home

we're home. in cusco that is. it feels good to be back, but it's a bitter sweet feeling. we love santiago. i love santiago. we had such a good time, and although I felt ready to come home, it feels a little empty being here. maybe part of it has to do with the drastic change in weather. It was in the 80's -90's in santiago.. and here it's raining and pretty chilly. I feel bad for Isa who has to start wearing layers again.

She's pooped the poor thing. but she travels exceptionally well. she doesn't fuss at all, except for a few minutes here and there when we won't let her put herself into danger. but everyone on the flights comment about her, what a good baby, they say, she didn't cry at all. i'm proud of her. i'm also proud because she says "airplane", though its very difficult for anyone else to recognize. the flights were relatively short. only 3 hours to Lima and then another hour and a half to Cusco.

i jumped out of my skin, grabbed the seat in front of me and started praying only ONCE on this flight. we get the worst turbulence while coming up through the mountain clouds. I never used to be nervous to fly, until we came to Cusco. But thank the Lord we are here. we immediately cleaned the month and a half of dust accumulated in our house before even sitting down. I'm a little anal like that, but I can't actually relax until i have a clean house.

i also love Ricky for forgiving me. do you know what i did? I accidentally left our backdoor unlocked. yes for an entire month and a half, our house was like a sitting duck waiting to be robbed. but we have the best anti-theft protection. our neighbor. she owns the small convenience store across the street from our place and thankfully keeps a watchful eye on the neighborhood. mostly out of curiosity of course. in spanish we call her "sapa". i think nosy would be the closest translation. but we love her anyway. however, she collected our mail for us and a few things came back open!

we're looking forward to the new year of work here in cusco. looking forward to seeing the people of the church and the kids...

Isabella is 12 months and doesn't walk yet. but she's getting closer. I think she finds that crawling is a much faster, and safer, method of transportation. We have so many hard floors here, so her falls hurt more. she avoids falling. She is such an active little girl, she climbs on all the furnature and up the stairs and gets into all the cupboards and drawers. We've been staying with Ricky's parents since Christmas. Their house isn't baby proofed so I'm always running after Isabella as she tries to escape outside or climb into the tub.

She began saying some words over the last few months, but now things are getting clearer. The other day we were asking her where all the people were, by name. When we asked where is Peter (her grandpa) she said, Ahi esta (there he is in Spanish). She's said this before, but this time it came out very clearly. She understands both English and Spanish, and can respond certain things in both languages, although she understands more in English than in Spanish because I work with her on English all the time.

A wonderful thing happened the other night. After one year of night wakings, Isabella finally started sleeping through the night. 10 hours straight. Thank you LORD!

Isabella's post-birthday party sugar high hangover

this was taken Jan. 11th, the morning after her birthday party...

as you can see, she didn't wake up with the birds, nor when Ricky and I got up... she suffered her first sugar-high hangover

priceless

Isabella's first party

waiting for the guests to arrive and trying to keep cool in a nice and breezy spot

gosh i thought i was on vacation from being "Tia Tracie". here i am playing some of our kids ministry games with the girls

at the table... sofia looks a little bored! she woke up after eating some sugar...

fire...is mesmerizing

this is Isabella's "Oooh" face

we helped her blow out the candles

she had fun mushing her cupcake before eating

these are the ladybug cupcakes i made (i guess martha stewart isn't that bad after all! they were her idea)

with piñata of course... but there was no stick to hit it with... i had to pull this little string which was supposed to rip open the bottem (i guess they decided that baseball bats and broom handles were too dangerous). It didn't work though and i just had to rip it open by hand

a few "big kids" in the mix.. i guess they thought it was too much candy for just 4 little girls...

finally after getting washed up

with the adults later on...it was our turn to eat something

a special birthday girl

!Happy First Birthday!

Isabella Amaia

with mommy

with daddy... i love those toes

our little birthday princess

the typical "ooh" face

the getaway