One Year in our Home

It seems like just yesterday that I was making Jeff drive me by our lot and then our house as it was being constructed. We drove by every single day and took a picture, those were the longest days, so it's crazy for me to realize that we have already lived in our home for a year! We have loved every minute of living in our own home, getting to know our neighbors, hosting dinners and parties, shopping for and doing projects around the house. There are still many many blank walls and a never ending list of wants, needs(?) and projects that we have and probably will always have no matter how long we have been here; but I feel like our house is finally at the stage where we can show it off a little. Here's our darling home:

front entry-way

Great Room

Dining Area

Kitchen

Guest Bath

Guest Room

Master

our Backyard

Not pictured: our other bedroom which is doing double duty as a storage area and our office which is under construction.

Our last day in Peru

Knowing that we were going to be exhausted after the trek, we scheduled an extra day in Cusco to partially recover before heading home. I'm so glad we had one more day to explore Cusco, it is such an awesome city and we were lucky enough to spend the day with our friends from the trek before everyone left, some back home and others to the amazon. I was kinda bummed about not being able to see the amazon and then I listened to them talking about the bugs, snakes, spiders, open water, etc. and I was pretty darn happy to just be going home after such an unforgettable week.

                                   this was a huge market of souvenirs, clothes, blankets, etc.

cemetery in the middle of the city

there were little girls all over the city carrying baby lambs that you could hold and get your picture with, for a fee of course. It took some willpower for me to not give in, both to the little girls and the baby lambs but our guide Enrique had asked us not to support them and teach them that they don't need to school but just peddle on the streets instead and I wanted to respect him. 

appeasing Jeff with one more picture

the restaurant where we had our celebratory guinea pig dinner

Coca museum, somehow between probably 5 different people passing it on (think the old game of telephone) we got told this was a chocolate museum (Coca, cocoa, you can see how easy that is to mix up).  It was very interesting and came complete with a step by step guide of how to make your own cocaine (which of course jeff took a picture of but I didn't think it needed to be posted, im sure you could google it if you wanted), a coca candy sample and a very real and creepy looking dead wax figure of a man lying in a bed with a pipe in his hand, very strange to say the least. I'm not going to lie, it was cool but I was pretty disappointed there was no chocolate involved!

Jeff and I were sitting in the plaza discussing how cool it would be to see some mormon missionaries walking around, when what should appear are not two but four young men in shirts and ties. Only one of them spoke english and he just so happened to be from Holladay, UT it was quite funny. We asked for directions to the church, just to see what it was like but we never did find it. 

they even have a mickie d's 

the pictures below are random pics from our trip taken by our friend Eri and again her amazing camera, I wish all our pictures looked this amazing!

learning how to dye and spin yarn

our first meal on the trail

a 'buffet' prepared for us by our chef on our last full day on the trail

Winayapicchu

more baby llamas

guinea pig, bon appétit!