Time to vote...

Okay here is your chance to vote for which name suits me best. Here in Guatemala I have called the Taxi or numerous other travel agencies arranging for rides. They have texted me with the following names: Hecher, Heder, Heter, and Shela. Now it is your turn at the bottom of this post to vote for your favorite spelling of my name, just click comment and tell me your vote.
I know it has been a while since I last posted and I was going to tell you about our trip to Panajachel...well boy have things been busy since then. I feel like I am always a day behind in my lesson planning. We have finally ended our first quarter and that was both exciting and discouraging. Some students have shown phenomenal progress in the subject areas as well as behavior since day 1, but the struggle of teaching ELL students calculus when they haven't even taken Algebra is still challenging. The second quarter has started off nicely with one full week of classes and then a four day weekend this last weekend to celebrate Halloween and Day of the Dead. It was a wonderful opportunity for us to travel some more and relax away from the city. But before I tell you about this wonderful weekend we just had, I will address the highlights of Panajachel first.
When we were in Pana we stayed in a hotel located right on the shore of the lake. We had such a wonderful view of the lake as well as the surrounding Volcanos. We took a boat tour on the lake to a few of the surrounding villages. San Pedro, Santiago, and San Antonio all unique in their own way were quite interesting to explore even though there wasn't much to do there. In Santiago they have a Friday morning market, which was unfortunate for us. As soon as we stepped out of our boat on the the shore of Santiago we were surrounded by people trying to sell us their textiles and tuk-tuk rides around the city. The one thing I did like about Santiago was that I bought a pair of Keene's for $35 dollars and I love them.
The adventures continued in Pana when we went to the jungle and went zip-lining with the monkeys through the trees that over looked the beautiful lake Atitlan. It was really exciting and definitely something I would love to do again. Afterwards we went to a beautiful garden in Hotel Atitlan where we met our friend Karen and enjoyed a fabulous breakfast while being surrounded by Toucan's, several types of birds and gorgeous flowers.

This weekend was another wonderful experience for both Jenny and I as we hiked up 1 of 3 active volcano's in Guatemala. The Volcan de Pacaya erupted one year ago and still has smoking hot ash and igneous rock covering the top part of the volcano. We hiked as far up as possible where it was still considered safe. Some of the things that we experienced on the Volcano was roasting marshmallows over the still warm rocks, beautiful views of the surrounding volcano's, lake Amitlan, Guatemala city, and a natural formed Sauna from the eruption of the volcano.
Overall it was just relaxing to get out of the city and walk around Antigua comfortably. We stayed in a tree house one night at a place called Earth Lodge about 20 minutes outside of the Antigua. Earth Lodge is located on an avocado field and has a wonderful view Volcan de Agua, Volcan Acetenango, and the smoking Volcan de Fuego. I will have to post some pictures of our tree house a little later on. Anyway check out Jenny's blog to hear a little more about what has been happening with us while here in Guatemala.

-Hecher, Heder, Heter, Shela, HEATHER