Halloween '16

We decorated our house early in October to make the most of the spooky season!








We also hit Staheli Farm a little earlier this year and were able to avoid the big crowds. The kids loved it and spent hours there. When it got dark they still didn't want to leave.

They also went on a pony ride and all of them loved it! Millie bounced along with a big smile.







Once it was dark we visited the corn maze and wandered around for awhile, making spooky faces and pretending someone was in the corn.










About a week before Halloween Mom organized a Halloween Party for Jocelyn and Ivy and a few friends. It was a lot of fun with crafts such as a masking tape mummy and cookie decorating, as well as games like Vampire Teeth Marshmallow Race, Musical Graves, Pin-the-Wart-on-the-Witch, Guess the Ghost (hid under a sheet), Donut Bobbing, and last and best, a Spook Alley walk through in the basement that Mom had built using lots of black plastic and props.

























Some of the kids were not brave enough to go through the Spook Alley and some went through several times. All of the kids loved it and talked about it long afterward. Mom hadn't let Jocelyn or Ivy go through the Spook Alley prior to the party so they were just as scared as their friends! Jocelyn cried a little the first time she went through and Ivy was ok but wanted Mom close.










The day before Halloween we carved our pumpkins. Mom had set out the tablecloth, scrapers and saws on the front porch with the pumpkins and then started making dinner, with the plan of helping the girls carve the pumpkins after dinner. When dinner was made, she went out front to call everyone in for dinner and found Jocelyn and Ivy with their small pumpkins cut open, scraped out, and almost completely carved! They had done a great job alone! Mom then carved the bigger pumpkins, letting Millie and the older girls scoop out the guts.





And then came Halloween Day! Ivy dressed up for school in her pizza slice costume but Jocelyn didn't want to dress up because she wanted, "her costume to be a surprise." While the older girls were at school, Mom dressed Millie in her donut costume and painted her hair pink with glitter.



We then loaded up some Halloween props from the basement and drove them to Dad's work so he could decorate his office for the trick or treaters. Millie's very first trick-or-treat of the day was... Dad!

After Dad's office and the rest of the PD, we came home for a quick nap before heading to the elementary to help with Jocelyn and Ivy's school party. Mom brought Jocelyn's costume. It was noisy and busy but they had fun with lots of games and activities.

After the school party we picked up Millie from Tia's house, saw Grandma, and then headed to the P.D. again so the older girls could trick or treat there.
 

We stopped off at the neighborhood potluck dinner on the way back through our neighborhood and saw our friends in their costumes and had a bite to eat. Dad took Millie trick or treating for awhile and Mom took Millie trick or treating some more while Dad handed out candy and scared kids at the door. Jocelyn and Ivy went trick or treating with their cousin Taylee and friend Marli until they were tired, and then came home to sort candy. Millie got the most candy of all since she was young enough to grab handfuls without fear.

Mom's Trip to Peru and Machu Picchu

It takes quite awhile to travel half a world away! We left for Peru around 3pm on Tuesday from the Las Vegas airport and didn't get there until 10am on Wednesday. On arrival we were tired from lack of sleep; its never easy to sleep on a plane next to a stranger. At the airport we were tricked by a person we thought was our arranged taxi driver (he even showed us my name on his cell phone leading us to believe he was sent by the taxi company), but he was really only there to collect our baggage, walk it to the taxi, and collect a tip for it. Silly us! 

Once we found our taxi driver, we  were on our way, weaving through the city at what felt like a break-neck speed, passing cars in lanes of oncoming traffic and honking all the way. Our taxi driver stopped at a viewpoint over Cuzco and we got out to look.

 While we were stopped we also saw a Peruvian woman with an alpaca, a baby llama, and a newborn lamb, which I snuggled.

 Our taxi driver, Igor, drove us to Pisac, about an hour from Cusco, where we stopped to look around the Pisac ruins.

 We took the trail along the mountainside and dropped back down into town where our taxi driver picked us back up.

 We hadn't had a thing to eat yet since arriving, so we stopped at the market and window shopped, and then bought a tiny empanada instead of the cute little Cuoy (Guinea Pig) they were cooking and selling.

 After that we hopped back into the car and sped toward Moray. There was so much to see and it was all going by the window so fast! Moss on the telephone lines, kids everywhere, women hauling bundles of grass, food, and children, and men working, always working.

 We were pretty tired when we got to Moray and they were closing in 14 minutes so we just walked down a little way and took a look.

The scale of Moray was much larger than I'd thought from seeing pictures. It was once an agricultural testing area. The top layer was consistant with temperatures in the High Andes and the lowest level was consistant with sea level temperatures. They grew crops at each level to see what grew best and where.

 After Moray it was Ollaytaytambo we were headed for next, and thankfully our last destination. Along the way we saw the glass hotel pods bolted to the mountainside that Tia so much wanted to stay in. Once I saw the people at the bottom getting ready to  'climb up' to their hotel rooms, I was pretty glad we hadn't gone that route!

 All along the valleys next to the river were fields with new crops growing. Mostly corn but I also saw strawberry and artichoke. It was springtime in the Southern Hemisphere so there were also blossoms in the fruit trees.

After we finally found our hotel in Ollaytaytambo, we checked in, dropped our bags, and hungrily headed for the commercial area to find some food. We were pretty bummed to find that the power was out and most restaurants weren't serving food. We found one that was willing to warm up soup on the stove for us so we had some of that. Then we walked around town in the dark. The stores were all lit by candles as no one wanted to lose any business by closing early. I was able to find a nice lady who was willing to warm me up some milk in her skillet for some hot chocolate.

We were tired and dirty from travel but the water was cold so none of us showered. We all fell asleep around 6:00pm. I woke up at 4:00am to find the power back on and the water warm so I showered and then fell back asleep.  The next morning we woke up and it was overcast and the clouds were hanging onto the mountains. It was quite pretty and so we decided to go onto the upper deck for a view of the town.

 The Pinkuyulla ruins were visible from the top floor. Since we had about 45 minutes until breakfast still, we decided to go hike up to the first set of ruins.

 No one seemed to be up yet so we had the streets to ourselves. Even the dogs were still all passed out.

 The gates were open for the ruins hike so we marched right up the stairs.

It didn't take us long at all to reach the first set, maybe 5 minutes, and we weren't very high. The view was pretty neat; we could see straight across to the Ollaytaytambo ruins.

We were all pretty hungry from our meager meals the day before so we made sure we were back to the hotel right on time for breakfast. Scrambled eggs, fruit with quinoa and amaranth, anise tea, and juice were what we chose; we skipped the dry bread, pink bologna and salty cheese.

After breakfast we walked back down to the main square and caught our Awamaki tour bus to the Quechuan town of Patacancha for our weaving tour. There were only two other people in our tour group and our guide, Melvin, was a really nice Dutch guy. We drove out of of town into the mountains for about a half hour and then stopped at a little church to learn some history about the area.

This church is a gathering place for the community on one night every February called (I think) Festival of Compadres, where they come to 'make friends' and exchange favors. Typically the favor is that a family in an outlying village will send their child to live with a trustworthy family in the bigger towns so that their child can attend school during the week, and then then child will come home on the weekends. In exchange, the child's family agrees to help build a new house for the host family when the child is older.

In fact, Melvin explained to us, that most house building is done as exchange work. Everyone helps their neighbor build houses when they need with the knowledge that when they are ready to build a house, the neighbors will come and help them. What a cool system!

We were able to climb up into the belltower of the church, a tiny little stone staircase. This is a view looking out onto the graveyard behind the church. Pictures don't show the terracing well enough but Melvin also explained to us the garden terrace building system. He said that every person was expected to give one month of service per year to building terraces . They would have 500 people at a time JUST working on building terraces. And the other months of the year they were free to farm and work as normal. It was a community effort to build the terraces but everyone reaped the benefits from it!

We arrived in Patacancha and learned a few words before we met our weaving teachers.

Can't remember the name of the tea but it was a local plant and helped digestive issues.