Max & Liv

Some pictures to show what the kids have been up to...They spend a lot of time on their pedal-less bikes. This is the park right by our house. They have gotten really good at balancing and Max can even ride a regular bike without training wheels now!

Liv's first day of school at the Children's Place.

On Max's last day of school at the Children's place his class all performed Bolivian dances they had been practicing. Max and his partner performed the Morenada, which is said to be a dance about African slaves that were brought to Bolivia to work in the mines of Potosi.

 

We were really proud of Max for being brave enough to perform in front of everyone! He has never loved the spotlight. He had really worked hard on learning the dance though and I loved his "serious look".

Liv on the other hand loves the spotlight! She loves to put on song and dance performance in our living room on her stage (the coffee table). It is all original work and she can only perform while wearing a skirt or dress.

Here is our puppy, Uma. She is a Golden Retreiver. Tim and I surprised the kids with her back in the Fall. This was her first night at our house. She is much bigger now!

Max was recognized at the American School for being respectful to his teachers and classmates.

Dressed up for church

                          Just being kids!

Vina

In December I took a weekend trip to Vina del Mar, Chile with my friend, Ashley. She had told me about a race there and races always seem to be a good excuse for traveling. Here we are the morning of the race. I did the half marathon and she did her first full (where she ended up placing in her age category). It was impressive. The run was really pretty. The last half was along the ocean so it was a really fun view. My favorite part was crashing on the sand at the finish line though and just hanging out on the beach.

Flower clock in Vina

My favorite part of the trip, the beach!

The night of the race we hobbled around Valparaiso, a neighboring town. It is very colorful and unique. We took an old elevator like the one below up the hillside. We found a nice little cafe there and I ate a delicious ice cream and caramel topped waffle to help with recovery. ;)

There was some cool graffiti artwork when we stepped off the elevator.

Vina was quite a bit more modern than Bolivia. I'm not gonna lie...I really enjoyed the break. Tim studied abroad here in college for a few months, so we are hoping to return together at some point.

Puno

Okay to everyone that was wondering...we are alive and we have not been kidnapped. ;) I am just not good at keeping up with a blog. I knew the pressure was probably more than I could handle which is why starting one was a hard decision. We are going to try and catch you up on the highlights since last October and not spend a lifetime doing it.

Last October Tim's parents and our nephew, Alan came to visit. We all jumped on a bus and took a trip to Puno, Peru and the Sun Island of Lake Titicaca. It was about a 5 hour bus ride. We even had to get off the bus at one point and jump on a boat while our bus caught a ferry to meet us on the other side. It was a beautiful and nauseating ride with the increase in the already insanely high elevation and windy roads, but we had fun anyway.

Lake Titicaca- Road from La Paz to Puno




Sillustani- Pre Inca ruins outside of Puno

Max in front of a tomb.

Yes, Max stands out a little down here. We paid this little girl to have his picture taken with her, but we also had people asking us if they could take their picture with him (we didn't charge). Poor Max, he is not one that likes attention.

Floating Uros Islands- These were amazing! My favorite part of the trip. Just about a 15 minute boat ride from Puno are about 40 or so of these floating islands. They are made out of Totura Reed that grows in the lake. They are continually putting new layers of the reeds on top to stay afloat and dry. Families live in family units on these islands and the homes, boats, etc. are made of the reeds. You can see some of the live roots growing in the bottom right hand corner. Just before we visited here the Friend or the Ensign (I can't remember which) had an article about an LDS boy and his family that live on one of these islands. We were hoping to meet him, but we just went to one of the islands.

The Uros people make a living by fishing, but more than that I think they live off of tourists like us. They told us about how they live, let us try on their clothes, gave us a tour, and then sold us tapestrys and other things they had made.

These girls at the bottom were singing us a song about how although we are different we are all the same. First they sang it in their language and then in Spanish. Yes, I was crying. It is amazing to see how differently God's children around the world live. I have been very humbled over this past year to see how people survive and the joy they can have no matter how simply they live.

We took a quick walking tour of Copacabana, Bolivia on the way back. This is where we caught a Catamaran to head out to the Sun Island.

Isla del Sol (Sun Island)- very sacred place for the Incas

Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana. "Our Lady of Copacabana" is the Patron Saint of Bolivia. A Patron Saint is an advocate in heaven for a nation or place. People come from all over to worship her. Outside the church there was a huge line of cars decorated in flowers that were being blessed. When you buy a car in Bolivia many people bring it here to be blessed so they are safe in it.

Here is Max trying out an Inca shovel on Isla del Sol.

Tim, his dad, and Alan all had a turn rowing the tourist Totura boat around part of the island.

On the drive back we were going through El Alto (the very poor area right above the city of La Paz). On Sundays they bring their animals to sell/trade. We saw lots of fun sights like this! There were also vans with live sheep tied to the roof. One of the reasons La Paz is never boring to us.

Cochabamba

The weekend of Max's birthday we took a trip to Cochabamba. Our ward was doing a temple trip and we decided to extend it because we had a 3 day weekend. Tim stayed outside with the kids while I did a session. He intended to go later, but when he got there at 4:00 they were closing...oops! We'll have to take another trip there soon.

We pulled into Cochabamba at about midnight on Friday. We had made reservations at a 5 star hotel. When I walked into the room I realized Bolivia and the U.S. must have vastly different standards on their hotel rating systems! It was dark, dirty, and looked like they hadn't decorated it in about 30 years; not to mention the beds were quite hard. First thing the next morning we called the hotel we had wanted to stay in at first, but they were full. Luckily they had vacancy! Here is a picture of us in front of the hotel. It was really nice and will probably be where we stay each time we return.

Here is a picture of the town square. It was really pretty and quaint. It started raining quite hard right after this picture so we didn't stay too long.

On top of a tall hill overlooking the city is one of the World's largest statues of Christ, "Christo de la Concordia". I read on Wikipedia that Jesus itself is a little smaller than the one in Rio de Janiero, but with its pedestal it is taller. We didn't get any great pictures of our family in front of it other than one that a photographer there took.

After a fun weekend in Cochabamba, we headed back home. When we reached the halfway mark we drove over a bunch of branches that had been laid on the road and thought that was kind of strange. Just beyond that we realized there was a road block. That is how people here try to be heard by the government. They just get big rocks and such and stand in the road and don't let anyone pass by. We found out they had blocked it that morning and it would go on through the next morning. We turned around with another group and headed back to a small town a few miles back. When we got there teenage boys were "volunteering" (for money) to show us lost souls a detour. This is the back of our helper.

The detour was quite an experience. It was some major off roading and we got to drive past big trucks like this on narrow little trail. We were grateful for our tough FJ Cruiser that got us through without a problem. Just when we thought we were in the clear (after our 1 hour detour) we came upon a group of 15 men with big sticks in hand blocking our trail so we couldn't get on the main road. This is when I started to lose it. They told us they couldn't let us through. Tim gave our sob story about our little kids and not being from Bolivia. When they didn't seem affected I started begging...as the tears started to flow. They smiled and said they would let us through if we gave them enough money for a drink. So we gave them some with more to spare. I'm not so sure the group we were leading were so lucky though. We didn't see them behind us after that. I was so grateful we weren't sleeping in a riverbed with our kids and these unpredictable protesters. It was quite an adventure for our first family trip out of La Paz!

Max's 5th Birthday!

Max is 5! I can't believe he is that old...or that I am! We decided to celebrate his birthday at school with all of his little friends. He wanted a Cars themed birthday (of course) and bug cupcakes...I know they don't really go together, but they worked since his birthday is close to Halloween. They turned out really cute too. Tim took time off work and went to help and document. I wish I could have been there, but I'm a working woman now.

His teachers Ms. Carol (in black) and Fabi (in blue) made him the adorable crown and Cars toolbox. They are so sweet. Fabi is new, but Carol has been there since Max started. He loves her and talks about her all of the time.

Liv loves sweets so she was in heaven!

Here is all of his class except for two that were missing. They're so cute, and I love the cardboard people they made in the back as they studied Community Workers. It is a wonderful school with such loving staff. Max is picking up quite a bit of Spanish there. I love hearing him speak it!

This picture is so Max! He gets a little shy when all the attention is on him.