We have had a busy week!

For starters, Quinn’s school has had a flurry of events which has impacted the activities of whole family.

First up, was the annual school science fair and Jen volunteered to be a judge. She was asked to evaluate several 4th grade projects, which were all focused on ecology topics and were completed and presented in English. Since English is the 3rd language of many of the students at the school, it was extra impressive to see the amazing work they put together even at their young ages.

“How population growth will affect the environment” — This girl used a computer program to draw the approximate number of additional houses projected in the Lake Atitlán area over the next 10 and 20 years (based upon data gathered on the internet).

We’ve also had a string of birthday parties in Quinn’s kindergarten class. Here the custom is to bring in a piñata along with lunch, cake and treats for the whole class. Since Quinn has so many food allergies, Jen has been busy baking him special cakes and providing alternate food and other treats so he can also participate in these school festivities.

Quinn’s class had a field trip to the local Nature Reserve, where they were able to feed bananas to some wild monkeys and see a very large selection of butterflies. They also got to take turns on the kid zip-line that they enjoyed enormously.

Quinn and his school friend Scarlet

Quinn had a great time on the zip line

There were lots of other fun activities to keep the kids entertained.

Tropical storm Boris paid us a visit this week as well. The heavy rains turned our streets into rivers while many locals cautiously watched the river rise. The roads into and out of town were rendered impassible and the town was closed off from the outside world for a day or so.

What’s a person to do with so much rainy weather? Witt worked, Quinn went to school (except for the one day when the schools were closed), and Jen spent 4 days in a row baking cakes and loaves of bread to pass away the rainy days.

Jen goes all Martha Stewart with some fresh baked bread.

On Saturday we got in the van for the first time in a month and drove to the Mayan Eco Homestead. Greg and Lucy Jensen along with their 4 sons are building a “model sustainable farm” where they’re implementing a variety of sustainable agriculture techniques ranging from rabbits and chickens to square foot gardening and even tilapia farming. Their goal is to serve as an example for local farmers, who are free to come to their farm and learn about ways to make a living through sustainable agriculture.

It was very exciting to see how this family is building their farm from the ground up, learning, making mistakes, and improving as they go.

Mayan Eco Homestead is making a difference for local families.

AND… in a major shift from the way we usually roll, we actually have firm plans for the next 2 months! After school finishes later this month, we are headed to the mountains of Panama where we will be housesitting for 3 weeks in July! This means that we’ll have about 2 weeks to explore El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica en route. It’s not a lot of time, but we will have another opportunity to explore Costa Rica as we have booked a house for the month of August in the Central Valley there.

We will be centrally located among lots of popular attractions, we will have plenty of room for visitors, and we’ll even have our own pool! Want to visit? Please let us know!