just scenery

This photo was taken at Baños del Inca, the hotsprings here. It was a beautiful morning, you can see the steam coming off the ponds in the back, these flowers were quite interesting to me and i am happy how this photo turned out. enjoy!

This is just to show how green it is here now!! it rains everyday with out fail. all afternoon practically, i left to come blog in flip flops and there werent any dark clouds in sight, and of course its pouring outside...

Fair?

I think we might have come across a fair, or carnival, there wasnt much to it, but the whole stadium had tents with shops surrounding the outside, but it looked exactly the same as any other outside shoppig market here.... but there were rides, couldnt pay me to get near them.. and cotton candy, i didnt try it.

then walking back we saw something a little disturbing.... i wont get to close to him. My favorite part about this picture is i managed to snap it between the busy cars and people, i think its funny, and creepy. i have a thing about stuffed animals bigger than me... with people inside.

Papa Noel

We had a lovely Christmas here in Peru. Celebrated with our friends the Pacha´s . I made A peruvian style Chocolate Chip cookies and we went caroling on Christmas eve to deliver chocolates and cookies. Its tradition to celebrate christmas at midnight on Christmas Eve, i think it takes the joy and surprise out of Christmas morning, but they seem to enjoy it. So at midnight we had a huge dinner complete with Turkey. yes we finally go to eat turkey, we wondered why we always see so many in the campo, but come to find out its the christams food. so with out an oven we took it to a local resturant and a few hours ater, we had a tasty turkey. I even learned how to make turkey soup, atleast i pretended and it turned out pretty good. It was a bit disturbing to see that the cook practically the whole turkey here, head attached and legs and feet too, yuck! but our was bought frozen, so it has its limbs removed prior.

Earlier in the week we ran into Santa in the Plaza, i wanted Shawn to give him a hug, but he wouldnt, i dont blame him he´s kinda scary looking, almost like one on the seven dwarfs turned evil.

We also spent $40 just sending a few Christmas cards home to friends and family, so we opted not to send any packages home, instead we choose a family that we know and spoiled their kids rotten, they dont have much, but 2 teenagers and 2 toddlers, the cutest happiest family, so we went nuts and it was so fun to surprise them on christmas eve afternoon. We cant wait to see the kids in the new outfits we found. and i am sure they are putting the rest of the gifts to good use.

We also spoiled the Pachas as much as we could, i picked out some outfits and shoes for their daughter Cielo. She is so adorable, we want her to come home with us! This is her and i this week when we went to the mall to see the "Flushed Away" movie..in spanish. it was fun. This is the most modern place you will find in Cajamarca.

Play date

Today was another holiday, i dont know what, i didnt ask. But Shawn had to work as every Friday and I went with the ward out to a country Ranch where we played soccer and ate lunch. Yanet really wanted to play on the see-saw, so we made her get on, and the kids and I helped her to have a fun time. I took out one of the bishops counslers playing soccer, i will have some good bruises for it, but we won... I love these trips out to the country it is absolutly gorgeous there!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

These are our sweet decorations we borrowed for christmas. They really go all out for the nativity, i thought it was pretty cool to see, back home we just have a bunch of white porcelain statues, not the detailed backdrop complete with pig pen and sheep in the hillside.
Yanet put this together for us, Cielo and I put together and decorated the tree.

Its greener in the Campo

Just a few pictures from a country stroll we took last Saturday. There were some great animals we met, including shawns new friend the baby burrow. We also saw these women doing the laundry at the base of a waterfall, i couldnt pass up the opportunity, wish i would have had the guts to get closer, people here often expect payment for a photo. although this couple we met along a trail and i took a picture, offered him a sole and took another. i haven taken so many of kids, i thought maybe you wanna see what they look like when they grow up!

More Machu

I took a lot of pictures at Machu Picchu, I was looking through them again and wanted to share some more with you. i thought this over view was pretty amazing, and the stairs you see to the picture on the right is how they built stair cases in the day, amazing! We only got that view from hiking hyaina Picchu (the hike of death). The flat looking stone that the two women are sitting in front of is said to give off positive energy, we touched it for a while, and it must have worked, but how could you not be positve at Machu Piccu!!! well except after the "hike of death" The picture of Shawn in him in a place they used as a jail in the incan time. It was kinda like a jungle gym for him, they must have had several gaurds. and then just some friends we found a long the way. It was really a spectacular trip. enjoy!

Cuzco and beyond

I never feel like i put enough pictures of our trips! Heres one of cuzco and then our travels to machu piccu, including the train station we drove and hour and a half to and traveled about that same time to machu piccu.

Hail and thunder

It flodded the streets! Just today we witnessed our first real rain storm, it was madness. thick fog covered the city and it poured and hailed for close to 45 minutes. the pictures arent great, but it was truly crazy. and the street vendors! the nice lady outside our apt just put a big clear plastic tarp over her and her candy and sat through it. the water was coming through our rook and windows. the streets filled up! it was marvelous.

Random fun

This is the best picture of Shawn. He really looks good in those campo hats!

On another walk in to the hills we came across some sweet ceramic shops, we of corse sent plent home with shawns family. If you are a faithful reader, looker of this really rad blog you may remember a picture of some really long steep stairs with a big white cross and white church at the top. the picture of the small hill below is that some "steep" hill, not so intimadating now...

We saw these shrubs on our walk to otuzco several weeks back, they were just in front of someones house, talented.

Cows of Colpa

Yes the cows of a small coop called colpa. They are known for coming to feed when their names are yelled by the workers, and sure enough they do, i saw it. and they dont come in any specific order, but they go right to the stall where their name rests above their heads! Then While they eat this lady come and milks them all with her hands into a bucket.. i swear they got machines for that in the usa but not in peru, they like it old school... its great. the really big scarecrow guy was neat too. (this was another tour we got to do with shawns family, colpa is near cajamarca)

The Peruvian Primary

These are some of the kids in the Primary. We had a fun activity for Halloween. No doubt me and my friend Moroni totally smoked everyone at the sandwhich eating contest, which i really dont recommend in South America.... quality issuses, however we had a blast that day and I love being able to see these kids and be with them at church.

The faces of the Campo

These kids live so far out of the city, I am surprised we came across them. Its hard to say if any of them will ever get to go to school, at least have a proper education. The last picture is of a soccer field if you can make it out the wooden goals ore thin branches. We guess that the small building is a school house, not big, and definitly not with the best teachers, these kids will grow up working as hard as thier parents, and they will start at such a young age. These are the kids we want to steal. You cant help but want for them.