March 12-18, 2018 big rock heads, Pacific Ocean, tree museum


Monday Day-Off
   Trip to the Pacific Ocean
                Our first look at the Guatemalan portion of the great sea.      
          Remarkably, its wave action looks just like that of Puerto 
            Vallarta, which we visited in 2011. 






The ocean!



Merlene Ellington of Mt. Pleasant, Utah, made the birthday cake and hauled it all the way to the ocean. Larry had a piece. 

Farewell
For family home evening, we honored two Temple couples about to finish their missions: the Rosales and Ellingtons. Manolo Rosales was first counselor in the Temple presidency. He and Zenia served for 3 years. Mike and Merlene Ellington, of Mt. Pleasant, Utah, will complete 6 months on March 29. 




Now Larry is into watercolor
Larry and Babette had their first lesson in watercolor painting lesson on Tuesday, March 13, from Jill Smith. It was the first lesson too for the Normans who drove us to her home. Jill is having us paint a cactus in a clay pot with rocks. Below, Larry bought watercolor paints on Saturday and enjoying is a technique: blowing paint across the paper. 


On Thursday, within the capital city ...



My favorite tree in the museum: one that snakes 
around a steel post like a boa constrictor and 
provides hundreds of snaky entwining limbs to make
shade for a gazebo. 

There were school groups there too. 

Of course the national tree of Guatemala, the ceiba, had to be in park. 


Seeing the skeleton of a saber-toothed llama, made me recall the accident that befell Mike Ellington, my temple-working buddy, exactly 4 weeks earlier. Inset is a photo of the saber-toothed steel extensions on rebar that tore into his forearm as he fell on a sidewalk. Look how well he has healed! (More details on Mike’s accident were reported in my blog including Feb. 16.) The llama (which actually is NOT fanged) was the only thing I photographed in the creature part of the museum. 


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