Peru 2012

 My husband and I had the chance to go to Peru with 30 BYU engineering students.  (April 23 - May 7) The students take two semesters to study world problems and find engineering solutions.  Our first projects took place in Matinga, a little village not too far from Cuzco.  This is one of our service projects.  The school asked us to prepare their green house.  Above is the before and below the after.  We removed lots of weeds, rocks, trash, glass, and brought in top soil.  The students will help plant and take care of the garden and the school will use the produce for school lunch.

 The cooking is done inside without ventilation so lung and heart problems develop as a result of smoke inhalation.  The students designed more efficient stoves that had better combustion to decrease the smoke.  This is an oven they are building for the school.  The challenge is to use affordable materials and to teach the villagers how to make and use these inventions.

 The oven team after completion.  With this oven, they will be able to bake bread for the whole school.  To primitive?  The school was given a beautiful three burner propane stove with to propane tanks and large pots.  It is sitting unused in the library because they can't afford to buy propane and they don't know how to use it.  They were excited to learn how to use the oven and even asked for the recipes we used to make the bread.

 The students jumped right in to make the adobe for several projects.

 See, you really can bake bread in a barrel.  It was delicious too.  We also made brownies and cookies.  (When I say "we," I do mean the students.  It's the "royal" we.)

 Working along with the villagers to make this stove and oven inside a families' kitchen.  Now he will teach others how to make their own.  He worked with our students for two days to build this.

 The stove team with their completed stove.  I got to help shuttle tools back and forth.

 I also got to go to all the classrooms and tell a story about, "The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything."  Brandon and Sarah helped me.  Brandon was great to dramatically retell my story in Spanish.  We gave all the boys little matchbox/hotwheel cars and the girls made pipe cleaner bracelets, and received pencils.  We had so much fun playing soccer with them, braiding hair, painting fingernails, teaching them how to do "Cat's cradle" with string, making balloon animals, and just playing in between working on projects.

 This is one end of one families kitchen.  Those are guinea pigs.  They raise them and eat them.  Yes, we even ate guinea pig.  I can't say that any of us liked it very much...just in case you wanted to know...too many little bones.

 We had to shop for supplies in Cuzco.  We found all kinds of interesting things while looking.  Snakes in a bottle anyone?  We watched as one vendor make a poultice for a women using liquid from this bottle and other creepy things to help with arthritis.  I wonder if it really works.  It sure must stink if nothing else.

 Maybe you would like to make soup out of these.  We aren't sure what kind of animal that is but I hope I didn't have that for dinner somewhere on my journey.

 The school was given some computers by the government but they hadn't been able to figure out how to use them.  Our students figured it out and then taught the teachers so they could teach their students.

 The first day in Cuzco, they were celebrating the anniversary of their artisans market so we got to see lots of dancing and wonderful costumes.

 We even got to go to church in Cuzco.

 And, we were able to tour and hike around Machu Picchu.  It was so incredible.  Unfortunately we only had one day to sight see before getting back to work.

 Our next stop was Puno.  We worked for 4 days on the Uros Islands on Lake Titicaca.  Dora and Nelson were wonderful to host us all.  We loved the time we spent there.  Below, the students are teaching the people to build water filtration systems.  All their water comes straight from the lake...the same place all their waste goes...not a good combination.  There are many health problems as a result.  (The students built a filtration system last year for Nelson and Dora. Before the filtration system they had to have their children treated for parasites every few months.  Now they don't have that problem.  Others islanders reported the same results.  This time, they taught people how to make their own systems so they could build and maintain the systems on their own and we could reach so many more people.)

 The students also built a washing machine.  The women were excited to test it out.  All the washing in done by hand.  In the wintertime, that is an especially miserable experience since they can't help but get wet while doing it.  (The elevation is 13,500 feet above sea level.  It took some adjusting to be able to breath in that high altitude and the sun was intense during the day.  So easy to get sunburned.  Quite a few of us left our sunscreen behind for the children to use.)

 This is Emerson.  At age 6 he is a hand full but you couldn't help but love him.

 Emerson even gave me a ride around his island. (See the boat in the background?  His dad makes those for a living.

 I was usually surrounded by children.  We made things out of pipe cleaners, braided hair, painted fingernails, played duck, duck, goose. (pato, pato, gonzo), London bridges,Ring Around the Rosies, and anything else I could think of.  In this picture, I'm fixing "boo boo's" with triple antibiotic and "cars" and "mickey mouse" band aids.  It seemed like everyone needed a band aid after that.

We also built water pumps.  The islands have to be watered by hand in order to keep from drying out and splitting.  That gray pipe you see sticking up to the left in our group picture is the pump.  They were so excited to have one.  Other islanders made them for their islands too.

Life on the islands is hard.  They fish every day for food to eat. 

They islands are made out of reeds.  (Twice a year the reeds detach from the bottom of the lake and they use that as the base.  They have to move all the buildings and put more reeds underneath every two weeks.  They spend 4 days cutting the reeds.  No running water, no hot water, no bathrooms, not even a kitchen sink.  They had one solar panel that provided electricity for a couple light bulbs at night.  No heating, no air conditioning, no refridgeration.

We spent the night one night and it was freezing.  The ground was frozen in the morning.  I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful night sky than I did that night though.  So many stars and it was so quiet.

We had fried trout, rice, and potatoes that night for dinner with a mint tea to drink.  We had bread and eggs for breakfast in the morning.  It was such a fun experience.

I loved being with my husband and sharing this adventure with him.  I also loved all the students.  They worked hard and played hard.  We had a devotional every morning and night and I loved hearing what each of them had to say when it was their turn to give one.  Many of them were return missionaries who were able to practice their Spanish skills.  I don't know how we would have done it without them.  The students were gracious and loving and embraced the people we visited.  I hope we made a difference in the lives of those we tried to help.  I know that they made a difference in ours.  I would love to do it all again.

Christmas 2011

 Christmas morning on the stairs about 7 am.

All ready for Santa to come.

Mark and Sebastian...such a good baby.

Campbell and Logan...you've got to love the hair!

Eli and Brenna already worn out.

Creed our little jazz musician who wanted Santa to bring him an accordion.

 Santa delivered one to his house.  Don't know what he is thinking in this picture.  He's looking kind of serious but cute.

 Cole with his favorite present...a cougar pillow pet.

Checking out what Santa brought and looking in stockings.

 (Another before picture.)

 Cole and Grant were here Christmas morning to see what Santa brought for them.

 We are missing Sebastian and Ollie but don't these guys look cute in their Christmas pj's?

The Stringhams and Eli and Brenna were here Christmas morning and then we all went to church at 9 am.  We saved the present opening for after church when every one could be there.  We had our whole family for Christmas and I didn't get one picture of everyone.  We sure had a lot of fun though.  We had our traditional ginger bread house making, went to temple square to see the lights, had a girl day where we went out to lunch and antiquing, and the boys had a boy night where they went to the movies, played games, ate, and ate, and ate, went to the grill one night at Sundance with all the adults.  It was crazy with 8 kids but very fun.

My husband was the official photographer...I can't wait to see what his pictures look like.

Fun With The Fords

My family is complaining because I haven't been blogging so here goes... I had big plans to clean/dig out my sewing room today. My sewing room became the dumping ground during Christmas vacation. Pretty much every room is back in order except that room. I was easily distracted and decided to go on an adventure with my husband instead.

Brett wants to turn our old dining room into his office so wanted to go to IKEA to see if we could find a new desk or desk top to use. So, off we went to check it out. He found some inexpensive cupboards to use in his workshop but we weren't tempted by anything for his office. We did find some linen'ish' upholstered chairs we will probably end up getting to replace our old kitchen chairs.

Then, off we went to a salvage place for inspiration. We also were looking for old wood to possibly make a new table top for our old table. We didn't find what we were looking for but I did show my husband some old windows I had previously checked out. I'm going to add them to my new family room over the tv. It's one of those things that seems great in my mind so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will be great in reality. (I have no idea what to put behind the glass. It might just be windows with the wall showing behind.)

We then went to the Ford's house to play with the grandbabies. After putting together a marble contraption and playing with it, playing catch with a bouncy ball, reading a book, and playing with a battery operated tractor and track, we were all off to Pei Wei's for dinner, then stopped off to see what Restoration Hardward had. (I love everything in there and so does my husband. Too bad it's so expensive. I would be happy to furnish the whole office with Restoration furniture but it would take about 3 years to save up for it. You aren't in a hurry for your new office are you honey? I think it would be worth the wait.)

And then, we were off to Hatch Family Chocolate (supposedly they have a reality tv show about them). If you haven't been there, you are really missing out. The hot chocolate is made from melted chocolate mixed with cream. I don't even want to know how many calories are in that one little cup. It is amazingly good though.

See how much fun we were having?

Favorite Gifts Part 1

Grant made us this gift for Grandparent's day at school. I absolutely love it. I love it because he took the time to make this and remembered many of the fun things we've done together. I love picturing the time that he spent with his mom putting it together. I love looking at it over and over again. Thanks Grant for such a treasured gift!

It's titled: "My ten favorite things about my grandparents. #1 Hiking.
#2 Making things with G-ma like Christmas stockings, cookies, and ginger bread houses. (Grant and Cole picked out some Christmas fabric from my stash. You know...the stuff that you don't like anymore that you don't mind using because you really just want it to leave your house in any way possible. The stockings were meant to be temporary because they forgot to bring their Christmas stockings with them. Much to Candice's dismay...those are the stockings the kids now want to use every year because they actually helped design and sew them. They sometimes call me G-ma because that is the name they assigned me when we play Nintendo or Wii games. They think it is hilarious when they call me that.)

#3 Building things with Grampa like a tree house and sand castles. (I loved how he spelled Grandpa phonetically.)
#4 Mini golfing and football...playing sports. We played a lot of boccie ball, flag football, whiffle ball, catch, soccer, croquet, tag, kickball, etc.

#5 Sledding. We usually sled in the park but decided to make a big ramp off our back deck. We had a blast playing in the snow and building snow forts and snowmen. So much fun! Here is Steph's post about it.
#6 Crawdad hunting, fishing, and swimming at my parent's cabin at Lake Tahoe. (We also hit the garage sales when we go there. You almost always find great treasures. It is a "must" on my list of things to do at Lake Tahoe. Last summer I found a snowboarder who was sponsored by a big name company and was selling his coats and pants. He had a ton of them and they were either brand new or hardly worn for great prices. He was the same size as Eli so Eli has new snow gear to wear this year.)
#7 Road trip vacations...Williamsburg, Disney World, Lake Tahoe. We've had some other road trips with them but these are the ones Grant listed.
#8 My grama makes good costumes. She made me a cloak and belt. Here Grant is as Luke Skywalker and me as Madame Hooch from Harry Potter. (I'm not sure why this picture wouldn't post in the right direction...I tried.)

#9 "We went letter boxing together. It was fun." Letter boxing really is pretty fun. It's taken us to places we've never been before. It's like going on a treasure hunt. You are never too old for that. Just google letter boxing and you'll probably find some in your area.
#10 "They love me very much." What's not to love? Grandchildren are the best!

I love having pictures to capture all the memories. Good thing all my daughters are good about taking pictures. A picture really is..."worth a thousand words."
Tomorrow I'll post some more favorites.

Lagoon

Brett and I took the kids to the company Lagoon Day. We had so much fun. I only took a few pictures with the point and shoot but trust me it was fun.





We met up with my brother's family and took turns every once in awhile so we could ride an "adult" ride. Who know that cell phones were so strong. Mine even survived falling out of the fastest roller coaster I've ever been on and still is working. OK, it's a little beat up...more memories. I'll think about my adventure with my SIL every time I see those dents. She had it in her pocket so we could hook up with our hubbies after we got off.