Our trip to Chiclayo

We left the house to the airport in Lima around 6:00 p.m. only to find out our 9:00 flight to Chiclayo had been delayed for two hours. The people on LAN Peru were nice and accommodated us with free dinner for all 18 of us to eat and relax while we waited for the plane to arrive. There were 5 restaurants to chose from and Johnny chose McDs and got his french fries.

We arrived in Chiclayo at midnight. It took 55 minutes to get to Chiclayo and 5 minutes to get to our hotel. John and Johnny were so tired they just collapsed on the bed. We stayed at the Santa Victoria Hotel and out of all the hotels we stayed in Peru this was the only hotel that had CNBC. John's favorite channel.

The next day we went sight seeing and the first stop was to Lambayeque which is about 15 minutes from Chiclayo to the "Museo Nacional Tumbes Reales De Sipan". This museum is the most impressive museum that we visited in Peru. The artifacts inside are just amazing and you can do a tour or go at it alone. Either way you will learn a lot about the Indian tribe and its leader "El Senor de Sipan" who ruled over his people around the 1600.
Here is a picture of all of us in front of the museum.

We weren't allowed to take pictures in the museum to show you the beautiful artifacts. So we decided to go to the actual ruin site and see the village site. That story is for tomorrow.

Our 2nd week in Peru

The second week came so fast. The week of Christmas. Aunt Karen with our friend Alex, Aunt Bebe, Aunt Luisa, Uncle Peter, Uncle Hernan and Aunt Vilms with Uncle Micheal and Johnny's cousins (Kristian, Peter, Alexa, Kristoffer and Preston) all came to Peru. On the 24th we surprised Aunt Bebe with a serenade for her birthday. She was so surprised.




We also had a visit from Santa Claus who made a special stop at our house to deliver the presents. Johnny was Santa's helper.


Once Santa Claus left to go to the rest of the houses, Johnny was in charge of passing out the rest of the presents. Around 12:45 we finished opening the presents and we finally ate our Christmas meal. We rested up on the 25th because the next day we were off to Chiclayo. This city is about 11 hours on bus or a hour by plane. We chose to take the plane trip. Stay tuned to hear about our trip to Chiclayo for my brother Hernan's wedding.

Our First week in Peru

Happy New Year. We hope everyone is having a good year. We can't believe our visit here is almost over. We had a great time an saw some amazing things. Our first week was pretty laid back. December is the beginning of summer and the first spot we hit was the italian gelattoria 4D. It serves the best freshly made ice cream. There are favorites like vanilla, strawberry and chocolate. Then there are the peruvian flavors like passion fruit (maracuay), lucuma and guanavana. And then the italian flavors. You can't go wrong with any flavor.

We went to the Pescatorre in Miraflores. It serves some of the best seafood and Peruvian classics like Lomo saltado. You can't go to a restaurant and not order a Pisco Sour. This drink is made with Pisco. A liquor made from grapes and about 24% alcohol or more. This is strong stuff and the people in the mountains drink this to keep warm and stay alive in the cold winters. Alone it can burn your nostril, throat and stomach but mixed in it is very tasty.

We also visited the Museo de Oro Del Peru (Peru's Museum of Gold). This museum displays some of Peru's finest treasures from the Pre-Incan era. There are also on display mummies. This museum also holds one of the largest gun and armory collection. We wished we could have taken pictures but no cameras aloud. If you would like to take a look at the collection you can visit http://www.museoroperu.com.pe .

Merry Christmas from Lima, Peru

We want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. We have been enjoying the warm weather and visiting with Johnny's relatives.

We arrived safely in Peru.....more details to follow

One week until Peru

We had a busy week after Thanksgiving. We celebrated Johnny's grandfather's (Pop Pop) birthday. We celebrated our six anniversary, yes, six years! Then we celebrated John's birthday at the beach and had pizza watching the sunset and the pelicans diving into the ocean. And blew out his candles back at the house. Johnny loves swimming in the pool everyday and looking out for the neighborhood alligator who swims in the lake. He even has a paying job, he helps his Pop Pop clean the fountain of flowers everyday.

For our anniversary, John and I went to see the movie "No Country for old Men". It was a very good movie but not recommended for kids, very violent. This movie is in the classic style of the Coen brothers. Other movies they have done were, "Fargo"and "Raising Arizona" , so if you liked these movies you will like their latest one.
If you are ever on the West Coast of Florida, you should visit Estero. It is perfectly located, just a few minutes away from Naples, Fort Meyers, Marco Island and Bonita Springs. A few hours from St. Petersburg and Tampa. And this place has great malls. Now we are off to the East Coast to visit Johnny's aunts and uncle in Miramar.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!! We are now basking in the 85 degree weather. We are at Mam Mam and Pop Pop's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone have a wonderful Thankgiving and be careful going back home. And we hope you find that great sale on black Friday , we will be still sleeping unlike you wild and crazy people that live for the Friday after Thanksgiving, and you know who you are. We will be updating the blog once or twice a week for a few weeks. Then we are off to another adventure, we are off to Peru. Keep posted so you can find out where Johnny is when we set off to Peru.

Day Fifteen Part II

We stopped by the Tovar house which is the oldest house in St. Augustine.

We opted to do the tour ourselves instead of getting on a trolley. It was a good idea because we could get out and take pictures and drive to the next site as fast or as slow as we wanted. The sites are all really close and very easy to find.

We also went to see the Indian village that Ponce de Leon met when he landed in Florida. The chief stood seven feet tall and the average height was over six feet 7 inches.


Our last stop was the Castillo de San Marcos. This is the largest fort in St. Augustine and was used by the Spaniards.
This was our last stop for this adventure, we had an eight hour drive to Miramar.

Day Fifteen

The Fountain of Youth in St. Augustine, Florida


BEFORE














AFTER

















After Savannah, we crossed into Florida and spent some time in St. Augustine - which is the oldest settlement in the United States (founded by the Spanish in 1565). As we were exploring the town, we came across the location of the Fountain of Youth - the legendary spring in which explorer Ponce de Leon was attempting to locate when he discovered Florida.

After we paid our admission, we quickly learned that we would not be able to leave without hearing about 27 lame jokes on the Fountain of Youth. For example, as we approached the site of Ponce's landing, a group of people passed us and one of the men pointed to Johnny and said, "There he is. He comes here every week....he's 58 years old!" Yuk-yuk-yuk.

In keeping with the spirit of these "jokes", we decided we would have a little fun too. As part of the tour, everyone gets a sample of the spring water (Incidentally, it tasted like warm well water and, ironically, it probably took a few years off of you after drinking it). John posed for a picture while drinking the water, then took off his shirt and hat and put them on Johnny for the "After" shot. Oddly, the tour guide and some of the other tourists were not amused by this. John suggested they were in a state of shock after seeing his amazingly sculpted pectoral muscles - but somehow I don't think that was the case.

After completing the tour and hearing someone say, "Hey, is that your Dad?" (pointing to Johnny) - we were off to the next site.