John and Audrey connected our family with the Cultiva Garden Project

This non-profit organization was started to help Mayan people help sustain themselves and their families

They attend a training course on square foot gardening and then are gifted a square foot garden box

We were able to go along for an afternoon and help in the installation of boxes at two families homes

We love getting to immerse ourselves in real life while traveling and this was the opportunity to do so

Our girls jumped right in and got to work building

  

and then the fun part, planting!!

This day of service was such an inspiration 

If you'd like to learn more about this project you can click below

Cultiva Garden Project

Gringos in Guatemla

We flew into Guatemala city exhausted after having left our house almost 24 hours earlier 

and then finding out our rental van company at the airport was closed :(

Finally ordered 2 ubers to our hotel for the night and figured Rob could go back to the airport the following morning and get it sorted out

Thankfully he did, with the size of our crew finding a vehicle to fit us all is tricky

   

Happy to spend the morning at the Guatemala City temple

the grounds were beautiful!!

and what better way to spend our first day in Guatemala then finding a Papa John's

The kids acted like they had won the lottery

Brasilia is really lacking in American chain restaurants so to find a comfort food is really really nice sometimes

 

Just love these "chicken" buses that we saw driving all over the country

Oftentimes they really would have live chickens in cages on the top of the roof as well as any other things you could imagine

We made the three hour trip from Guatemala City to Lake Atitlan with just a few minor detours, forging through a river and a few sketchy back roads

and arrived to this view off of our back porch!!

embarking on an eventful boat ride when the wind decided to pick up halfway through our trip

by the time we made it to the lunch stop restaurant we all had clothes completely soaked through

Some new fruits and veggies

an adorable Guatemalan grandma

More views of beauty

The BEST meal of the trip

Delicious pupusas over a bed of lettuce with coleslaw and fresh cheese

Thankful the sun decided to come out for the ride back

Our amazing hosts, John and Audrey Dyer

The showed us the best time around Guatemala and helped us realized why they love the country

On afternoon enjoying Guatemalan hot chocolate which was unlike anything else I had ever tried

after a few lovely days at the lake we drove about 1.5 hours south to Antigua

a preserved Spanish colonial city 

I purchased a hand woven tapestry from these sweet sisters

they usually spend 100+ hours creating the works of art

Hanging out at a beautiful old monastery that has been converted into a hotel and restaurant

This cutie replicating all the beautiful Guatemalan women that we saw walking around with their baskets on their heads

and no trip to Guatemala is complete without making your own chocolate

this shop let us roast the beans, grind them, make a chocolate bar, enjoy and make two types of hot chocolate and chocolate tea

  

mixing the hot chocolate from pot to pot

  

Exploring more ruins among the city