The Waiting Game...

Today has turned out to be one of the most exciting days of my life! It didn't start off so exciting. It's a typical Friday at school, students are anxious for the weekend, I'M anxious for the weekend, I'm giving a quiz in one of my classes, selling Valentine Grams during lunch...you know, a typical Friday for me. Then as I'm leaving the school, taking that much awaited sigh of relief knowing the school day is over, I get the phone call I've been dying to hear since August 1st. "Your profile is up!" Jennifer, our caseworker delivered the news, and I burst into tears. Finally, after months and months of hard work, we can finally sit easy and...well...wait, I guess. (Maybe this will be the actual hard part, right?!) I can't begin to explain how much I've longed for this moment. To finally be "advertised" I guess you could say, for the birth parents out there willing to give us a chance. This is a huge deal. Ricky and I went to celebrate by going to Johnny Reb's for dinner; it was delicious. I told him, "Ricky, I am so ready for this! WE are so ready for this!" All he said was, "This is when it gets real." He's so right, and we are so ready. Today turned out to be such an exciting day! I have never been so excited to wait for something...or continue to wait for something I should say. We're almost there. Can't wait for the blessings to come.

Now a quick little bit about our recent trip to Guatemala, since I never had a chance to blog about it! Ricky took me on an incredible (that's the best adjective I can think of at this moment) adventure through Guatemala and Honduras for 10 days during our winter vacation from school. I could seriously blog about our trip for hours, but because I am so excited about our adoption, I really don't think I could concentrate for that long; so this will be brief.

Antigua: After arriving into Guatemala City on a red-eye from L.A., we rented our car (a Hyundai Tucson, awesome car btw!) and immediately visited the Gonzalez Family - the family Ricky lived with while he was in school in Guatemala, and met while on his mission; they were kind enough to lend us a cell phone while we were there. From there, we went to Antigua where we spent the next 24 hours. This town was beautiful, cobble stone streets, 2 surrounding volcanoes, and a ga-zillion churches! 

 

Wildlife Animal Park & Chiquimulilia: Antigua was so beautiful, it was hard to leave, but I was so excited for what lie ahead! We were headed for Chiquimulilia, where Ricky spent the majority of time on his mission, and made several lifelong friends, whom he talks to at least a few times a year. I was so excited to see this town, that holds such a special place in Ricky's heart. Before we arrived in Chiqui however, Ricky surprised me as we detoured to a Wildlife Animal Park, in the middle of nowhere. This was such a cool place, and was absolutely gorgeous, in the middle of a jungle...a REAL jungle! Once we were done hanging with the monkey's, we made our way to Chiqui. Chiqui was a small town, with such kind people. It was in town that Ricky started his own little movie theater! This is so cool. You'll have to ask Ricky more about it (can't explain it all in this blog...but such a cool story!) I met soooo many awesome people, and will never ever forget my experience here. But I can tell you that I was exhausted once we left because of all the listening I had to do - no speak-a-da-English-here. 

At the Wildlife Animal Park!

Standing in front of the movie theater!

Chiqui & Montericco: After leaving Chiqui, we headed further down the coast to the ocean side town of Montericco. You would not believe how we had to get there...we had to ride on this crazy, wooden ferry for approximately 20 min through the mangroves (which is as close to an experience on the Amazon that I could imagine!), to the little town of Montericco. While there (it was HOT by the way) we relaxed, swam, oh and released baby sea turtles into the ocean...you know, just a typical day on the beach in Guatemala! :) Best thing ever. 

 

 Honduras: Ricky and I made what should have been a 4 hour trek to Honduras (turned out to be 8 hours because we got a little lost in the Guatemala country side), to the small town of Copan. Here we stayed in the cutest little Inn, and got our first taste of excitement for the end of the Mayan calendar, December 21st, 2012. We visited the ruins, and ate some delicious food!!!

Tikal: Upon returning to Guatemala, the next day we took a 45 min prop plane ride to Tikal. This was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had in my life. Tikal took my breath away. I'm not sure I could accurately explain how incredibly cool it was. AND we were there on the day the Mayan calendar ended, which made it even MORE awesome. You could feel a strong spirit there, and the jungle is everything I imagined it to be; lush and beautiful. I will never forget it.

Lake Atitlan: Our last stop on our 10 day journey was to visit the beautiful Lake Atitlan. We stayed in a beautiful lake side hotel, ate delicious food (again), rod a little "Tuk Tuk" taxi as Ricky referred to it, and experienced a lot of wind (it was very windy lakeside while we were there). Oh, and I inevitably got sick (was just waiting for it to happen while we were in Guatemala)...at least it was only the day before we were supposed to fly home.

On our last day in Guatemala, we went to the city center and spent time with Ricky's good friend (and someone who is SO much fun!) Pierina. The following morning we flew back to L.A. It was an incredible trip, and we had so much fun together. I was so impressed by Ricky, the itinerary he put together for us, how he took care of me (he literally had to do everything for me since I don't speak a lick of Spanish!). Ricky, I love you so much; I had so much fun with you in Guatemala, and it is now a very special place to me too. Can't wait to go back again some day!