FAMILY REUNIONS AND GUATEMALA

Every other year our family rents two big beach cottages. All the married kids and grandkids that can, come and spend a week together. The next year, they go to their in-laws. This year we had 15 children, 4 spouses of the married kids and 11 grandkids and one almost fiancee. It has been wild with 12 kids under 5 and lots of fun.
No. 18 of the grandkids was born on Monday while we were here. His parents live here. He is the cute little baby. Eleven of my kids are in the picture looking at the ocean.
Two things have happened here that made me think of Guate. One was yesterday when we went to Manteo. We are at the beach at Nags Head, NC on the Outer Banks. It is very close to Manteo where the first English child, Virginia Dare was born in the US in 1587. She was born on Roanoke Island where Manteo is located. We went to Roanoke Island festival park. It has an excellent interactive museum, a settlement village, an accurate reporduction of the Queen Elizabeth II ship they came over on and an Indian village. The long houses the Indians lived in were so much like many of the houses the Mayans in Guate live in now. The ones with the corn cob walls. They ate the same things too. Corn, beans, and squash. They had no cows but made a milk from walnuts and added squash. I have always thought the Mayans were about 100 years behind the US civilization, but now I wonder if it is 400 years. And is it behind or just simpler.? One picture is of my 3 year old grandson in full pirate gear after our festival adventure.
Today my husband I wondered down to the end of Nags Head before it heads into Hatteras. There were probably 10 or more beach houses sitting in the ocean at high tide. They are ruined but still perfectly good houses with good windows and wood and deck rails, etc. Why they are being allowed to fall into the ocean instead of being moved and used is beyond me. Only in the USA can we afford such waste. In Guate, they would have been dismantled and every piece of wood, etc. used. I like that part of Guatemala and dislike the US attitude of affluence that has no bounds.
Well back to my vacation. We head to Guate in a couple of weeks. After a month or two, I will appreciate the USA more.
Have a wonderful Christmas from my family to yours and remember how blessed you are. A picture of my whole group that is here with us now.
Vicki
20.vicki@gmail.com