How wonderful it is to come home...

Hi,

As I sit here writing, Matt is with Mateo on our living room floor experiencing new toys and the joy of carpet. As some of you know, crawling is not encouraged in Guatemala (probably related to the state of floors there--tile or concrete)...so Mateo wasn't crawling when we picked him up. But it has only taken two days on the living room carpet for him to begin to get the gist of it.

He's settling in well here. MamaNona & Mateo's Godmother Shannon Kelley picked us up at the airport on Wednesday night...little man did a great job flying, considering the journey took more than 20 hours from the time we woke up in the hotel in Guatemala to the time we set our feet outside our home in Oregon. Much to our surprise, when Shannon pulled into our driveway, about 30 of our closest friends were bundled up (it was raining) on our porch to welcome us home. What a joyous time to know that our friends would make such an effort to make us feel loved. They hugged and kissed us and then packed up and headed home. The beautiful banner they made still hangs proudly outside our door. To be filled with such love at the end of a long journey was simply magnificent.

Mateo met Max & Emma on Wednesday night...they have been remarkably tolerant of his cat aquainting...he pets by grabbing hair as Matt & I try to encourage "Suave" or "soft"...they must just be desparate for human love...we'll see how long that lasts.

I must admit, one of the best parts of coming home-which I am sure our Guatemala friends Dan & Paula or Kevin & Nikki will agree with, is sleeping in our own bed. La Casa Grande, the hotel in Guatemala City had magnificent staff who loved us and our baby...but the beds left a bit to be desired. Never have I been more of a believer in the Tempurpedic than now. Mateo joins us in a co-sleeper (basically a three sided play & pack) so that we are all together from the time he goes to bed until the time he wakes up. We will eventually transition him to his crib in his room, but for now it is nice to have him close.

MamaNona came for a visit and she likes to teach Mateo songs in Italian...at this rate, we should have a linguist by the time he actually utters some words. We've also been working on getting him acclimated to baby food whose first ingredient is not sugar. He always makes a nasty face to start, but most of the time we can get him to get things down after a couple of bites.

Guess that's the update for now. Papa & Grammy Cathy are coming next weekend to meet Mateo and for his baptism. We are looking forward to their visit.

All our love...calls will follow soon...we promise! Love, Sarah & boys

Headed Home

Wow. I´m here in our local internet cafe sending our last entry from Guatemala and someone else asked if I knew english and could I help translate one of his e-mails into Spanish. Actually did it too.
So this IS the last entry form Guatemala. I just picked up Mateo´s passport from the embassy with a visa to enter the US. About noon pacific time tomorrow, we´ll pass through customs in Dallas and he´ll offically become a US citizen, plus his adoption will be recognized by the US Govt. The only thing now standing in our way is the enormous packing job we´ll need tackle before leaving for the airport. It´ll be the longest travel day of Mateo´s life, but fortunately, we don´t think there´ll be a single flight of over 3 hours, so we can stretch our legs on the concourses.
We´re wondering just what the new ´liguid/gel -era´security will be like at the Guatemala City airport. We´re guessing that either it will be as iffy as we saw on our last return - or that authorities here will have gotten the TSA requirements for US-bound flights and be over-enforcing them. Just in case, I´ve printed here the TSA web pages ( in english and spanish ) which point out that infant formula, baby food, gel-filled teethers and essential non-prescription meds (please let us take the baby anbesol and daiper-rash cream!) ARE allowed. Lotsa luck.
The pictures above are our latest, favorite family pic, some great smiles we caught in his stroller, and his latest bath. Sarah was delighted to see his appreciation for duckies. When we get back, we hope to get a picture with the whole collection!

We´re looking forward to seeing you all during the coming weeks! We´ll let Sarah Fronza 873-1173(our local ´visit coordintor´) know when we´ve settled so you´ll be able to know good times to stop by, and we´ll keep all of you out of town-ers up to date about when we´ll be ready to travel for visits. We´ll also be sure to keep up the blog until all of you have met our incredible son. Of course, we´ll see you local Silvertonians this Sunday at mass. We´re certain Mateo will fit right in at the 10:30 at St. Paul´s. We went with him one Sunday to the Cathedral here in Guatemala City. He was perfectly still and quiet until the priest got up to speak. Then he decided the homily must be a dialogue......

-Matt

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