denise underground

Bangkok

2011-04-09T21:23:00.011-06:00

So to get back to Bangkok from the islands we decided to do it like the locals and take a night bus.....pretty much miserable of course. Check out those sweet curtains though! And we are even showing the traditional greeting ("swati KA" - hello or "cumpu KA - thank you.) Took us a long time to get those down.
This is Koh San road which is the main hostel road and tourist center in town. Always bustling and crazy and fun.
We went to this huge weekend market..... I mean it was HUGE! We were there for 4 hours and didn't even see everything. We did get ourselves some excellent coconut ice cream.
Nice mannequin faces girls!
After having Thai food for breakfast, lunch and dinner for almost 2 weeks we were pretty stoked to have some good old American food. Thanks Mcy-D's! (Pretty sure the last time I ate there was last time I was out of the country....
We took a ride in a tuk-tuk which was necessary, but it was really crazy because the only way you can go somewhere in one is that you have to agree to let them take you to a jewelry store that give them a commission first.....we were super annoyed about it, but went anyway since that was the only way to ride in one.
The jewelry store actually turned out to be interesting. Here are all the people making the jewelry and they had really unique settings and things for the rings, so it was a fun pit stop.
The tuk-tuk dropped us at the Jim Thompson house. He is an American who was very influential in the Thai silk trade. He was an architect by trade and took 6 different Thai traditional homes and made this museum home for himself.
It was full of tons of really impressive Thai art. The home was really beautiful and all up on stilts which is how the Thai people would traditionally deal with flooding.

Then it was off to church......
Which was surprisingly hard - after walking forever we saw this tiny little sign and were so excited! Turns out they were showing conference so we missed the whole thing, but we were still really excited to find it!
After church we went to the Grand Palace

This is a mini sculpture of Ankor Wat in Cambodia

This is inside the main temple where you can see at the top of the altar the jade buda. No pictures were allowed in there since it is a holy place. Lost of people were there praying.
Outside all the Thai people were dipping these lotus flowers in this vat of holy water and touching themselves on the head. Some kind of a blessing I presume.

These are the guards outside one of the private buildings in the grand palace walls. That little boy took a picture with him and I didn't quite capture it but as he ran away he turned around and bowed and said "cumpu KA" so adorable!

On our last night there we decided it was time to get some last minute cheap pampering. Pedicures!
Then we headed to Salome Village where we saw a dinner show with traditional Thai food and dancing. It was really incredible.

The food was amazing of course!
Thai people sit on the floor of course - so they sort of made the tables like that but with a place you could let your legs hang for those of us not as nimble as the Thai people....
The costumes were very intricate and stunning.
The dancing was really cool to watch. It was only a little creepy because they bend their fingers back really far. It must be something that is culturally considered beautiful because you see it in all of their art work as well.... I just thought it was creepy.

The day we left we spent the morning at the floating markets about an hour outside of Bangkok. Traditionally this is how the Thai people did their daily shopping. Everyone on the river in long boats bartering and trading fruits and vegetables.
Turns out it is pretty much a place to sell tourist stuff, still pretty cool though.
It was alwesome to see all these little old ladies with their bamboo hats on steering these boats around.
Before we headed to the airport (with a taxi driver that we are pretty sure was drunk no less) we got our last stores of Thai fruit. So much better than ours somehow.
This is technically 36 hours later or something but we left Thailand at 5pm and got back to Cali at 8pm - crazy flight!!! Let me just say something about these ladies - amazing! We had such a wonderful time together and even being together 24 hours a day for 2 weeks we got along really well the whole time. That is pretty incredible if you ask me. We had a fantastic trip and I couldn't have asked for better people to travel with!

Koh Lanta

2011-04-05T21:09:00.004-06:00

Today we headed over to another island close by - Koh Lanta. We didn't know what to expect, but we thought it would be a good adventure.
As you can see we are fairly sun kissed by this point.
When we got there the hotel was right on the beach and this was the view from this amazing patio restaurant under these huge trees with lanterns in the tress. The sunset that we saw there may have been the best I have ever seen.

Here is the patio from the hotel restaurant. The tree with the lanterns was so beautiful it was blowing my mind. Absolutely loved it! It created the most amazing atmosphere!

Here we are the next morning at the breakfast table - amazing!
Today we rented motorbikes and rode all around the island. The island does have paved rodes but we got off the road for a bit to drive out to the mouth of a cave.
Biker chicks! This was probably one of my most favorite places in all of Thailand - going to have to go back some day!

Koh Phi Phi

2011-04-02T21:58:00.011-06:00

This is the sweet hostel we stayed at in Phuket before boarding the boat out to Koh Phi Phi. We are super posh! Luckily we had the place to ourselves.
This is Miles - from New York, who we met on the boat. 100% gay and full of personality as you can tell from this picture:)
Our first views of the island were totally stunning. The majority of it is jagged rock cliffs.
Here we are all with our new friends Miles and Denise ( a Canadian) One of the great things about traveling is all the cool people you meet along the way.
The main drag of Koh Phi Phi - I honestly can't express to you how we were feeling at this point. We were so stunned with how amazing this place is!
Our sweet hotel! We decided to spend a couple nights in a really posh place. This was perfect.
Amazing Pool!
Stunning view of the crystal blue ocean.
That night we saw one of many amazing sunsets.
Our travel group was really amazing as well. We all had a wonderful time together.

One of the first orders of business when we got of the boat was to touch the water.....perfect of course. About 90 degrees!
On day one we hopped on a boat to go scuba diving which was of course amazing. That beach in the distance is the beach they used to film the Leonardo DiCaprio film "The Beach" - totally stunning of course.
The diving was pretty amazing of course. The visibility was pretty bad since they had had some storms before we got there, but I saw a black tipped shark, a sea snake, a sea turtle and all kinds of interesting and unique fish and coral.
While we were swimming in our pool we caught a glimpse of this little monkey looking for left overs. Awesome!
We spent a whole lot of time in the pool, it was super hot so we couldn't lay by the pool for very long - thank goodness the pool was perfect.
Most nights we spent walking up and down the main strip where all the shops and restaurants and massage places were. It has such a relaxing feel about it.
This is just another view from our pool!
The view from our hotel window.
This is a huge banyan tree along the path in town.
We took a long boat 10 minutes down the island to Long Beach which is the long, white sand beach on the island. Check out that water....

We set up under this huge tree - the sun was of course super intense, so we couldn't be out in it too long without getting fried.
And of course, we HAD to get massages right there on the beach - amazing!
And lay in a hammock.....
This is Lune - the fruit shake lady we got our fresh mango, strawberry and pineapple fruit shakes from each day for $1. Amazing!
Doesn't Darci look cozy!
We got lots of relax and read time in. Darci and I are both covered up completely because the air conditioning was so good that we even got a little cold.....love good air con!
Darci had to go back early to get back to school so we said goodbye to her after a few days in the islands.
Several of the restaurants on the island would have fire dancer entertainment at night. Pretty impressive.
After a couple nights we downgraded to a little cheaper accommodation, still totally fine though, a little bungalow just outside town.
This was our main activity. Floating. This may have been my favorite part of the entire trip. Each day we would spend as much time as our skin would allow out in the water floating. We would never have to get out because we were cold, only when our skin was scorching. Another time when you want to have great friends around.At night the tide would go out pretty far so we could walk out far where the tide had been earlier.
We took a hike up to a lookout point to watch the sunset and encountered some monkeys on the way.
At first we were all excited to be seeing monkeys and then all of a sudden more and more started appearing and they were not nervous around us at all and got pretty close which made us nervous to the point that we decided to get out of their territory. Not before one grabbed at Rosey's ankle first though....crazy!
Another amazing sunset. One thing that was amazing was that the weather was predicted to be rainy and overcast the whole time we were there - not one cloudy day....blessing from heaven!

Foot massages! So incredible.

One morning we rented kayaks and checked out some quieter parts of the island.
We stopped on monkey beach - apparently it was too early for the monkeys since we didn't see any. Nice tire swing Mel :)
We also kayaked right by the cliffs and found some sweet caves. We saw tons of cool tropical fish.
Sweet cave! So that is pretty much the story of our time in the islands. No separation of days here, it all ran together in one big mush of wonder and amazement. One of the most beautiful places I have ever been!

Trek Day 3

2011-04-01T13:01:00.005-06:00

This morning when we got up we saw this man lashing together these bamboo rafts - we weren't exactly sure how we were going to head down the river on them.....

Standing up apparently........ I got the steering spot.... a little stressful
The river was low, so it was pretty chill but there were some spots that were a little rough, which was fun.

When we were done we hiked back up to where the truck was picking us up while the other guys took apart the rafts - they are single use apparently.
Doh broke open a really yummy watermelon.
Then the ride got crazy - we got back in the truck and headed down the side of this crazy mountain on a dirt road - Mel was not too jazzed about the cliff - hence the face.
We drove down to this sweet waterfall where we could swim.
The water was super cold but really refreshing.

The ride back was all on paved road so it was pretty relaxing.
When we got back into town we heard that there had been a ton of rain down south where we were headed so we hung out at the hostel and tried to figure out what to do and just chilled out for a bit. It was nice to just relax. In the end we talked to some other tourists and they said the rain had passes so we headed that night to the airport to head to the islands!

Trek Day 2

2011-03-31T09:58:00.010-06:00

In the morning we got up and had hot chocolate in our bamboo cups and watched the sun come up over the mountains. So beautiful!!!!
This is one of the villagers - they all sit like this which seems uncomfortable, but it works for them. Again - check out that view!
Before we left the village we all got our lunch - pad thai in a banana leaf - I am beginning to believe that anything cooked in a banana leaf is amazing!
Today is a trekking day - we hiked about 10 miles today. Doh had brough along some fresh pineapple for us - again, some of the best I have ever had.
Trekking through the dried rice fields.....
We walked through a couple of villages as well, where Katherine snapped some pictures of the little kids - had to convince her that she could not steal one....hehe.
The trek was interesting because the jungle we walked through change all the time. We had pineapple in a dense part of the jungle and then walked out through this more desert like area. The landscape changed dramatically several times a day.
We stopped and had lunch at this little hut by the river - heaven. We were pretty tired at this point as there were several huge hills to climb and the Thai people (just like the incans) don't believe in switchbacks apparently. So we were glad for a break.
After lunch - more trekking. Let me set the stage for this pic. Rosey and I have climbed up on a rock to have Mel take a picture for us and Katherine comes over and is going to sit on that log that just moments before had been perched on two rocks. Well, she sad on it and it was like slow motion that it slid off the rocks and she fell backwards into this stagnant part of the river. We laughed pretty hard about that one.
A little later we had to cross the river - which was very refreshing.
After we crossed the river and everyone had their shoes back on we realized there was a long puddle to cross, and so everyone didn't have to get their feet wet again, Doh got a log and dropped it over the water so we could cross. The funny thing was that this sent mud splattering everywhere - especially on Katherine. She was our main entertainment for the day - thanks dear!!!
New kind of jungle.
Do you see this bridge!!!! Creepy! We had to cross this to get to the village that night. I honestly can't believe it held together.
As soon as we got in we quickly changed into our bathing suits and headed to the river, which felt amazing after a long hot day of hiking.
This is Debroan - one of the little local boys who obviously loves flirting with all the tourist girls when they are in town. He didn't speak any English, but loved to poke and tickle everyone.
That night we had popcorn for dessert - soooo yummy!

Trek Day 1

2011-03-30T13:55:00.017-06:00

Here we are, all crammed in the back of a truck getting ready to make what we later found out was a 4 hour drive into the hills, not exactly comfortable, but very fun.
Doh cut up fresh mango for our lunch - probably the best mango I have ever had.
Katherine and I on our elephant.....I really like elephants after this experience. They just seem like happy animals.
So we set off on our elephant ride - you can see that our elephant has already figured out that we have some bananas for him, he was a hungry little guy.

Check the facial expression on Darci's elephant - so cute!
We are all out of bananas by this time, but he's still looking for hand outs
So at this point, our elephant has found something very tasty off the edge of a cliff!!!! Katherine and I are getting ready to jump. We were honestly nervous.
What an amazing view! Such a beautiful place.

We trekked through all these rice fields and since it is dry season and they have not yet planted the rice, the cows were out grazing. They had these wooden bells around their necks that sounded amazing.
We took a quick pit stop in a little village along the way.

Trekking through the hills.
Doh found a local strawberry field on the side of a steep hill and picked some for us. This must be where all the Hmong people in Visalia get all their know how on strawberries.
We took a quick stop at this little house with one farmer in it and the farmer and Doh cut down a couple of bamboo stalks and started carving us out cups....so awesome!
And very functional - we used them all during the trek.

This is the view from just outside our hut - incredible!!!

Here is Doh making dinner. He was such a great guide!
These are some of the houses in the village we stayed in that night.
This is a little old lady we saw walking along. I wish we could have caught a picture of her smiling. She had this huge, toothless genuine smile.
Here are our sleeping quarters. Bamboo mats were not exactly comfortable, but it was certainly a cool experience
Doh and some of the other villagers had made us dinner.....so amazingly yummy - Doh had picked veggies all along the trail during the day. He is from the hill tribes so it was easy for him to spot things.
The ladies in the village were selling handicrafts when we got there - we of course automatically assumed that Svenja and Mara wanted in - they were such great additions to the group.

Chaing Mai

2011-03-29T13:11:00.008-06:00

So the flight over to Thailand was about 16 hours or something rediculous like that, it was daytime the whole way - so we essentially skipped Monday. It acutally wasn't too bad considering we each had our own tv with movies and tv shows.

We got to Chaing Mai Tuesday Morning and had to get out and sight see immediatly so we wouldn't fall asleep. These beautiful and intricate temples are all over the place, so we dropped by to check one out.

We finished out our day getting a 5$ thai massage.....once we got in there we totally felt like we were in that place in the movie Taken.... Really great massage though. Darci and I were in the same "room" (more like a sheet fort) so she snapped this shot when we were finished.

Weekend with Grandpa

2011-02-12T23:58:00.003-07:00

This weekend Kate and Veda and I all went to SB to hang out with Grandpa.....lookin' good!

We did the best thing humanly possible in SB and went to the beach. It was such a nice day! Mid 70's, not a cloud in the sky. Here's the girls being cute and Taylor being crazy as usual!

Besides being with Grandpa it was really nice to be with some of my favorite cousins as well.

I'm so lucky to get so much of them in my life right now!

It was also really fun to hang out with my Mom and Patches. We took several long walks down the beach and we got to talk while Patches chased birds and made friends.

We stayed all the way until sunset and it was really stunning. Grandma Helen would have loved this one.

Tonight Grandpa took us all out to Wing's which is his favorite Chinese restaurant right near Hope Ranch. It was very tasty. As you can see it was a classy affair, as is so typical of us :)

....Jack is such a nut!
After we dropped Grandpa off we went to Montecito and got hot chocolate at Starbucks for Rebeka's 13th birthday.

Happy birthday Beckis! Although I'm pretty sure she has been a teenager since she learned how to walk:)

Stampede

2011-02-05T22:20:00.001-07:00

Tonight we got a crew together to go country dancing at this place we had heard about in Temecula called Stampede. We all piled in the Suburban which made it even more fun.

Lookin' good ladies! The first little while they played country songs and there were lots of line dances and two step songs which was really fun. Some of those line dances are super hard!

In the middle of the night they put on some top 40 music to dance to and I got some great dancing shots.

Jordan came down from LA which was a treat.

Lookin' Good Jenna - Let me see your hands in the air!

Mel boot scoot and boogie'n

Veda let loose and had a great time.

Kate had some amazing dance moves.

Julie brought her ipod since she was pretty sure she would be bored - she was wrong! Had a great time!

Mitch was rocking the dance floor as usual

Before we left Kristen took a ride on the mechanical bull. So awesome!

Smelly Pillow

2011-02-04T21:53:00.000-07:00

Tough day today - surprisingly. Ever since I can remember I have had the same pillow. It is called my smelly pillow and I carried it around everywhere when I was a kid and even when I got a little older. It comes on all my road trips and most vacations. It finally go to the point where it was too ratty to keep around, so today I threw it away. I was surprised at how sad I was - I even shed a few tears! I guess most kids carry a wooby or a stuffed animal which you eventually grow out of or are weaned off of by your parents. A pillow is not something you grow out of, and I realized today when I got rid of it that I hadn't grown out of it either. I feel like it is going to be tough to sleep for a little while with a strange pillow in my bed. Thanks smelly pillow for all the good times!

New Years

2011-01-31T22:14:00.005-07:00

New Years this year was in Santa Barbara - I think this will be even more of a center of gathering for our family now that the Nelsons are there. Love it!

This picture demonstrates that we can pretty much be happy doing almost anything. Here we are watching the boys do skateboard jousting.....so funny.

I loved watching and playing with Patches - pictured only in the tail.

Justin was riding around with Henry - so cute! We made sure to play tennis every day. We of course never had enough courts so we played a little game that we called "Poor unfortunate souls". We were obsessed with it so we played it pretty much every day.

Later that day we had some great beach time. Mel came up with Veda so she hung with us for new years which was great.

During beach time Sammy Jr. asked Sam Hirt to make a maze on the beach. It was so cute to see him run around in it. Sam Hirt is such a great dad. Katherine and I each took a turn at it too which was really great.

At one point Kim started teaching an impromptu hip hop dance class on the beach which was marvelous. Kim is the best!

This is Daren's new years party outfit....crazy!!!
All kinds of crazy things happened pre midnight on new years eve. Me and the girls did our booty pass, we played I've never and mafia and just before midnight a sweet dance party broke out....our favorite!

So we danced in the new year and it was marvelous! I feel like 2011 is going to be really great!

LA MSA Super Fun Weekend

2011-01-29T23:21:00.003-07:00

Today Rosie, Mel, Kate and I all headed up to LA for a mid singles activity. In the morning they had a service project where we helped with some tree planting, which was marvelous not only because we were serving but it was also a beautiful day!

Then we headed into Beverly Hills to a super posh mall called the Grove. We spent most of our time in the farmers market part of the mall getting lunch and checking out all kinds of crazy little shops.
We all got something a little different and shared around. Very tasty.

My favorite thing about this mall was just the atmosphere. They had crooners singing old jazz songs playing and there were beautiful flowers and a pond and the buildings themselves made me feel like we were somewhere in Europe.

After we were done at the mall we headed to a friends house to get ready for the evening events.

They had put together this really amazing 1940's style gala. It was held in a chapel in LA that was build in the 30's, so it had a cultural hall that was really beautiful with exposed beams and the chapel had great stained glass windows. Really great building.

As we came in everyone got dance cards. I wasn't sure if people would get into those, but they did and it was great. They had a wonderful jazz band and everyone danced and had a wonderful time!
Rosie made sure her dance card was full and had a great time being spun around the dance floor just like the rest of us. I decided after doing some swing dancing that I LOVE IT! I used to do country swing all the time during college and I am now determined to get back into it.

These are two of our San Diego friends - Micah and Mitch that came up for the occasion. It was really fun to hang with old friends and meet some new people as well. I was really a wonderful night all around.

After the dance we headed over to Moises' house and all four of us crammed into his bed for the night. Jordan is staying with him right now as well, so it was fun to see him. It was a super fun Saturday!

Heading Home

2011-01-17T12:04:00.002-07:00

Check out that water! It was very hard to leave

It pretty much took all day to get home. Daren had the idea that we should play a game of tic tac toe. I was "0's" and Daren was unicorns.....weird. But then he decided that his strategy was to go always to the left of my play - didn't work out as planned for him I guess....hehe

We spent most of the day in the airport - we got very creative on ways to charge our phones. It was great to get back home. What a wonderful vacation!

Montego Bay

2011-01-16T11:12:00.002-07:00

Today we went to church in this little tiny branch in Negril. There was another couple there from Canada and us and this was the whole branch. It was a very nice meeting but pretty hard to understand. As I sat there I was thinking that these are truly faithful saints! In the US we have these huge wards that are really well organized and full of people that are our friends. It is much easier to be a faithful member here. I was very impressed with them.

After church we had another spiritual experience..... We drove back to Montego bay and paid $5 to go to this private beach. I don't think I will ever get bored of this.

More of my favorite beach activities today - mostly reading and napping. Thankfully it was a little cloudy, when the sun did pop out it was scorching!

We walked down the beach to the next hotel over and they had a heated pool that we swam around in for a bit.

When we scuba dived last our guide caught a puffer fish - so Daren gave it a try. Totally worked!

And then....just like on any good beach day, we did jumping pictures.

Another really amazing sunset....just as stunning as the others.

We had talked about going to see Tangled, so we hit up the movie theater on the way back to our hostel and watched it in 3D - loved it! Even though it was my third time seeing it.

We had also tapped out on Jamaican food, so we went all American....excellent!

We stopped at the gas station and got ice cream cones - what a great night! This is the hostel we stayed at when we first got here, not comfortable really, but cheap.

Negril

2011-01-15T09:35:00.003-07:00

This morning we got up and drove just outside of the city to see fern gully. It used to be a river bed that dried up but had cut this deep green gully. Really amazing.

After that we drove to Negril on the other end of the north coast. It took a few hours since the max speed limit on the island is 50mph. We found a place in Negril to go scuba diving. We saw a lot of really amazing things. First of all we saw several lion fish which are really poisonous, so we kept our distance. We also saw several things that I have never seen before, even on tv. We saw this skinny crab with really long arm and a triangle body and a fish that looked a lot like a puffer fish but when it swam it had these long front fins that fanned out in this bright purple fans. So amazing!

The water was really clear as well, so it was very interesting to look around and be in a totally different world. Very beautiful.

After scuba diving we drove a little further down the cove to a really famous place called Ricks Cafe. It's this really great outdoor restaurant/bar with cliff diving and live music right on the cliffs so it is said to have the best sunsets on the island. Daren got some good cliff dives in.

The food there was really expensive so we went across the street to a little stand for some really great dinner....much more authentic as well.

Then back to Rick's for a truly stunning sunset! I never get bored of watching the sunset.

Ocho Rios

2011-01-14T10:15:00.005-07:00

Today we drove up the coast to Ocho Rios and climbed the Falls at Dunn river. It is this river that runs right into the ocean that has a lot of limestone deposits in it so the rocks are really to climb on. So great!

There were some little caves in the rock....

A Jamaican guy took our camera and followed us from bottom to top and showed us the way. So we got a lot of cool pictures.

It was kind of funny because at this point the guy with the camera said "Kiss" - and we were like....ewww....we're siblings! Kind of funny going on a trip with your brother to a popular honeymoon location.

We made it all the way to the top. It wasn't too far of a climb at all so we went to the bottom and hiked up again.

We asked around town for a really cheap hotel and ended up here. Sweet! It was $50 and we had this amazing view two double beds and cable!

We went out front of the hotel and did a little snorkeling and saw some great starfish. We spent the rest of the night relaxing and watching some tv. We made up a scrabble game and watched some pretty funny cartoons and caught part of Freedom Writers. Great day!

Beach Day

2011-01-13T09:02:00.004-07:00

Today we went to the best beach in Jamaica - Doctors Cove. You can see that Daren is already having a good time.
This was about all that happened today - sleep, read, swim, repeat - perfect!

Out in the water they had a couple of those water trampolines, so we tried those out too.... pretty tough to stay upright.

We stayed until the beach was pretty much empty and watched a really amazing sunset.

Perfect beach day!

After the beach we went back to the supermarket from last night because they had a cafe there that we saw lots of Jamacians eating at. Turned out to be a very authentic experience. Daren had something with mutton - they don't cut the meat off the bones here, they just chop it all up with bones and all....ich! They also eay "rice and peas" with every meal, which it turns out is rice with kidney beans. Not too bad at all.

Jamaica Day 1

2011-01-11T21:54:00.004-07:00

So, 24 hours ago, Daren and I decided to take advantage of a small amount of time he had before he started his new job to go on a quick adventure. At 1am this morning we booked tickets to Jamaica - 24 hours later we were on our way. Crazy!!! Just the way we like it. When we showed up and got our rental car we started driving on the left side of the road and saw this very distinctive liscense plate - 7 - awesome! Simple people - gonna be a good vacation!

I am holding 20,000 Jamacian dollars....which is equivalent to about $230 USD. It felt weird to spend hundreds of dollars on a sandwich. Made me feel like a high roller the whole time I was there.

After spending a rediculous amount of time trying to find our hostel - the police eventually helped us out - we wasted no time in hitting the beach for a little snorkeling. The water was amazing of course.

Daren found a $100 Jamacian dollars stuck to this sea urchin. Sweet!

We saw all kinds of interesting little fish and sea urchins. The water was as clear as a pool which made it even more fun.

And after we swam around a bunch we got to watch a really incredible sunset. This place is dreamy! It is the middle of their winter here - low temperature 76 degrees! Love it!

After the beach we headed for some authentic Jamacian food. Jerk chicken. This place is called the Jerk Pit. It's an outdoor bbq place with tons of chicken and pork on a huge bbq covered in sheet metal - not sure how that helps, but it made it pretty tasty.

That night we went to a big grocery story and checked out all the Jamaican food. We thought these cookies by "Ho-made" were pretty cool. We got all kinds of unusual snacks for our trip.

Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T14:01:00.005-07:00

After a quiet day on ship of going to the gym, playing on the water slides and sitting in the hot tub we got ready for a nice Christmas eve dinner in the formal dining room.

Justin got all done up as well as you can see....

Late that night once we had sung some Christmas carols and had a nice Christmas Eve together we were out on the deck and ran into another group of kids we've been seeing a bunch this week. There is a big group of people on the boat at a family reunion that are Mormon so we have seen them a couple times this week. We rocked the dance floor together one night and one night we all completely overwhelmed the hot tub with 22 of us in there. So it was fun to hang out with them a bit before we dock tomorrow.

Puerto Vallarta

2010-12-22T13:38:00.004-07:00

Today we decided to do a zip line tour in the jungle. Mom was going to stay behind because she thought it was too scary - until she talked to another mom who said it wasn't that scary. Turns out she loved it! She's a secret adventurer.

It was a series of 13 different zip lines. The longest one was about a half a mile long. They were all strung across this canyon so the drop was pretty dramatic which made it more fun.

Once the guides found out that I spoke Spanish and that I am a nurse they were all asking me to do CPR on them.....shameless.....

They offered to let us go upside down if we went with one of the guides. I did it on the 1/2 mile one and it was over a river. So we started out right side up and then I let go and hung upside down. It was really fun.

The very last zip line goes right over the river. So as I got close to the end I see one of the guides an my brothers at the end of the line holding onto the line and yanking on it, which promptly put my buns right in the water......nice one boys.

We had to make it back to the start so we got to ride on mules which was really nice, a very relaxing ride through this beautiful jungle.

We had another wonderful evening on board, including an amazing sunset.

Mazatlan

2010-12-21T13:05:00.000-07:00

So this was the beach scene in Mazatlan. There were tons of people always trying to sell us something which was a little frustrating, but it was such a nice day that we got over it pretty quick.

We spend the morning laying around and in the afternoon we rented a catamaran which was really fun!

Driving it was actually harder than I expected in a strong wind, but it was really fun to give it a try.

After that the boys and Andrea did some para sailing, which seemed pretty fun but they were charging quite a bit for a very short ride, so I opted to just watch.

We took one of these little buggies back to the boat which I think was one of mom's favorite parts about the whole day. Especially when their driver gave them a jug of water to dump on us in our cart as we passed....hehe.

Cabo San Lucas

2010-12-20T12:24:00.004-07:00

This time around mom and dad splurged and got one room with a view. This was taken when we were still in port in LA, but once we got out to sea it was soooo nice to have a room with a view!

We got into port in Cabo San Lucas this morning and headed to go scuba diving and snorkeling.

The water here is pretty cold, but very clear and perfect for diving. Jason and Andrea have never been diving but the guides gave them a 10 minute mini course and took them down. I love Mexico sometimes:)

We saw all kinds of cool things. Puffer fishes that our guide puffed and then let us hold and another kind of puffer fish that is black with white spots and we even swam by some really huge sea lions which was a little creepy, but cool.

We had a great time in the water. After we spent a little while looking around at the market place.
It is always nice to get back on the boat and know that you don't have to think about where to find a good dinner or where you are going to stay.

That night we went to a hypnotist show. It was the first one I had ever seen, really amazing. At the end when they had woken everyone up they told three people that until the host shook their hand it would be as though their bottom was glued to the chair. So they were all woken up and everyone left except these three who were completely awake but scooting all over the stage in their chairs and trying to get the host to shake their hand.....incredible! I will have to see that again some day.

Mexican Riviera Cruise

2010-12-18T12:21:00.001-07:00

Today we all came from various places and met in LA to go on a Christmas cruise to the Mexican Riviera.

It was the best gift in the world just to be together for some good quality family time, mixed with a little Mexican adventure as well.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-28T20:11:00.003-07:00

Thanksgiving this year was pretty epic. With the Nelsons in Santa Barbara now we are getting a big socal crew. We had this great talent show. We are about to perform booty, foot shimmying. Because I have the biggest booty I was elected to be on these ladies feet - so fun! Katherine and I did a song with the guitar and all the teenagers had Ryan Miller at the piano playing the music from Mario Brothers and they all acted out the levels...so creative. And I think my favorite was Cubby who sang the primary birthday song where she changed it to be "I have a boyfriend, shout hooray"! It was super hilarious.

Other than that it was more of the classic amazing Santa Barbara things - here we are watching dolphins. Amazing!

Grandpa was certainly enjoying himself.

Thanksgiving dinner was at the Nelsons house. It was really beautiful and dinner was really great. Before dinner we all went around and said something we were grateful for. I was just grateful to be there in that room with that many people that I love....it was so great!

Look at all these great guys! What wonderful men - cleaning up after dinner.

The rest of the weekend was spent doing all kinds of crazy things. Tennis, surfing, kayaking, eating and going back and forth between the Mann's and the Nelsons house. Daren and I went out on the kayaks one day and we were just sitting out in the kelp and we saw tons of schools of fish and we saw several dolphins and a sea lion ducked right under my kayak. The great thing about having access to the Hope Ranch private beach is that since there are not many people there, there was always tons of wildlife. It was a great time in Santa Barbara as usual.

Best Halloween Ever!

2010-10-31T20:02:00.006-06:00

This is my best Halloween ever! All my siblings were in town as well as cousins and friends. Who could ask for anything better!

Friday night we went to the boat dance here in San Diego. We took a harbor cruise around the San Diego Harbor which has an amazing view and danced the night away. So fun!

Then Saturday Night the midsingles had a party at the Ranch House which is this big old scary building up on the top of a deserted hill, also really great. It was pretty funny to take Andrea and Kelly to a midsingles dance. We really brought our own party and just needed a venue.

I had fun with my costume this year - a little unconventional - I was a voodoo doll. When we got to the party we realized that Darci and I were matching, so she was the one who felt my vengeance....perfect!

Halloween at Disneyland

2010-10-29T17:15:00.001-06:00

Today a bunch of cousins got together to go to Disneyland which is all decked out for Halloween!

The Haunted Mansion is so amazing at Halloween - on of my favorites for sure.

We got a couple of those huge turkey legs and shared them around....very tasty.

In the evening when Cubby got off work she brought us all food from el Pollo loco and we pigged out sitting right outside the park. We are always so classy!

I love all the love flying around that circle! This is just one demonstration of it

I would just like to thank Cubby for being alive - you can't beat this face!

Kara's Halloween Party

2010-10-23T17:33:00.002-06:00

This is Kara. She works with me and Rosie. Her husband is Kermie. They hosted a great Halloween Party at their house.

It was really fun to hang out a bit from people from work outside of work.

Kara made all kinds of great food. We are eating some little finger cookies....yummy!

China Town

2010-10-04T18:56:00.005-06:00

Today we went to china town.....and as you always do in china town we walked around and looked around at all the shops and had some great Chinese food.

We tried some wigs in one shop - amazing to see what you would look like with completely different hair - makes such a huge difference.

We went to a dumpling shop in town and had several kinds of authentic Chinese dumplings - very tasty!

Next we headed to Golden Gate park. We took a taxi which was super crazy! Our driver was crazy - basically talked the entire time about things we couldn't even follow. He did drive us through some really cool fancy neighborhoods though which was fun. Most things were closed in the park so we decided to walk through the Japanese gardens. They were really incredible!

Rosie's Birthday

2010-10-04T18:35:00.004-06:00

Today is Rosie's birthday! So we have decided to make it the best San Francisco day ever! First stop, Alcatraz.

I have been to Alcatraz before, but it was just as impressive the second time around.

Then is was back to Fisherman's Wharf for more eating!!!

We got shrimp at Bubba Gumps on Pier 39. I'm making a Rosie face here - we reviewed some pictures and saw that the last 10 pictures she took she was making this face....haha.

We tried on lots of geeky glasses and hats.

Then more treats at the candy shop. Pretty much every flavor of salt water taffy.

Then we walked into downtown for a birthday dinner at the Stinking Rose. Everything in this restaurant is made with garlic - even the ice cream. It was all very tasty.

It was also decorated really well. I think Rosie had a really great birthday.

Catching up with Suzanne

2010-10-03T20:09:00.004-06:00

Daren had to fly back to SLC today so he dropped us off in the city and we met up with Suzanne in Golden Gate Park.
Here she is with her boyfriend who she met at the grocery store....hehe....and seems really great. We went to a Van Gogh exhibit at the art museum. It was really incredible.

Then we went and had dinner at the Boudin bread factory at Fisherman's Wharf - so amazing! I think bread is my favorite food.

Then we walked over to the Ghiradelli Factory and got the yummiest sundae. Most of our tourist activity in SF included food, which was marvelous!! It was really great to catch up with Suzanne. I love catching up with close friends like her because it's like you can pick up right where we left off - no time lost. Love that girl!

Tahoe

2010-10-01T20:08:00.003-06:00

This weekend mom and dad were at Squaw Creek resort in Tahoe for business meetings. Rosie, Daren and I took advantage to hang out with mom and dad and hang in their sweet hotel.

We did lots of relaxing, went on several bike rides, played tennis and sat in the hot tub every night.

One day we went into the little town near Tahoe to look at the shops and have some girl time.

We had some ice cream cones and got pedicures. It was a really great time. Poor dad had to fund the whole thing, so he spent a lot of time in meetings, but we did get to hang out with him in the evening. Thanks dad!

San Francisco

2010-10-01T06:09:00.005-06:00

This morning Rosie and I got into San Francisco. Daren is in town for an interview so he picked us up from the airport and we wasted no time in driving across the golden gate bridge.

Daren rented us a sweet SUV so we could travel around in style.....yeah, we're big time.

We dropped Daren off for his interview and headed out to see some more classic SF sights. Here are the Full House houses.

We drove down Lumbard street.

We went and checked out Japan town.

We checked out the Japanese markets and found these pepper chips called "Everybody Say Good Good Eat" - Love it!

We picked up Daren after this and drove out to Tahoe to catch up with the parents.

Veda moves to San Diego!!

2010-09-30T11:59:00.001-06:00

Today Veda moved to San Diego!!!! Kate and I went to the airport to pick her up and made her this sweet sign. She thought we were just going to meet her outside, so Kate and I got the biggest kick out of watching her come down the escalator and not seeing us until the very last minute...hehe. So great to have her here!

Best Beach Day EVER!!!

2010-09-27T10:41:00.005-06:00

So my good friend Danielle is in town for a visit. She just moved back to Salt Lake after living in Austalia for a while and was missing the beach. Today was supposed to be hot but I was still really suprised when I left my house this morning at 9 to head to the beach and it was already 98 degreees!!! It wasn't quite as scorching at the beach, but still hot enough that we had to get in the water often to cool off. Perfect!

After a lot of laying around, reading, napping and dipping in the ocean we rented bikes and rode around the boardwalk which is one of my favorite things to do.

While we were sitting eating frozen chocolate covered bananas (another one of my favorite things) my friend Micah rode by. He just moved to a house right on the boardwalk (lucky!) so it was good to catch up with him.

The rest of the day consisted of more of the same. Chatting, reading, dipping in the ocean. We also swam and played in the waves for quite a while. So fun to have Danielle around and enjoy the perfect beach day!

Night out with the Ladies

2010-09-25T08:16:00.001-06:00

Tonight Cubby and Darci met up with some of us from San Diego in LA at a friends house party. House parties aren't typically my scene, but it was great to be with good friends. I am extrememly blessed right now with amazing friends and family.

Ian

2010-09-23T11:16:00.007-06:00

This is Ian - today is his birthday - Even though this picture makes him look a little crazy, he is actually fantastic and a good friend of mine.

For his birthday he wanted wings - so wings it was. Here we are with his roomies, Jon, Mike and Brian. Also Rosey and Carl. Ian is a pretty cool guy so, the other plethora of fans are not shown.

After wings Kate and Kristen suprised him with a sweet spiderman cake and a whole lot of silly string. Thanks for being born Ian!

Paintballing

2010-09-18T23:50:00.000-06:00

This afternoon a big group of friends got together to play paintball. Random I know but we got this great group deal, so we thought....why not! Kate has her game face on already.

Here is the whole paintball crew, all trying very hard to look and feel tough. I mean, how could you not feel tough in all that gear.

Here we are on one of the fields post war. The first couple of games we were playing with a team that had a couple marines on it. They were wearing full camo. When we first got there we saw them smoking in the parking lot. One guy had his shirt off and had this big angry welts on his back. They are the kind of guys that eat kids. All I wanted was to not play with them and then of course we end up playing them. So the first few games were over in about 3 minutes. Game over when everyone on your team is hit. They were like snipers! I got shot once right in the hand (which killed!) through this tiny opening between the hay bails I was behind. So finally we asked if we could just play against our own people and thankfully they let us and it was much more fun.

The Hannon Court House

Now we felt super tough. Kate got a shot in the back of the neck in friendly fire....Jenna. I took some hits from not so friendly fire....the snipers. It was really fun, but I may not be running back any time soon.

San Diego Triathalon

2010-09-18T23:32:00.004-06:00

Bright and early this morning I headed down to Point Loma for my very first ever Olympic Triathlon. 1 Mile swim, 26 mile bike and finishing off with a 6 mile run. Since I have spent the last two weeks in Peru, I am feeling a little nervous about my performance. Here is my transition area. All set to go!

I put my wetsuit on right next to a 70 year old lady....awesome! Decided today that I want to be able to do a triathlon when I am 70. Goal set!

Kate was amazing and came down to cheer me on and document my progress.

The run portion was particularly difficult because after getting off my bike it took about 3 miles for my legs to stop cramping. Super painful. But considering my not so extensive training, expected.

I did it!!! It took me about 3 hours and 25 minutes, which was slower than most people, but a lot faster than I thought I could do. I really enjoyed myself. I feel like it wasn't quite as mentally difficult as some other endurance sports since it is three events in one. And more than anything I love doing races for the race day energy. It is so fun to be there with all those other athletes, like the adrenaline is tangible in the air.

Had to take this shot for Dad. He always did this pose in his triathlon gear, and still continues to do this pose pretty much whenever he gets in front of the camera:)

Fantastic support person as well! Thanks Kate!

Caught up with an old friend, Ross, after the race. I ran into him yesterday at the pre race info meeting and he gave me a lot of really great tips. He is doing the Ironman in Kona in 3 weeks. Should have gotten his autograph! His advice was really helpful though. Thanks a million!

After the race I felt fantastic! Well, my body was pretty wasted and I had pretty much just a general ache everywhere, but I was feeling that, you're on the top of the world!!! feeling. I was definitely slower than 80% of the people there, but I was just happy that I could do it. Can't wait to do another one!

Last Sunday

2010-09-12T22:09:00.006-06:00

This morning we went to church. It was great to hear church in Spanish again. I had a lot of mission flashbacks. At one point during the service the bishop asked all the returned missionaries to come up so they could sing "Called to Serve" I sat in the audience thinking that it would be so nice to hear that song.....then Kerry stands up and says...."Let's go"....what!!! So he made me go up with him and sing in the impromptu choir....Turned out to be fun but kind of intense.

After church we met up with the rest of Cecilia's family (who are not members of the church) and went to Cascais - which is a buffet lunch place with traditional Peruvian entertainment where a lot of Peruvians go to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries.

We were obviously a little out of place.....this guy wanted to take a picture with us.

How cute is Isabella!!!! The food was really tasty and it was nice because we could try a little of everything. Excellent!

After we had eaten a little bit the dancing started and they did quite a few traditional Peruvian dances.

Only catch was that after they did each dance the dancers came out into the audience and pulled in people to dance with them.....being the only white girls in the place.....we had to dance after just about every dance. It was fun at first but toward the end we were so full so it was a little hard to dance.

This dance was really fun. Each of the dancers has a little white hankie pinned to the back of their pants. Their partner has a candle and has to try to light their hankie on fire. So, the better booty shaker you are, the more you can evade their candle.

Rosey was the lucky girl that got to try out her booty shaking! She was so good that by the end she had three people trying to light her fire!!!

Here is our whole group. Cecilia's aunt and uncle and two of their kids came with us as well. They were great company.

By now Isabella has warmed up to us and we are great friends!

Then we all drove down to the Peruvian white house.

It is right on the main square in downtown Lima. All the other buildings on the square are bright yellow.

Just a little ways from there we walked to some ancient Peruvian ruins.

After that we went to this really cool water park. It had all these really incredible lighted fountains.

A lot of them were ones we could play in. At first we thought we would just stand here and take a picture.

Then we realized that the goal was to get all the way to the middle. We made it!!! Rosey had some casualties - water shot right up into her face. I had almost made it out when I got a shot of water right in the behind.....totally worth it!

This was a fun one to walk under as well.

They had this really incredible light show. All these water cannons danced to the music and they also showed traditional dances on a spray of water as well. Very cool.

Once we were done there it was time to head to the airport. It felt weird leaving Peru, we had such a fantastic time! And to top it all off we saw Elder Christopherson in the airport!!! We were trying to be discrete and I was pretending to take a picture of Rosey - obviously didn't work out too well. He is there in the background though.

Our flight back home was uneventful. I love coming into the LA airport and seeing the sign that says "Welcome to the United States". Good to be home.

To Lima

2010-09-11T21:22:00.005-06:00

So this morning once again we got up really early and got ready to take off back down the river. We had to get one last group photo though. Such a fantastic group of people!

We got one last beautiful jungle sunrise as well.

The boat ride back down the river was only 3 hours since we were going with the current this time. I really loved riding on the boat and just enjoying the sounds of the jungle one last time. It's so peaceful here. I wish I could take the sounds home - and forget all the bugs that make them.

Once we got back into Porto Maldonado we had some time to kill before we had to get to the airport so we wandered around town a little and found this fruit market.

The girl we bought this pineapple from cut it up for us right then.

We took one of these motorcycle/taxi conversion things back to the lodge to pick up our things before heading back to the airport.

It was quite an experience. It felt very South American here as we saw many families all driving on one motorcycle. I have enjoyed the jungle so much, but I am certainly glad that once we get back to Lima I won't be constantly sweating!

The pineapple was totally incredible as I have found most jungle things to be. Only problem was that while very sweet, it was also very acidic. This was also a huge pineapple. I ate until the acid actually burned a sore on the side of my mouth and my tongue was almost raw.....worth it!

The bananas in the jungle are also delicious. I think I got this whole bunch for about 25 cents. Amazing deal.....all these fruits got us through our excruciating time at the airport....so long, and so hot!

Kerry picked us up at the airport and brought us to the home of his wife's (Cecilia) aunt's house which is near the airport. Felt great to get cleaned up and into some relatively clean clothes. Such great hosts!!! They gave us these fruits that I had never even seen before that are all filled with these little green things that have black seeds in side and look like frog eyes....very tasty.

Here we are with Cecilia - we all went out to Barranca which is one of the tourist areas of town right on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Very beautiful! We had some great South American bbq which included blood sausage - yikes! And then walked around a bit and saw some street performers. We watched a spray paint artist here in front of the church for quite a while. Pretty talented people.

We went up on the cliffs overlooking the ocean and which also looks over part of the tourist area. Here is a row of really cute restaurants nestled into the side of the hill. Very picturesque.

Here I am with their little family. Kerry and Cecilia and their little girl Isabella. Isabella was not really sure about us at first, but I think she will warm up to us. She is so cute! Rosey and I were SO tired, we completely fell asleep in the taxi on the way home. We need some jungle recovery sleep.

Climbing in the Canopy

2010-09-10T14:25:00.022-06:00

This morning I woke up to the loud calls of macaws. This is a blue and gold one. Just Victor and i were awake, so he pointed out several in the tree right next to our tents....very cool.

He heard some monkeys, so we headed out into the jungle to find them. We walked under some dense tree cover where fruit carcases were raining down from the monkeys eating. They were so high up in the trees that we could barely see them. We saw this cute little beetle though....

We also saw this massive spider web. These are social spiders he said. They all live in one giant web colony. They are hard to see here, but each of those little spots is one of the spiders. There are probably about 100 in that tangle of webs.

I also found this huge jungle vine and had a Tarzan moment....

We all headed back toward the lodge then and out to this tree. It is about 150 ft up and so we geared up to climb it!

So I went first. Basically you have two clamps on that rope. I had to squat down and move one hand up, then stand up on that harness and move the other up. Looks easy in principle.....not easy!!!!

The record time by one of the guides was 7 minutes.....it took me 30!!!

Here's what that climb looks like from the top. When I stood at the bottom I didn't feel like it was that tall......well, from the top looking down it was pretty scary.

The view was worth the climb. I was in the tallest tree in the jungle. It was pretty hot sitting up there without any shade but it was great to just sit and listen to the sounds of the jungle.

One of the lodge employees was there at the top helping us get up onto the platform and he said I could climb out on the branches.....creepy! I was thankfully clipped into those thick wires just in case though. As you can see I am just a little (or a lot...gross) sweaty..... it was a really tough climb!

I hung out there while Rosey made her way up.

Then we repelled down....it was pretty tough to trust those cords as I lowered myself over the edge.

Thank goodness that now we have the rest of the morning to recover. My forearms were killing me for days!

So this is pretty much what we did for the rest of the day, napped, showered (no monstrous bugs in the bathroom this time thankfully) and played some dominoes. Nice to have a little down time before tonight's big event.

We went out cayman hunting on the river. Cayman's are jungle crocodiles. We traveled down river about 5 minutes (same river we were kayaking and swimming in yesterday) and came to this little cove where Victor knows there are some baby caymans living. So he hops out of the boat and points out these giant cayman tracks (which of course is super freaky) and heads over to the edge of this little cove where we can see with our flashlights all these glowing eyes. He karate chops the water and comes back to the boat with this baby cayman!

The thing is making these little cawing sounds and Victor says that he is calling his mom.....perfect....who luckily decides not to come to the rescue.

So we all got to hold him and check him out up close. Very cool. I must say that I was very pleased to have seen a small one....that's enough excitement for me.

Tonight was our last night in the jungle, tomorrow we are off to Lima, so here we are with our wonderful guide, Victor. He made our jungle experience so incredible!!!

Amazon Adventure

2010-09-09T20:37:00.004-06:00

This morning we got up at 5am to head to a clay lick where you can see lots of tropical birds. They come there every morning to feed on the clay. Apparently, a lot of the fruits they eat here are toxic to them and the clay neutralizes the fruits. This is the view from our bungalow.

We all boarded our river boat and headed down river a bit to hike in to the clay lick. There was all this steam rising off the water.

We had to cross this log bridge along the trail. We had to run up the other bank because there were a bunch of fire ants.....crazy place!

We had to wait under this little hut built to hide us from the birds for a long time, but eventually the birds started coming out. There you can see to Macaws.

A little later we saw two in the tree directly above us so you can see their colors a little better. They are so dramatically red against the green of the jungle.

A group of parrots came and started feeding on the clay lick as well. Besides seeing them it was really cool to hear all their calls.

While we were waiting, someone in the group saw something moving nearby and we got to see these two night monkeys. So rad! Guess they hadn't quite made it to bed yet, so we were lucky to see them during the day.

Here we are in the little hut.

We headed back to the boat and on the way passed through a jungle hostel and farm. This bird came running at us really fast and kept squatting down and opening up his feathers right around all of our feet. Victor told us that it was just a friendly chicken.

Here is a better view of the lodge's lobby.....so rad!

This is our bungalow. No windows, only netting and not bug proof by any means, but pretty sweet for being out in the middle of the jungle.

Here we are in front of the main lobby area. The bar is right behind us there. We made sure to get Inca Cola's there pretty regularly.

After a little down time we hiked out into the jungle about 30 minutes. We passed this little structure. This is where we will be sleeping tonight.

In tents.....on the second story thank heaven. Victor will sleep in his tent on the first story - as bait for all the crazy jungle animals I guess....

We hiked passed that a little ways to the place they have a zip line and ropes course set up.

I feel like getting to the zip line might have been just as crazy as the zip line it self. We had to walk across this little rope bridge way high up in the air.

Since it is spring here in the jungle, there are lots of butter flies out, so it was fun to sit and see them all while we were waiting for others to zip line.

I made it across without too much anxiety and then it was up another shady little ladder to the zip line platform.

I kind of blend in with the trees there, but there I am anyway, zip lining. It wasn't that scary at all except for the jumping off the platform 100 ft above the ground.....that was a little intense.

Next was the ropes course. I know it looks like I am walking on air here....but I am really tight rope walking. It was actually pretty hard and I was super wobbly at it, but pretty fun.

Then a cross this crazy rope bridge. Mostly I just liked being out in the jungle and it was also really fun to hang out with all the other people in the group. We had a fun time "competing" in everything.

Our next adventure was kayaking down the river. There were some really chill parts. My oar broke about 5 minutes into the trip so I was grateful for quiet waters until I could get a new oar.

And then there definitely were some rougher parts as well, which were really fun.

Wish we could have done those rough parts again, so awesome!

After this we had a little down time. We picked some star fruit from the tree we pass every day and snagged a hammock.....amazing! I began to notice all these massive welts coming up everywhere with little blisters in the middle. I got eaten alive on the river.....blasted mosquitoes! Thank goodness for immunizations and malaria pills.

Then it was time for dinner! Just as we were coming in from kayaking, we saw two of the other employees heading out onto the river with fishing gear.....they brought home dinner....a huge cat fish, which they cooked in that banana leaf and served with rice and yucca root. Soooo good! Everything we ate out here was incredible and really fresh, and much of it came directly from their trees and from the jungle. Our little group of six now has the whole lodge to ourselves as the other tour group took off. So nice!

After dinner we caught this killer dusk and then headed out to the campsite.....

We had to run back to our bungalow for a minute to grab our overnight stuff, and this is what was waiting for us tonight in the bathroom.....yikes!!! Rosey and I stood there for a while trying to come up with ways we could trap it, but the only thing we would have been brave enough to do would be to throw a towel over it which would not eliminate the problem at all. So we went and got Victor. Victor informed us that this is a poisonous wolf spider....what! He was smoking a cigarette and blew smoke on the spider to tranquilize it and then picked it up and took it outside. The jungle is turning out to be a very stressful place!

So after that little incident, we tightly tucked our pants into our socks and headed to our tents in the jungle. On the way we saw this scorpion eating a cockroach....I totally support that.

We got out to our hut, lit some candles and continued a game of hearts that we had started previously. Introductions - Rosey then Me, then Charlene and Pam. Then Dan who is Charlene's boyfriend and finally Sandy who is Pam's husband. They are all friends from LA. Really fun group of people.

While we were playing cards, Victor was off in the jungle for a long time. He eventually came back with this little gem of a discovery. A baby poisonous snake. He says that when they grow up they are all black and are very poisonous. I am glad I got to see him when he is small. We actually slept really well out here. Something about knowing that you are zipped in tight to a tent is really nice when there are snakes and spiders a foot.

To the Amazon

2010-09-08T15:09:00.000-06:00

This morning we said goodbye to Charli and boarded a plane to Porto Maldonado and the Amazon!!!

When we landed our guide, Victor, picked us up at the airport and after everyone from our group got in we headed to the city's lodge headquarters where we were greeted with fresh starfruit juice....so yummy!

The lodge in the city has a pool....posh! It was very tempting since it is super hot and sticky here.

Once we got everything ready to go we went down to the river to board our transportation to the jungle lodge......5 hours up river on this little guy.

The whole jungle experience was all inclusive so we got our first jungle meal. It was the most amazing fried rice dish I think I have ever had and the tastiest banana. Think I am going to get into this place.

After lunch it was time to kick back and enjoy the ride. The air felt fantastic once we had some breeze. It was particularly nice since we had just been freezing in Cuzco.

The water in the river is pretty dirty right now. Victor says it is because they just had a big rain storm recently so it will take a couple weeks to settle. Made the experience feel a little more rugged.

We didn't see tons of people living along the river but every once and a while we would see locals taxiing back and forth in these long boats.

All along the way Victor was pointing out wildlife. We kept hearing these really high pitched bird sounds. It was coming from the birds that live in these nests called Webers. It was really crazy to hear their call....seemed like something only a synthesizer could make. I really liked it.

We also saw a couple capibara or carpincho which are the largest rodents in the world.

So this is the Urubamba river we traveled down. While we are in the Amazon Jungle, we are not on the actual Amazon river.

We got to watch the sun set over the jungle which was really incredible.

This is the main lodge lounge area. All open air and very cool. The roof is made of waterproof jungle plants. No shoes allowed, which is kind of nice, it feels homey.

More great fresh squeezed fruit juice. They do have electricity there, but only from 6pm to 10pm. Other than that it is just candles and flashlights. So cool....

We went to our jungle bungalows. They are pretty nice but rustic. Ours is the very last one next to the raw jungle which is kind of creepy. they are on stilts and have wood walls, but some of the front of it is netting instead of windows and they are not fully closed off by any means.....so stuff gets in. These little cockroaches greeted us upon arrival......hate them. Rosey and I tried to catch them, but were being totally girly and so Victor heard our screams and "saved" us from them. Pretty sure those are the least of our jungle creature problems.

After he dispensed with the cockroaches he walked back to the lodge with us so we could go on a night bug hunt. That is when we met "the count", a pink toed tarantula that lives on a tree in our little bungalow village. Felt pretty sill about the cockroaches after meeting this guy.

There are also all these dive bombing, suicide cicadas here. Victor just grabbed this one off a lamp. I swear he is an insect whisperer.

For the night jungle walk we were advised to tuck our pants into our socks so as to have no unexpected hitchhikers.

And so Victor led us into the nighttime jungle. Very interested but very much on guard. I kept remembering how anacondas sometimes attack their prey by falling on them out of trees.....

Check out this huge tree! I guess we are going to climb this big boy in a couple days.

Stick bug.

Giant grasshopper.

Leaf bug.

Some kind of scorpion.....so creepy looking.

So we see this thing, and then all of a sudden Victor chases it into this tree to catch it.....he's crazy!

He of course is successful...... Guess he has been bitten by most things, tarantula, poisonous snake, piranhas, so a little scorpion is probably not that big of a deal.

Another huge spider.

A few minutes later Victor grabs this long piece of grass and sticks it in this hole....

Out comes this big old tarantula....so glad my pants are tucked into my socks now.

Lizard. There were tons of these guys around the lodge grounds also.

Some kind of poisonous spider.

A visual of how we were feeling after seeing all that crazy stuff.

And then.....sweet dreams......yeah right! More like anxiety! I was so grateful for that net around the bed. Didn't let me sleep real well, but it was some comfort.

Down time in Cuzco

2010-09-08T14:20:00.002-06:00

This morning when we finally got back to our hostel we were super tired and cold so we all huddled on one of the couches in the main lobby area and watched movies while we waited for our room to be cleaned and ready for us. The hostel had pirated copies of Up and the Surrogate. It was so nice just to sit and veg for a while. Once we got into our room and cleaned up a little we headed out on the town to sight see and finish up our shopping. This is taken in a smaller square, quiet a cool fountain. Just before taking this picture this boy had been pestering me to let him shine my shoes. I was wearing my chacos, but he was very persistent nonetheless. Should have said yes just to see what he would do.

This is a very famous ancient Incan wall which mostly just demonstrates the incredible Incan architecture. This would have been a wall for the home of some kind of royalty because the stones are all cut to fit perfectly with each other and no mud or cement was used to fit them together.

Then we decided to indulge ourselves one more time in a massage. Our Israeli friends from the Islands had told us about this place where we could get a hot stone massage for 15 soles or about $5, so we decided to take their word for it and it was an excellent decision!!!

When we got out of our massage there was all this commotion in the main square so we went to see what it was all about. A parade was starting. We found out later that Sept 8th is their Corpus Christi celebration. Representatives from nearby churches carry in procession their patron saints to the main cathedral. It is a celebration of the catholic church and it's saints.

Many of the groups were wearing really crazy masks and all the groups were dancing.

I'm not quite sure how the monkeys came into play, but I am sure they are honoring their patron saint somehow as well.

We really enjoyed watching this bit of culture. We felt so lucky to happen upon it!

Most of the ladies in the parade wore big colorful skirts.....lots of twirling.

The guy in this monkey suit was even growling and pounding his chest...really got into it.

After the parade we took some more good advice from our Israeli friends and went to Jack's cafe. Not terribly authentic (we have had plenty of authentic up to this point) but really, really good. Dinner was fantastic and dessert was even better. Brownies and carrot cake....yum. What a full and fun day!

Taquile and Puno

2010-09-05T18:22:00.003-06:00

In the morning we got up.....reluctantly. And headed down to breakfast. We had yummy pancakes....and tea of course, not my favorite.

Here is a view of the kitchen, built of those mud bricks again. They cooked over a small wood fire. She could do amazing things considering the tools she had to work with.

After breakfast we got back on the boat for an hour and headed to our last island, Tequile. It reminded of something in the Mediterranean. The day was so beautiful and the island was covered with eucalyptus trees which I love. Again we hiked to the top of the island.....still hurts my legs! But the walk was really gorgeous.

At the top we came to the main city square. Very cool architecture. I like all the arches they use.

Yet another really cute little kid we saw in the square. So adorable!

The view from the square was also pretty incredible. The lake was so incredibly beautiful!

What a beautiful day! We really enjoyed being in the sun even though it was still cold.

There were lots of these beautiful mud brick arches all over the island.

So.....after Tequile we loaded back on the boat for the 3 hour drive back to Puno. It was nice to have a minute to relax and take in the scenery. We got back to Puno about 3:30 and our bus didn't leave until 9 so we headed into town for some dinner. Charli decided to try Guinea pig....which you see so grossly filleted on here plate.....head and all. I don't hardly every get grossed out, but this was pretty disgusting. We had the waiter at least take it's head off after we got a picture. Check out those gnarly teeth!!!.....gross.

Guinea pig is something that some Peruvians eat in some little random places but more than anything is something they serve for tourists. I tried it.....chickeny. Peru had many other things that were much tastier, but you have to try it at least once I guess.

Then it was back to the double decker bus for the trip home.

Here I am doing a horrible pouting face because these two girls are sitting together and I am stuck in the back by myself with some chico who probably has sleep apnea and had his hands behind his head all night with his elbow poking me....ugh. The bus was also freezing cold and for some unknown reason we had to change buses once and then at one point it stopped for about an hour and there were all these people getting on and off....pretty sure I thought we were going to get killed. It was a rough night but we eventually made it back to Cuzco.

Lake Titicaca

2010-09-05T09:30:00.023-06:00

Our bus arrived in Puno (the main city on Lake Titikaka at about 5 in the morning and someone was there to pick us up. James had told us that they would take us somewhere we could sleep for a while until the tour bus picked us up. So we ended up here.... this totally random room in someones house that is filled with beds. It was super creepy. It looked like something from a horror movie, but we were all too tired to care so we slept like babies until they came to get us.

We went around the city and picked up a bunch of other people and then headed down to the port where about 25 of us loaded onto one of these boats and headed out into the lake. Lake Titcaca is the highest navigable lake in the world at 12,500 ft. It is also the largest lake in South America. The name is a combination of their local languages Aymara and Quechua and translates to "Rock Puma". The aerial view looks like a puma chasing a rabbit.

Our first stop was the floating island of Uros. The ancestors of these people lived on the mainland and were enslaved, so they escaped to the lake and there built a floating island. It's base is made up of the root systems of the reeds and then covered with reeds on top. Everything on the island is also made of reeds.

Here you can see the roots under the reeds. The island is made up of lots of little communities. Each island has about 5 or 6 families and each island has a president. If you want to move, you just cut off the section of the island that has your house and float to a new location. Kind of crazy.

Here are several different communities.

They can even make these boats out of them.

Their main livelihood in the islands is tourism so as our boat came close to the island each community had people dressed in bright colored traditional dress on the shore waving in the boats. So we pulled up to one and filed off onto this squishy island (it felt like waking in a hay stack) and they did a little presentation for us about their island. This is something they eat, it is the very bottom portion of the reed and was like eating celery with no flavor.

This little old woman was just plopped down in the reeds (very comfortable - I tried it) working on her crafts.

After their presentation about their island they showed us their homes. It felt kind of weird to be in their house, but interesting to see how they live. This is about all their house is, just this one little room. Don't worry thought, they did have a TV.....not sure how they get electricity out there, but they do.

They had prepared all these handicrafts to sell. I really loved these colorful mobiles.

Like I said the reeds were very comfortable. I was super tired, and very tempted to lay down for a quick siesta.

Charli had met this little girl who was of course super cute and so she took a picture with us. Just after that she asked for money over and over and then tried to unzip my pocket to get some....that kind of stinks.

After that we got to take a ride in one of the reed boats, which is their main form of transportation between islands.

Our next stop was about three hours away, the island of Amantani. It was fairly barren....lots of sheep, which I love.

At the port we met Rosa, the "mamita" we were going to stay with. This is her home. The bricks on the house are made of compacted mud and grass. Below you can see Lucy, her 5 year old daughter. Rosa also has a brand new baby named Roy....not sure that one is very traditional.

This is the view from our window. If I didn't know better I would say it is the ocean. What beautiful water!

After having lunch that Rosa made for us, Lucy took us up the hill to meet up with the other people in our group. Life here is so much simpler. People don't have to worry about their kids getting stolen since it is such a small, intimate community. What a blessing.

Once we got the whole group together, we hiked up to the highest point of the mountain to the temple of Pachatata - or Father Earth. From there the view was incredible and we could see the sunset beautifully.

When we arrived we had to walk around the temple three times, which essentially looked like four rock walls. This is supposed to get out all the bad energy and fill you with good energy.

We got to witness a really incredible sunset.

When we got home from the hike, the Mamita Rosa came and brought us all traditional dress and helped us get ready to go to a hall for a little traditional Peruvian dancing.....we were all dead tired, but how could we resist!

Here we are at the ball. We all just looked a little poofy -we all have our big coats on under, so cold. But we got dancing and warmed right up.

Here is the band. The music was very classically south american. It sounded a lot like native american music.

Their dances are mostly circle dances where you all hold hands and swing your hands in and out of the circle while you dance around in a circle, but we also really liked spinning in our big full skirts.

We partied late into the night - only made it until about 9:30 when we were all falling asleep standing up. The two other girls in this picture are from Israel and stayed in our house as well. They were in South America for a year! Guess that is very normal in their culture. Cool girls. So we had a great time at the "ball" and then went home and slept very well that night.

Recouperating in Cuzco

2010-09-04T10:44:00.004-06:00

Today we decided to take it easy. We slept in and hung around our hostel until check out time and then we went to get massages. There are ladies all over the place handing out cards for cheap massages. Ours was 25 soles or about 7$ - not bad. It wasn't as amazing as a massage in the states or anything, but it was totally worth $7. It was pretty killer thought once she was working on my calves.....so painful!

After that these little ladies gave us $5 pedicures....We really should have given them a bigger tip, our feet were destroyed.

After that we went to the artisan market to check out some souvenirs. This giant llama skin hat would have been awesome but maybe not too functional in SoCal.

From there we went and enjoyed the last bit of sunshine in the main square. This little lady sold us some matching Peruvian bracelets.

BPFF - best peruvian friends forever!

Then we enjoyed another of homes comforts. McFlurrys at McDonalds....so yummy!

From there we went back to the hostel and got our things together and headed to the bus station to catch a 10pm bus to Puno and Lake Titikaka!

Machu Picchu

2010-09-02T17:38:00.008-06:00

This morning we all got up at 3:40am for a quick breakfast and then got in line. There is a checkpoint we had to go through at 5am and then just two hours on to Machu Picchu!

As the sky started to lighten we saw that the sky was clear! We were all so happy and it put us in high spirits.

Just a little more crazy stairs before the end.

We got to the sun gate and got our first view of Machu Picchu. Stunning of course.

Here's the whole crew. We all made it! We got to sit here for a while and watch the sun come down onto the ruins.

We were still totally stoked that the sun was out! This also meant that there were mosquitos.....whatever....I'll take the sun any day.

As we got down to the ruins there were all these llamas everywhere.

The closer we got the more incredible it got. From the pictures I have seen it doesn't look so massive.

The llamas here reminded me a lot of the squirrels in our national parks. They could have cared less about us being there.

Once we got into the park Bryan gave us a tour of the ruins. Not the greatest tour guide, but I did some wikipedia research and found out that it was built in the 1400's as an estate for the emperor Pachacuti ( remind you of a Disney movie????)

This is the temple of the sun, one of their principle temples in the ruins. We thought it was pretty interesting that it was built on this huge foundational stone.

There were all these cool channels in the rock where the water would collect and then run off the mountain in a little waterfall.

Those Incans were crazy about stairs!!!

This is inside one of the main residences. The walls would be built of rock with a thatched roof tied on top.

This is inside the temple of the stars. There was no roof on this temple originally and they believe that they used these two pools of water to observe the reflection of the stars.

These are the faces of a few happy ladies. Look at that sky!!!!

This really doesn't do it justice at all, but the view from Machu Picchu is so stunning! The mountains are so green and dramatic. Nice pick Pacha.

So many of the things we saw there showed how the Incans were very aware of astrology. This stone was used as some kind of a compass. It points directly to the north.

Another cool thing about this place is that there are very few places where any cement is used in between the stones. Most of the walls, like this one, are just stones that are perfectly cut to fit together.

This stone is at the very top of the ruins. I was a stone that was used to get rid of negative energy and give you good energy when you touch it. It is also interesting that the top of it is this gradual circular incline.

This is where our tour came to an end. What a great group of people!!!! What a great time! I will honestly miss these people.

Once our big group was dispersed a few of us hiked up to the guardhouse overlooking the ruins. Such a classic view!

We didn't have anywhere to be particularly, our train didn't leave until 7pm so we had time to explore the ruins a little more.

All in all we had a really fantastic time exploring. We took the bus down to the city on the river far below after that, Aguas Calientes.

Our first order of business was to find some food. I figured this wouldn't be so hard so we started walking, about 8 of us and looked at a couple menus and soon people started to see 8 of us walking down the street and all of a sudden there were 20 people standing outside their restaurant waving at us to come to their restaurant. Super intense, so I asked a bus driver for a recommendation and we ended up here. So great! We had some classic Peruvian food and some pizza and no soup or tea. Perfect!

In the main square of town there is this huge statue. I swear it is Samuel the Lamanite or something. We spent the afternoon wandering around town and sitting in town square enjoying a break for our tired legs. Very nice relaxing afternoon.

That night we boarded the train that would take us in 1.5 hours the entire length of the trail we had spent 4 days hiking....much easier on the way back.

Once we got back to the city where we had started the trail we had to get in a big van to make the windey drive back to Cuzco. One last Inca trail family photo before we parted ways. About day two I was cursing the whole trail, but by the end it turned out to be a fantastic time.

The Longest Day

2010-09-02T13:46:00.005-06:00

Woke up this morning to rain.....slept sort of last night, so not feeling great. Especially after putting on wet clothes again. My boots were totally soaked so I decided to go with my chacos. Today is our long day. 12 miles.

First part of the trail was strait up. This is an original part of the Inca trail, which is why the stairs are so irregular.

These are a couple of the porters. Huge packs and always these little rubber sandals.

On the other side of the mountain we came to a whole new climate. Very green, lush jungle.

Here we are at Sayacmarca - which is an ancient Incan fort on the top of a mountain.

Unfortunately we were unable to see anything at all due to the thick fog, but I am sure the view would have been stunning.

Here I am inside the fort.

From there we could see a smaller settlement down in the valley as well.

And from there it was pretty much down hill several miles to camp. The stairs are really starting to wear on my knees. The scenery is really gorgeous though.

When we stopped for lunch, Rosey made sure to get a picture of the "kitchen". The food was actually pretty good considering the circumstances.

After lunch.....more stairs!

We were loving that jungle terrain. The rain continued to drizzle but wasn't terrible.

The last several hours were all down hill, and the last hour about was all steep switchbacks. I had fallen behind the other girls and was shuffling along in the slow lane (mountain side) while porters zoomed past on the right and it felt like the switchbacks would never end. I had a bit of a deja vu moment when I saw this scene just above camp. It felt just like the time I saw the finish line on my first marathon. I was so relieved that I cried, then and today. Today was just as hard as a marathon I feel like.

The camera didn't really catch this, but there is a tiny patch of blue sky in the background!!!

Tonight is party night!!!! Our campsite is also located right by a university research center and they have a restaurant, so we all got to eat inside (there were a bunch of other Inca trail companies there too) and buy drinks and get dry. There was a very festive feeling. This would be a good moment to jot down who everyone is. By this point hardship has really brought us all together and I feel like we are one big Inca trail family.

Starting on the right, Bryan our guide - classic South American male, a little cocky and self centered and into blond girls (Charli....)

Mancy and Hari are next to him, those two and the two girls on the front left are all family, siblings and cousins. The girls on the left are Pauril and Neha. They were all really fun. Hari particularly was really funny and good humored. These 4 were the least prepared for the journey and were always the last ones into camp. Hari always hung back with them and encouraged them along and made sure they were ok. So great.

After Rosey, me and Charli is Marissa. She is from Australia. She is hiking by herself to raise funds for a charity her sister set up in Bolivia. She was the fastest of all the ladies.

Then Willi, the "vice" guide that always brought up the rear. He was fantastic. Very soft spoken and kind.

Then Peter from Poland (no English) and his friend Fabian from France. Fabian was super friendly but we didn't get to know Peter much since he spoke no English and seemed introverted.

After them is Mark and Lauren who are both from San Diego as well. Very cool couple. Mark celebrated his birthday tonight.

Next are the sisters Dimple and Rossi. Dimple is a physical therapist from Chicago and Rossi works in finance in Manhattan. This is only the second week long vacation she has taken from her 90 work week job in the last 5 years....crazy!

Last of all are the Irish couple. Emily Ann and Damien who are both students that study in Scotland. We were really blessed to be with such a great group of people, everyone was fantastic.

Our guides Bryan and Willi.

Our last bowl soup - won't miss that at all.

Here we are with all our porters. Turns out it takes a lot of people to get us to Machu Picchu.

Summit Day

2010-09-01T09:26:00.005-06:00

Headed up today! Started out at about 11,000 feet and heading to 14,000. They woke us up at 5am this morning to the porters knocking on our tent. They started unzipping it too and we are thinking....we're up! What do you want?....they brought us coca tea. Hopefully it can really help us with the altitude.

For the first part of the morning there wasn't much rain and the views were beautiful.

By the time we stopped for "lunch" at about 10, the rain had started and it was pretty cold. We were excited to huddle in the dinner tent, but weren't too excited to get started again since it was raining really hard.

After lunch as well, it got tough. Stone stairs for about 6 hours. They weren't always this steep but it was always up. Still raining.

As we went up, it kept getting colder as well. Charli is making full use of her neck warmer here, and she is with Bryan, our guide (who we determined has a little crush on Charli...hehe)

Still raining hard. The pancho is not doing much good any more. That dip in those two peaks is the summit that we are heading too. The Incan name for this pass translates to "Dead Woman's Pass".....nervous! Still a lot of stairs to go.

We took lots of breaks on the way up. I was probably averaging about 10 steps then 10 second break. If I stopped more than that I would get really cold and risk never starting to walk again. The altitude was really obvious at this point as well. Lifting my foot to the next step was getting really tough. Many times I would zig zag up the stairs walking back and forth to find the shortest part of the stairs. Those Incans were seriously incredible!!!

As we went up and up, that thick rain turned to thick snow! According to our guide it is the first time in 7 years that it has snowed on the trail. Lucky us. I did inspire me to sing some Christmas songs which distracted me from the task at hand.

About 6 hours after we started we made it to the summit!!!! I was so excited. Couldn't stay long though, still very cold and we had a steep descent to get to camp.

Great view on the descent to camp. Couldn't spend much time enjoying though. That summit had been hiding a stiff cold wind that made the snow and rain feel like little needles. The trail down was also steep steps. Better for the heart but really hard on the knees.

We finally got to camp at about 2pm. Only problem was that everything was wet. Our tents weren't set up properly so the rain fly had not kept the rain out so they were all wet. Some people actually had puddles in their tents.

We spent most of the afternoon huddled in the dinner tent. The wet tents with wet gear wasn't exactly inviting. That night we pooled our our semi warm gear and were able to make it through the night with some sleep.

Inca Trail - Day 1

2010-08-30T22:42:00.000-06:00

This morning at 5am one of the tour guides picked us up....guess the bus was too big to fit down our street so we walked down to the main square. It was pretty cold, so Charli let me borrow her super multifunctional neck warmer thingy.....

From Cuzco we drove about an hour and half to the trail head. On the way, it started raining, so we all had to get these really great looking plastic ponchos. They turned out to be a big part of our time on the trail.

It stayed pretty rainy all day, but the mountains were pretty amazing and the trail wasn't too difficult.

Along the trail there were several small settlements of people who farm and sell things to people along the trail. At one of these stops we saw this little boy sleeping in a doorway....so cute! Turns out that ALL peruvian babies are extremely cute.

We saw the first of many Incan ruins. Our guide wasn't the best tour guide, so I don't remember much about them, I think I may have also fallen asleep while he was talking....oops.

At about two we stopped for lunch. There were about 16 of us in our group and we had about 10 porters too, who were all these little tiny peruvian men that could carry these huge packs. They would of course hike way faster than us and set up our tents and make our food. They were really impressive. By the time we got to the lunch spot, we found this all set up, which was nice since it had started raining again. The group consisted of people from Ireland, Canada, UK, US, Australia, Poland and France. Over the course of the trail we became good friends with most of these people.

Along the trail we saw lots of donkeys, they were all packed with gear and all looked a little like Eore.

We got to our camp about 5pm and found our own little tent village set up.

At dinner we realized that one entire side of the table was wearing a chullo (that classic Peruvian beanie). Dinner always started with soup and ended with tea. I didn't really love either but it was warm and on a cold, wet night it was great.

By about 9 we were off to bed. We all squeezed in a little tent, which was acutally warmer. Day starts early again tomorrow morning at 5. Tomorrow is summit day....

Cuzco

2010-08-29T21:53:00.001-06:00

This morning in Lima we met up with Charlie who flew in from London to adventure around with us. So good to see her again! We met at the airport and caught a flight to Cuzco.

Just after taking this picture these people stopped us and motioned at their camera, I thought they wanted us to take a picture of them, turns out they wanted to take a picture with us...haha! This was even more funny because these two boys at the Lima airport had asked us for the same thing earlier. Who knew that we would be such a novelty here...

We were SO happy when we got to our hostel finally! We had all been traveling all night long and were supper happy to see a warm bed to rest on.

We headed down to the kitchen to have some coca (cocaine leaf) tea, which is supposed to help with the elevation change. Not too bad actually. Cuzco is at 11,000ft.

While we had our tea we chatted with James, who works for the hostel, he set us up with a two day tour to Lake Titikaka when we get back from the Inca Trail. We found out that he had lived in Provo, Utah with a friend for a while before being deported. He had lots of questions for us, so we chatted about a lot of gospel topics which was really great. We gave him some scriptures to read in his Book of Mormon, which we found out later he didn't read....classic. Still a very nice man and it was fun to have a missionary moment with him.

After a nice long nap we headed out to explore the town a little. Here we are in the main square, with the big main cathedral in the background. The weather is pretty cold, they are in the end of winter here.

We went to a traditional Peruvian restaurant that James recommended, very tasty. Charli had an Alpaca llama dish...not my favorite and Rosey got great trout and we had Inka Cola, a Peruvian soda that tastes a lot like bubblegum. Pretty tasty. After dinner we went to our informational meeting about the Inca Tail which we are starting bright an early in the morning at 5am!

To Peru!

2010-08-28T21:42:00.001-06:00

After church Sunday afternoon, Rosey and I grabbed our packs and headed to LAX.

Luckily it was a pretty comfortable plane and we had an uneventful 8 hour flight directly to Lima.

Coming Full Circle

2010-02-16T12:12:00.004-07:00

After all the presidents day festivities I jumped in the Matrix and headed back to San Diego. This morning I woke up to warm sunshine and headed to the backyard. I picked and orange off our tree and ate it in the sun. Life is good!

I should have spent the day unpacking but it was way too nice outside so I headed to the beach. It is so good to be back here. I feel really good about it. Besides how amazing it is here, it will be nice to catch up with old friends and to make new ones.

I am so grateful that I got to go to London. I had incredible experiences, learned a ton, met amazing people and got to see some incredible parts of the world. I feel like I learned a lot about myself as well.

Here are some of the things I am taking away from my time abroad:

-Family is extremely important to me and being near them makes me happy.

-The world is full of best friends just waiting for the right opportunity to be discovered.

-I like sunshine!

-My "list" will only get longer the more I travel.

-A good book can be great company.

-The "pride cycle" is real and very easy to fall into.

-Be grateful for freedom - it's something we take for granted but that people through the ages have spent and given their lives fighting for.

-Seeing something amazing ( i.e. the Berlin wall) can be just as cool as meeting someone famous.

-One of the great parts of traveling is coming home.

Presidents Day

2010-02-15T12:03:00.003-07:00

This morning all the college kids took off....boo.... so I spent all day hanging with the kiddies. Pretty glad I am not stuffed in a suburban driving 12 hours back to home work and class. We went this morning to play ultimate frisbee, which is one of my favorite things every! So good to be out and active in the sunshine!

The rest of the day we spent riding bikes to the beach with my parents and sitting around on the beach at campus point and just enjoying time with them. It is so good to be back with familiarity and particularly family. I think that is what I longed for more than anything while I was away.

Valentines Day

2010-02-13T23:59:00.004-07:00

Happy Valentines Day!!! Jackson is dating this girl Sarah and she brought him cookies while we were away at church....cool but then he was sweating it all day because of course he hadn't planned anything for her. Haha!

Instead of having Sunday dinner at home we decided to head to the beach and have a BBQ to make the most of the beautiful day. Fajitas...yummy!
The sunset was amazing as usual.

And it seems that great sunsets on the beach inspire jumping pictures...???

The boys were getting pretty crazy!

Then we headed back to paradise (Preston and Debbie's house) for some Smores...so tasty!

Jackson came up with a great idea of what to do for Sara (his girlfriend) for Valentines day, so 15 of us piled into the van and headed to her house.

We all secretly decorated her driveway with sidewalk chalk and snuck away. Then Jackson ding-dong ditched her..... he didn't anticipate how long it would take 15 people to get into the van so we were pulling the rest of our limbs in and pulling away as she ran down the street after us. Not exactly romantic but perfect for high school. So much fun!

I included this picture not because it is good, but it does show how voraciously we devoured the cake the Regan made for us, no plates, just forks and I literally had to push my way in to get one bite at the end. The whole cake lasted about 2 minutes. Fred's face also rocks in this pic!!!

My Mom and Dad also came down and Aunt Michelle and Jesse came up so it was great to see them as well. There was a whole lot of love going around this Valentines day.