Greetings from Guatemala. Matt here. I arrived in Guatemala yesterday, after a mostly uneventul trip down. (See below for more details.)
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Over the past many months, people have commended me on "our" blog. I have humbly confessed that I have nothing to do with "our" blog; it is Michele's blog. In fact and in general, Michele has been the heart and administrative hands of this adoption. I've been her gopher and servant: "Matt, Sign here...Take this to the post office...Email this person...Pray this prayer." Not to say I'm not THRILLED and EXCITED by Miranda entering our life. Just that Michele's been in charge, as she should be. What do I know about raising little girls? I'm just now getting the hang of raising little boys, and now they're not so little.
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Anyway, it's time I made my mark in this adoption process. So I suggested to Michele that I make my own blog post. To this suggestion Michele said, "Hmmm...Are you sure you can do that?" I said, "Michele, I pastor a medium-sized church. Surely I can make a blog post." Twenty minutes later she was pointing to keys on the keyboard saying, "Type this. Now Return. Michele is spelled with one L. Geesh."
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In a further effort to demonstrate my independence and contributions to this process, I took some pictures of Miranda and myself BY myself. Michele offered to take them for me, but as a self-made man I insisted I could do this myself. Here are those pix.
I know she doesn't seem especially happy to be with me, but she is. Trust me.
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Perhaps you notice the resemblance between Miranda and I. My brother Brad and his wife Allison recently had a baby named Lucy, who is a sweet and adorable little girl who is the SPITTING IMAGE of my mother at Lucy's age. (She has the pictures to prove it.) Well Brad, Mom, Allison, Lucy...if you want to talk about spitting images, surely you agree that a father and daughter never looked as much like each other as Miranda and I do. It's in the eyes, the cheekbones, the forehead. If you can't see it, picture Miranda with a gotee and it'll jump out at you.
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Anyway, my trip down here was nice, except having to sit at the back of the plane from Houston to Guatemala. (Why don't people want to sit at the back of the plane? It's because after breakfast everyone needs to take a big early-morning poop, and those lavatories do NOT contain very well the smells of early-morning poops.) Also, our plane in St. Louis had some hydraulic problems, so they had to reload us on a different plane. I didn't complain. Thank God for plane inspections. But it did make catching the next plane in Houston a bit too close for comfort.
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Once here, I had a nice conversation with Marvin (Mar-veen) on the way to Antigua, where Michele and the kids (not just "the boys", anymore) are staying. Mar-veen was the driver sent to pick me up at the airport. In broken Spanish we talked about politics, family, life, religion. Mar-veen told me that in Guatemala more and more people are leaving the Catholic Church for the Evangelical Church because evangelical preachers preach better. They use illustrations, humor, they talk about peoples' lives. They keep it interesting. I said "Amen, hermano!" Apparently they don't need me down here.
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Miranda is beautiful and lovely. She really seems to like me: she smiles at me, laughs at me. However, I think Miranda likes everyone. And, of course, everyone likes Miranda. Among all the Guatemalan babies God could have given us, he seems to have chosen one of the friendliest and happiest and prettiest kiddos in America de Central. We're grateful and blessed.
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Today we are going to continue bonding. We're going to go on a walk, we're going to go to the market. We're going to go see the sites of Antigua. I brought a bunch of church stuff to do on my down time here in Antigua, but this morning I agreed with God that getting work done was a distant second priority to my first priority of family-bonding. (Some of you are thinking it shouldn't be any sort of priority while down here.) So while I have church email access down here, if I don't respond your church-related email, deal with it. And God bless you. 
Just after bath time.
Look! I scooched myself all the way into this little corner between the bench and the table! Aren't I funny!?
Max being a totally awesome dish-washing helper!
I love to roll all over the floor! Thank goodness for Patty who mops our floor every day because it gets really dusty here!
Today we mostly stayed around the hotel, dropped off laundry, picked up laundry, walked to the store, and spent a few hours this afternoon at a local playground with a friend from Truman who is adopting her son from Guatemala and is also living in Antigua. One of her housemates and her son also joined us. It was very nice for the boys to have some room to run around. The lavanderia is just around the corner and Lily does our laundry for around $9. It comes back all nicely folded in a bag. Can anyone relate when I say it really is a glorious feeling to open up the nice, clean laundry already folded and ready to put away?
And now, leaving you with a cute photo of Miranda.
Rachel--this was when I was trying to call you!
After Culinaria, we walked home and while Miranda napped, the boys and I read and had a little "rest time." We then got Miranda back in the Moby wrap and headed out to find Deliciosa--to try some excellent chocolate as recommended to us by my fellow St.Louisan/blogger/adoptive mom, Katie Mohr. Katie: this picture is for you. We will DEFINITELY go back for more chocolate!
We then walked back to our hotel via El Arco, the street with the famous yellow arch. Along the way we stopped at a textile market and took some pictures. We're getting a lot of walking in while we are here in Antigua. I enjoy it, but have to tune out the boys when they are complaining about how tired they are. Doesn't Mitchell look like he's having a GREAT time!!!??
Tomorrow we have to make another trip to La Bodegona (the grocery store), go to the ATM, and I promised the boys that we could go to McDonald's. If we get all of that done, it will be a successful day! The McDonald's here is crazy nice...a beautiful courtyard. I'll definitely get pictures for you to see!
Here she is in the Moby wrap again. As you can see, I actually took a shower this morning. Future note: hairspray and make-up are not really necessary to pack, as I haven't used them at all.
Typical stret in Antigua. I'm constantly reminding the boys to watch out so they don't get killed by a crazy driver and to make sure they don't twist their ankle on the cobblestone streets!
It is 10pm Antigua time and I'm off to bed. Apparently tonight is the weekly "mass for people with problems" (as our front-desk person described to me) and the local Catholic church rang it's bells for close to 30 minutes and people were setting off tons of fireworks. When the bells kept going off, I seriously thought it was like in the movies...an emergency cry...like maybe the volcano was erupting and we all needed to evacuate. Yes...I know I have a tendency to jump to conclusions. Good night.
Here are the boys doing homework at the table right outside our room. Miranda is being entertained, just watching them.
The courtyard is full of sun and flowers. It is very warm during the day when the sun is out, but gets cool at nighttime.
We should hopefully be getting an e-mail from the U.S. embassy sometime today or tomorrow, which will let us know when our embassy appointment will be and when we can come home!
We ended up using the crib bumper and ruffle that we used with the boys. It is a light colored denim. We bought cute flowered girly sheets to go with them and they look good together!
Here is a picture of the cute bag that my friend Melissa from work gave me last night for Miranda. It's the first thing we have with her name embroidered on it!! Thanks so much Melissa.
The only thing I'm a little worried about is that our suite is right by the kitchen, so I'm afraid it may be a little louder than other areas of the hotel. Well, that's what earplugs are for, right?
Last Tuesday night after small group, our friend's Dan and Michelle brought in the box seen below for the boys. This had been in their attic for at least 10 years (Dan's sons are in their late teens now). Matt swore that we were going to wait to set it up until AFTER our houseguest moved out of the basement, because he didn't want it to take up the whole living room. Well, that lasted about two days and it is now, indeed, set up in the living room. The boys love it and had all the neighborhood kids over this weekend to play. The last picture is Mitchell playing it with a neighborhood friend.
