Go Green Baby!

So lately we have had a lot of, "I don't want to do that, it will be boring, it will not be fun!"  And we have crammed into our car with all the complaining and gone any way.  And as we leave said boring place, I look at our four smiling kids, because lo and behold, everyone had a great time.  And Mark and I smile and think, "I knew they would love it!"
So last Saturday, we did the above, and made our way to the John Deere dealership to have a look around at all the equipment.  When we arrived, it was closed, however, the gate was open and the security guards let us in after convincing them we weren't going to steal the excavators with our four kids and Honda Pilot.  It probably helped that our boys were wearing their John Deere hats, oh and of course Mark's connection probably had something to do with it.  So we had the whole place to ourselves and the kids climbed and got in a lot of the equipment (OK, maybe the adults climbed in them too).  And we all loved doing it!

Interesting fact, see that orange Hitachi in the background, it has an identity crisis.  Because well it is sort of a Deere too.  Deere and Hitachi have a joint venture, so sometimes orange is the new green.

Featuring Mason

It is interesting.  I know Mason plays the trumpet, but I never know what to expect when we go to concerts.  He never says a thing about them.  And then we get there and low and behold we look at the program and for his band it says, "featuring Mason."  And he was amazing!  I am very grateful to a music teacher that loves what he does and recognizes when a student can excel at something and paves the way for the student to do it.  The school, Nido, does a fantastic job of featuring the arts in all ways.  It is definitely the norm for students to be involved in some way or another (and it's cool too).  I am grateful that my kids can experience music and art and know that it can be such a force for good.

Obviously enjoying the concert.

Thank you Mr. A!

Drew is Dancing!

The elementary kids had their Dieciocho fiesta after the break.  So here is Drew.  And he even looked like he was enjoying himself, which in these big events is a big thing (he usually looks very serious).  I just smiled watching him do this traditional dance.  He really knew what he was doing.  There are moments like this when I was watching Drew that I think, this is why we moved, these cultural experiences are why we are here.

Kate and Drew (and Ian too, but I don't think he knew I was getting a pic, however the girl in the front looks like she is posing just for this pic :-).

Drew's dance partner.

Back tracking

These are from the end of August and beginning of September, but once I began blogging Peru, I wanted to finish.

We went to the La Moneda museum, where they were having a special African art exhibit.  And though we could not take pictures while in the exhibit we did take these in the entrance.  Giant cardboard animals!

One night after dinner at PF Changs (I know here in Chile and we go to an American restaurant, but sometimes you just need a little USA).  They also had this dinosaur near by advertising a dinosaur exhibit.

We went skiing the last day of August.  And guess who learned to ski?  That's little Easton, riding the "magic carpet" up after his skiing down the kiddie slope.

A couple of chairs back there somewhere is Dallin and Mark.

We had a really good day skiing!  It was warm almost the whole day.  And very little wind, until around 3:30.  Then the wind and cold came in, so we called it a day at 4:00pm.  I was so proud of my two new skiiers, Dallin and Easton.  And extremely impressed with just how good Mason and Drew are becoming.

Day #7 - A short story

Day 7 was the day we traveled back to Santiago.  All was well, we had our great taxi pick us up and deliver us to the Cusco airport where all went well and we arrived in Lima.  We quickly ate lunch and then went to the International gates where we were told we couldn't enter and to go talk to the airlines at the ticket counter.  So our flight was delayed 6 hours, which would have been a great time to go see Lima.  However we had two kids that had to stay within a close walking distance to get to the bathroom very often.  Poor boys, they were just so ready to get home.  And we made it home eventually a little after 1am.  And boy were we glad to see our beds!

You know I guess if you are going to get sick the last day in the afternoon and your travel days are pretty good days to do it.  Even with that, it was a trip we would do over and over again!

Day #6 - Cusco

Day six was one that no one wanted to get up early, so we didn't.  It was a long night, so it was good that our tour of the city didn't start until 2pm.  So we got ourselves out to take in a little of the city center and get some hot chocolate at Starbucks, because at this point the boys needed a little of the familiar.  We just enjoyed the time and took it all in.  Then we decided to head back to the hotel (only 2 blocks away) and drop Dallin off before lunch because Dallin began to feel a little under the weather.  After lunch the plan was that all of us would go on the official Cusco tour, but the family was dropping off like flies, so it ended up being three of us on the city tour.  Getting a bit sick is one of the things Peru often offers freely.

One of the local preschools was having a little parade around the square.  Easton was impressed.

It was a long, amazing week, but by this last day it was definitely showing.

Our beautiful hostel in Cusco.

The tour was very good and we got to see a lot of things.  Mason, Drew, and I all really enjoyed it and I was very happy to see that Mason and Drew were really into it (at least until the last 45 minutes, but by then even I was pretty tired and my thoughts were wandering too).  

The tour started at the cathedral, which we were not allowed to take pictures of the inside, but with it's three chapels and amazing art work was incredible.  Then we walked to an Inca ruin that the Spanish actually built a cathedral on top of, but in recent history much of it has been uncovered.

This is the second cathedral we went to, which was built over a whole complex of Inca temples called Qorikancha.  The Inca rooms were dedicated to different divinites -Sun, Moon, Stars, Lighteneing, Mother Earth, Rainbow, etc.

See how the Spanish just built right on top of the Inca temple?

The cathedral is built right over the Inca foundation, which you can see in this picture of the outside.

This is the next stop.  Our kids loved saying this national park.  It sounds like "Sexy Woman" when said, it cracked the boys up.  It was the place of the royal house of the sun.  It was built on two hills with a large flat plain in the middle which they used for festivals and most likely military parades.

The stones here weighed on average 80 tons (but many were over 120 tons).  And moved from 4-7 km away.

A lot of this ruin used the natural stones already there.

The view of Cusco from one of the hills.

Stop three was Tambomachay was a place of water.  It has clean water from underground.  Here they gathered the water for irrigation purposes.  They said they also used it as a religious place dedicated to water.

Along the way they had all these interesting trees.  And Drew took several pictures, so thought I would share a couple of his pics.

They talked about the differences in terrace building and temple building.  Though both were amazing architecture, the temples were build for looks, the terraces for function.

You can see the irrigation still in use today.

Stop four was actually a drive by as, it was getting very dark and not to mention cold. But it was Puka Pukara, meaning Red Fort.  It was a stop on the Inca Trail. 

Stop Five was Q'enqo which was really interesting.  It was at one time covered by landslides and then abandoned by the Incas, but an archaeologist searched and found it.  It had a cave with an alter in it for the priests to use.  And we got one picture and then at our very last stop on our very last night our battery went dead and we left it at that.

This semi-circle wall had seats in it for the priests and high officals to sit in surrounding an outdoor alter.  And our last photo!