Good times! (in January)

How quickly time passes! Another apology is due for the lack of blog writing….this one is a little overdue!!

January was full of activity as we spent time with our families, who made the trip out here to El Salvador to see what we are up to. Tom’s mom and aunt arrived on January 17^th, the day before the arrival of my dad and brother. While Tom and I went to the airport to pick up Jude and Wes, Marge and Jeanie got to spend the day in San Salvador, touring some of the historical parts with Sue (who is a ball of energy). Wes and Jude arrived in San Salvador on time, Jude was dressed in pants and a long-sleeve shirt, which he immediately took off, because he realized it would be a hot week in El Salvador. We climbed into the double cab Datsun pick-up that belongs to CRISPAZ, tied down the luggage and were off to go. We hadn’t even left the parking lot and they were thinking about taking pictures. The ride to the office was filled with chit-chat, questions and amazement.

Once at the office we did the proper introductions, tour of the office, picked up Marge and Jeanie, repacked and we were off. We spent the first four days of the trip in our community. We did lots of visiting with our old host-family, ate Quesadillas at Esperanza´s house; (the lady who makes the Quesadillas, which were a big hit), played softball a couple of times, Luis and Tita played some live ranchero music for us, Wes got drunk at the Cuban Bar in Suchitoto and Jeanie almost got married, took a bus to San Martin (which Jude and Wes couldn’t stop talking about for days, in fact it was Wes’ highlight for the trip), shopped in the market, and of course toured the clinic and the school.

We crammed a lot of stiff within a few days and probably could have used more time for everything, but we needed to move on to different parts of the country. We then went to Joya de Ceren, an archeological site that was accidentally discovered in 1976, from there we moved east. We ended up staying in San Vicente, a larger town with very strange hotel options that will not be mentioned in this blog. In the morning we headed to the Pacific Ocean and El Espino beach. It is in our opinion the most beautiful beach in El Salvador. We arrived on Wed and only had 2 days left before Jude and Wes were due to fly out. We enjoyed the time we had at the beach, relaxed, drank some beer and did some swimming.

After my side of the family left we spent a couple of more days in El Salvador before traveling to Antigua, Guatemala. We had four days with great food, shopping and relaxing while we were there. Tom and Jeanie did extreme cables while we visited Panajachel and had a blast. After our time in Antigua we sent Jeanie and Marge on their way and we headed back home to El Salvador.

The trip went by rather quick, but we were glad to share this experience with our family. We hope that they will want to come back and visit us again!!!