julia and sam's annual cocktail party

flooding and mudslides in Guatemala

hurricane stan (what kind of name for a hurricane is that anyway?) hit southern Mexico and Central America pretty hard last week. Guatemala seems to have taken the brunt of it with widespread flooding and massive mudslides wiping out entire Mayan villages. the death toll is expected to be over 1000 people. there isn't much coverage of this tragedy in the american media, but i was able to find some pictures on a few Guatemalan blogs.


flooding in Xela(Quetzaltenango), Guatemala (from esquipulas)



mud in Panajachel, Guatemala (from panajachel.net)

crisp

we went up to the mountain today to wander around in the yellow and orange of quaking aspens changing colors.





see more photos at flickr

happy birthday alex!!

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.

fallin'

fallin
Originally uploaded by sparkypants.

more stencil art from flagstaff. and on a completely unrelated note - i gave my quittin' notice to my boss today. as usual i imagined it to be a much bigger ordeal than it actually turned out to be. she was very understanding and said some awfully nice things. i will be working until the end of december, then layne and i fly down to guatemala right after the new year. i can't express how excited i am right now, it is just too impossible.

bikes bands and beer

tour de fat came through flagstaff yesterday. we tapped out 120 kegs of new belgium brewing company beer in less than 5 hours. after the beer was gone, we played bike polo for the first time, flattening a few garbage cans and only getting a few scrapes and bruises. then came the yard dogs road show, featuring sword-swallowing, fire-eating, and burlesque babes. the camera was missing in action most of the day, but here are a few snaps.