cute little monkeys!

Realized that we don´t post too many shots of the cute little ones we work with each week. We´re usually just too busy feeding, holding, changing diapers, and playing to shoot photos, but thought this one was pretty cute. She was brought to the house just recently severely malnutritioned...she´s 9 months old but about the size of our 3 month old...cute as a button and gaining weight quickly...poor thing has to eat like every couple hours--doctor´s orders. Bright and beautiful...don´t you just want to squeeze her?

why we go to the Other park

So just wanted to share a shot of the neighborhood park, so you understand why we always pay to take the kids to Other parks...this park looks like an AmeriCorps project waiting to happen...another reason we are looking for a new house-location for House II. The park below even has bumper cars and the ever-popular, huge slides. Jen even wiped out going down this weekend and has the scabs to show for it...boy did the kids think that was funny when she landed on her rear end!

For Shawn Marshall

Shawn - we seemed to have lost your phone number and email - can you send it to Jen or I and/or post it here...thanks - andrew

Self Portrait with Monkey

Although the monkey was a bit camera shy, Andrew´s self-portrait just has to go on the blog (he doesn´t know I´m putting it on). Andrew took a hike in an animal park the last morning we were in Villa Tunari...Jen chickened out as we were told that the monkeys would bother you, take anything out of your pockets, take off your glasses, and oh, yeah,they even know how to take out earrings...yeah, I passed on that one, but Andrew said it wasn´t terrible, but they did find a bead in his pants pocket and climbed all over him!

Into the Jungle

Although the posts are out of order, last week (thurs-sat) we headed west down into the jungle with the Baker´s (Bolivia Youth Ministries from Oregon). They took us to there favorite vacation spot down in Villa Tunari, a semi-vacation town about 4 hours from Cochabamba. The drive was absolutely beautiful as the brown hills and cactus changed to lush green banana trees, bugs, and butterflies,and the humidity rose to almost unbearable. We had a very nice couple days relaxing in the water, swimming, and enjoying great conversation with the Baker´s. They are an amazing family with a heart for children in Bolivia. They have lived in Bolivia for 13 years, raised 5 children now back in the States, and their last, Joanna, lives with them now. We also had some nice visits from your friendly neighborhood tarantulas both on the road and in our rooms (and no, I didn´t stop to take a picture of him in my room), and Andrew got to hold a monkey (Jen deferred).

A beautiful day for the game

This Sunday we went to a local soccer game here in Cochabamba. We´ve been wanting to go, but games are only on Sunday afternoon at 4pm, so we had to wait til our schedule cleared. We saw Wilstermann play Blooming, a tie 2-2. It was a beautiful day to be outside and sitting in the shade! The game provided much entertainment, as often players fall down or fake being hurt and this medic crew runs out on the field with a stretcher (below) and carries the guy to the side of the field, where he promptly gets up and runs back in the game! Quite entertaining at first, quite annoying after about the 10th time. Also Wilstermann is the ¨home¨team so everytime the opposing team had a corner kick, the police in riot gear (sheilds, helmets, batons) run out to protect the kicker from people in the audience throwing full pop bottles at the guy! I was so distracted with all the other things going on during the game, that I completely missed seeing every goal scored...oh well, the ice cream was good!

Too much meat

Andrew made me put this picture on so you could see the size of these steaks...for you meat lovers, they were very good, but crazy big! We went to a churrasqueria (grill) last week, where your choice is pretty much steak or steak. You walk in to a huge grill filled with meat, smoking everywhere, and you order a plate and about 20 minutes later, you get this with french fries and a drink for 45 bs ($5.50). The steaks come from Argentina and have great flavor, but come on...who can eat all that? Andrew and I split it, but you would be surprised at the women chowing down on these, and believe me, they weren´t sharing!

just for the smiles!

Ok, so I had to put this picture on just because you can´t help but smile when you see her! She was covered with chocolate from head to shirt to hands...I guess this is what happens when you let a 3 1-2 yr old help you make chocolate cake; but you better believe she had a blast! When the kids come to our house, they just want to eat pancakes, color pictures, and cook! Of course we usually go get ice cream on our way back to the house, but that could be for me as much as for the kids! As a side note, this little one weighed 11 lbs. at 18 months when she was brought to the home...she will turn 4 next week and you would never guess that she barely made it back then...she has more energy than I can keep up with, but she is a bundle of love!

The Navidad tree

Whoa! I was blown away when I saw this poinsettia tree! Did you have any idea that your Christmas plant could become a tree? And beautiful at that! As Andrew said, I lost about 30 pictures because I was dumb and deleted them off the camara before making sure they were on our memory stick, so hard lesson learned. But here is another photo of the park visits we´ve begun with kiddos. Can you believe these slides...awesomely built into the hillside. Some of the toys in these parks would never pass safety inspection in the states...I went on a slide the other day that was like 25 feet up and I shot off the end of it running so as not to wipe out...can you imagine sending your 4 year old down?

Kids in the Park

Sorry for the long delay with no posts. We have been working a fair amount as of late...just finished a long weekend. Last week we also started taking kids from one of the houses on "personal dates". Each week we draw a couple of names out of a hat and they get to come to our house and hang out with us for the day. They love it and are perfect angels one-on-one. We had some awesome pictures of them eating pancakes, playing at the park, etc., but we just lost about 30 pictures off our camera yesterday... a sad day to be sure. But here are some photos of an outing we had with all the kids to a local park. I love the above photo...can you imagine him 15 years from now?

Jen making the kids sick on a merry-go-round...or at least an adaptation of one....a few kids had to get off after a half hour of this...I felt sick after a few turns.

Nothing but smiles. This kid is currently cooking pancakes with Jen at our house. It doesn´t take much to entertain them! They just showed up, which means I have to go for ice cream...it´s a rough life!!

Hiking

This is a photo I took overlooking Cochabamba while hiking a couple of weeks ago. Some of the hills surrounding Cochabamba are part of a national park...not exactly what you would call an ecological preserve, but at least there are some efforts being made to conserve the area. It made for a little peace and quiet at least...especially when I lost the trail and was able to do some cross country hiking. It would be pretty hard to get lost though...just head down hill till you hit the city.

This is a question for any FS or biology people out there (Art, Becca, Scott, ??). A poor photo, but I wanted to show the growth rings on this pine tree. Some of them are over 7 feet. This is a fairly dry area (no rains from April till November) and most of the vegetation consists of shorter trees and bushes (see first photos). The day time temps here stay pretty much the same year around - between 60 and 90 degrees. Thus my question is do growth rings really reflect a years growth in this type of climate...and this close to the equator?