Our Family Adventures 2018 / 2019

2018 ended with a bang here in Peru. We are not really big party people, and most New Years Eves we spend time with family earlier in the day, and then are home early, and usually in bed well before midnight….yes, we are a bit boring….After how tired our children were during Christmas Eve  we figured we would have an early night as usual, well Peru managed to keep most of our family awake….some of us can’t stay awake no matter what. December 31 we had a lazy morning, called my brother Alex to wish him a happy birthday, and then wandered down to Plaza de Armas in search for the Catholic University of Santa Maria’s Museum of Andean Santuaries, where a famous mummy called “ Juanita, the ice maiden” is displayed. This is one of Maija’s many bucket lists items, and she will write a little bit about it on a separe post. After a lot of walking as usual we headed home, and then went out to look for a Peruvian Chifa. It is a family tradition to always have Chinese food on New Years Eve,...

Who Is Juanita? Juanita the Ice Maiden is a mummy kept in The Universidad Católica De Santa Maria. She is a natural mummy, as in, not mummified like most royalty, but frozen on the summit of the Volcano Ampato. When she was found, her body was wrapped in blankets, very well preserved. Her face was exposed to the sun, the reason of her discolored skin. Juanita before being unwrapped

Arequipa is only 90km from the ocean (although due to the state of Peruvian roads, that 90km takes about 2.5 hours to navigate), so we decided to head down to the beach for a day or two.  Our plan (although the 'p' word implies a whole lot more planning and forethought than we gave to it) was to take a collectivo down to the beach town Mollendo, investigate hotels when we get there, possibly stay overnight (depending on hotel prices and availability), and hopefully get back to Arequipa some time. Considering how loose the plan was, I think we did OK. When heading down to the bus terminal, the Uber driver suggested that we take a car instead of a bus, as the car only needs to find 7 people before it goes, while the bus needs to find 15.  When we got there, the car was ready to leave and there was no bus to be found, so we just took the car. The landscape between Arequipa and Mollendo is some of the most desolate desert I have ever seen.  Most of it has no plants what...

Yeah, it has been a while since the last post.  Suffice it to say, we are alive and well in Arequipa. For those not familiar with it, Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru, with a population of about 850,000 people.  It is located about 90 km (2.5 hours driving) from the coast, and is a highland desert with pretty much the perfect temperatures year round (average highs of 22 C, average lows of about 10 C, and even in the midst of the rainy season no more than about 5 days / year of rain). We are living in Cayma neighbourhood, one of the more modern districts.  Our AirBnB is on the 7th floor of a newly constructed apartment building.  The kids are ecstatic that our front door opens directly into the elevator door, and that you need a an RFID keychain to even get to our floor. Anyway, this being Christmas, we have tried to keep some of the feeling for the kids.  We bought a 2 foot tall Christmas tree from a street vendor, complete with fake snow, and t...

Dear Mrs. L-J, I went on a bus that was a double decker, it was called Cruz del Sur. It was very comfy, it was my first time travelling in first class. The bus ride from Cusco to Puno was 7.5 hours long, but I slept right through it! This is me riding the bus In answer to your questions: 1. Yes, the condor had a net for it’s roof cage. 2. I did not see the cage for the parrot (it was not in a cage when I held it). 3. A tortoise dwells well on land, a turtle dwells well in the water.. 4. Most of the city of Cusco is made over Inca ruins so it is almost a district of ruins. I can’t wait because I can eat “panetón” tonight. Panetón is a food that is traditional in Peru!! It is a sweet bread loaf. What are you doing in school? What are your favourite foods for Christmas? Love, Terran

First of all, we have only really explored Puno for one day, and we actually stuck around the house a lot (there is a piano and a guitar in this Airbnb...) so I am sure there is a lot more to it than the few pictures we have here. Puno seems a lot poorer than Cusco, and not as colonial, and touristy. After Amantani we thought it would be cool to try to go swimming in Lake Titicaca, but, well.....this side of the Lake is not as nice...it is to be expected though, most bodies of water next to big cities are not clean. We would not want to jump into these waters

After our night of partying, aka dancing three songs, and getting to bed by 9 pm, we woke up early, and ate a breakfast of pancakes, and jam prepared by our sweet Mama Virginia. She gave us her address, so we need to make sure to send her a post card from Canada when we get back home. She told us that next time we can contact her directly and stay with her. If we ever get a chance to come back, I will need to practice at least a little bit of Quechua, it would be great to have a nice long conversation with her, although I don't think I could ever get to a conversational Quechua....one can only dream. Saying our goodbyes to Mama Virginia at the port.

Friday morning we left Urubamba. and headed to Cusco, we spend the evening there before catching our night bus to Puno, Peru. Puno is a city in southeastern Peru, located on the shore of Lake Titicaca....our kids always giggle when saying that name...so immature! lol...ok we do too. So far all our travelling has been via air, and we wanted to check out bus travel in Peru. Wyatt did some research on Bus companies in Peru, and we decided to go with Cruz del Sur. They seemed really thorough. They had breathalyzer tests for the driver, they checked everyone's ID, and took a video of everyone on board. The seats were super comfy, and they provided a snack on board. As we told our kids, this is probably the one and only time that we can travel "first class" as a family. We were very impressed with their service, and honestly it was a lot less stressful than air travel. A few weeks ago we had walked over to the bus terminal in Cusco, and purchased our bus tickets to Puno. Wh...

Today is our last day in our Secret Garden AirBnB.  This is a beautiful little cabin with about 1 - 2 acres of trees, grass, flowers, rock walls, little waterfalls, etc.  The cabin itself has solar power for electricity, on-demand hot water in the shower, a fireplace (although the weather was too warm to use it), a zip line and tree house for the kids, etc. Terran was feeling a bit under the weather yesterday, so we stayed around the cabin while he rested.  While exploring, we found some plum trees (both purple and yellow), watermelons, raspberries, and tons of other plants.

Today we did a little hike which was recommended by a couple sister missionaries that we ran into in Urubamba's Plaza de Armas.  It was not very long (maybe an hour or so round trip), with a beautiful waterfall at the end.  The trail was not marked (and to be fair was not really a trail - it started just at the side of the road where the taxi dropped us off, and went up through a town and along various farming paths).  After a few wrong turns we eventually got to the waterfall.

Just up the mountain from our house is an old Inca storage facility.  It's not on any of the tourist maps, and I can't even find what it was called.  Our AirBnB host told us about it while explaining what to see in the area.  Apparently the positioning on the mountain and the cool breezes that blow at that elevation combined with the thick stone walls allow it to keep food cool over the summer. On the way up we walked past the coolest house I have seen here so far... it looks like something out of a Dr. Suess fantasy.  The entire house looks to be built out of concrete, including the domed roof.  I don't think there is a right angle anywhere; everything is curved and organic looking.

So after checking out the local tarantulas and our cool cabin we got pretty hungry, and decided to wander into town. Peruvian food is awesome, but our eating experiences have been somewhat hit and miss. Today though we got lucky, and found this really cool place right off the main highway. Out whole family LOVES sushi, so when we saw this restaurant we could not turn it down. Puka Pukara, Sushi and Ceviche! YUM!

Monday morning we said good bye to our nice home in Cusco, and headed to Urubamba. We walked down to the paradero, and took a "colectivo" (a large 20 person van), paid our 6 soles/per person, and rode for about an hour and a half to the town of Urubamba. According to Wikipedia, Urubamaba or Urupampa in the Quechua spelling means "flat land of spiders"....poor Maija.  (We didn't tell her yet... she can wait until we leave or she reads this blog post to find out). The Sacred Valley is much warmer than Cusco, and is full of flowers. A beautiful little town

Our time in Cusco has at last come to a close; it has been a wonderful month, both seeming to have gone quickly and slowly at the same time.  Trying to remember back a month ago to our life in Calgary seems like another lifetime. For our last Saturday hike, we finally made it up to Templo de la Luna, which Monica, Maija, and I had attempted but failed to reach back on November 14th.  It is a small-ish set of ruins, but quite pretty with an interesting set of caves (which were unfortunately mostly cordoned off, although you could look through them). One of the caves which you could actually enter.  There is a large altar here, similar to the one at Q'enqo

I know, this sounds really bad, but our favourite food in Peru so far seems to be pizza.  Now, to our defense, the pizza here is not quite the same as Canadian pizza.  The crust is much thinner (but is not the hard crunchy 'thin crust' pizza either).  I think a big part of how they do this is by cooking the crust first, separately - you see a big pile of already cooked crusts in most pizza shops.  The toppings also have a different feel to them.  Finally, there is some sort of creamy garlic sauce that every shop seems to have which adds a really nice touch. Anyway... today after walking to the bus terminal to purchase tickets for our bus ride from Puno to Arequipa, we were walking around Plaza de Armas (of course) and found a tiny little pizza place called "Urpi", just a couple of blocks off the main square.  The entire restaurant sat maybe 12 people (although it looked as if there was an upstairs room with more seats).  In the corner was a prominent...

I wanted to write a little about some of the people we have met here in Cusco. As I have mentioned before we are lucky to find fast friends in our local church congregation. We still have one more Sunday here in Cusco and thought we would take the opportunity then to say good bye to our friends and take pictures too. Well, at the end of our church meeting we found out that next week church is cancelled all over Peru due to elections. Apparently a lot of shops, and churches do not meet since people have to travel back to vote in their designated areas, and no one goes to church anyway, thus we were not able to get pictures of all the many people that have shown us kindness here in Cusco, but here are a few: Maija met two really nice girls at church, we could not find Aby, but here is Maija with her friend Flor. They kept asking Maija how to say things in English

I've been enjoying all the small luthier shops around this area... this afternoon / evening we were walking through the San Blas area, and found another one. Marimacho - a 16 stringed instrument with 4 courses This luthier has all sorts of instruments, but the one which impressed me the most is a 16 string variant of the Bandurria with 4 courses (4 strings in each course) which the luthier calls the "Marimacho", seen above.

 So, after I went to Rainbow Mountain on Saturday, I have a few things to say about it.Pretty, and painful. If you wanted to do it while you are in Cusco, I would suggest it only if you are a strong hiker, and if you are an intermediate hiker, I would suggest getting to the first summit and sucking on Coca leaves. Maybe get help from horses, it pays off with the view at the first summit. My dad made it to the 2nd summit. The hike down is easy and it has a good view. You see a valley with random alpacas dotting the green grass. The alpacas are fairly tame, but will still run away if you approach them too fast.  Some fun facts about this Mountain are: 1. Another name for Rainbow Mountain is Vinicunca. 2. When you are on the first summit of the Mountain  you are closer to the Mount Everest summit than you are to Calgary. 3.There is snow on a mountain close to Vinicunca.  The roads on the second half of the way there are the scariest roads ever. And we were in...

Dear Grandma and Grandpa, How are you? On Saturday I hiked Rainbow Mountain, it was colorful, breath taking, and hard. The Hike was literally breathtaking because when you take a deep breath you don't get much oxygen. Grandma you would have liked all the alpacas in the valley. I think Grandpa would have liked the horses. I would do the hike someday, but not when I am still little. How are all the animals doing? I miss you. Love, Terran Terran's illustration of Rainbow Mountain. 

Today we took a tour bus to the trailhead of Vinicunca, or Montaña de Siete Colores (Mountain of Seven Colors).  This is a recent addition to the tourist catalog in Cusco, only becoming popular in the past couple of years.  The pictures on all the tour guide billboards are obviously photoshopped by someone with knowledge only of the contrast slider, but it still looked like a fun trip. Located about 60km SE of Cucso, it takes a 3 hour bus ride to get there.  Our taxi picked us up about 5:30 AM and took us to the bus.  After about an hour and 45 minutes, we stopped at a small place for a light breakfast.  We then re-boarded the bus for a terrifying ride up a narrow cowpath, with blind corners, steep drop-offs, rickety bridges, and brakes that sounded as if a pig was being murdered.  (I am reminded of the Parable of the Chariot Driver. A stagecoach company was hiring a driver, and asked each of the three candidates how close they can drive to the ...

       Well, it is almost December. Now you are probably thinking about Christmas, because it is only 26 days away today. To me it seems closer and at the same time further because it is 3 houses away. Close, but far.        We went to see The Crimes Of Grindelwald in Spanish. It was really cool. I would not recommend going to that theatre in Cusco, it was small and stuffy. Also it was a mall. Chinook centre kind of. Not so big! I would suggest just turning on Spanish subtitles in you own home.        If you know me, you know how much I love Harry Potter movies and books, so of course I am going to end up getting myself the play script when it doesn't cost $81.51 so I can see what happened because I didn't really understand very much in the Spanish movie... 😭 It costs SO much!        We went to some Catacombs yesterday. We were not able to take any pictures of the bones, but it was really cool. We saw he...

Another letter from Terran to his grade 2 class: Dear Mrs. L-J, I am missing you today. Thank you for your letter. “No se cómo me dio insolación” that means “I don’t know how I got heatstroke” in Spanish. I did not get any full size candy bars, but it was very fun. I have touched both the Atlantic in New York! And the Pacific Ocean in Lima, but I didn’t go swimming (those beaches are a little dirty)! I bought a cool wallet made out of leather. I went to the Zoo. I was in the cage of a condor, with the condor. I pet a turtle, I saw a parrot, and I got to hold a hedgehog. I rode a pony, and a parrot sat on my head, and dropped corn on me. I saw a monkey that could steal a cellphone or earrings. I saw an owl at the Zoo. Do you have any questions for me? How snowy is it in Calgary? I miss the snow. What have you learned about Iqaluit? Love, Terran See below for a video, and some pictures.

Since getting a bad sunburn on our trip to the Sacred Valley a couple of Saturdays ago, I have been looking for a good hat.  There are plenty of cheap mass-produced ones here, but a) most of them don't fit my MASSIVE CRANIUM, b) they don't really have much 'feel' to them (whatever that means), and c) many of them have too small of a brim to fully protect my pasty white neck. On Friday night Monica and I were wandering around seriously looking for a hat that worked.  There were a couple options that looked close (a nice traditional felt hat that was just about large enough, and a cloth hat with some nice colors and patterns), but nothing really clicked.  Finally we made it into a small leatherworking shop and saw some beautiful leather hats hanging on the wall.  I tried them on, but they were all a bit too small, and the brims were not quite enough to cover my neck.  The gentleman in the shop informed us that he makes the hats by hand, and that he would be ha...

Tonight for Family Home Evening we visited our last Inca ruin in the Cusco Tourist Ticket. We went to Sacsayhuaman. I'm glad we left a night just for Sacsayhuaman, it was such a beautiful place. One of the guides we spoke to, told us that the city of Cusco was originally made in the shape of a Puma, and that Sacsayhuaman was the head of the Puma. The original citadel was made by the Killke culture around 1100 AD, and later expanded and added to by the Incas. The size of the rocks here is REALLY impressive. The kids can't get enough of the alpacas

On Saturday we said good bye to Lita early in the morning. Now we are on our own; regarding this, Terran asked "what are we going to eat now?! Lita always made the food!" Not entirely true, but I guess that is what the kids saw. It is true however that Lita knew how to shop at markets, how to make good Peruvian food, but I did take notes, and come on I have managed to feed this family for the last 14 years, I think we will be ok. ;) Terran needs to have a little more faith in his mother! I took my Mom to the airport early for her 8 am flight, the kids were determined to come to the airport with me, but they slept right through their alarms. Anyway, after they woke up, a few tears were shed. We will really miss Lita, but I think she will be glad for the break from us, and all the walking here in Cusco ;). We got ready that morning, and decided to continue our goal to see as many sites from our Boleto Turistico. We took a taxi out to Tambomachay, our first Inca Ruin for the d...

Another site on our Boleto Touristico is the  Centro Qosqo de Arte Nativo .  This is a theater which performs traditional dances from various cultures around the Cusco area.  They have a live band providing music, which play all sorts of traditional instruments, including flutes, violins, guitars, and mandolins.  The dancers wear traditional outfits from the area in which the dance originated.  The same dancers perform each song - I can only imagine how fast they need to change in between acts! I took a couple of videos during the performance... the quality is not great but it hopefully gives you a feel of what the experience is like.

Since we purchased them on Saturday for the Sacred Valley tour, our Boleto Touristicos (Tourist Tickets) are valid for this week, and we figured that we should take full advantage of them.  There are 16 archeological sites and museums which are included with these passes.  Today we visited one of them: Tipón. Tipón shares some similarities with many other Inca ruins, in that it has multiple terraces, thought to have been built for agricultural purposes.  These are different, though, in that they are all at right angles, rather than following the natural curve of the mountains like other sites. Also unlike the other sites in the Sacred Valley, Tipón is very quiet and peaceful.  Perhaps it was just the day we visited (Wednesday, rather than Saturday), but there were maybe 30 people other than us in the entire site; compare this to last Saturday where you could not turn around without bumping into someone.

I wanted to share a little about our everyday life here in Cusco. Although so much of it is new to us, we are trying to keep some things similar to our routine back in Calgary. The first thing we do when arriving to any new city, and or new area is find community, and for us the best way to do that is to find our local church. We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and luckily for us the church community here is fairly large, actually is it large over most of South America, especially in Peru.

Dear Class, I am in Cusco right now. I am safe and happy. Cusco is under Machu Picchu. There are SO many dogs in Cusco. Most of them have green collars, which means they have had their rabies shot. So if I get bit by one with a green collar, I will not need 2 extra shots.

Saturday our family took a trip down to the Sacred Valley of the Incas. The tour covered four different ruins, and a Salt Mine. The cost of this trip, in case you are interested in visiting, was 70 Soles/person plus the Boleto Turistico. Way cheaper than purchasing this "experience" through Airbnb. On the topic of Airbnb, we are extremely fortunate to have amazing Airbnb hosts, not only do they respond to all our needs and inquiries in minutes, but they are also able to set up tour excursions for our family. If you are ever travelling to Cusco I HIGHLY recommend staying with Herber and his family. We would be happy to share Herber's listing, he is pretty awesome.  Our host took us to La Plaza de Armas nice and early (6:45 am) where we met our guide, and transport, and headed to Chinchero. Our guide Raul was like a walking encyclopedia. He was knowledgeable, and offered his tour in both English, and Spanish.  Chinchero was breath taking. We visited both ruins, and a ...

It has been 15 months since my last haircut (at which time I just shaved myself bald), and things are getting pretty shaggy.  With the low water pressure in most (all?) Peruvian showers, it was getting annoying to wash it, so I decided to get it cut. Just down the street from our apartment is a peluquería (hair salon).  Monica had previously asked about the price of a men's haircut, and had been told 6 soles (about $2.50).  I figured at that price you can't go wrong; if I hated it I could just shave it bald again. When we walked in today, we were greeted by the smell of pot and a tele novella playing on the TV.  I asked how much, and was told 10 soles.  Monica haggled them down to 6 again, and the hair dresser sat me down. The 'before' glamour shot

Terran wrote a letter to his class yesterday, here is a picture of his letter. I also included the text in case it is hard to read. Terran’s journal entry “Dear. Mrs. LJ, Since the last time I talked to you, I slept through an earthquake (4.0 tremor), stepped in 2 countries, 7 cities. We rode 4 planes, 22 trains including subways, 2 ferries. I was scared on the ferry because the wind was so strong, but it was worth it because I saw the Statue of Liberty. I was sad when I got heat stroke in NJ. I am in Cusco now. There are a lot of dogs here, they are friendly. I wonder if I will go to Machu Picchu. I ate a small banana.  *life size picture included* Love, Terran “ The bananas are called “plátanos de la Isla” or bananas of the island.

After work today Monica, Maija, and I went for a walk.  The plan was to get to Templo de la Luna, some ruins a couple km from our house.  We ended up just exploring along the way, but I do want to try to get there again tomorrow. As Cusco is in a valley, if you want to walk out of Cusco you need to do a bunch of climbing.  My phone claims the walk was 46 floors up; I am not sure if it was quite that much, but it was a pretty good climb.  The view is amazing, though! On the way up the side of the valley. A natural lookout point gives a view of the entire city

So today was Wyatt's last day off for a while, so tomorrow we start our routine of school, work, and simply living in Peru. In order to get set up, we visited the Mercado (the street market), which is where most people get their groceries, and such. Back home in Calgary, I usually make a list, and shop for the week, or perhaps even longer, but according to what my Mom tells me, people here shop either daily or every two days. Daily shopping is something that I will need to get used to, I personally find it to be too time consuming, but one of our goals here was so eat like locals, so I will give it a try for a few weeks, and then see how to adjust it according to how our family eats. Going to the market was fun, I love all the different fruits, and vegetables available, but after going through the meat market, I think I might consider a diet with less meat. I remember as a child, I hated going to the market, and now I remembered why. The meat section makes me a bit queasy. They ha...

Hello everyone! This is my first blog post. We are in Cusco now. We have a nice little apartment on a quiet street. There is a lot of off-leash dogs roaming the premises. We saw at least 15 of them! Roaming dog We ate at a Chinese restaurant for lunch today. We ate noodles, rice and won-ton soup. It was not the same as the Calgary kind. This had chicken and won-ton wrappers separate. For supper, "arroz con pollo" (rice with chicken). We miss everyone! Hope to hear from you! ~Maija~

Our time in Lima was cut in half, but we did mange to see a little bit of the city. As mentioned in our last post we stayed in the Miraflores district of Lima.  Miraflores is very safe from a crime point of view - there are security guards and cameras everywhere.  From a traffic point of view it is a bit less safe; it is very busy, and everybody seems to drive. We left late in the morning in order to let the kids sleep a little, and headed down the street to meet my Mom. She took us to a restaurant called "La Lucha Sandwiches". The sandwiches were really good, nice bread and the fruit juices were delicious. Wyatt and I shared a pineapple smoothie, while the kids enjoyed a strawberry smoothie. The food was delicious, but I did find "Chicharron (fried Pork) Sandwiches to be a little heavy for so early in the morning. even I have my limits ;) Don't expect things to be as cheap in Miraflores as what you read about in blogs about Peru. We found a lot of American chain...

Despite the airport issues, we made it to Lima, only a day late. Kudos to United for taking care of us - they put us on the next available flight to Houston, and the next day we got on a flight to Lima.  When we were booked on the Lima flight we were not all sitting together (understandably, as we were added only the day before).  When I talked to the gate agent about letting us board early so that we could help Terran get situated, he went so far as to re-arrange seating to give some others seat upgrades so that we could sit with the kids.  Thanks, United! Upon arrival we went through customs and talked with the nicest customs agent ever (I am used to the American style where they sit you down in a dark room, shine a spotlight in your face and ask you about your whereabouts on November 22 1963).  We then proceeded on to the official taxis, whereupon we got a ride to our first AirBnB in the Miraflores district of Lima (this is around 1:00 AM at this point). ...

Let me begin by saying that we were on time, we were actually early, but we were completely out of it, and we trusted the United app, big mistake! Wyatt had signed up for text alerts in case there were any changes to our flight. Well those things are not to be trusted! We were waiting by the wrong gate, and by the time we realized all this they would not let us on the plane. I don’t blame the airline though, we should have checked the screens! Lesson learned. United re-routed us through Houston, and now here we are hoping that everything goes well, and we get the right gate this time, and eventually make it to Lima.... Waiting at the Houston airport. 

Tonight was our last night here in New Jersey. It feels like we were back home a long time ago, but also that we blinked and our week was done. We spend a little bit of time at home in the evening taking pictures, and saying goodbye. I met my brother Carlos for the first time. This part of the trip has been pretty emotional for me. Meeting so many family members has been a wonderful experience. Meeting my Sister Pilar was just an amazing experience. She is so hard working, intelligent, kind. I see how much love she gives as she takes care of everyone around her, specially her parents. I can see why she fits so well in the medical industry, she is a doctor, and a remarkable individual. Pilar has inspired me to be a better person. The kids are excited to continue this journey, but were really sad to say goodbye. We learned about Abuelito's life. He worked as an explorer for various oil companies in Peru. He told the kids about his work for Shell in Peru, about going into the Peruvi...

Today we hit one of Monica's bucket list items, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (a.k.a. "the Met").  This museum has tons of exhibits, ranging from Monica's favourites (the Neoclassical European painters) to Maija's (Greek statues) and mine (various musical instruments and assorted woodworking and intarsia artifacts).  It unfortunately did not have much in the way of trains for Terran, but he did see a Stradivari violin which was pretty neat. Monica may have swooned a little at the sight of this Goya painting.  She has studied Goya extensively as part of her art history degree.

Today we visited the Museum of Natural History. We took the number 1 subway again, and were ready for a good day of walking. Museums in New York are so massive, but the cool thing about this one is that is it is on a "Pay what you Like" system, which works out great when you are a family. The Museum has so many cool exhibits, here is a small snapshot of what we saw.

Sunday was a nice relaxing day. My sister Pilar was with us, and continued to take amazing care of us. We all had breakfast together. Wyatt took a couple of pictures of the kids with my Dad; my Dad and Terran could be twins. Abuelito Roman And Terran, can you not see the family resemblances?!

Two of my cousins and their families came to meet my family tonight. My cousin Alejandro (Tio Adolfo's son), and my cousin Emilio (Tio Carlos' son), the last time I saw those guys they were just young adults, now they are grown men with successful careers, and more importantly beautiful families.

Today we headed back to Manhattan, this time we took the subway all the way to Lower Manhattan, the goal for the day was to get a good view of the Statue of Liberty, and explore the city a bit more. Taking the subway is actually fairly simple, and we found out the Staten Island Ferry is actually a cool, and free way to see the Statue of Liberty up close. Finally riding the subway!

We have been so blessed to meet so many family members here! My Tio Carlos, and his wife Maria Luisa came to visit us. The Baca family here in New Jersey are very close, and they make sure to make you feel like you are one of the group. Tia Maria Luisa, Tio Carlos, Monica and Wyatt

Tonight Pilar took us to visit one of my favorite people in NJ, my Tio Adolfo (mi brother). Here is a picture of the get together, I'm sorry that the picture is not great, I am getting to know my phone, also Tio Adolfo did not make it to any of them. He was busy feeding us Pizza, Chicha Morada, Jugo de Maracuya..mmm.... My Tio Adolfo has a wonderful family, they are all super smart, and hard working. My cousin Ana, Wyatt, Maija, Monica, Terran, and my Tia Ana

On Friday afternoon my nephew Marco took us around NJ. One of the many good things about staying with family is that they of course are local to the area, and can show you things that you would never otherwise see. We visited Paterson, NJ which is the heart of the Peruvian Community here. Terran by Paterson Great Falls (Passaic River)

As I have mentioned before it has been around 20 years since the last time I visited my Baca family, but they have all welcomed me, and my family with open arms, gracias mi Querida familia! That evening we had the pleasure of getting together with my cousin Hector, and meeting his sweet family. Thank you Pilar for arranging all these get togethers for us. Hector, Hector Junior, Carmen, Maritza, Baby Isabel, Monica, Maija, and Terran

Today dear friends I wish all of you had come with us. What a day! We walked so much! Times Square, Central Park, and Wyatt made the day even more fantastic by suggesting we go see a play!! “Look! An Amtrack!”

We arrived Halloween mid afternoon. My very kind nephew Cesar came to pick up us up from the airport, and took us back to Garfield to my Sister Pilar’s house, I was so nervous about seeing my Father again, simply because the last time we saw each other was a little under 20 years ago. But all the family here, starting with Caesar have been so warm, and welcoming. They have taken us in as though we had always known them. Myself, Maija, My Dad, and Terran

So after very little sleep the night before (a combo of excitement and anxiety over so many unknowns), we are finally on board our flight en route to New Jersey. My poor kids were both very tired, the food after going through security was expensive, and not great (Opa’s for breakfast anyone?), but boarding the plane made them forget anything negative. Terran is crazy about any machines that move; trucks, construction equipment, tractors, but specially trains, planes, and rocket ships. We had very kind flight attendants, they set up the kids with coloring books, and crayons, and they even suggested the kids go, and say hello to the captain, and co- captain of our flight before take off, Maija was so thrilled “Mom, they were both named Mike like grandpa!” and both kids loved that they (the pilots) turned lights on and off in the cockpit for them. Meeting the pilots, going to the cockpit, how cool is that?! I think that alone made my kids’ flight already. Maija and I both ...

The day before we leave, we finalized the last minute packing.   For a number of reasons, we have decided to go carry on only. We figured that by cutting down on the amount of junk we need to look after, we will be better able to concentrate on the experience and locations that we will see. Here we see the four backpacks after our final pack check on Tuesday evening:

About a year and a half ago our family was driving north on Highway 11, admiring how beautiful Alberta is in the spring, summer and falls months. We love Alberta, it is honest to goodness one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I love hiking in the mountains, visiting the library, walking in my community of Woodbine, my own happy place. What we were NOT looking forward to was the upcoming Alberta winter! We had just completed a family mile stone, and my husband was itching to "Do Something Different...."But what? Perhaps this was the beginning of what is referred to as a mid-life crisis, but be that as it may, if it was going to be a mid-life crisis, although I am convinced we are too young for that, we were going to make it a good one!                                                 Alberta in the summer for us.         ...