Valley of Volcanoes

 

The flight to Arequipa went well. It was only an hour or so, so the kids did not have any problems. Hannah even fell asleep for a short while. The views from the flight were pretty incredible.
Lots of mountain ranges and desert. As a matter of fact Arequipa is smack right in the middle of the desert. It is very dry and dusty here - which makes it nearly impossible to keep the kids clean. I have virtually given up on keeping them presentable. They constantly have black little toes, knees, and faces. Oh well :)

 

Arequipa is located in the Valley of Volcanoes (approximately 80 in total within the valley). Arequipa itself is surrounded by three volcanoes - at least one of which is ACTIVE. Yes, you read that correctly - it is active. As a matter of fact we had another earthquake a few days ago but apparently we did not notice it. That seems a little crazy to say. Caleb really enjoys the fact that we are right next to a volcano. He constantly talks about how it is going to explode and smoke - well we hope not son :). The last time there was an explosion was quite a long time ago (1600s? I believe). Apparently it smokes quite often but we are pretty safe.

 

The town of Arequipa is so radically different from Lima. There is no daylight savings time here so to us the days appear to start earlier and end earlier than normal. We are living in the SIM guest house here in Arequipa. The kids are enjoying sleeping in the same room together - which  is a first. It is going pretty well but they are getting a lot less sleep, which has made for grumpy children. In addition to this Caleb is sick. Please pray the rest of us stay healthy and he gets better soon.

 

We are slowly adjusting to a different way of life here. Groceries are not as accessible and getting to the store has been a little more difficult since our luggage with our stroller and baby carrier has not made it in yet. We  are not really sure currently where our luggage is - somewhere in the desert between Lima and Arequipa. One of our fellow missionary friends offered to bring it with him to Arequipa, but he has had some mechanical issues with his vehicles and so has been delayed. This has been slightly emotionally taxing on all of us I think. Please pray that it gets in, as well for our friends who are bringing it here - that they may get here safely.

Our internet is not as fast here either. So I am not sure if you will see many pictures from us while we are here. I am about to try and upload a couple.

 

Currently we are trying to find a more permanent place to live, which is proving to be a much more difficult and time-consuming adventure than we expected. Thank goodness John speaks a good deal of Spanish or we would be completely lost. We are also going to try and contact a doctor here today - of course this is all in Spanish as well. I think our brains( or should I say John's brain since he is doing most of the dirty work here) are fried :) We are certainly thankful to have the help of our SIM friends here...things would be very difficult without their help! Oh, and by the way it looks like I will be having a natural delivery whether I want to or not as it appears epidurals are not offered here. Oh nuts..good thing it is my third baby.

 

Our hope is to have our luggage, an apartment, and furniture before the baby arrives. Not sure if it is possible but a girl can dream right? :)

 

Pray for us as we are all feeling a little worn out both physically and emotionally this week.

It bugs me to see such poor quality in these photos - oh well.

Arriving in Arequipa

 

Pray for us as we fly to Arequipa this morning. Yet another place I have never gone to but will soon be our home- well at least for a little while. Our flight doesn't actually leave till noon today but we have to leave the guest house at 8:30 to get to the airport, even though the airport is actually close to us - any indication of how bad traffic is? Despite bad traffic I will miss at least certain things about Lima like:

 

- being close to having American products, even if we do not buy them because they are ridiculously expensive

- plethora of restaurants to eat at

- the tiny trampoline that Caleb enjoys so much in our little "backyard" (backyard is all relative  since no one has a backyard with grass in it - totally typical of big city living)

- the ability to walk almost anywhere to get what we need

- and just the familiarity of being in Lima for two weeks

 

It is kind of sad to leave since we have become a little familiar with at least this tiny little part of Lima. Oh well, I am sure we will feel the same way about Arequipa in due time. Arequipa is a big city but not nearly as large as Lima. Supposedly we will be able to see blue sky in Arequipa, which is something I am REALLY excited about.

 

Well I will let you know how it goes!

 

Today this blog comes to you specially from Caleb- since he was up at the crack of dawn this morning. Side note: On Mother's Day I turned to John and said, " Honey, I am exhausted and my back is killing me, " he then looked at me and said, "Yep, it's true you are a mother." Yep it is true!

EARTHQUAKE!!

 

We survived our first earthquake last night. It was only a 4.0 on the scale but we felt it for a few seconds. All the sudden everything started shaking - John and I looked at each other in bewilderment...and then it hit us - That was an earthquake! No big deal really. Apparently Peru has them all the time and they had 97 earthquakes just last year. So for some reason I feel more Peruvian now that I have experienced one.

 

And yes - we are coming up with a "what to do in case of an earthquake" plan :)

 

Check this link out for more info:

 

http://earthquaketrack.com/p/peru/recent

Hormigas! Hormigas! (Ants! Ants!)

 

Well we quickly discovered that ants are here in abundance. Everything must be washed and taken care of immediately after dinner. You must also put everything either in the fridge or in a tuperware container or it might as well be food for the ants. The ants are so tiny here you can barely even see them, but where you find one there are many! In an effort to keep the ant population here in the Guest House down to a minimum I am also sweeping after every meal - as my tiny children seem to drop an endless amount of food on the floor. Hannah and Caleb have also found a way to keep the ant population down as well - yes by killing them. It is quite commical to watch Hannah use her little finger to squish ants. After she squishes them, she then tries to show us her prize. Caleb just steps all over them with his feet. Well one thing is for sure - we are depleeting the ant population. I have a super cute video of this but not sure if I will be able to upload it or not. It will take a few hours though.

 

Everyone in Lima has been so welcoming. We have had lunches provided for us almost everyday since we have been here! As a matter of fact, we went out for lunch today with the Kim family. We went to a local restaurant that serves a Peruvian favorite, "pollo al la brasa". It is very tastey and the kids enjoyed it very much. Caleb enjoyed the play place at the restaurant, and the icecream as well. They even got balloons while we were there - much to Hannah's excitement. The kids were so fascinated with our little blonde haired, blue eyed girl and several stopped at the table to adore her. Just take a look at the crowd below!

 

As for visas, we will know more by tomorrow but for sure we are here at least another 16 days if we choose to stay here in Lima and wait for them. Right now we are looking at the option of flying to Arequipa and coming back to pick up our visas once they are ready. We just need to stop flying before I am 35 weeks or John and the kids will be flying while I take the 18hr bus ride (yuck).

 

Most of us have managed to stay healthy so far (everyone but Crystal of course). Nothing serious just adjusting to new foods we think.

 

Oh and here is a totally random fact on Lima - Lima has a popluation of 8 to 10 million people in a size about as big as the city of Omaha. Crazy huh? On another crazy note...I have never seen this offered in the States quite like it is presented here?

 

Pray for guidance on when to head to Arequipa and fast visa processing!

 

Special note **in an effort to save time and energy all of these photos were taken with our small point and shoot - and of course not edited** Boo!

In the words of my son,"We are in Pawoo!"

We have been in Peru for a few days now just getting adjusted to our new life but I thought I would share a little bit about the flight over here.

Well sometimes things work out well and other times they just don't, but either way we survived our flight to Peru. The first flight actually went really well. Caleb was completely fascinated by everything in the airplane. The stewardesses were completely fascinated with him as well giving him special treats and such. The pilot even offered him a "hot off the microwave" chocolate chip cookie and an airplane collectors card with some milk of course. Needless to say Caleb was in HEAVEN. Our little Miss Hannah did quite well on the first flight as well, as a matter of fact she even slept for about an hour. Little did we know however, that that would be the only hour all day until about 1:30 or 2:00am that night-or should I say morning. Which made for an EXTREMELY long second flight.

By the time we got in through immigrations the kids were SCREAMING. Which resulted in everyone looking at the crazy americans with the screaming children wandering through the airport. We got in and looked around and we could not find any of the bins we had shipped waiting in the baggage claim. I think the two of us experienced a few moments of panic realizing that everything we had was in those bins. We took a look around only to find them hiding in another part of the airport - I guess they had taken them off of the baggage claim round about. All of this, only to find out that there was NO ONE available to help us get all 8 bins, 1 suitcase, 1 backpack, 5 carryon items, and 2 car seats through customs. The kids were crying, I was crying, and then I think the people working at the airport felt sorry for us and decided to help us out - which apparently is not allowed (but they did get permission to help us I guess?). All this commotion seemed to rush us through the customs line, and we did not have to open anything or pay a cent! Praise the Lord!

We made it to the guest house thanks to a few friends in Lima. We were super grateful to have breakfast foods, towels, beds, and playpens for the kids when we got in. Thanks so much to everyone who made that happen.

We have been in Lima for a few days now and are trying to get our visa paper work figured out, which has been a little more challenging than we thought. Hopefully this will not hold us up in Lima as we are trying to fly to Arequipa as soon as possible - since I am so far along in my pregnancy. We have an appointment with Interpol on Monday. Pray this goes well and we can be on our way.

We are doing pretty well in our new home although we are anxious to get to Arequipa so we can truly begin to adjust to our new "home" - buying beds, kitchen stuff, and organizing the kids things. It has been difficult living out of our suitcases. The kids are doing okay with the adjustment but they are feeling a little stressed out - evident in their behavior and reaction towards what is going on around them. Hannah has developed some sort of rash as well - which John says is just a virus. Poor Caleb talks to everyone only to have no one understand/respond to what he is saying. This has been very frustrating for him. Caleb is trying to learn Spanish though, and we have noticed he always says "gracias" to the taxi drivers as we leave - too cute. So pray for them as they are having a bit of a tough time. While you are praying for the kids go ahead and pray for us too because this has been a little harder of a transition than we though it would be :) - and we just miss being home.

We are grateful that we have been able to find more of the "everyday stuff" than we thought would be available to. Although peanut butter will cost you an arm and a leg - a 6 oz jar will cost you $8.00. Whoa...someone want to send us peanut butter? :)


 

Hannah had her 1st birthday on the 6th of April, and we go to have all of the cousins out to celebrate with us. We went ahead and had Caleb's 3rd birthday celebration at the same time even though his actual birthday is not until May 22nd. We figured that with moving to Peru and all it would be a good idea to celebrate their birthdays while we were here in CO since we won't be back for a while. We all had such a great time and we feel really blessed to have been able to celebrate their births with all of our family.
 

 Oh Hannah we are so blessed to have you in our family- you are sure keeping us on our toes! Right now you are doing all kinds of things to include:

 

- Getting your top two teeth in (right now you only have four although you think you can eat anything that your brother does).

-You love to bounce and jump up and down on the trampoline

- You enjoy playing with people - you just love spending time with everyone especially your brother.

- You are standing on your own and you can walk if I hold your hand.

- Your first word was "Hi". Now you can say, "Bubba" (that's what you call your brother), "Momma", "Dada", "Kitty", "Uh-Oh", "There she is", "Please", "All Done", "Thank you" and "More"

- You are learning sign language as well and you can say please, more, all done, and thank you.

-You enjoy taking things out of boxes and putting things back in - next to playing with your brother this is your FAVORITE thing to do right now.

- You also scare us to death by scaling everything you can. Our brave little tot.

 

You are our smilely, tiny, bundle of energy. We are so blessed to have you!

 

As for Caleb, you are our strong, independent, inquisitive soon to be three year old anId will dote on you when your real birthday comes around. Love you special boy!

Here are a few pictures. More to come once we settle down in Arequipa. All of the pictures are on my external and I am too lazy to do any more photo stuff tonight. So I will post photos of my handsome little guy some other time.

 

God Works at the DMV

 

Among the list of things we have needed to accomplish before we leave for Peru one of those items was to get our driver's liscense renewed. Neither of our liscenses have actually expired but they would have while we were in Peru so we thought it might be a good idea to get them renewed early. Of course the lady at the DMV looked at us funny when she realized our current driver's liscenses were not expired, which led us to telling her all about our soon to be new adventures in Peru. Caleb and Hannah entertained everyone while we signed papers and took pictures. Of course at John's request Caleb showed off his counting skills in Spanish and in Quechua- that's right by the time we return from Peru I think Caleb will be tri-lingual. By God's grace we will all be tri-lingual.

 

Side note: Some of us, like John and Caleb (and who knows maybe Hannah) seem to absorb languages better. In short, pray for all of us during language school - but send up a special prayer for me.

 

Anyway back to the DMV...after pictures, signing papers, and an exchange of money we had our new liscenses in the mail. We went home - and totally forgot about the DMV. About a week went by and we headed to church on Sunday. That Sunday we got a few minutes to talk about Peru during the service. We had a table set up in the back with all of our Peru books and such. Shortly after the service, we saw the lady from the DMV - she also attends our church. She then handed us a check, and proceeded to tell us how that day at the DMV she felt as though she should have paid for our liscenses and she was now obeying God's call. I think I looked at her shocked and said," Well thanks for obeying the Lord," and she said, "You too". God is mysterious isn't He?

 

Apparently God works - even in the DMV.