Happy Birthday to Me

Ursula, Ivan, Carla, Michelle, Johanna, Me, Alejandra

Javier, Giovanna, Me, Ivan

The great food Causa, Carapulcra, & Aji de Gallina

My mother-in-law, Sonia, teaching me some dance moves.

Deysi, Me, Arturo

Me with all of the woman. Where is Johanna?

Johanna threw me a birthday party on Saturday and we had a blast. Our friend’s mother cooked a fantastic meal for us all and fortunately there was a lot left over so we have been eating like royalty all week. We tried get started at 7pm because I do not like to begin my night when I normally go to bed. It is not out of the ordinary to go to a party at 11pm and stay out all night. So our invitations said 7pm but people still did not show up until much later. But that was okay because we passed the time with our friends Carla and Ivan. Even though we tried to have the party start and end at a “reasonable” hour we did not go to bed until 5am. Not a problem though because neither of us had to work the next day so we laid in bed all day and recovered from the exciting night. At least I laid in bed, my wonderful wife cleaned the entire house and by the afternoon everything was back to normal. Johanna is the best.

Party Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYldgc611KA

We are Comming Home

When we decided to go on this adventure we said we would stay for at least one year. We originally wanted to wait until January to make the decision to stay or not but due to some issues with our apartment we had to decide a little earlier than expected and we decided to come home. It was a tough decision but we both think it is the best thing for us to do. We are not exactly sure when we will be flying home but I will probably return in late January or early February and Johanna will probably not go back until March. We are very anxious to see everyone when we get back.

A Day of Celebration

On Sunday I was excited about sleeping in when I was suddenly awaken at 7:00am by cannon fire at least that is what it sounded like. I got up to investigate and I found people in the streets decorating everything in purple and white balloons and streamers. They were getting ready to celebrate the day of an important Saint here in Peru, I am not sure who but everyone else seemed to know, and they were launching fireworks to commemorate the day.

A guy drew the design on the street with chalk and then a bunch if people filled in the entire thing with flower pedals and colored saw dust. All done the morning of the big day.

Johanna and I went out later to grab some lunch and all of the decorations were ready and the people were sitting in chairs in front of their houses talking and waiting. When we returned was saw that this is what they were waiting for.

This group of people walked all around the area carrying this “float” and playing music. They stopped every once in a while in front of groups of people and they would all pray together. It was quite a site.

That is sheet music on their backs for the guys walking behind them.

The group walked over the art masterpiece as they went down the street. I would have been a little upset if this was my work but apparently this is how it is done.