Rabinal Achi Feria Parade and newest grandson

Jan 15-25 they have the fair here in Rabinal. Street venders set up food, game, and rides in the center streets of the city. It gets very crowded and crazy. They have music, fire cracker bombs, and fireworks going all day and most of the night.

 The last 2 days they have parades in the streets.

 They have horses and trucks with musicians playing for each school as they dance down the streets.

 Most of the parade walkers wear masks.

 This school must not have had a truck and they carried the marimba each block and set it down to play for the dancers.

They had the ancient ball game re-enacted.

Some of the little kids were dancing up a storm, even as young as 2 or 3!

Last but not least, our new grandson was born Jan 25, 2017. 7.9 lbs  Graham Michael Ignatias Call!

Visits and house guests

 Here we are going out to visit some of the members of the branch each day.

 We pass his house on our way to the relief society presidents' house. He works for over a month making these nets by hand.

Not only do we have spiders, mosquitos, flies, & roaches in our rooms, we have these amiable guys as well.

Youth hike and discussion

We took these 10 youth from Cubulco and Rabinal to hike to waterfalls near Santa Barbara. Before the hike one of the youth, Ricardo, taught a lesson on staying away from the line or point of no return. Don't look at porn or neck or pet, he did a great job.

 We hiked down and then up to these falls, it was very pretty but the water was very cold.

 Hiking up the falls.

After our hike we played games and got home around 4pm.

New Year's Eve and the aftermath

 We took the relief society president and some of her family to Cubulco in our car to visit some of the sick and needy. Juana has been bedridden for 15 years and is 73 now. We gave her a hat for the cold night and the RS pres. gave her a papaya, which she really loves, we sang hymns and prayed with her. She was baptized 2 1/2 years ago in the Elder's font in town.

This picture collage is on the wall in front of her to look at all the time and remember her baptism. We didn't take pictures at the other 3 houses we stopped at in Cubulco.

 Saturday evening we took 11 in our car to the old folks home again. This time we gave them peanutbutter cookies and the sleep hats they asked for.

Some had kisses and some had reeces pb cups on top.

 We passed out the hats.

 They were SO happy to get them, this is who I call the singing lady. She sings and smiles all the time.

Last night at midnight they let off all their firecrackers and fireworks and this is what is left in the streets.