Liliana's Love of Churches

Panchimalco, El Salvador

During the time we lived in El Salvador, Liliana grew a fondness for churches.  She started going to church regularly for regular services or just prayer groups with her abuela.  Whatever it was, she was absolutely fascinated and it was a way for her and Eduardo's mom to bond.  

Liliana was baptised in a Catholic church in El Salvador in 2010.  I like to think of myself as more of a spiritual person than a religious person and am definitely not Catholic,  But I respect my husband's family and their religious practices.  Especially in El Salvador when having faith is sometimes all a person has.  

But I don't see her love of church about religion at all.  I do however think that there is something about standing in a church that must bring her some sense of peace because she can't seem to get enough of it! 

We don't attend church here in the States, but Liliana always talks about her times at church with her abuela and sister and brother.  She definitely has fond memories of going with them.  

When we visited Guatemala this past October with Eduardo, we were both laughing at how much Liliana just wanted to go to church.  Every single day, all day long, she was ask if we were going to church now.  We went a few times and would sit for a while and walk around and leave.  She never wanted to leave!  She always just wanted to stay observing everyone and looking at everything.  It was so funny.  Have you ever heard of a toddler crying because they didn't want to leave church?!  LOL

I do have to say I can't really blame her though.  The churches of Central America that I have seen are very beautiful inside and out.  The thing is about El Salvador is that you can walk into almost any church any time and find people praying.  And I guess it does even bring me a sense of peace :)

I've had to opportunity to take a lot of pictures on our travels and have posted them here to share in the beauty of the churches of El Salvador and Guatemala :)

A church in Antigua, Guatemala

Another church in Antigua

El Salvador

Concepcion de Ataco, El Salvador

Sonsonate, El Salvador

San Salvador

Santa Ana, El Salvador  (I think)

Izalco, El Salvador

Izalco, El Salvador

Daddy's Girl

There was no hesitation at all for Liliana when she saw her papi at the airport.  We all had a big hug and felt right at home.  It was late though so she fell asleep on the way from the Guatemala City airport to Antigua, about a 45 minute drive.  We arrived at the hotel around 11:30pm and went in to relax.  All Liliana wanted to do was to be near her papi and show him anything and everything we took with us.  It was so exciting to see them chatting away and to witness Eduardo experiencing her in a whole new way.  She is much more talkative at this age now!  

We were all laying in bed at one point and Eduardo got up to go to the bathroom.  When he was walking away, Liliana's lip started quivering and she said "where's papi going?"  She was very concerned every time he was not in the same room even for a minute the whole trip.  

In Antigua and in Panajachel, you walk everywhere.  I absolutely love it.  But carrying a 3-year old isn't always easy for days on end.  I do pretty well with her in the sling, but her favorite place to be was up on Eduardo's shoulders.  They did this all the time and both equally enjoyed it.  I got lots of sweet pics :)

Being with Eduardo made both Liliana and I more at ease and more relaxed.  She only had 1 major tantrum the whole trip, where I experience at least 1 on a daily basis here at home because of so many factors that lead up to them (but that's a whole other topic).  It was a nice taste of what life will and can be like once Eduardo finally gets back here and we get back to our "semi-normal" life.  

I think that reconnection also just put some sense of peace into Liliana's life.  Before we went she would cry every day for her papi and for El Salvador.  That's the main reason we went down.  She has had a few of those days the longer we are away now, but in general she seems better than before.  One day after we had gotten back I told Liliana I was sad because I missed papi and she said "It's okay, mami.  Papi comes soon." It's a good thing we have each other.  

I'm also glad that Eduardo and Liliana have such a great relationship.  I can honestly say she is a mommy's girl and a daddy's girl and I think that's the way it should be!  

Our Trip to Guatemala

We returned last Wednesday from our trip to Guatemala to see Eduardo.  I have just now recovered from the jetlag and will be writing about our trip in segments over the next few days.  I still need to get all our pictures onto the computer so I can share with you all!

The trip was incredible.  It was better than I ever imagined it would be!  Liliana was just enamored with Eduardo and would never leave his side.  She rode on his shoulders a LOT over our 5 days there (pics to come).  It was so nice to be a family again and we were all so relaxed.  All we did was focus on each other and nothing else.

One of the things I loved was that we really never knew what time it was the whole trip.  Every now and then we would ask someone for the time, but mostly we just did whatever we wanted.  We ate when we were hungry, we slept when we were tired, and we did whatever else we felt like in the moment.  Now keep in mind we did as much as we wanted considering we had a 3-year old with us!  That always changes things a bit.  

Eduardo and I talked on the trip about how great it is that Liliana gets to go on all these adventures with us.  Of course it would be nice to be alone with Eduardo and do different and even more fun things without having Liliana there, but she's a part of us and our family and we wouldn't trade our family adventures for anything.  We will lots of time when we are older to have our alone vacations ;)  

It was hard to come back from our little bubble of Guatemala, but we've gotten right back into the swing of things again.  I think it's actually harder for me now because I got to go and remember how much I love Eduardo and how much fun we have together and how we genuinely like to hang out together.  It was harder to separate this time.  Especially after see how much more relaxed Liliana was on the whole trip.  The stress of being a single mother definitely takes it's toll on our relationship here at times, though I hate to even admit that.  

In Guatemala, we mostly stayed in Antigua and took a trip to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan and a trip to El Salvador for a day.  As I said, I will write more on those trips in separate posts.  I just wanted to let you all know we are back and had an wonderful time!!

We are off!

We are headed out tomorrow morning, in about 10 hours, to Guatemala!  I'm so excited.  I'm a little nervous about the trip, but I am staying calm.  No need to worry about something that hasn't happened yet.  I'm wishing I had made more money last weekend so we could stay somewhere half-way decent, but being with Eduardo is all that matters.  I just want to relax, relax, relax!  I think all three of us deserve that :)

I rescheduled Eduardo's appointment at the embassy he was supposed to have tomorrow morning as well.  The next appt is now on November 9th.  Hopefully everything will be ready to go by then (crossing fingers).  

He will drive to Guatemala tomorrow and will get to Antigua to find us a hotel and then pick us up at the airport at 9pm, which is 11pm here.  Keep in mind we have to be at the airport here at 9am!  Oh boy.  I better go to bed :)  It will be a long day, but I just can't wait to see the look on Liliana's face when she sees him.  We need a paparazzi camera following us to get it all!  LOL.  

I will be back online next week.  We get back late Tuesday night.  We get 2 days of long travels and 5 days to recover and have fun :)  See ya!!

Viva Guatemala!

We are headed to Guatemala in 9 days to see Eduardo!  I found tickets last week on sale and jumped at the possibility of us going.  It took several days to decide and book the tickets, but we are sooo excited.  I made a calendar for Liliana so we can check off the days until we go see papi :)  She's a bit confused because she thinks we are going to El Salvador and seeing Abuela, Maynor and Daniela (her grandma and sister and brother), but I keep explaining we are just going on vacation to visit only papi in Guatemala.  I think she understands most of the time ;)  Hopefully once she sees him, that will be all she needs!  

I had a friend of mine offer to work my Kelsey's Cultured Foods booth at the Farmer's Market on the Saturday I will be gone and it was such a surprise and relief.  That was my biggest hesitation because Saturday is my most profitable day of the week.  I'm so grateful to have such wonderful people in my life :)  

We are leaving on Wednesday, Sept 28th and will be back on Tuesday, October 4th.  Since the flights were so cheap, it also means about 14 hours of traveling with 2 layovers each way!!  Wish me luck with that one.  I had another friend offer to let us borrow her mini-dvd player for the trip and I'm hoping that will save the day.  At least I have flown enough with Liliana at this point to not really be surprised by anything that could happen.  I just pray for the best.

I'm not sure where we will stay yet while we are there.  We still need to hash out the details.  It also depends a lot on how much money I can make before we go.  I only have one more Saturday before we go so hopefully it's a highly profitable one so we can have a nice little vacay!!  God knows we need it.  I'm hoping this will give the 3 of us the little boost we all seem to need right now to get us through the next few months :)  

Antigua, Guatemala

Before arriving in the States, we took a brief trip to Guatemala.  We booked our tickets out of Guatemala City instead of San Salvador so we decided to go the day before and stay in Antigua for the night.  We have visited Antigua before and it's one of our favorite little places.

The last time we went it had taken about 5 hours to get there.   I did some research online and found people seemed to be getting there a lot faster than that.  Eduardo and I decided to take a different route and sure enough!  We got there in about 3 1/2 hours from our house to Antigua.  That was awesome.

We took Eduardo's mom and his Tia Dominga and her husband, Don Nacho.  It was a good drive and we were all so excited to get there.  We got a hotel right away so we could park the car and unload our bags.

Eduardo and I then went straight to the place where we have bought bulk jewelry in the past and we met with the shop owner again.  Liliana went with my MIL and the others to a church down the street, leaving Eduardo and I the freedom to shop until we dropped!  Ha!  It's so fun to pick out all the beautiful jewelry, but it's also overwhelming.  I got a nice different assortment of stuff than the last trip to bring back to the States and sell.  I know it was a risk investing more money when it was the last of the money we have, but I'm confident we will make a good profit.

After the shopping, Eduardo and I made an impromptu stop at a little tequila bar and shared a drink.  That was a rare experience and it was exciting to be spontaneous again.

We then met up with everyone else and tooled around the town.  We did more shopping and eating and before we knew it, it was the end of the day.  We went back to the hotel and relaxed a bit.  I figured out how I would fit everything in my suitcases ;)

Then in the evening, Eduardo, Liliana and I took a stroll to see the town at night.  We came across another bead shop that had just opened up with some spectacular things I couldn't resist.  We will definitely be going back there again!  Liliana finally passed out in our arms and we continued back to the hotel after picking up some food to go.  Eduardo and I got to spend some alone time while Liliana slept and it was a great last night together.

In the morning we headed into Guatemala City to the airport.  It didn't take as long as we thought and we were there really early.  Liliana and I had to wait by ourselves a LONG time as no person other than the ones flying are even allowed in that airport.  I would have waited outside, but Liliana was anxious to see the airplane.  Had she known the plane would be an hour late, she probably would have opted for staying outside too.

It was a sad goodbye.  Eduardo had told me not to cry, but as I walked away from him, I couldn't hold back.  The tears quickly flowed down my face as we entered the airport.  I tried not to let him see me, but couldn't resist one more look back.  It was a lot harder than I had expected the goodbye to be.  Just thinking about it makes me tear up again.

But anyway, Antigua was a great time again.  I can't wait until our next visit!!