Tricks and Treats. . . .

Halloween may be an American holiday but. . . . . . . . this is America, correcto?

So some tricks-

I still think driving in Peru is amusing for multiple reasons.  This is one.

 

Right before this photo was taken, Eric said if you have a motorcycle in Mexico then you have a family car.  So there you go.

And yesterday at 2:44 p.m. another earthquake.  The third I have felt since I arrived.  I am thinking

 that is too much fun. Update:  And a fourth during the trunk or treat at the church.

 

And you know sometimes things just don't sound that good.

         

And some treats-

Emily only has school Monday and Friday this week, it is almost like Halloween is a holiday?

I met most of her teachers at parent teacher conference yesterday.  Her music teacher is from Zimbabwe, her design technology teacher is from Canada, her English teacher is from Singapore, her Humanities teacher is from Ontario, Canada, her science teacher is from Australia and her math and science teachers are from Peru.  It's an American school right?

Emily's school is an IB (international baccalaureate) school.  The curriculum is different and so is the grading.  Different is probably an understatement.  We are use to our kiddos being graded on knowledge.  A student is taught the material and then tested through homework, projects, papers and tests their grasp of what has been taught.  Knowledge is only one of seven criteria that is graded in an IB school.  Their theory is that the student should learn how to learn and not just memorize facts.  Okay that may be the simplified version but when this experiment is over we will dissect Emily for the results.

Home Sweet Home

These photos make it look like we live in the jungle, but Lima is possibly one of the driest places on earth. It does not rain in Lima.  Ever.  Sometimes there is misty air and everything looks wet but don't get your rain boots on yet.  We get water from a well.  The water comes from the Andes, I don't know, I just made that up, I don't know where it comes from.  The hose?  We can not drink the water from the faucet, well you can if you don't mind the results.  We have bottled water in case you do mind.  The above view is from the dining room to the side yard.

This view is from the dining room to the backyard.  Before you say "oh that looks nice" we are the only people we know without a pool in their backyard.  That's not really true either.  I know you don't really feel bad about that and you shouldn't because through that gate is a park with a swimming pool, tennis courts, playground equipment, clubhouse and basketball courts.

This is the family room otherwise known as the wide hall between the bedrooms and the rest of the house.

This is jungle dining in the kitchen.  Sometimes there are snails attached to that window which is somewhat distracting from what appears to be a bullet hole.

And Tada!  The kitchen.  It is large, very grande by Peruvian standards.  We are esctatic that we have a dishwasher.  Too bad it is ten feet from the sink and they don't sell dishwasher soap in Peru.

And this is looking out the living room window.  That is our neighbor's house back to the right.  We live inside a wall with three other houses.

And looking the other direction into the living room.  They recovered those couches for us.  We love them now because they use to be dirty white.  The upholsterer came over the other day to deliver two blue chairs which are obviously not pictured.  I told him he was a genius and it is true.

We refer to this as Eric's room because Emily does not like brick in her bedroom.  Small survey.  Do you even have an opinion about brick walls in the bedroom?

This is the door to outside from Emily's bedroom.  And no she will never use that door for anything but standing outside to talk on the phone.  And on the left, our circle room for purposes I am not sure of yet.  We are definitely going to use it if we want to sit in a circle with our backs to the outdoors to look at the fireplace without a fire on those cold blustery days with no rain, snow or sleet.  But it is spring now so we are not thinking about that.

We moved to the South.

Okay, so not Georgia but a bit further south to Lima, Peru.  But still in the Northwest.  It just depends on what continent you are referring to.

And if a picture is worth a thousand words this post may require five thousand.  My computer with all of my photos is not repairable in all of  Latin America.  I had planned on catching up since my life is way ahead of my blogging but alas that will have to wait.  I will repair my computer, I have two thumb drives with pictures I forgot I had and once I figure out my photo storage I will be good to go.

And what I know about living in Peru 'cause I have four weeks of expertise:

Lonny works.  Emily goes to school.  I stay home.

Lonny walks to work and home for lunch. Sometimes he stays to eat MTC food.  Emily's school has kindergarten through high school (1300 students total).  She has a ride to Seminary with a General Authority.  I have a maid three days a week.  I wish I had a cook.  I think I wished that a time or ten in my previous life.

Lonny wears a suit and a white shirt to work everyday.  Everyday.  Emily's wears a navy skirt and a white polo shirt with the Roosevelt insignia and blue tights to school.  Everyday.  I wear what came out of my suitcase.

Lonny's office building is surrounded by a gated fence with security guards.  Emily's school has a 12 foot brick wall with an additional 3 feet of chain link fence above and more security then TSA.  Our house shares a wall with 3 other homes all enclosed in a larger neighborhood by a wall and  a security detail as if someone would like to break in.  So we feel pretty safe with the guards and police presence on every street corner, every store, even at church . . . . . except with so much security you don't have to hit us over the head that there is some threat.

 

Driving in Peru is a treat.  These people went to the driving school of  North American obnoxious drivers.  Change lanes whenever you want.  Form a new lane if you desire.  Cut in front or beside.  Stop signs are merely a suggestion.  Honk if you feel ignored.  Drive over the center divider if you need to. The really good times are the ovalos.  We have one we maneuver through lovingly referred to as the Circle of Death,  because once you enter you may be dead before you exit.  This particular ovalo is probably 5 to 6 lanes wide.  Theoretically you drive in and around until you prefer to exit.  I prefer driving straight in and straight out the other side. The beauty of driving in Peru is nobody is angry (except some North Americans).  So without a bit of sarcasm I admit I quite enjoy driving in Peru.  It's the Indy 500 without declaring a winner.

Update because so much has happened.  We are doing great after 6 weeks in Peru.  I still wake up and wonder where I am and how did I get here but that lasted about 10 years in OK.

We thought and people mentioned that Emily would see poverty in Peru and that it would be an eye opening experience for her.  She was quiet looking out the window on the drive from the airport to the house because that is a shocker (the view and her mumness)  but otherwise poverty is not what she has seen.  Her friends at school are from around the world and have big houses with pools and guards and chauffeurs and maids and nannies and have traveled the world.  We joke that a three day weekend is a good excuse to sail the Mediterranean.  We still have three years to take a very short drive to see poor. 

Pachacamac

Eric and I had one last adventure before he left South America.  Pachacamac are some ruins about 30 minutes south of Lima.  We passed through a toll booth and then were waved over by the police for not having the lights on.  Apparently the law is you must have the car lights on while driving on the freeway and it would have been nice to have just been told "turn your lights on" but no that is not what happened.  I still can't decide if it was fortunate that Eric could speak Spanish or not.  I think he would have just let me go when he realized I had not a clue what he was talking about.  Instead he made Eric get out of the car (he was the passenger) had a discussion and then asked him for a bribe.  I called the Area Office and they told the not so nice policemen no.

We then missed our exit and went the back way to the ruins.  When Eric yelled out "this is just like Mexico"  I locked the doors while Eric reminisced.  It was however the first time I had seen alpacas wandering around like squirrels.

 

So Pachacamac is a perfect example of why you should never neglect to dust.  It looks like a pile of dirt

 

but underneath the years and years of not dusting was this.

 

and this.  An entire ancient city.

 

  An Inca city and below the House of the Chosen Women.  Not sure why, when and where they were chosen but they had a house.

There was a beautiful view of the ocean from the top.

Dancer Girl

So that is Emily's back, second from the right.  The Studio's photographer took some candid photos before the recital and this has Miranda, Emily and Elysa rehearsing, posing or something.

I have to say it was interesting having Emily go to a new dance studio this year.  She had been at The Dance Pointe since she was three years old.  Her new studio divided the older girls in to two classes.  Level 4 was one class and levels 5 and 6 the other.  She was placed by Fidalgo Dance Works in to level four last September.  There were other girls her age in the class but many younger.  She was also only one of two girls on pointe (in her class), two other new girls had their pointe shoes taken away that first day of class.  It was fairly traumatic.  I was told they would revaluate her in January but they ended up moving her to level five by October.  She had three girls from Church in that class and two very good friends.  All of the girls went to school together so hanging out at the dance studio five days a week was a Partay.  Thanks to The Dance Pointe for preparing her so well to dance somewhere else and to fit right in.

And those are Emily's blue legs.  Obviously.

  

Emily's ballet class had one shorter girl and one taller girl and they decided Emily was the second shortest.  That was a new experience for her to be the short girl.  She quit growing though and that was eight girls about the same height.

  

She can jump though.

Posing with the flowers post recital.

Elysa, Miranda and Emily.

Emily's jazz class had an awesome dance to Tron.  I love this picture.  She had a great year of dance, made good friends and many compliments on her abilities.  Wish us luck in finding a dance studio in Peru.

Done that.

If we go over the river and through the woods we really do end up at Grandmas.  And as you can tell from the photo evidence Grandma and Grandpa are doing about the same, still smitten after all these years.

Our nephew Kelly returned from his mission to St. Louis more handsome and entertaining if that is even possible. 

And just to be different we took a detour to Snoqualmie Falls.  There was something wrong with having never been.  So been there.

Beaches

Is it still Spring Break if you go somewhere that it is fall?

Lonny has been in Peru for the last month. Well that is not exactly true. He has also been to Bolivia, Columbia, Venezuela and Ecuador. I arrived in Peru over WA Spring Break.

Lonny and I sometimes watch House Hunters International and we could have done an episode last week. I now have a boatload of information I did not know to ask in my previous life.

Saturday we went to the beach in Lima.

It was the usual, sand, ocean, cactus.

Sunday we went to the beach in WA. We were waiting for Emily's flight in from OK.

It was the usual sand, ocean and no cactus.