PERU

Bryan recently had a work conference in Lima, Peru, and my parents graciously watched our kids so that we could make it a joint trip. It was incredibly wonderful. Want the highlights?

Day 1: Visiting historic downtown Lima (Plaza Mayor). We toured the Cathedral, the San Francisco church, and the Museum of the Inquisition.'





Day 2: Bryan had his conference all day. I took a guided bike tour of the coast. We went through beautiful parks overlooking the ocean.



Parque de Amour (Park of Love)


Day 3: Bryan had his conference in the morning. I visited some ruins in the middle of the city (Huaca Paclluna). Later we went together to the Museo Larco, and viewed their warehouse of thousands of archaeological relics.







Day 4: Flight to Cusco. We both had headaches for a couple days, adjusting to the high altitude. We spent the day walking around, visiting a pre-Inca ruin turned into a Catholic Cathedral.






Day 5: Exploring Cusco. We took a horseback tour of the nearby country and some smaller ruins. We also took a bus to the city of Pisac, for a glimpse of the "Sacred Valley."






Day 6: Four hour train ride from the dry, high-altitude city of Cusco to the sub-tropical rain forest jungle of Aguas Calientes. Beautiful scenery.









Day 7: Machu Picchu. What can I say? Absolutely spectacular. Of our 275 pictures, 109 of them are from this one place on this one day. It was amazing.

View from the top of Waynu Picchu, a steep hour long hike


The view from the other side, with Waynu Picchu in the background




Day 8: Flight from Cusco to Lima. Long layover. Flight from Lima to home.

On the plane ride from Cusco to Lima the oxygen packs dropped about 15 minutes into the flight. Silence on the plane as everyone nervously glanced around then started putting them on. More silence and waiting. Finally it was announced that there was no trouble, the captain had accidentally pushed the wrong button. Nervous, relieved laughter as we all tried to put them back in their tight little compartments. I'm just glad the pilot didn't push a more dangerous wrong button!



We had about 12 hours between flights in Lima. So we went back into the city to visit the LDS temple in Lima. This is where my grandparents served a mission many years ago. I'm so glad we went. There was such a peaceful feeling there and I thought a lot about my grandparents and the great people they are.



There you have it. The condensed version. If you want to see more, I'll hopefully have them uploaded sometime over the next week.

Mood swings

These pictures were taken in sequence.

February Newsletter

Tennessee Tidbits (February 2009)
by Bryan

Ashley turned one last week! She had a “Hello Kitty” cake and a few visitors over for her birthday party – one of our friends from Church desperately needed a babysitter for their two 1-year-old twins and 3-year-old daughter that evening. So Ashley’s birthday turned into more of a party than we’d originally expected. Walking finally clicked for Ashley around the middle of the month. In less than a week she went from crawling everywhere to walking everywhere. It’s amazing how quickly things change for kids that age.




Ashley, Colby, and Kristen are currently taking their Sunday naps. Sienna doesn’t take naps, so she’s sitting at her desk right now working on some project. I’ve been painting Mount Rainier off and on over the past several months – Sienna painted it yesterday with her watercolors. This afternoon she drew a picture, cut it into pieces to make a puzzle out of it, and then put her own twist on it by making it a “Memory puzzle,” where we had to turn over 2 pieces and try to put them together.

Colby is his usual self: playing cars, trains, legos, ball, etc. We went shopping for some hiking boots for Kristen last week and there was a little track going around the shoe section of the store. To entertain the kids, I told them they should run around it. By the time Kristen had bought her shoes, Colby had probably circled it 20 times – he was sweaty and red in the face. Ashley also circled it once (I was proud of her), and Sienna did it several times, but doesn’t get as excited about running around in circles as Colby.

Kristen slept the month away, so there isn’t too much to say about her. Hee, hee, hee. Actually, this is one of those very rare days where Kristen is having a Sunday-afternoon nap – it’s usually me taking the nap. Kristen is learning Spanish – we have little stickers all over the house reminding us things like “mesa” is “table.” She’s also been attending a weekly class taught by a lady in the ward. For about a week, Kristen and I were spending an hour each night working through a Spanish book. But it was a little too much for me. I’d like to learn Spanish, but I’m tired of memorizing things. Kristen also did several knitting and sewing projects this past month.

We’re learning Spanish in anticipation of our trip to Peru in the middle of March. I have a conference for two of the days, but we’ll have about a week free to ourselves to see Lima, Cuzco, and Machu Picchu. Kristen’s parents will be coming here to look after our kids while we’re gone. We’re looking forward to the trip, although we’ve been so busy with everything, we haven’t spent a lot of time working out the details. We’ll let you know how it goes in next month’s newsletter.

Love,

Bryan, Kristen, Sienna, Colby, and Ashley

Pictures from February:

Feb 2009