So, kind of a rundown of things right after moving to Peru.

Wednesday, Nov. 5th, we arrived in Peru.  For dinner, we ordered Papa John's.  There (was) one in Miraflores (we think they've closed since, though) that would deliver.  It was grand.  My favorite garlic bread sticks were cheaper than back home thanks to the exchange rate, which is nearly 3 to 1.

We had to go to the grocery store, Wong, for some basics for breakfast, and some water since the tap water isn't potable here.  

That night, Henlie slept in a big girl bed.  We didn't bring a pack and play or anything, and the apartment came with a smaller bed in the second bedroom.  She did great.  She hasn't fallen out of bed (well, hers.  She has fallen out of mine a couple of times, though.)

Thursday, Nov. 6th, we went to dinner at Chili's, which is only like a block from our house.  Long block, though.  One direction, the blocks are long, and the other, they are short.  Rectangles.  Then we went home and ordered more groceries, like a 20 L of water.  Wong has online ordering, and they deliver.  We still walk there every couple of days or so, but delivery is nice for water and things :)

Friday, Nov. 7th, we all walked down to Matt's office.  However, no one was in and Matt had forgotten his office keys, so we headed back downstairs and walked another couple blocks to Parque El Olivar.  We happened upon a small koi pond and watched the fishies and the pigeons.  At one point, a man walked by and tossed un-popped popcorn at our feet, and then the birds came to visit us.  Henlie wasn't so thrilled about this and kept saying, "No, birdies!" lol



Sunday, Nov. 9th, we went to church.  We looked into the regular ward that we live in and also the bilingual ward that we were aware of thanks to other expats.  Turns out we would have been late for the one we live in anyway.  I thought that would also be the case for the bilingual ward.  More so because it's on the other side of town in La Molina.  However, it didn't start until 10:30, so we had time still.  We got ready and got a cab.  We managed to find the chapel, and lucky for us, it really was the bilingual ward.  We were there like an hour early.  (We were told you need to be early if you want to ensure getting a headset for the translation.)  Matt chatted with the bishop for a bit.  He apparently was a missionary with Matt's mission president back in the day.  Then we wandered around the grounds a bit.  We found bees in the flowers and Henlie managed to ruin her pair of tights :)

Sacrament was fine.  I had a headset.  We ended up sitting next to Rob and Abby McMillen's family.  Matt and Rob were on an investment committee together for UVU, so we've been chatting with them since they were moving down as well.  They arrived about a month before us.  Then it was time for nursery.  Henlie made a new friend, Sienna.  Her parents are the nursery leaders.  They also live in San Isidro, and they kindly brought us home after church.  We went to the English Sunday School, which was mostly full of missionaries.  We have all of the senior missionaries and mission presidents in our ward.  Relief Society has just started splitting into English and Spanish classes.  However, announcements and greeting new sisters is done altogether.  And, the first Sunday of every month, they meet together and use the headsets to translate.  Although it was really the second Sunday, they treated it as the first since they had a special meeting the week before.  We actually got out late because we were watching a movie.  

Monday, Nov. 10th, Matt actually went into the office, and the babe and I were home alone.  Talk about adjusting!  I did get the VPN set up the week before, so we could watch some American Netflix.  Henlie took a bath, and we found that our drain leaks, even when it is "closed"  Henlie told me the water was "singing." :)

Tuesday, Nov. 11th, was the worst day.  I had homesickness really badly.  I don't know how to be a stay at home mom full-time.  Matt was gone all day.  I don't speak Spanish, so I can't do anything on my own.  Just a really awful day.  Don't worry, though.  It has gotten better since then :)

And that concludes our first week in Peru!

The morning of the 4th, we had Henlie's 2nd year well-check appointment.  She is perfectly healthy.  Dr. Fullmer even gave her some new crayons.  We attempted finishing packing our house as best we could.  I felt bad that we left some packing and cleaning for Devan and Kayla, but c'est la vie.  That afternoon, Larry and Carrie loaded all of our bags and us and drove us to Salt Lake.  We made a quick stop at Matt's office for him to pick up some brochure or something, and then headed to the airport.  We picked up two luggage carts and managed to get all of us and our things inside and checked in.  We hung out for a little while and said our goodbyes.  Then it was time to go through security. 

We got to our gate with plenty of time.  I was hungry, so we picked up some food.  It was meh.  And too spicy.  Oh well, at least I was able to eat some of it :)  Henlie set up camp while we waited.  On our first flight to LA, she did pretty well.  She did want to go sit by Dad. (2 seats on either side of the aisle, so it went: Window - Henlie, Me - aisle - Matt, random dude)  Lucky for her, Random Dude was flying with a puppy in cabin.  While you're supposed to leave them tucked under the seat securely in front of you.... he maybe pulled it out into his lap with a jacket over it.  It was a late-ish flight, so he just huddled over it and looked like he was sleeping.  He let Henlie see the puppy for a minute though while we were in flight :)  She was pretty upset when she had to get buckled in her car seat again in preparation for landing.  The couple in front of us (who were on their way to Cusco and Machu Picchu), asked if she needed some gum for the pressure change.  We became sort of friends since we were going to the same place.  I did give her some fruit snacks, and that helped.  


We managed to get off the plane and to the international terminal of LAX.  Two rolling carry-ons, a diaper bag, Henlie's little backpack, Matt's work bag, a guitar case, and a car seat do not an easy trek make.  But we did it and got checked in with LAN.  Then it was another hike to our gate.  But not without going through security again :)  I forgot to empty my water bottle after the first flight, but they verified it was just water and we were good to go.  Thankfully, flying with a toddler gets you some perks, like being fast-tracked through security.  Oh, and our car seat is rather large since it is convertible, and they had to find someone to check it since it won't fit in the x-ray scanners.


Our gate was seriously so far away, but we made it.  We opted not to grab another bite to eat since they were feeding us dinner on the plane.  Henlie totally fell asleep 20 minutes before boarding.  Another toddler flying perk - early boarding.  They took all of the people who needed wheelchairs, and then let us get on.  Since Henlie was sleeping, it was extra hard getting everything on the plane, but one lovely flight attendant took the car seat for us.  She went ahead of us and deposited it in between our seats. (We flew in the center on this flight, which had 3 seats together).  We said hey to our new friends as they passed us, and settled in for the 8.5 hour flight to Lima.  (The customer service on LAN was night and day compared to our first flight on American Airlines.  There, we got moved up a row because of the car seat.  She seemed a little annoyed that we had the car seat on the flight.  We were originally right in front of the exit row, so it was a little smaller.  It was nice of her to move us, but everyone on row 6 was confused.  Once we explained they were now sitting in row 7, it was fine.  LAN, on the other hand, was super helpful and nice.)


Dinner was served shortly after boarding.  Henlie slept.  I perused the movies and was excited to find they had Harry Potter 7 Part 2 available. (I never did finish watching the series...) So even though I was exhausted and it was late, I stayed up and watched the movie.  During the credits, Henlie woke up sad.  I pulled her out of her car seat and she went back to sleep in my lap.  She stayed there the rest of the flight until breakfast.  It was hot and uncomfortable.  Especially, because I couldn't figure out how to recline the seats until... you know, around breakfast haha

They served breakfast around an hour before the end of the flight.  Everyone gradually woke up, and we had some half decent food for breakfast.  Henlie really needed a change, but we had breakfast first, and then everyone needed to use the facilities because they'd just woken up.  So...poor girl sat in a nasty, stinky diaper until we got to a restroom in the airport. :/  She survived.  Not ideal, but I didn't have to deal with changing a diaper on a plane. :)

So we eventually got off the plane, made our pit stop, and then went to customs.  It was pretty simple.  Because Peru struggles, we are on tourist visas right now.  We have 90 days before we either need to have the work visa stuff figured out or we ask for an extension. (I think they can give you like 180 days total).  We got through customs, walked past the lovely security dogs (which were totally not intimidating breeds like we use in the US), and went to pick up our luggage.  Again, we used two carts to haul all our stuff.  We exchanged some money and then put the luggage through another scanner, and then re-loaded it onto our carts. (We had 9 bags for the three of us, plus the carry-ons, personal bags, and the car seat).  Fortunately, we didn't have too far to go before we met with Matt's salesguy, Ricardo.  He had a taxi van waiting, and she took my cart while Ricardo took Matt's (I think, I could be wrong on that fact :))


And so, we'd made it.  All the way from Utah to Peru.  The van took us to our apartment, where we, unfortunately, had to meet with the real estate agent and landlord.  I was so tired and just wanted to lay down.  But no, there was chatting, and then the longest inventory of the household items ever.  Okay, probably not ever, but seriously, the Peruvian people don't do anything quickly.  Everything drags on and never starts on time :)  And let's not talk about driving here.  It has been nearly 6 weeks, and the driving (while I tolerate most of it well) is still terrifying.

Eventually, we could relax and start to settle into our house for a bit before we had to walk to the grocery store for some food and water. (The tap water isn't potable here.  Although I've gotten over it for teeth brushing.  I HATE trying to clean my toothbrush with a bottle of water.  There is no water pressure there :))

And that is the beginning of our Peruvian adventure.  Naturally, there is more to come, because we're here for at least a year :)

Our ward Halloween party was on Halloween itself.  We had some yummy dinner and then the kids trick-or-treated.

Saturday, Nov. 1st, was a busy day.  In the morning, we took Munchkin and Cinco to Joe and Susan's house to live before we moved.  After we dropped the kitties off, we dropped our house plants off at Matt's Grandma JeanAnn's.  Then, that afternoon, we went with Michelle through the temple.  After that and dropping some stuff off at Natalie and Dave's, we met with Tashina and Natalie, who are fostering Mocha for us.  Long day.  Sad to say bye to my furry babies, but we did have a lovely time in the temple.  And my parents were kind enough to come over in the morning while we were running errands to help us pack.  


Tuesday, Nov. 4th, we had Henlie's 2 year well-check appointment.  She is perfectly healthy.  We surprised Dr. Fullmer with news of our moving to Peru....that day.  He gave her a new pack of 24 crayons, and we were off for some lunch and to finish packing our house.  But the rest of the moving story is its own post.  This is just for tidbits. :)  Perhaps I'll end here so Peruvian tidbits don't come before the moving story :)

The day before Matt came home from Peru, it was the Hadfield Halloween party.  Henlie and I went and partied :)  

Grandma put together a little treasure hunt for the little kids with candy at each clue.  McKade did a geocaching treasure hunt for the older kids.  


Like all of our family parties, we had a good time eating yummy food and chatting with our favorite people.  Henlie also participated in the cake walk this year.  


And then there was trick-or-treating.  Henlie didn't so much care, so we groomed her to pick out the good stuff.  At one point, she picked out an Almond Joy.  And then she stuck it in Ian's bucket.  I was okay with this because Almond Joy haha.  She kept going back to Grandpa to get the yummy stuff.  Candy Tax is a great thing, especially when you have a nearly two year old haha.

Getting Henlie's pictures this year proved a little tricky.  I decided I wanted them done at Carrie's house since Henlie loves Grandma's house and she has some of her favorite things available there (like swings and a slide!).  We were originally going to do them on a Friday, but then Sarah's mom ended up in the hospital.  We moved them to Tuesday, the 21st, but it ended up being pretty cold and windy, so we pushed it to Wednesday, the 22nd.  Fortunately, it was pretty nice.  Grandpa even came home and was able to saddle Jewel for some pictures.  Below are some favorites :)