We meet up with Seth's parents in Guatemala for a vacation in January. We visited the Mayan ruins in Tikal, swam at the limestone pools near Coban, toured lake Atitlan and drove all around the Guatemala countryside. Guatemala is quite different than Nicaragua in a couple ways. First of all it is a lot cooler and more mountainous. However, the biggest difference has to do with the indigenous population...Nicaragua hardly has one and Guatemala is full of many Mayan groups. We enjoyed the change in scenery and climate, as well as the time to hang out with Mike and Dee.

We went to Granada for our last Christmas. We had time to relax, eat good food, spend time together and focus on Jesus's birth.

Seth's parents church, Rimrock, sent a team down to work with Pastor Ricardo's church in Asiento Viejo in November. They did a vet tech training with 4 technicians from the community. There also is a sewing coop in Asiento Viejo and the women requested help in learning how to make pants, men's shirts and women's blouses. So there were two women in the Rimrock group that helped teach them how to sew pants, shirts and blouses. It was a great time.

Pictures of some places where we work here in Nicaragua.

My parents came out for the week of Thanksgiving, so this year was the first year we really celebrated Thanksgiving. We spent visiting the campo (countryside) as well as relaxing at the beach.

In the beginning of October we were fortunate to make it back to the states for my cousins wedding. Seth and I are both very close with him and would not want to miss his wedding for anything. We are grateful it worked out for us to take a long weekend to go to his wedding.

Ricardo is a pastor friend we have here in Nicaragua. We have shared pictures from his land before and from the well he is digging by hand. Enjoy some more pictures of his land as well as an update on the status of the well (they are still digging, but have reached some water). They will continue to dig until the well fills up.

In the beginning of September we went to San Juan del Sur with Beth, an MCC friend. We had a wonderful time enjoying new uninhabited beaches. We even saw turtles mating on our boat ride back from one of the beaches we visited. We had a wonderful time enjoying the water, sun and sand.

We have moved to Teustepe the town located in the area where we work with AsoFenix. See the pictures of our home in Teustepe.

Last Saturday night we took the night tour at Masaya Volcano, an active volcano, which is just located outside of Managua. We did some hiking before it got dark then walked through bat caves that were caused by lava. To end the night we got to see a little red glow (lava) at the bottom of the crater.