting...so it will be nice to have most of the major house projects done for a while.

As for a Mateo update, he is, of course in my humble opinion :), magnificent. I think we are going to head out and do some walking today to see some of the historical sites in Antigua. We finally found Fernando's coffee yesterday (which we are told is simply the best in all of Guatemala)...so of course, we purchased a few to bring home with us.

Guess that's all for now...Matt will have to come & load some pictures to this blog...which we will try to do a bit later today. Until then, all is well here, and we anxiously await a trip home to see all of you at some point in the next few weeks.

Hugs from Guatemala, Sarah, Matt & Mateo

P.S. a little bit of both - Matt

These are some shots around the school. The night shot shows our class-cubicle in the background as well as the patio where the school;s 'internet cafe' is. Sarah and Mateo are sitting at the fountain in front of our house.

The world is better in Antigua

(2nd post of the day - see below)

It is so beautiful here in Antigua. The colonial city is surrounded by three volcanos that are covered with lush green flora. The streets are cobblestoned and there are many recovered ruins right next to new generation places (like McDonald's). The first picture shows Matt holding Mateo Guatemalan style in front of the ruins of a Jesuit church. The second picture is another ruin from a church built many centuries ago and repeatedly damaged and repaired through the many earthquakes that have occurred here over the centuries.

Friday, Guatemala celebrates the 185th anniversary of their Independence from colonial Spain. Antigua was the capital of Guatemala/most of Central America in the colonial times. It has been crazy as they have been having parades, fireworks, torch relays with kids running for most of the week. Who knows what Friday will hold!?!

In the meantime, we are staying on the grounds of the Spanish School that we are taking classes from...well Matt is mostly taking classes, while I care for Mateo. Today though, I spent about 90 minutes with Xiomara (Cio-mara) just having conversation & of course, playing with Mateo. It is amazing how much I understand from my two years of high school Spanish in St. Maries...of course, I understand much more than I can speak...which makes conversation a bit challenging to say the least.

The grounds of the school are meticulous and well groomed gardens...our gardening friends would be amazed! Our room(s) at the school are very nice...we have a bedroom, bathroom, a kitchen & a living room which gives us a bit more space to spread out. Matt went to the market today and bought stuff to make spaghetti for dinner...if I had only known how much I would crave a dinner so simple!! We are generally staying in for breakfast as Matt has to be at class by 8AM and then we head out for lunch to experience some local cuisine...then it is home (well in our room) for dinner. It has become a fairly nice routine. If only we could increase the temperature by 10 degrees and decrease the humidity by say 100%, we would be doing wonderfully!!

Guess that's all for now...hugs from we THREE Millers in Guatemala. We'll try to post more pictures soon! Sarah & Matt & Mateo

Ouch!

So now he's got his top front teeth and man, can he chomp! At this rate his voice will drop before we bring hime home!

No, things actually look quite good, and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We met friday morning with Sonia, the friend our agency has down here. She'll be going with us to the visa meeting to help us with the procedure and bureaocracy, and we went over all our documents with her. Now that we have a definite finish time, everything feels much more relaxed, and we can focus entirely on bonding and having a good time as a family.
And of course, watching our son grow! His top toofers just began poking out yesterday, and while he's a bit more fussy, his general good nature and baby anbesol are making it not too traumatic an experience on us newby parents.

Saturday, we went for dinner at the home of our friend Elsi's cousin, Christian. He lives about 40 minutes out of town, up another thousand or two feet of elevation (much more fog and afternoon rain than down in the city) We had a great time with Christian and his family. They served killer tamales and hot coffee and we got to talk about each others lives, cultures and families, and of course dote on the baby! We also got to practice a lot of spanish. That's Christian holding Mateo in the close-up picture and the group shot has Christian, his expecting wife, his sister, kids from both of the siblings, and his mom and grandmom.

The next day Christian was kind enough to drive us and our several bags to Antigua. He's a butcher and delivers meat daily to restaurants in the area. When we tried to decline his too-generous offer, he pointed out that he had to make a delivery to Antigua that day anyway. Though when he showed up, there was no meat to be seen in the back of his pickup. A good thing afterall, since being new parents, we are traveling with an enormous amount of stuff, and we had to fit a lot of bags, pack 'n' play stroller, in the truck. True to our luck recently, the afternoon rains had started. It took creative use of raincoats to protect everything on the 1 hour ride.

Learning Lots

He still hasn´t cut those top teeth, but a week and a half in, he´s learning lots of new stuff. Thanks to a musical book from Shannon Kelly, he´s beginning to absorb the concept that we in the science center business live by: Push a button / Make something happen. We´re regularly serenaded by whiny electronic versions of ¨Twinkle Twinkle Little Star¨ and Ïf You´re Happy and You Know It¨.

He´s also learning to stand and hold himself up really well, even though forward crawling is still a challenge. He responds, when he´s lying on his back, to ¨grab my hands!¨or ¨¡Coges las manos!¨ by grabbing my fingers, then scruches up his face and strains to hold on while I lift him upright (picture three). This morning for a picture he said ¨Look Ma: one hand¨ (pic 4) he can even stay unassisted for a couple of seconds. When he´s on his back and frustrated, wanting to be lifted up, he bends his arms into a pull-up position, clenches his fists, and grunts like he´s being pulled up until Dad gets the message.
Matt´s college friend Todd is married to a Guatemalteca, who´s really excited about the adoption and has family living in Guatemala City. Tonight her cousin Christian is coming by to bring us to his house for a visit. We´re looking forward to making new friends.
Tomorow it´s off to Antigua.

If anyone has an overseas phone plan that´s affordable, you can feel free to try our new cell phone:

011-502-5356-1285 We´ve been able to call the US (cheap), though evenings the lines are frequently busy. So far a couple attempts to reach us have yielded busy tones, but that may be clogged lines too.....

-Matt