Damn that facebook!

My last blog post was 2.5 years ago. Years. That's an awfully long time. I'm blaming a relationship I was having on the side. You see, I wasn't being faithful to Blogger once I joined FB. Instead of documenting our own journey through an amazing experience, I joined FB and started reading about others. People I haven't seen since junior high (and will likely never see for the rest of our lives unless our paths coincedentally cross). Let me tell you, I know what's going on now with hundreds of my closest friends. I could give myself a swift kick in the backside for not blogging our final 2.5 years in Chile. I guess it's not like much happened in that time though. We just had a a couple of beautiful baby girls. We didn't travel too far from home~just a couple of trips to Colombia, a journey to Bariloche via a serious of busses and boats across the Andean border, and a little jaunt to Thailand. Oh yeah, and you know, we scarily experienced the world's 5th largest earthquake. As much as I'd like to forget about that last one, I do want to blog about it at some point, in order to document our experience for our kids. (Particularly Violet, who unbelieveably slept through the entire thing.) As my sister told me, she blogs to document her children's lives. Sort of a baby scrapbook in the digital world. So this is me. Scrapbooking away for Violet and Zoe. Only now it's to document our life in the good ol' U.S.A.

Is it wrong?

I'm sitting here at my school desk, breathing a sigh of relief and smiling...no, grinning...no, actually, I'm beaming. Why? I just said goodbye to my students for our two month summer vacation. I love my students. I really and truly love each one of them. And yet...I'm beaming. Is that wrong?

By the way

Click here for our Macchu Pichu photos

It seems I have forgotten to mention a small detail here on our blog....we went to Machu Picchu!

Traveling into the Sacred Valley feels like stepping back in time. Sadly, Peru is an incredibly poor country. As a result, many of the people who live there (paricularly those in the Sacred Valley) live in small huts and farm the land the same way their ancestors have for generations. We saw field after field where oxen, attached by a yoke, were plowing the dirt with an old metal blade. Farmers hacked at the sun-baked soil with ancient tools. It was an incredible,but heart breaking sight.

During our time in the Valley, we visited local markets, spent days hiking through incredible ruins, we squished ourselves into one of the most crowded micros ever, and we ate the big, fat Peruvian corn (seved with a slab of cheese) any chance we had.

It was an amazing experience. The fact that we also got to see Machu Picchu itself was just the icing on the cake. It was such an incredible feeling to be walking through these ruins and thinking what life must have been like for the Incas living there.

It's the end of the world as we know it...

We just got back from an R.E.M. concert that was awesome. Admitedly, I am just an average R.E.M. fan. Or was, shall I say. I am now a full-fledged genuine fan of R.E.M., and particularly of Michael Stipe.

I was enjoying the show, which was really entertaining. Not long into it, the most amazing thing happened. Michael Stipe asked the crowd if they had been following American politics. The crowd's reply: defeaning boos, hisses, and palabras malas towards the mere mention of the U.S. It made me cringe to hear it. I think someone would have to be living under a rock not to realize how much of the world views the good ol' U.S.A. these days, but this was the first time I'd heard it myself from a crowd of thousands of people. Michael Stipe continued on, summarizing that this was the most important election in our lifetime. The moment he mentioned Obama's name (and projected his image on the jumbo-tron), that very moment, the boos, hisses, and swearing immediately turned to cheers of jubilation and excitement. The Chilean crowd then broke into unified chanting of "O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!" It was one of the most powerful moments I have ever experienced in my life--one I will never forget. I have been so busy during the past 2 years focusing on what Obama means to me personally, that I barely paused to think of what he means to the rest of the world. It was during this moment that I finally let down my guard and allowed myself to believe whole heartedly that Obama will absolutely, positively be our next president. He must. I don't just hope anymore. I believe.
And in the closing lyrics from Mr.Stipe tonight (not coincidentally, he pointed out):

It's the end of the world as we know it....and I feel fine

gigantic. hairy. tarantula. in. our. bed.

That just about sums up the reason for my new arachnaphobia induced paranoia. I turned, curious as to what had made Brett exclaim in mild shock, "Oh, my!" When I spotted the hairy monster tying to crawl away from Brett's looming figure over the bed, I pretty much lost it. Stepping into the role of the brave hero, Brett trapped it in a huge yogurt container while I tried to snag a photo of it for you all to see here. Notice there is no photo. I simply did not have the guts to look at the thing long enough to get a photo. It might have had something to do with the fact that Brett had to keep shaking the yogurt container, as this baby was attempting to climb out. Did I mention it wasn't a single serving container...it was family sized?

I should fill you in on a major detail here. The tarantulas down here are non-venomous. Call me crazy, but I don't find much comfort in this. It helps a little, but when faced with having a gigantic hairy spider on your bed, it's not like you're that rational in the first place.

The Chileans refer to these non-lethal tarantulas as pollitos, which translates to "little chicken". I'm assuming it has to do with being fluffy and roughly the size of a chicken. Maybe they eat chickens for breakfast. Brett insists that our pollito was in fact a pollitito...just a "poor baby tarantula who probably got lost and wound up in our bed."

I have been getting the heebie-jeebies all day, convincing myself that I just felt something crawling on my leg. on my side. on my neck. wherever. I just can't shake that feeling like something is there that isn't supposed to be. I hope this fades soon. There has always been a pollito check before crawling under the covers at night, but you can bet they'll be militantly thorough starting tonight.

Spring Blossoms

Spring Blossoms

The birds are singing...the bees are buzzing...spring has finally arrived at the cabin! There's nothing that cures the winter blahs like a yard bursting with blossoming fruit trees. They smell so incredible, I don't have words to describe it. Above are some photos of our spring time blossoms.