Homeless & Happy

The joy of relaxing in bed while listening to your two children and husband sleep (during the middle of the day) is inexpressible J Especially if the reason is that you are in a beautiful mountain town on vacation and you can just sleep whenever you want!!! I am sure you are wondering why I am not sleeping as well --- it has been a curse of mine, since college, to be unable to take naps in the middle of the day (unless horribly sleep deprived or very ill).... and today I am neither of those things J

Now, if you had checked in on me last week --- I wouldn't have just been sleep deprived I would have been unconscious!! What a whirlwind of activity our life has been this past month and a half!!!

After surviving our time out on the river, we came back home and started to prepare to go on stateside. We had planned on just packing up all our belongings and shipping them to Lima via launcha and truck (over the mountains). However, upon further investigation we realized that it would not only be impossible to do that but very expensive and the likelihood that our things would still be intact and in good condition wasn’t probable. So, we decided to just sell everything. (This is a great idea in theory, but when you live 8 ½ kilometers outside of town it presents a slight issue). In order to have time to get everything sold we decided to start mid-November… so we began sorting through everything – making piles of things to keep, things to give away and things to sell. Meanwhile, it was record breaking hot, the power wouldn’t stay on and Adam was trying to finish up his two online seminary classes J

After getting everything sorted (our house was a complete disaster) we decided to open the doors and just let people in during the entire weekend… this meant that the kids didn’t get naps – random people were in our house all weekend and we spent the entire time in the living room sweating almost to our deaths. Miraculously though – our things were selling like hotcakes and the problem soon became – How are we going to live here until December 15^th without our stuff?? We decided amidst all of the chaos that if we were able to sell everything that we would just leave and go on vacation!! That was some serious inspiration J So, after writing 4 term papers and taking one final exam, selling everything and packing the leftovers in 4 suitcases – we were saying goodbye to Iquitos. We had a tearful but enjoyable lunch with Cesar and his family – left Alias with our cute old neighbor man – gave the keys to the landlord and we were on a plane to Lima.

We arrived on December 6^th completely and utterly exhausted – slightly stressed….ok really stressed AND bonus – Adam was super sick. But we were done – we had accomplished all that we needed to and so now all we had to do was recuperate!! After several days in Lima we were rested, Adam was mostly healthy and we were ready to go on vacation J haha. Adam wanted us to see the first city him and his family lived in, which was Huaraz, Peru. It was an 8-hour drive from Lima up in the mountains at 10,000 feet. We were able to borrow a truck and we drove up here on Friday. I was a little concerned about how the kids would do, because they have never been in the car for that long, but it went great!! They actually slept most of the time and we had Michael Buble’s new Christmas album to listen too (Samuel LOVES it) Seriously – he could be screaming and crying but as soon as we turn it on he is immediately silent!!!

An hour before we arrived in Huaraz, Sophia threw-up L It was super nasty, poor thing – I had been feeding her Papa John’s pizza and goldfish for hours…. I think she just got carsick with all the curvy mountain roads…. either way it was pretty unfortunate. We stopped (and it was FREEZING and RAINING!!!) and we got the car and Sophia all cleaned up and drove super slow the rest of the way. But we were able to find a nice hotel – the kids were amazingly chipper and calm for 7pm in the evening and we were able to have a nice dinner in the hotel restaurant J

We have really been enjoying ourselves although it’s hard to get used to the altitude and the cold weather!!! I think we will stay until the 15^th and just hike, relax, visit some Inca ruins and enjoy being together as a family. Then we will go back to Lima for medical appointments, Christmas, New Years and then we will be coming home on January 6^th!!! I hope the U.S. of A. is ready for us!!

Here are our last pictures of Iquitos and the first of our vacation J

Since we sold all of Sophia's toys - this was all she had to play with...

Yes - that is Alias' dog bowl and a bucket full of water :)

Carolina and I after cleaning the house for the landlord's

Taking the last pictures of our house and Alias

The House again :)

Lunch at Cesar and Julie Ann's

Samuel and Sophia playing in Reina's little chairs

Rosa asleep in the hammock

Reina smiling for the camera

Little Cesar smiling for the camera as well :)

Julie Ann preparing lunch

the whole motley crew

Cesar and Adam

Sophia playing in the cars at the mall in Lima

Sophia airing up her 'leg floaties' - haha :)

Posing for the camera

Outside the Guest House on our way to Wong's - the magical grocery store :)

View of Huaraz from Adam's old House

The church Adam's dad started behind their house :)

Inside Adam's House -- we did know the family living there.... we didn't just barge in and what not :) haha.