Happy 2010! We hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and hope the new year is treating everyone well so far. Though our holidays were a bit different with spending part of them in Missouri and then going on to Maine, we really enjoyed our time with each of our families and also Jeremy's family, the Hough‘s. This was a difficult holiday season for everyone with the absence of our loved ones; Scott’s brother, Ryan, and my father, Robert. We've managed to make it through though we all still miss them and love them so much.
Since New Year’s Day, we‘ve been back in North Carolina. Given that we are in between our travels abroad, I often get asked about what we do everyday or whether or not we get bored. I can honestly say I don’t really get bored. We have spent a majority of our time researching our upcoming trips, which really is quite time consuming. We also work out, I’ve been cooking more (yummy French Onion Soup!), we watch movies, read, and we’ve also spent time up at the Strawn’s mountain house in Boone. Let me just say, this has to be one of the most peaceful places to go and relax. We love it there! We were up there last week with Julie and Jeremy and friends Casey and JP. We went skiing at Beech Mountain and had the most perfect day for skiing. Scott’s parents came up over the weekend and we had a fun dinner with their neighbors, Dwight and Susan. We also did some shopping and visited one of the local wineries. This week, Scott went back to Charlotte, and I ventured up to Boston for a couple of days to visit friends and also visit our storage unit. I’m not going to lie…I miss my stuff! I packed up some items we would need for our upcoming travels to South America. Then yesterday I flew from Boston to St. Louis to spend some time with my family before I fly back to Charlotte next Wednesday.
So, when are traveling abroad again? Our big departure date is Saturday, January 30th and our destination is Lima, Peru. While in Peru we plan to go to a town called Ica, where there is an oasis, to Arequipa, the Nazca Lines, Lake Titicaca, and Machu Picchu. We will travel around Peru until February 12th and then we fly to Santiago, Chile on the 13th. As we had mentioned before, we will be visiting our good friends Vicente and Lora who live in Santiago. We will also be visited by our good friend, Andrew, who will fly in from Boston on the 13th to spend the following week with us in Santiago. After that, Scott and I will leave Santiago and fly down to the south of Chile to Patagonia. We will return to the states on March 2nd.
I would like to ask everyone to keep Vicente, Lora, and Vicente’s family in your thoughts and prayers. Last week we received the devastating news that Vicente’s older brother, Ricardo, was killed in a plane crash in northern Chile, along with 3 of his close friends. Vicente and Lora, our hearts go out to you during this very difficult time. We are thinking of you and love you and can’t wait to see you in a few weeks. May peace be with you.
Farewell for now, we’ll be checking in again once we get down to South America. Oh and don’t worry, we won’t be getting any haircuts on this trip! There are a lot of mullets in this part of the world and we plan to avoid the chance of getting anything that remotely looks like one! :)
