tickets!!

we bought tickets to guatemala today. it was a little scary and quite exciting. we are flying on january 4 from phoenix to los angeles then to guatemala city. i will be in guatemala for my birthday. then we head to quetzaltenango, also know as xela (pronounced shayla) where we will take spanish classes for two weeks. next on our loose itinerary is costa rica, where we will probably also take classes, walk around in jungles looking for howler monkeys and sit on the beach. finally we will take buses all the way up through mexico back to arizona stopping all along the way but particularly in chiapas, mexico city, the monarch butterfly santuary and copper canyon. we are expecting to be gone for two months, but are leaving everything a little bit up in the air.