Showing posts with label Expat Life. Show all posts

Friday the 13th. We didn't really have an unlucky day, though :) We picked Matt up at the airport (my first time using the park and wait area :)) and visited Matt's old boss and an old colleague. Aside from the waiting (we didn't go in the first stop), it wasn't too bad. It just took forever :) We went with him into Rustico, though. Those guys are pretty chill, and they loved Henlie. She appreciated the colored pencils and paper while we talked too haha.

Since we were out and about, we opted to eat out for dinner. Henlie chose Peruvian ("Purple drink!"), so we went to La Carreta in Orem. Sadly, Peruvian food is better in Peru. Darn crappy produce in this country :) Also a downer, the TV on our side of the restaurant doesn't work, so we couldn't even watch the Peru game :) 

We were happy to have Daddy come home and happy to go out for dinner. I also cracked open some Double Stuf Oreos after Henlie was in bed. They're HUGE lol Also, I'm grateful for drinkable milk in which to dunk my Oreos. I haven't really been able to do that for a year, and it has been sad.

November 5th, Thursday, was a big day for us. We moved back to the United States of America! Our flight left Lima at 2am, so we actually left our house in San Isidro around 9:30pm Wednesday. We got there with plenty of time. Andrés and Licet met with us. They wanted to get some dinner with us before we went through security, but between waiting for Delta to open their lines and then Andrew's lap ticket not being purchased (again), it took much too long. Like we were the last ones from our flight to get through the ticket counters. Blessings, though, were seeing a friend from our ward, Graciela, who was escorting a missionary; the airport personnel letting Andrés come to the ticket counter with us since we had three trolleys of bags; and Henlie being relatively good while we waited an eternity for them to figure out the ticket. Oh! And giving Andrew a checked bag, even though he didn't have a seat. It meant we had one less overage :)

Anyway, we finally made it through chatted for a few minutes with Andrés and Licet, changed Andrew, and went through security. In Peru, no one can bring liquid in excess of 3 oz through security. (In the US, children can. It just has to be tested.) Also, I was wearing Andrew in the wrap, and they had to manhandle us both to make sure I wasn't hiding anything between us. In the US? They wipe your hands with a little strip and run it through a machine to check for residues. I don't think we had to take our shoes off in Peru, though. So, bonus?



Our flight to Atlanta was super empty, which was kind of nice because people could move around and find nicer sleeping arrangements. I felt like the staff was a little more lax on their duties, though. Like, they're getting ready for landing and still picking up breakfast trays. Oh well :) They were nice enough. We also made super good time, like we landed 30-45 minutes before schedule in Atlanta. This worked out pretty well for us. We had a scheduled 2 hour layover, but between landing early and our flight to Salt Lake being delayed 31 minutes (the pilot of the plane before us didn't show, so they had to find a new one), we had plenty of time to go through customs, get our stuff rechecked, and change both children's diapers and put them in actual clothes (they flew in their PJs because of the time :))



And then we flew to Salt Lake! Larry was kind enough to come up with the truck so we could get all of us and our things home. I think we were the only ones from our flight who were actually staying in Salt Lake City. I feel like we made decent time getting out to the baggage carousel, but there were no other people there. In fact, two airport workers were loading all of it on a large cart. Then they offered to wheel it for us, but Matt didn't have any US dollars smaller than $100, so he was just going to get carts and do it ourselves. Instead, he did pay the one guy in soles, and we met up with Grandpa and got loaded in.



It was so good to be back. Even better is being able to go to Grandma's to have dinner. Devan and Kayla came over after and Devan helped Matt put our bed together so we had somewhere to sleep. It has been very nice being back. (Except the cold!) But having family around and being able to speak English has been good. And now we are still putting our house back together, so that is why I am super behind on my thankful posts!



Other thankful tidbits from the trip:
Elder Brown. Poor kid was going home (to Bozeman, Montana! He appreciated Big Bang Theory for putting them on the map haha) after injuring, or rather, re-injuring, his ACL after two weeks in the MTC in Peru. He does plan to reenter the field when he's fully healed up. We had a good chat, and it is super nice to have common ground with someone instantly due to religion.

We also sat in front of another missionary who was going home from Tennessee, Spanish speaking, on our way to SLC. Again, I think it's fun traveling with missionaries :)

Drinkable milk. In Atlanta waiting for our flight, we bought some drinks. Matt and Henlie got juice, but they had chocolate milk...and I totally got some. And it was delicious.

Henlie's patriotism. In Atlanta, there was a big American flag going through security. She saw it and said, "There's my flag!" She's super excited to live in her country and get to see her flag all the time. Although, she's not so good about sharing it. ("It's my flag, not Andrew's flag.")

So our friend Andrés bought our mattress from us, but since he had an airport run at 6am, he picked it up last night. This meant we had to put the crappy mattress that came with the apartment back to sleep on. I...maybe laid on our mattress, stroked it, and said my goodbyes....maybe :) It's the best mattress we've ever slept on, and it's at least 1,000 times better than the box that passes for a mattress in the apartment. There's a reason we spent money on a new one for a year's use when we already had one.

Let me just tell you, I'm super glad it was only one night on it. And I sure hope it's way more awesome than what Andres has been using because the mattress from the apartment is truly awful. I'm so grateful for the mattress we bought, and that I was only without it for one night before we move home.

Also, today I have to be thankful for my little Henlie. Today is her third birthday! She has been blessed with many messages and Facebook comments wishing her a happy birthday. She is such a good big sister to Andrew. They sure love each other :) She has been trying to help me pack. (Never mind I have to take her things out of the suitcase to rearrange things :) I love that she wants to help :)) She's my little porcelain doll. She has a very big personality and loves to exercise her independence. She keeps growing up, too. She's gained probably at least two inches in the last three months. It's fun to see how tall she has gotten over the last year. For example, she can reach the elevator button in our building all on her own without even having to stretch much. It's also fun to look back at pictures a year ago and see just how much her hair has grown. She's our little smarty-pants with her own opinions. She tells fun stories and it's amusing to hear how her mind works sometimes.

She definitely tries our patience often, but we sure do love our little girl! 

Tuesday, November 3rd, aside from doing more packing, we checked one more thing off of our short list of things to do in Lima before we move. We went to the Museo del Convento de San Francisco de Asis de Lima, or the Museum of the Convent of Saint Francis of Assisi of Lima. I'm so happy we made it, even if we drove through the ghetto to get there. It was awesome. We got an English tour of the church, which included awesome art and woodwork along with history lessons. And the library! It was awesome! They had choir books that the choir would use for the words. Very large, heavy books that the'd put up on a big lectern that could rotate to set up multiple books. The pages were made of goat skin and the covers were wood.

Then after touring the church (and seeing an awesome Last Supper painting. I loved how Judas was portrayed with the Devil whispering in his ear), it was time for the main attraction for me, the catacombs! Being in real catacombs that were hundreds of years old was way cooler than any recreation done for halloween. Although, it got warm pretty quickly. We learned that they used to lay a body in a grave and pour lye over it to quickly decompose it, and they'd lay body over body in drawers like that. When it was excavated, only the strongest bones survived the lye, so the separated them by bone type to get an idea of how many people were buried there. So there was a pit full of skulls, and Henlie gave everyone a chuckle because when she saw them, she said there were monsters :) Unfortunately for us, pictures were not permitted anywhere inside, but their website has some. Also, you can read about it in English. Here is the link to the English homepage. Here are the virtual tour pictures.


We also looked at some of the markets because I wanted to get a particular shirt that I didn't get at the market the day before. We ended up walking to the main square, so I got to take pictures of some of the awesome architecture. Apparently a lot of the main buildings in Lima were gifted and built by other countries, so there's some pretty cool architecture.














In our quest for the shirt, we ended up walking past an artist who does street caricatures and portraits, and Andrés insisted Matt get one done. It ended up being a family portrait. By the time that was done, Andrew was chilly and needed a change and to eat again, so we just went back to the car to change him, and then I fed him on our way back to Inka Market where we knew the shirt was :) 



We did find the shirt I wanted for Henlie and even picked up a onesie for Andrew. Then we stopped by KFC for dinner and headed home. Even though we were gone longer than I thought and we still had lots of packing to do, I'm so glad we got to spend a few hours doing some touristy things in Lima. I'm also glad we went back to Inka Market to get this shirt for Henlie. I would have been sad if we hadn't.