January is a big month for our family, because both Shannon and Savannah have their birthdays in January. So does Paul Revere, but he is dead, and I don't see the point of celebrating dead people's birthdays (except Freddie Mercury -- so glad we get a three-day weekend every September to celebrate his b-day).
For the girls' birthdays this year, we went to a big lake in the caldera of a volcano. I am not trying to brag, but I have been to a lot of lakes in the calderas of volcanos. Here, I will count them off for you: 1) Crater Lake in Oregon; 2) Laguna de Apoyo in Nicaragua; 3) Lago Coatepeque in El Salvador. When I was in high school, I didn't even know there were three calderas in the whole world, let alone that I would visit them. Also, I didn't know what a caldera was, except maybe a Blue Oyster Cult song. So we went to this lake in the caldera of a volcano, and it was pretty fun. The best part was probably when I watched somebody else teach my son to fish. I was like, "Oh wow, thank goodness someone is taking care of that because I loathe fishing." This deep repugnance I feel toward fishing comes from when I was little and my dad took me fishing and after a half-day day of sitting there, gripping a pole, staring at each other, I concluded, "Dad, I love you, but this is retarded."
Savannah and Shannon had a great birthday. For her birthday, Shannon got to do whatever she wanted, so we went to this Mayan ruin site called Tazumal, which is kind of hard to find because you have to go to this sort of rundown little town, turn off the highway where there's no sign, drive to the cemetery, ask a fat guy working on his truck where Tazumal is, and then turn down a side street. And then there it is. But it's closed on Mondays, and Shannon's birthday was on a Monday, so that was pretty awesome. To make sure it wasn't a wasted trip, we took home some "Mayan artifacts" that were piled on the sidewalk outside the fence. The Mayan artifacts were NOT, in reality, just pieces of flower pots that the old lady across the street dropped earlier that morning because she has the shakes. It was a pretty great day. Fishing and a pocketful of garbage. Happy birthday, girls!