Peter Pan and the Crocodile

Mike's family stopped by our ward's Trunk or Treat on October 29, 2022.  Their costumes were first-rate.  Heidi was Peter Pan, Mike was Captain Hook, and Audrey was the crocodile.  Calder Burke was Smee!
 

Audrey is Three!

 Audrey wasn't sure how to handle all the attention she got at her third birthday party on October 29, 2022.  

Mike spends weeks planning the decorations for Audrey's birthday parties.  The theme this year was "Mermaids."  Mike drew a chalk mermaid on Heidi's and his concrete back porch.

Heidi is a great cook, and we couldn't stop eating the chocolate chip cookies, fruit, and raspberry cupcakes with lemon curd frosting.  The table was decorated with pictures of Audrey, taken this year.

Mike strung purple and pink balloons and streamers around the party place--the Spendlove back porch.

Lily Flindt loved climbing on the bouncy house in Mike's backyard.  "The bouncy house was one of my best investments," Mike says.  It is inflated in the backyard for every birthday party, and spends the rest of the year in a downstairs bedroom, occasionally inflated down there.

Rebekah and Michael kept an eye on their beloved Lily.

Heidi's mom, Gay, drove to SLC from Axtell, Utah, for the party.

Audrey and Naomi Moench (Jared and Megan's daughter) drew with chalk on the porch.

The guests gathered to watch Audrey open her presents.

Audrey got some great gifts, like this Barbie doll!

Audrey also got big hugs from her grandma and grandpa!

Peruvian Feast

We ate a Peruvian feast for Sunday dinner on October 23, 2022.  Bryce and Kirsten joined us from BYU.

 Michael K and Rebekah brought cute Lily, who is nicknamed “Lily Pad.”  My doll collection is irresistible to my little granddaughters and great-granddaughters!

    

Michael and Heidi also joined us, before leaving next week for three weeks in New Zealand. 

Audrey has decided she likes traveling, so we hope the New Zealand trip will be a happy one for her!

I used my new red and blue alpaca throw blankets as table runners, and furry stuffed llamas as table decorations.   We had chichi morada (purple corn drink spiced with cinnamon sticks) and empanadas for the appetizer, and lomo saltado for the entrée (stir-fried beef with tomatoes and onions). I accompanied  the lomo saltado with rice and French fries, as they do in Peru, and with a salad of fresh corn, lima beans, radishes, and onions, in a vinaigrette dressing.  We had passion fruit cheesecake for dessert, just like Dave and I ate at one of the luxury hotels during our trip to Peru.

"It always tastes good," David tells me after each dinner, when I grill him as to whether this dinner was too bland or too this or too that.

Bryce brought two friends from BYU.  “I love to meet your friends,” I told Bryce, and I assured the friends that they were welcome any time Bryce wants to bring them with him. 

Calder Burke was a dinner guest.  He is now showing his personality--calm but bright and alert.

Audrey already has strong opinions, within that angelic little body.

Peru XI: Machu Picchu

The grand finale for our tour was a day at Machu Picchu, on October 13, 2022.
 

We boarded the train at Ollantaytambo, and traveled for three hours into the jungle.  It was party time, as a singing group serenaded us and Peruvian folk dancers swirled up and down the aisles of the "sun room".

Mike and Dave both got to dance.

Machu Picchu, at 7,874 feet, is actually lower than most of the places we visited in Peru.  It was still a stiff hike to walk to the top level of the ruins, to get the best view.  We passed the spot where the Inca Trail arrives at Machu Picchu, and we saw several hikers who had been on their trek for three or four days.

Nobody knows for sure how Machu Picchu was used, but experts think it was a royal city.  Cusco was the imperial capital of the Incas, but Machu Picchu was a smaller retreat.

A group of llamas graze high above Machu Picchu.  They are in everyone's photos!

Visitors are now limited to three hours to wander around the ruins, and they must follow designated paths.  When Mike visited ten or more years ago, visitors wandered freely, for all day.   I didn't feel constrained.  Machu Picchu was magnificent--more impressive and beautiful than I had imagined.  However, after three hours, I was ready to go.

It is a challenge to take photos that don't have people in them.  Machu Picchu was full of visitors.  But some of them were even more photogenic than the llamas!

Areas of Machu Picchu had steep tiers, like the ruins of Ollantaytambo.

After our visit to Machu Picchu, we stopped for lunch in the town where we caught our train back to Ollantaytambo.  Tourists take buses for the last half hour ride to Machu Picchu.  

Throughout the trip, I adored Peruvian food, including this rice and seafood dish.

I also loved Peruvian folk music, including the music played by this group at our restaurant.  I bought their CD.  The train ride back to Ollantaytambo was quiet--we were tired.  The next day, October 14, 2022, we traveled back to Lima, had one last fabulous dinner in stylish Miraflores, and then flew home early in the morning of October 15, 2022.

Peru X: The Sacred Valley

Pets or dinner?  Visiting a Peruvian home where the guinea pigs scurried across the living room floor was just one of our adventures on October 12, 2022.  We fell in love with Cusco, but left it to visit the Sacred Valley, nearer to Machu Picchu.

Our bus wound higher and higher, above Cusco, until we could look down on the crowded, red-roofed city, with its cathedral and central square clearly visible in the middle.

We then drove down into the Sacred Valley, a green, fertile space surrounded by high mountains.

I was continually fascinated by the strong, entrepreneurial Peruvian women, selling homemade crafts in little stalls and by the roadside all over Peru.  So many of their items were beautiful--alpaca hats and sweaters and shawls, dolls and stuffed llamas.

It was hard to know what to buy.  Mike bought one of two of these fluffy animal hats for Audrey and Calder Burke, but Heidi wished I had carried more home for the Christmas table!

There were crosses all over Peru, including on top of this cafe.  Are those guinea pigs beside the cross?

There was a Catholic church in every town.

We visited Chincero, another impressive Incan fortress.  I had no idea how many huge forts, temples, and cities the Incas built in just a few hundred years.  Those monuments have lasted for many centuries.

Our guide asked tour members to pick up these brown and white pebbles and guess what they were.  When one tour member suggested, "Llama poo," everyone dropped them.  Actually, the guide told us, they were dry potatoes which had been frozen.  That is a way of preserving potatoes in this cold land.

We then stopped at another cultural center, like Kenko on October 11.  We watched and listened as weavers showed us rough wads of wool from different Peruvian animals (llama, alpaca, vicuna). 

They demonstrated washing the wool, dyeing it with natural dyes, making yarn, and then weaving on a traditional Incan loom.

Earlier in the day, I had watched a young girl selling silver inlaid pendants on the street.  At the cultural center, a silversmith explained that those inexpensive pendants would turn yellow within weeks. 

 At the cultural center, I bought a sterling silver pendant, with a reversible Andean cross design, as a momento of the trip.

We ate lunch cooked by the native women at the center, with a variety of traditional Peruvian foods.  We sipped chicken soup filled with quinoa, and we were then served a plate of roasted guinea pig, chicken, mashed squash with the seeds included, and quinoa salad.  Addition platters of baked sweet potato, corn, fava beans, and boiled potatoes were passed around, along with aji sauce.

In addition to receiving a slice of guinea pig on our plates, it was also served decoratively on a platter!

Dessert was a stewed tree tomato!

We next visited the Gonzalez family's pottery factory.  The owner showed us how he took clay from the stream near his factory, wet it and mixed it, and turned it into beautiful pots, platters, and vases.

If my bags had not been full of other treasures, I would have brought home some Peruvian platters.

We walked down an alley into a home which mixed Christian and pagan traditions to an alarming degree.  The family also lived closer to their animals than I could imagine.

Guinea pigs ran about on the floor of the living room.

A collection of pagan totems decorated the walls--a llama fetus, skulls.

Yet, in a niche in the wall, there was also a picture of Christ, next to a family photo.

As I thought of the pros and cons of taking tours, I admitted that the many unique cultural events included in our tour was something I never could have planned on my own.

Tour members were fascinated, but also horrified.  When the owner of the house suggested we buy some crafts from him, there were few takers!

Our last event of the day was visiting the ruins at Ollantytambo.  

The ruins were massive, with a dozen or more rock tiers leading high up a mountainside.