Christmas with Dangela, Benjamin, Mal and Rob

We had sooooo much fun with the kids over Christmas and it is always hard to say good bye when they leave. The highlights were spending time with Benjamin, Christmas with the missionaries, walking to the park, eating ice cream, the dolphin show, the jellyfish encounter by Dan and Rob, playing on the beach with Benjamin, visiting the Sacred Valley, feeding the llamas, hiking around Pisac, eating out and not cooking, shopping and of course going to Macchu Picchu on the train in the rain!

Visit from the Crumps and the Borders

We had so much fun with the Borders and the Crumps when they came last week and we even climbed WynaPicchu again (this time without Dad carrying anyone on his back)! Of course Steve had to floss his teeth on the top of the mountain only we didn't have any floss so he flossed with a weed we found among the rocks--must have been like the Inkas did..no? Anyway I think we really wore them out being that they are really, really , really old...did someone say 60?

Peruvian Food

Those stuffed rodent things are guinea pigs which they raise here like chickens and eat with the head and feet still on which for us sanitary north americans who have had guinea pigs as pets find very hard to even look at let alone eat! But they do love their food here and they are way into the presentation of the food actually more than the flavor.

A day in the life of the Mission president....

Well, here goes my feeble attempt at a blog. I give all thanks to Will who has held my hand via the telephone to get me this far! Thanks Will! So anyway, Dad and I went to Cusco last week only to land at the airport and find out that they were having a strike! There were no taxis to be found because they were throwing rocks and burning tires and causing mayhem for the tourists so being the stalwert missionaries that we are we hefted our bags and start walking to the hotel which is about 2 miles away. Fortunately the Assistents came to our rescue and none too soon I might add because I definitely was not dressed in my walking shoes! Anyway, they brought us two guys pushing these three wheeled bicicyle things and threw our bags in one and I jumped on top of the other. I really felt quite regal as we headed down the back alleys of Cusco trying to avoid the main roads! Luckily the strike was only for one day so we were back in business after only a few hours of wondering if the mission was over (just kidding!) But today we came home a day early because we were informed that there would be another strike starting tomorrow so we had a quick zone conference and headed back to the airport and back home to Lima. Now I don't want you all to think that it is really that dangerous here...they just like to strike, throw a few rocks and burn a few tires and get drunk... its kind of a national past time for the Peruvians!