peru! round one

well we safely made it to peru! a couple fairly long flights from portland (kids were troopers) and finally landed in lima late. i had arranged a taxi from our hostel to pick us up at the airport and he was there!! the short drive to our hostel was a great intro for the kids on how driving in foreign cities is a bit different as there was a little collision with another car....lucy's eyes got as big as saucers, the driver on the other hand didn't bat an eye.  we basically crashed one night in lima and then took a short flight the next morning down to the southern city of arequipa where we have been hanging out the past few days.

arequipa is a pretty big city but we stuck to the central historic district which was beautiful.  it is called the "white city' as all of the buildings are made from white stone. my favorite fun fact about arequipa is that in the native language of quechuan it means 'let's stay here', which is apparently what some inca ruler said upon arriving.  gotta love a city which basically means 'here's good'.

in the central plaza there were loads of pigeons and if you buy a little sack of rice the pigeons will land all over you......needless to say the kids loved this and we spent a couple evenings here.

we managed to find the farmers market which is always a must for todd.  the kids were blown away (as they should be!!) by the scope of a market in another country. we barely made it out of the fruit section because lucy wanted to buy all of it!

we walked thru a few churches. those catholics know how to build some amazing structures. anyway i don't want to bore you with pictures of churches but both todd and i found this particular painting pretty funny. i don't think davinci's version of the last supper had guinea pig as the main course!

one of the highlights for me was the monestary of santa cantalina. the monestary has been around since the late sixteenth century and has housed hundreds of cloistered nuns in its time. there are actually about thirty nuns still in residence who are sectioned off as the remaining monestary has been opened to the public. it was a stunning place, full of vivid colors and textures. i am not a photographer but my guess is that those folks love this place.

so now we are off to lake titicaca and bolivia! hasta luego!

packed up and off we go!!

packing for 6 months of traveling is challenging no matter what, but in our case we also had to fit four seasons of clothes into relatively small back packs. we brought outwear that includes puffy jackets, rain jackets and fleeces since we will be at elevation with cold temperatures. we also need thermal underwear, warm hats and gloves.  on the flip side we will be in rather warm weather and sometimes on the beaches, so we also have shorts, tank tops and swim suits.  i read lots (lots!) of travel blogs with packing lists and used those as my template.  i'm sure there will be something i wish i brought, but more likely i packed too much (despite my attempts to go pretty darn minimalist).
one of the best tips i read about again and again was to use packing cubes to keep everything organized and easy to manage in our packs......they are pretty amazing!

riley's stuff all laid out and then in packing cubes....

lucy's stuff....

my stuff....

ultimately we managed to get ourselves into one medium sized pack each (well todd's is a bit bigger). we weighed our packs and the kids came in at about 15lbs each and the adults at about 25lbs, pretty manageable really....

...........and here we are ready to board our plane for six months adventure in south america!!

my goal is to post about once a week (ish), so check in with us from time to time and follow along!!

spring has sprung

i know i have fallen far short of my new years resolution to blog more regularly. sorry about that.
as our departure for travel adventures nears i am sorting things out in the tech department.  i bought a little chrome book to take on our travels....so i am motivated to test things out to see how easy it is to blog and share pictures from this little lap top that could.

here is what we have been up to lately.
spring sports....riley plays both lacrosse and soccer (we have very very busy weekends!!)

both kids enjoyed a weekend with their momo....
riley's day involved a timber's game

this is a boy in love

lucy's day involved a mani-pedi....

there were some amazing wildflowers this spring....

we also had a visit from todd's mom judy and from his dad and step-mom jim and lynn this spring.....somehow i didn't take any pictures of either visit (bad stacey)

so as a bonus there is this fun picture of lucy...

we leave in just three weeks....since this is the first blog post i've managed in five months i doubt i'll post again until we are on the road.  so see ya in south america!!

new years resolutions

so 2015 was a terrible blog year for me....not sure why.  but my resolution this year is to be better.  also we plan to use this blog for our travels so i want to get myself back in the habit.

on that note, here is january 2016

january begins with lucy's birthday....she's nine!

her birthday party was at a trampoline park.  two hours of jumping and more jumping!

you may not know this about my daughter but she has a thing for shoes.  her birthday cake this year was a high heeled shoe for my shoe loving child.

and lucky us grandpa dierker and grandma lynn were able to come out to celebrate her actual birthday.....with another round of cupcakes and candles

so far so good....2016 is off to a great start!!