june 7.  2015

waking up to these views makes me feel like i never want to leave.  they are bigger than life, beautiful green rainforests, volcanoes, and the gorgeous lake.  i love the hike to our house.  once at the top, you see the whole village, and you are nestled between two sides of mountains.  i honestly don’t know how this house got built.  the outdoor bathroom that we all share is pretty awesome.  there is a roof, and one wall along the back, but both sides of the bathroom are open.  you sit on the potty looking out at a mountain side-pretty awesome.  showering with a view of the lake and volcanoes makes you feel so close to nature.  i love that we share a bathroom, and have to be close together.

this morning, we ate breakfast outside on the gorgeous patio, staring at the views.  we have noticed that we get up earlier, and go to bed earlier.  probably because we are walking and hiking so much, when the sun goes down around 7pm, we are exhausted.

we were up early today, so we were ready and on the dock a little after 8:00am to catch a boat to pana.  church started at 9:00, and waiting for a boat, 20 minute boat ride, and a 15 minute walk, we made it with a couple minutes to spare.  we got to church, and it was testimony meeting today.  sweet camden and joselyn were very brave and got up and bore their testimonies-so awesome!  i asked to hold someone’s adorable baby-and jess and i took care of him the whole rest of church.  we loved meeting new people, and found out two american families live down here, and they also homeschool.  we look forward to getting together with them!  our family loves to go to church, no matter where in the world we may be.  it’s so neat to meet other members, it’s an instant friendship.  the lessons(what we could understand) were great.  the spirit was felt, the kids loved their classes and the experience.

then onto the atitlan reserve to see what we didn’t see yesterday in the rain.  we saw butterflies, monkeys, and hiked a lot.  it was great.  then we were told about the fruit and vegetable market, and made our way there since our groceries are very sparse.  we then walked about 20 minutes down to the docks, and got our 20 minute boat ride.  doug talked to someone who knew someone who would shop and cook dinner, and it was ready when we got to their house-thank goodness, because i think we were all so exhausted.  we played a few rounds of phase 10, caught our boat, hiked through the village and up the mountain to our house, and sat and watched the sunset on the lake.  unbelievably gorgeous.

btw…that is 6 of us in a tuk tuk…three sitting, three on laps.  we are getting quite good at this!