Show & Tell Tuesday, My Favorite Vacation Edition

Today focuses on my favorite vacation.  Well, y'all know I love to travel.  I have since I was a small child & we took vacations every summer.  I remember asking for a road map when I was 12 years old for Christmas & use to plan family trips, like almost down to the minute.  I am not too far from that now when I travel!  I worked for Delta Air Lines for 1 year, then was a travel agent for about 10 years.  I have been blessed to travel a good bit, but there are so many more places I would like to see! To think about my favorite vacation doesn't come too easy.  Instead of a favorite vacation, I will highlight some of my favorite places.

First, my favorite city in the world, New York City. My first trip to NYC I remember was in summer of 1983.  I was starstruck by the city & starstruck by meeting some celebrities. Every trip afterwards has been great.  I try to do one new thing each time I go now.  I have been countless time & I am still energized each time I go.

Isabella's 1st trip to NYC in 2007

The girls there in June 2013, Brook's first trip

My Dad & I in Times Sqaure

Another place I am energized is Disney World.  I always enjoy trips there & it is fun now to experience that with my own kids.

November 2009

I was so excited this day.  It was my 39th birthday & we made it at the gates a few minutes before the park opened.  That is huge for our family!

I always loved Brook's expression seeing the castle for the 1st time!

(She had been once before when she was under 2, but didn't remember the park.)

The stars of the show

This picture was from January 2011.  Avery says we need a 5 year break time between trips.  We will be returning this fall, so we will be 2 months from making it 5 years.

Another favorite travel activity is taking a cruise.  I am always up for that :).  My last cruise was with my mom, sister, & niece.  One thing that made that so fun was that it was such a last minute trip!

Here is my sister & I on that cruise 

Another fun cruise was one Avery & I took from NYC.  It was a wonderful moment I wanted to bottle up forever....leaving on a cruise out of my favorite city!  I was standing on a cruise ship looking at the skyline of NYC on one side & the Statue of Liberty was in view when I looked off the other side of the ship. It doesn't get much better for me...or maybe a Disney Cruise out of NYC :)!  Here some pictures from some other cruises:

I am loving Brook's hair in this photo!

And as y'all know, we absolutely loved our time in Europe last year.  There are past blog posts with pictures from that trip as well.

A few other more favorites:  camping with my family & friends at Village Creek State Park (this use to be a yearly Easter tradition);  Boone/Blowing Rock, NC;  Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky; Washington, DC;  Seattle, Washington; Las Vegas with my sister: and even homeschool conferences in Dallas, Cincinnati & Nashville.

Our group riding in the back of Avery's truck at Village Creek State Park

Getting ready for the annual Easter Egg hunt

Campfires

These kids loved playing on the dirt hill!

Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky

This was a family favorite of mine, because it was one of the first things we did just the 4 of us for a vacation.

My girls :)

Washington, DC

October 2013

I am thankful for each travel opportunity in the past, present & future.  Happy travels!

Weekend Wrap-Up, Week 14, Easter Edition

Here we are on a Monday again!  I am hoping you all had a great weekend.  I have to be honest, I was not looking forward to the weekend, basically Sunday. But looking back, it was a good weekend and God showed up in many little ways to remind me how much He cares for me. I received emails, Facebook messages, & text from friends who said they were thinking of me.  It means a lot, especially coming from friends who are hurting & have many busy things in their lives.

So now that Isabella has a camera, it seems half of the pictures I want to share are taken on her camera, so there may be a part 2 of this post later with her pictures!  Here is a re-cap of the weekend:

Good Friday - I had my book study that morning.  I am so thankful for these ladies to call friends here in Bogota.  Each are from the USA originally, but all live here now.  We meet every 2-3 weeks & have been reviewing the book "Disciplines of a Godly Woman".

Friday night, we attended the Good Friday service at the United Church of Bogota, the English speaking church.  It was a great service & we are so glad we attended.  We observed many different things here Friday how the Catholics observe the holiday.  I will post more about that later on our Bogota blog.  After the service, we went to Jorge & Ginny's with some others for a late dinner & time of fellowship.  We returned home around 10pm & had a Skype call with our dear friends in Bangkok, Thailand.  We love our monthly Skype dates with this family & it helps us so much to have them to talk with & share our stories with one another.  There are lots of laughs too & we can't wait to see them one day again face-to-face.  

Saturday - We attended the birthday party of Annie, the oldest daughter of some friends.  It was fun to be around friends & we had good food too!  All the pictures from the party are on Isabella's camera.  I'll share some of those later!

After the party, we were able to take a family drive!  Jorge let us borrow his car for the day, so we drove about an hour outside of Bogota to a town called Guatavita.  (I have lots of pictures from that, but will share those later as well). It felt strange for the 4 of us to be a in a car with no one else.  Normally, we are with a taxi driver!  This is probably the 2nd time in a year the 4 of us have been in a car by ourselves. Strange, but a new normal.

Saturday night, I did my Easter cooking & basically had everything ready for Sunday morning.  This made Sunday so low key in the cooking department!

Sunday morning - Easter Sunday!  Again, I'll share a few more pictures later from Isabella's camera, but here are ones I took of our day.

The girls goodies Easter morning

Yes, those are goldfish crackers in a water bottle, topped with green tissue paper....my version of a carrot!  I found the Easter candy at PriceSmart, our store here similar to Cosco.  This is the only Easter candy in the city, and we are thankful for it!

This is the Easter candy bag we gave to Clara.  Brook drew the pictures on the bag topper we made & Isabella did the writing.  On the back side, I wrote John 3:16 in Spanish. Don't be too impressed....I copied it from the internet!

Brook made this decoration to hang on our window.  

We tried making a few different colors with some food coloring.

Instead of dying eggs, we died the shells of hard boiled eggs we served for lunch. 

This is the strawberry pound cake I made, thanks to a recipe on the side of a cake box mix my parents brought to us.  It called for pudding & chocolate chips as well.

I made a homemade chocolate butter cream icing & it all turned out pretty good.

Our friends, Robbie & Lauren, came over for lunch with their 3 kids.  It was the first time we've had their family over, & it was fun.  You know you love these people when you spend your evening cleaning highlighter markers off your walls & are not upset about it!  (They have a 2 year old boy...and a 4 year old girl, and a 6 month old girl).  Here are our decorations:

Lauren brought the Reese eggs to us that her husband brought back from the states last month.  

I wanted some spring flowers in the house & these cost about $1 USD.  I do love some cheap beautiful flowers!

This picture shows my cross box my mom bought for me soon before I moved & an Easter card they sent the girls.

Our table

I don't own any tablecloths here, which I will need to get in the states.  So, using my best creativity, I took my Christmas table runner, flipped it over to the other side, & this is what you get.

I decorated it with my cross I received from my friend, Laura, & sprinkled candy.  I have always been a fan of decorating with candy! 

 I also like decorating with candles, so we put these into a shape of a cross.

Another highlight of the day was Skyping with family, being able to see my parents, sister, & her family.  I was able to text with some friends that night, so it was good to reflect on the day.

The song I had on my mind all day was "Because He Lives".

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.  I've got to get that on my wall somewhere.  Thank you Jesus for the hope you bring to the hardships of life.  

Friday Favorites

Here are some highlights from our past week:

This picture was taken last Sunday at church during the children's sermon.  Brook, who is in the pink striped shirt, answered a question for the first time during the sermon...in Spanish!!  

Colombia played a soccer game Monday against Dubai (& won!).  We all went downstairs to our local bread store/restaurant to have Spanish class with Clara, while watching the game, & having a snack.

We decided to order lunch & this was Avery's face as he started pulling things up from his soup.

Well, hello little chicken foot.

Oh, & hello chicken eyeball.

Y'all, it was disgusting.  We couldn't stop laughing or looking, as bad as we wanted to look away.  Avery posted a similar picture on Instagram, to which my sister responded, "Chick Fil A never looks like that!"  Ah, this does make us miss Chick-Fil-A!

Clara took this picture of me as I laid back to get comfortable.  We did go upstairs back to the apartment after lunch for me to have my formal class time. 

In honor of March 31st, this week, here is a funny clip from Parks & Recreation.

It's April!!  That means I change my calendar, which highlights birthdays of a nephew & niece this month.  And April means we travel to the states next month!!  If only you knew how much we need this right now!  But we will press on with Spanish & our calling here.  

One more tv reference that made me smile this week.....we were invited to a bachelorette premiere party with our friends in Memphis.  So fun to have a fun night with friends already planned for our time in Memphis.  Oh do we miss time with friends!!  

And this isn't a favorite thing, but an event from the week. I tried to make homemade monkey bread because there is no such thing as canned bread here.  Well, there is also no such thing as bread rising at this high altitude!  This is bread after I have left it out to rise for 2 days.  It never moved.  #monkeybreadfail

I'll end with a funny graphic I saw online this week.

Most importantly, may we remember the hope that Sunday's coming....a day to celebrate our resurrected Lord.   Happy Easter!

April Fool's

The Colombians don't celebrate April Fool's Day, but I had 2 American girls who celebrated yesterday in Colombia.

These are some pictures of their handiwork (and it just so happened all of these happened in each of our bathrooms):

plastic wrap on the toilet seat in our guest bathroom

tape over the light fixture

I don't even know what to say about this one ;)

Toast & sticky notes in our shower, along with cotton balls in the shampoo bottle so that it will not come out.

What's Cooking Wednesday

Today I will share a classic, easy recipe I have used the last 10 years.  It is simply for chicken tortilla soup.

The recipe is basically all from cans, but you can use fresh cooked chicken instead, which I do most of the time.  This can be cooked on the stovetop or in a slow cooker.  The base of the soup is thick, so it is a hearty soup, certainly not a broth.  If you want it to have a thinner base, only use 1 can of cream of chicken soup. I made this last week, but forgot to take a picture of the finished result.  Here is the original recipe:

Chicken Tortilla Soup

2 cans of cooked chicken 

1 can of Ro-tel

1 can of corn, drained

1 cup of milk

2 cans of cream of chicken soup

dash of garlic powder

Add all ingredients to slow cooker on low for 4-6 hours or add to pot to bring to a boil on the cooktop & simmer for 30 minutes.  Garnish with tortilla chips, cheese or other options such as avocado (my favorite).  Enjoy!