So here I am...

Hola everyone!

If you are feeling adventurous and would like to send a card/letter/check for a meeellion dollars, please do! I'm interested to see if anything makes it here. And juuust for fun, if you ARE sending something, please let me know when you're sending it -- I'm curious to see how long it takes! The sender of the first letter that arrives gets a bag of Guatemalan coffee! Wooo-hoo! (Unless you are living in a country other than the US -- and in that case, you will have my undying appreciation.)

I've attached a few pictures we've taken recently. One is the bunches of flowers we bought from a local garden center -- Joel knew I was missing my gig at Lowe's so we stopped there we got all of these plants for less than $6. Deals! Deals! Deals! Another is of Aramis, one of the 3 friendly cats who live here. He's a Siamese mix and as cross-eyed as can be. The other is a pic of us relaxing in our new hammock. The volcano (we're not sure which one it is) had steam coming out this afternoon! Verrrry cool! The cable car picture is from Lake Amatitlan. We went there thinking we could swim, but the water is SO polluted from the factories in the area it's green and swirly and AWWWFUL. So, we rode the death-defying cable car to the top of a mountain. All I could think as we hung there by a cable was, "Do they have the same safety standards here as in the US? Prrrrobably not..." We stayed at the top of the mountain for a while (there's a nice little park up there) and ordered lunch from the small cafe. While we waited for our food, we played chess on a giant chess set. I was in the process of kicking Joel's butt when our food arrived. (&^%$!) Joel said our food saved him from public humiliation -- the people on the benches and in the grass were watching me trounce him... We played again after we ate and this time he thouroughly whooped my butt. Anyway, when we came back down a couple hours later, it was super foggy. OoooooOOooOOOOHhhh...

And this cracked me up today... There was a tourism commercial for Columbia on TV and their slogan was (I kid you not), "The only risk is wanting to stay." I'm sure there's a tiny asterisk (*) in there somewhere that says, "Along with the risk of being kidnapped, shot, or forced to smuggle cocaine in your underwear."

Ok, that's it for now, I'll write more later! I hope everyone is doing well!

Stay thirsty my friends...

-Jennifer