Boricua en la Lima

Silliness uncontrolled Acts of goofiness filmed Friendship rekindled Connections reestablished Mindfulness restored Mind quieted Thoughts scattered Honesty unobstructed Problems forgotten Conversations sparked Jokes shared Gossip amplified Heart overjoyed Energy spent and re-gained Life purpose re-thought Happiness re-analyzed Plans re-worked Dreams re-ignited Livelihood found Advice shared Music unplugged Binge-eating accepted Binge-drinking encouraged Exercise postponed Babies missed Caffeine injected  ALS challenges avoided Goodbyes un-welcomed Memories created Friendship reaffirmed Girlfriends missed

It has been a whirlwind of a month! First Mom came to visit for about a month and that usually coincides with one of our kid´s birthdays (this time it was Sebas´ turn). So there was a lot of running around in the beginning of April to create the most magical of Star Wars birthday parties! Except if you´re a girl or a boy under the age of 6 and then you pretty much hated the party because Darth Vader and Darth Maul were the scariest things you had ever seen in your life. Then Mom left right after the birthday party and Dad came with his wife about 2 days later to spend Easter weekend with us. It was a great visit, we did a lot of touristy things that I don´t normally get to do with Mom.   We went to the Ballesta Isles in Paracas to see the wildlife, we went to pisco tours to learn about that whole process, and we went to do the sand buggies in the Ica dessert, something I had never done before which was really cool and highly recommended, except a little scary much like this...

Work has been so absolutely crazy this month I haven't even had time to really properly move in.  Every weekend I spend about two hours doing ONE project that's move related and then I do nothing for the next seven days due to lack of time.  So it feels like progress on the house is EXTREMELY slow, because it is! After Easter we had my mom come visit and fortunately she's still with us.  My sister and her husband and son also came to visit but I didn't spend nearly as much time as I would've wanted with them mainly because of how crazy things have been at work.  Initially I wanted to fly to Cuzco with them but I ended up just spending a weekend with them and then I sort of took off their last day here so I could also spend some more time with them.  Sort of because while we were "hanging out" at the beach I was sitting there laptop in hand clicking away.  But hey at least I got that day with them.  Not to mention all the FOOD we ate!  Which of c...

This is the first Easter we ever spend in Peru.  There was so much activity going on this weekend I'm pretty exhausted, especially trying to move at the same time!  But the kids had a blast.  First of all we had the whole family down here on Jose's side - his brother and their whole family as well as Jose's Dad.  We couldn't fit all those people in the beach house so we had to rent a beach house just for the weekend.  We drove down on Wednesday night after work since Thursday and Friday were holidays down here (no work!).  Thursday started with family tennis between all the cousins and Friday started the same way followed by volleyball and football. It was also Jose's brother's birthday on Friday and Jose's sister birthday on Saturday. Saturday was jam packed with activities.  First the running of the bulls (where hubby got poked on his side by a bull with a pretty mean streak, but I hurt him even more after the whole thing was over!), then a...

With all the craziness of activity that's been going on these last few weeks (now both kids seem to be sick not to mention crap that goes wrong with Jose's grandma's house all the time), there hasn't been much time to take my mom to do tourist thing (other than what I like to call the gastronomic tour of Lima).  So today we did the express version of the "Turibus" of Lima to take her to see some of the most important sights.  Thankfully we also got lucky and got the sun to come out, although not at the catacombs which we visited!  Good thing the kids weren't there because they would've been pretty frightened.  In fact, there were kids in the tour that weren't so happy with that particular portion of the tour.  We had taken the kids to see the catacombs in Rome while we were living in Switzerland and they were already pretty scared.  While these catacombs are smaller overall (they've only dug one level deep vs. the 3 that are there below the ...

This weekend we continued with the birthday celebrations for Gabi (and boy am I glad it's done!).  Friday we took TEN girls to the movie theater to see a local movie (partly Peruvian and partly Argentinian) about a mouse who needs to find a princesses' tooth in order to save his kingdom.  I got a mini van to take all the kids from school to the mall and then we brought them home to sing Happy Birthday to Gabi and have some cupcake before all the kids got picked up.  I was totally pooped by the end of the day but Gabi was so happy to share with her new friends from school. Saturday we had Sports Day at Gabi's school and then a family BBQ here at Jose's grandma's house to celebrate four family birthdays including Gabi's.  We had a great time with all the family and ate like champs, but boy was I glad to wake up Sunday morning and realize there were no more kids' birthday activities on the agenda! Sunday morning Gabi had her first marinera class and w...

Now it's time for me to write an Olympics post from behind a TV set instead of from a nosebleed seat from some Olympic venue in London.  It's my penultimate night in Switzerland and we've been reported for a noise complaint.  This embodies my experience in Switzerland.  Controlled madness.  I can be excited for Puerto Rico's performance in the Olympic games but not enough to bother the neighbors (oh and by the way a lady next door kept me up half the night bawling at 2:30 am two nights ago, super weird).  What propelled this noise complaint? (Normally I would be shocked but when it comes to my voice and decibels of course I am not).  I just happened to be for the first time in many many months jumping up and down in front of my TV rooting for Puerto Rico's own Javier Culson in the 400m men's hurdle.  He was one of a handful of Puerto Rican athletes in the 2012 Olympics and happened to be a favorite in this event at the Olympics all along and came in 3...

Last week we finally made the decision that we are moving to Peru in August.  What could've been a sad thing for the kids was thankfully turned on its head by the fact that Peru is the place we're going to! Now they're super excited -- primarily about family of course but now they've also started thinking about decorating their new rooms (although we won't get a new apartment until probably December so we'll have to live with Jose's grandma until then) and being able to take soccer lessons, tennis lessons, dance lessons, swimming lessons, you name it lessons.  Finding schools has been a challenge though so we're still working on that which is really the most important thing at this point.  I was also an emotional wreck at the end of last week when we had to say goodbye to the kids' teachers, friends and parents after two wonderful school years at Ecolint . We will never forget their teachers and friends, such a wonderful group of people from all over...

This was a great weekend despite freezing temperatures!  First everyone is quickly recovering -- I'm probably the farthest one behind but at least I feel good enough to be useful. :)  Then Dad and Jose both arrived on Thursday and Friday afternoon we drove to Tignes for another round of skiing.  While I stayed with the kids most of the time (and most of the time indoors because it was soooo cold!) it was a very relaxing weekend and the boys got to enjoy their skiing.  Whereas in November there wasn't nearly enough snow now there's actually too much snow!  The good thing is all the runs are connected with snow so you can go everywhere around the mountain in skis (or sled if you're me and the kids).   Here's Jose and Dad starting their first run on the first day, basically leaving from right in front of our apartment and this tunnel took them to one of the lifts. On the way back on Sunday afternoon we stopped at Annecy for a late lunch and took some be...