Jun. 9, 2009 Little Kitchen
| On one wall of the kitchen a new little kitchen has appeared in the last month or two. There is always a busy arranging of dishes and containers.
Thanks someone for pointing out the pictures were not showing up in the last post. I think I fixed it. |
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Apr. 21, 2009 Knitting: Another thing about...US!
Here's another thing about me: I love to knit!
I've become quite addicted to it over the past 3-4 years and it's starting to rub off.
About a week ago a friend came over who wanted some help learning to knit. The next day Shane told me he wanted to learn. He watched a few YouTube videos and then he and I spent the evening on it. He caught on fast! Here he is trying his hand:
And of course Heidi had to try.
The next day Shane went to the yarn store for fatter needles and Dane went along. They came home with needles and yarn. Dane wanted to learn too! This is what our bedroom looked like that afternoon.
Over the next few days any free time we were all knitting and Arel even learned too. Liam and Heidi each had me help them crochet a little also. Shane has made two scarves now and looking for more yarn.
I guess knitting is contagious. |
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On Sunday we took a drive out of the city to check out a mini "resort". The day was just gorgeous!
The place was so nice. Quiet, and very relaxing.
The view on the ride home was great too.
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Feb. 19, 2009 Fun with the camera
I have been enjoying a new blog that started this last year for missionary women called Coffeegirl Confessions. This week there was a challenge put out to find beauty around us, something in red specifically. And it couldn't just be our kids wearing cute red outfits. :)
So I spent about an hour last week taking some pictures and learning some new things about what I could do with my camera. :)
Our view from the roof, with some red of course. :)
Shane and Dane making a door!
Liam loves to play with his cars.
And my Yellow picture.
If you have a few minutes and wouldn't mind helping me out, hop on over to Coffeegirl Confessions
and vote for my "red" picture. I'm #5 and the voting box is there in the right hand sidebar. There are so many amazing red pictures! Thanks so much! |
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Taking a break here to ask those who read my blog to pray.
All three of the boys are sick with a nasty flu with coughs, fevers and aches. The kids were all sick with coughs over the past 2 weeks, Heidi, Liam and Dane had already had some fevers and aches with that too, but this is apparently a different thing. So far Heidi, Shane and I haven't had the full blown fever and aches but pray with us that we don't get it and that the boys get over this quick.
I haven't been able to help Shane at the new house because of needing to tend sickies, which is fine of course but we only have about 9 days before we need to be out of the rental house! Thankfully I can be working on things here in between handing out drinks and rubbing backs.
I am also very thankful for liquid lobelia, packets of soup mix that actually taste good to sick kids, and homeopathic remedies which work so well! |
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Dec. 28, 2008 December highlights
Hello all!
This month has flown by and been very full for our family. Instead of trying to write about everything I'll just share our month in pictures.
Gifts from cousins
Decorating
Cookie eating
Discovering how a microwave pops popcorn.
Peruvian traditions (Panetone bread)
Bathroom tiled
Family time
Fun with friends
Plastering
Finished garage!
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Nov. 30, 2008 November days
I finally had a chance to upload some pictures today and think about a post. It's been a full week.
Early on in the week we received a visitor. In the middle of the night I heard him and the next day Arel, Liam and Heidi helped me find his hiding place. This little guy somehow got into our garage when the door was open.
Dane found the neighbor who had lost him but upon further investigation the owner told Shane and Dane that we could keep him and try to tame him. The kids at her house had him so scared, all he did was hide all day and growl at, scratch or bite anyone who tried to come close to him. I am happy to say after a few days with us he is starting to calm down and actually enjoy some petting. He purrs before you even pick him up now.
Our we and our co-workers enjoyed a nice little Thanksgiving dinner together. To give us ladies a break we bought rotisserie style chicken to go with all the usual fixin's. It was tasty! Here's Heidi enjoying her first piece of pumpkin pie.
And Liam trying on our co-worker's motor-cross gear. :)
This week we also enjoyed some conversations on the phone with family! We really enjoy being able to use Skype to call family and friends and sometimes even see them using webcams. Even though we really miss family and would love to be WITH them on special days, we are so thankful we can communicate in some way with them via phone or internet.
Shane has been plugging away at laying a little brick at our house and being available to buy supplies or answer questions as the crew works on plastering. They say they should be finished plastering and pouring the floors in the main part of the house by the end of this week!
And finally today is my Grandpa's birthday!! Happy Birthday Grandpa! I love you!!
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Nov. 21, 2008 More pictures Nov. 21, 2008 Friendship Park
In Lima we had to spend a LOT of time in stores shopping for tile, tools, tubs, sinks and toilets. The kids did very well considering, but let's face it, that stuff is not too exciting for kids. Because of that we tried to find some times to spend just having fun with them.
One day we spent part of an afternoon in a park near where we were staying called "Parque de la Amistad" or "Friendship Park". A fun, pretty little spot in the middle of a lot of busyness.
The main eye-catching thing at the park is this archway.
I thought the mosaics on it were so neat.
For about 30 cents a piece you can climb up the stairs in the arch to an observation deck above.
I loved the windows with the wood carving.
The kids on the observation deck.
Here's a view of the entire archway. 
Heidi and I were being watched by a bunch of people while Shane took our picture, hence the funny faces.
Friendship Park:
The park had a nice big playland, paddle boats and steam engine train to ride, and lots of walkways.
These two were very excited to ride a train.
Dane and Heidi with Me on the paddle boat:
 Cheese!
Shane, Arel and Liam on the other boat:
 As you can see we were all really enjoying the boats. We waited a LONG time for our 10 minute boat ride. :)
What you can't see in the water were some HUGE goldfish! There were also quite a few ducks and geese and pidgeons all of these going after fish food people were throwing out to the fish.
"And a good time was had by all."
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Oct. 21, 2008 Family Picnic
Shane went out for a walk last week in the morning and came home saying, "Let's go on a picnic". There were lots of clouds, making the sun less intense so it was a perfect day to get out to our favorite picnic spot just down the road and outside of town.
Everyone smiling around their sandwich eating...Notice the dog tied up AWAY from the food? :)
Here's a close up of Humphrey our dog. He had a BLAST running around out there!
Space to RUN!!!
Some of the view around us. Those are Eucalyptus trees there.
 
From one point you can see the airport really well. We saw a plane take off and another land.
"Mom, look what I caught!"
I remember when we bought this hat for HIM!
We played a little frizbee with the dog and just walked around looking at the view. Heidi was a little overwhelmed by the wind at some points but enjoyed running around checking things out. I think we need to go there more often! It is just so nice to get out of the city and away from so many people and NOISE and enjoy God's creation here in the Huanuco valley. |
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Oct. 21, 2008 The funny places they fall asleep Oct. 8, 2008 Another birthday!
There has been a lot of sickness and such at our house the past couple weeks so I have not had time or energy to post but we did do some things I wanted to share!
First we have a 12 year old!! Dane is 12!
He requested his favorite asian dish for supper with apple pie for dessert. Yum! 
The kids and I have been back to school the past couple of weeks. We are mainly focusing on making some headway on History and Science with some reading and writing thrown in there.
Today I cleaned out half the homeschool cupboard which was getting so messy we could hardly shut the door. In fact, yesterday we couldn't and there were things all over the floor in front of it. It's a good feeling to be getting that organized.
I have been slowly working on sorting and organizing different zones in the house in preparation for packing and moving in a few months. I figure that if I get things more organized now it will make it that much easy to move when the time comes.
I have not had a chance to go over to the house this week but I guess the crew is taking down all the poles! By tomorrow I should be able to see what the place looks like with a roof and cleared out rooms! Yippee!! |
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I was just thinking about my sister last night. I was watching Pride and Prejudice with Heidi. She was enjoying the dances especially and the girls all giggling and twittering together. But several scenes reminded me of my sister and I growing up and it made me miss her terribly!
My Mom provided us with many great dress up clothes, purses and bags and let us play "house" all over the place. When it was cold we played inside making bedrooms our "houses" and other parts of the house where we traveled to,etc. Outside we used the trees to mark off boundaries of where our houses were or other things. We even had this huge maple tree (I believe it's still there...AWESOME tree!) that we finally got Dad to let us use a ladder to get up into. It's so big the place where the four main branches split off is big enough to have a little place to put dishes or sit.
We rode bikes around town, walked a few blocks together every day to get the mail, went sledding down our hills in the yard or across the street at the school where there was a nice steep hill. We played with our kitties in the yard, ride on the tire swing, watch old movies together and do cross stitching while we watched and played "library" in our classroom with the pretty old bookshelves stuffed with books. I miss her!
Now we are on opposite sides of the world from each other. It's been hard to not be near her. Really I am so thankful for email and phone. Without them we would not be hearing from each other near as much! It is nice to see pictures more often and know how my nephews and niece are growing and all that fun stuff. And even last night as I was crying my eyes out missing her and all my family who live far away from me I was thinking how I am so glad they are where God has them. They are right where God wants them to be and so am I. I would not want that to be different even though it would be nice to see each other more often.
I am so thankful to have been homeschooled and was able to spend all that time with my sister and the rest of my family that I did. I have such wonderful memories of our times together and each time we get together again, we have those to tuck into our memory file as well. I am looking forward to the next time we get to be together!! And am totally enjoying the pictures and accounts of their activities that they write or tell me by phone. Thank you, Lord for my family!
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Aug. 19, 2008 Arel One Year Older!
Here he is! 9 years old! Happy Birthday Arel!!!
On Sunday for his birthday we took him to "the trampoline restaurant" as the boys call it. It's only open on Sundays and is just a nice relaxing place to have lunch in an open air dining area with a playground that includes a trampoline and a swimming pool with a water slide. (with FREEZING cold water)
They all tried dipping in the pool. They had fun but were shivering. As you can tell, Liam is into making wild and crazy faces these days. He's always pretending to be something. |
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Jul. 31, 2008 Water filter fun
What are these kids doing you ask? The other day before we headed off to yet another birthday party (I may hide next July...SO many birthdays!!) the kids were all in the kitchen making faces in our water filter.
Oh the fun you can have with a water filter!  |
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Jul. 29, 2008 An anniversary
Ok, so this is not a Peruvian or Quechua event but it's a special day to me!!
Today is Shane's and my 13th wedding anniversary!!
Happy anniversary my Shane! I love you!!
P.S. It is also my Grandma's birthday today! She reads my blog so I want everyone to know it's her birthday and that I love you very much Grandma! Have a wonderful day! I don't have a recent picture but here is one of the two of us that last time we were together.
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That's right! Liam turned 5 just a couple weeks ago!
Here's the boy in on his party day with a party hat he picked out for the occasion.
We don't usually do piñatas but we decided to this time since there would be lots of kids. This is the popular style these days...the kind you pull and the bottom falls out. (Yes, those are Shane's hands at the top holding up the box)
Going for the loot!
Lots of food, fun and fellowship. Thanks for turning 5 Liam so we could all get together! :)
Oh yeah and have you ever seen this before? Pin the tail on the....Liam donkey! Hee hee! Everyone was doing a double take when the first saw this on the wall.
Happy Birthday Liam! We love you!
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May. 31, 2008 Been gone but here now
Howdy all!
I was taking a break from blogging and other internet things while our family got away for a week's vacation. It was great to get out of here and do things we normally don't do everyday. A total change of scene.
We went to the capital city of Peru...Lima. It is a BIG city so it has it's fun things to do and see (like shopping and big buildings) but it's also a big dirty city full of people.
Since it was time to renew Liam's passports (yes, he's our little American/Peruvian) we decide to get that done and take the rest of the week for me to get some much needed shopping done (everyone in the family needed new socks!) and to do some fun things as a family.
The passport renewing took us two days. One to apply for the American passport at the embassy (the kids love going to the embassy...such an impressive building!) and one at the immigrations building for the Peruvian passport. That one takes longer since there are several things to do there and each thing requires you stand in line. But we got in the special preference line since Liam is a kid. It took us most of the morning but we were happy it went so smoothly. The good news is that whenever we need to go renew Liam or Heidi's passports again both parents don't have to be there so the entire family doesn't have to go stand and sit in lines next time. Good to know.
We got to go see the new Narnia movie "Prince Caspian". We all loved it even if they did change or leave out too many things. (there should be SO many more animals don't ya think? Lucy and Aslan were great though!)
For the first time we also went to China town in Lima and ate an amazing Asian meal at a restaurant recommended to us by some friends. Mmmm! Lots of fried wantans, chicken fried rice and chicken and veggie dishes and Oolong tea. Yum!
The kids liked watching the fish in the fish tank there. Shane and I got a kick out of a table full of Chinese/Peruvian ladies out for a birthday lunch. Boy could they eat!
I enjoyed some of the booths in the china town area but we kept getting sucked back to the ONE tiny little store/booth that sold legos. Sigh. Any gals out there want to go back with me (just girls!) and shop for flowing scarves, comfy cotton skirts and fun bangle bracelets and other jewelry at really good deals?? I just keep reminding myself I am not going to be a mom of young kids forever. :) I did get a great deal on a package of curry powder and some chopsticks!
Later I'll post about our trip to the zoo in Lima. That needs it's own post.
We stayed at a missionary guest house and it was comfy, quiet and provided a great place for us to relax. With all the doves that live in the neighborhood and in the yard it really gave it a nice calm feeling with them cooing all the time. Liam is our kid who can mimic most any sound and really had the dove coo down by the time we left.
Sadly there were no other missionary kids there until the day we left but three little girls and our three big boys made the most of it and had a great time for a couple of hours! Heidi was nervous about the new people as usual but liked watching the kids have so much fun.
It's good to be home again. |
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