Wednesday, January 4, 2012

2011...

2011 was a pretty quiet year for us... nothing all too exciting or important to report.

Well, I guess the "traveling the world," "running the NYC Marathon," and "Bekah dancing her 10th year as a Rockette" things was pretty cool. For photos of our travel, just look to the previous posts as those were the last posts that were made. Sorry about the drastic reduction in blog posts after our return to the United States. :O)

To answer the stock questions regarding our trip...
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Q) What was your favorite place?
A) We do not have ONE favorite. The most powerful place was Israel... to walk where Jesus walked was beyond words! The most surreal was Africa... to see those animals while we were the ones in the cage was fantastic! And Australia is the place that continually draws both of us back to it!

Q) Where was the best food?
A) Bizarrely, our safari in Africa ranks on this. At our tented camp, we enjoyed absolutely mouth-watering food! The best steak that we have had... EVER! Also ranking, Thailand did not disappoint! And the Bavarian cuisine of Munich and Salzburg was fantastic as well!

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Upon our return, we immediately dove into catching up with friends and family, helping at church with their sports and summer camps, helping move a dear friend half way across the country, traveling back and forth from NY for various dance rehearsals and performances (I'll let you guess which of us was doing that!), getting the resume ready for to start a job search in a swell market, and the big and not-at-all pleasant task was going through all of our belongings and down-sizing considerably!

All the while, I was training for a very silly venture I had signed up for... to run the NYC Marathon. I was able to finish the marathon in under 5 hours despite major cramping in my legs and feet. It was a fun race and it was a fantastic first marathon as there are so very many spectators, bands, and refueling stations to keep you motivated as you go! I enjoyed running for AUTISM SPEAKS and thank everyone who sponsored me from the bottom of my little heart!

I'm the one in the blue running really fast and not panting at all. :O)
Actually, I was on the bottom of the bridge for this part of the run.


We moved out to NY for the Rebekah's 10th season as a Rockette at the end of September and we cannot believe that the season is over already! Time flew by! We enjoyed a couple months of having drawers and closets, over a month of "just us" time, and then 6 magical weeks of super fun visitors who came to visit and watch Bekah dance so beautifully in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular!



The job hunt is going as I expected it would... difficultly. Steady as we go! We stand blessedly assured of God's very generous provision as the search continues!

We have commented many times as we have recalled the events of 2011, that we are absolutely overwhelmed by the beautiful friendships we have! Thank YOU so much for offering your guest bed, your time to help us out, your time and interest reading of our journeys on this blog, and your prayers.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

We're home!!!

It has been…

47,074 miles,

153 days,

95 hours of flying,

63 hours waiting in airports,

54 different beds,

23 flights,

and 19 countries

since we touched American soil!

We’re glad to be home!


We had an AMAZING time seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling, hearing, and experiencing a little of what this world has to offer. Above all, we enjoyed visiting old friends and making new friends along the way. Thank you to those who put us up, bought us meals, followed our blog, and prayed for us as we traveled!

We'll continue to post on our blog as the rest of our adventure through life continues...

El Salvador!

Thank you TACA for getting us to El Salvador safely!

We came to El Salvador to do one thing... to visit our Compassion kid!!!

Our hotel was lame, the area of San Salvador that we were in was lame, the fact that every building had a guard carrying a shotgun was lame, our dinner at Burger King was lame, and our bathroom without a shower curtain was... you guessed it lame.

But all that lame-ness, was SO worth it when we got to spend the day with the child we have been honored to sponsor for many years! We got to meet and spend the day with Julio, his mother, the site director, and our translator for the day as we visited Tin Marin Children's museum! The museum was awesome! We learned about technology, dental care, volcanos, natural disasters (and what to do when they happen), gravity, butterflies, space, airplanes, doctor's offices and so much more! Then we went to lunch at Pizza Hut (Julio's pick :O)!

We only got to see him for 6 hours or so, but it was very hard to say good by to him. If ever you can meet your sponsored child, we highly recommend it. And if you're not sponsoring a child, click HERE right now! It is an awesome blessing to the child, moreso the child's family, and you!!!


As it is not allowed to post pictures of our children online, we posted our hand prints which we made on a car at the museum...

Our day in Lima!

As I said, we were rescued by our friends the Dirkeses who showed us a great time! We had some great home cooked food, watched Tangled with the kids, and did a bit of a tour of Lima! We had a great time!

They dropped us off at Pepe and Vicki's... some friends of a friend from back home! They were very sweet and hospitable and had a beautiful home!



We went for a walk, had a wonderful meal, and I stumbled through the little Spanish I know in order to talk the entire evening. They are dear people and I can't wait for them to visit us!





Monday, June 27, 2011

Our Eventful Journey Home from Puno!

After our super fun (and cold) stay on our floating island, we stayed one more night in Puno before catching our early morning bus back to Cuzco. We arrived at our bus stop at the appointed time to find out that our bus was not going to run that day as there were some protests going on which blocked the road to Cuzco.

Which confused us when they said another bus was going to Cuzco... which they put us on. So, we thought they were just lazy or the bus wasn't full until, we arrived at the road block a couple hours later. Sure enough, there were some very organized protestors who had blocked every road in between Puno to Cuzco. So, after 3 hours of attempting to get to the other side of the blockade (many ideas were suggested... walking, taxis, riding on the back of motorcycles, the bus on the other side of the blockade switching with us, and more... none of which were successful), we returned to Puno where we purchased last minute tickets to fly to Lima (as we were going to miss our flight to Cuzco the next morning).

We had an easy flight to Lima where we had dinner and were rescued from a night staying up in the airport by our dear friends from Riverside... the Dirkeses!


The blockade!


We did have a pretty view while we waited though! :O)


Sunset on Lake Titicaca!


Comida! (Food!)

We certainly weren't suffering while on the island. We were incredibly well fed!


This trout was one of the best meals of our entire trip!


Bekah made the mistake of giving some food to the cat. So, she had an audience for the remainder of the meal. :O)