Today was the birthday for both my brothers: Trav and Luke. They are two years apart, but their birthdays fall on the same day. Here is an undoctored picture of what 26 and 24 years of living on the edge can do to a person:

We had a fun day celebrating Travis’ & Luke’s birthdays today.  Travis turned 26 & Luke turned 24.  Aunt Maggie and Cousin Beth were up from Chicago, and with John and Sarah, Luke & Nikki, Travis & Jennie, and Justin and I, we were quite a ruckus group!  We all met and John & Sarah’s around 1 pm and had a nice afternoon of visiting, running to the fireworks store, and watching old home videos of the boys from 1987.  Then we had a wonderful meal of grilled chicken and brats, corn on the cob, fresh green beans, baked potatoes, homemade crescent rolls, chips and dip, etc.  And if we weren’t stuffed enough, we followed it all up with Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake.  I saw this cake on the smitten kitchen blog a couple of weeks ago and immediately decided I needed to buy the book that the recipe was in.  When Travis saw the cake, he asked right away if I would make it for his birthday.  Sounded great to me!  And yesterday, after the cake was made, he also requested Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Crunch Bars to line the plate.  Yes, it is completely over the top, but it was definitely a fun birthday treat.  After we were packed to the gills with food and dessert, the guys opened their birthday gifts, and then we headed out to John & Sarah’s land in the country and the guys arranged quite the fireworks display.  It was a fun way to end the evening, even though there were several times of running for cover while laughing hysterically!

Justin and I spent lots of time in the car today, but as it took us over to Hudson, WI/Minneapolis, MN, it was time well spent.  We got to Hudson right about noon, stopped for a quick bite to eat, and then I dropped Justin off at Troy Burn Golf Club.  His dad had to work in the area in the morning, so they decided to meet up there for their afternoon round.  They both agree that it is a very nice, but very challenging course.

Then I drove into downtown Minneapolis to Nicollet Mall for the Farmer’s Market.  The weather was gorgeous, I got a primo parking spot and came away with plenty of goodies – bread, carrots, sweet corn and green beans.  I was very tempted by all the beautiful flowers, but I figured they would wilt by the time I got them home into water anyway.  A picture lasts much longer, even if it doesn’t smell as nice!

I also just enjoyed walked and driving around the downtown area, with the skyways and sunshine!

After a quick trip to IKEA, I drove back into Hudson and walked around their downtown area and then along the waterfront.  I had brought a blanket and a book along in case I had extra time, and it was very nice to relax a bit before I returned to the golf course to pick up Justin.

To make up for yesterday’s lack of anything worth writing about, I’ll give you two recipes for the price of one today.  

First off, I bought pears last week and promptly forgot about them until yesterday when I was going through the refrigerator and found the fully ripened and ready boscs in the drawer.  As we have been on somewhat of a muffin kick lately, I found a recipe for pear muffins.  This is a very good recipe, but I ended up with 10 muffins rather than 6 (definitely not a bad thing!).  I think it depends on how big your pears are.  I also added just a bit of water as the batter was a little drier than I liked.  They came out very very good though, and I will definitely keep this recipe around.

Next, as we have had an abundance of plums from our tiny little plum tree (and we really don’t care for eating straight plums), I found a highly reviewed recipe for Plum-Apple Butter.  While not a true jelly/jam recipe (doesn’t contain pectin), it is as close as I was willing to come to one.  This was a rather labor-intensive process with lots of putzy steps (which I am really not a fan of) and it made a huge load of dirty dishes (also not a fan of), but as I would probably only make it once a year, and only then depending on our plum crop, I’ll also keep this recipe neatly tucked in my file.  

Plus, it’s fantastic! 

I think Storm has the memory of a goldfish.  ”What is this fantastic little house for me to sit in?  So comfy!”  She doesn’t remember for a second that the only time these carriers ever come out is to take them to the vet so they can get shots.  As you can see from the picture, Norm remembers.  He remembers VERY WELL.  As soon as Justin brought these out of the basement closet, Norm ran down to Travis’ room and hid under his bed.  And as soon as Justin let him out of the carrier upon arriving home, Norm ran down to Travis’ room and hid under his bed.  He is there as I write this, several hours later.

Mmmm….dulce de leche.  Or in english, sweetened condensed milk (goat’s or cow’s) heated to produce a wonderfully thick, rich caramel.  I’ve made it in the past by boiling a can of sweetened condensed milk, completely submerged in water, for 3 hours.  This is an incredibly easy method with incredibly tasty results.  However, recent warnings against this method (namely, that the cans can explode) and the fact that our house was like a sauna for several hours because of the steam, have led me to find alternative methods.  The first of which is the easy way – just go out and by it!  Well, as this product is not quite in the mainstream of grocery items available in Stevens Point, we drove down to Plover’s Mexican grocery store, La Guadalapana.  And Hooray!  They actually carried two different types – one made with cow’s milk and one from goat’s (I had read about both on the internet).  So I happily scooped up both in order to make Alfajores this weekend, which is a Peruvian sandwich cookie, made with almond cookie dough and dulce de leche (or a similar product, manjar blanco, which I’ll never find in Wisconsin unless I make it!) sandwiched in between.  

What an absolutely beautiful day outside!  It finally rained last night after a week of ridiculously high humidity percentages, and the sky was clear and sunny.  Gorgeous.  After Justin and I got back from the gym, Travis and I went downtown to the Farmers’ Market.  What a spread!  I always forget to take my camera there, and that is exactly where I wanted to take all sorts of fantastic pictures to post.  Ripe tomatoes, green beans, sweet corn, peppers, potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, flower bouquets, and on and on.  I had to hold myself back, and we still came home with a bag full of goodies, including beans, carrots, corn, and yellow and purple fingerling potatoes.  I love summer.

So I have this new recipe for Key Lime White Chocolate Chip Cookies, and I am rather torn about it.  They were incredibly easy to make, and the flavor is really good – especially if you like lime.  But the texture is off a bit.  I think they needed another full cup of flour to give a bit more substance to them.  And maybe some macadamia nuts… maybe add more lime zest and back off on the lime juice… and something else… just not sure at the moment!  But honestly, I am not sure if I want to take the time to make something that is just “really good” and not “fantastic.”  Though maybe they could become fantastic!  And as I write this, Justin thinks I should make them again.  And maybe my slight disappointment comes from the fact that I really just want another pan of those Peanut Butter Fudge Crunch bars…

My day had been going by, quite uneventfully. A morning jog around the Schmeekle Reserve, a trip to the grocery store (needed a new jar of peanut butter, as you can see), a quick easy lunch (warm french roll with Havarti Cheese – mmmmm) and then making a new recipe. And now my day is fantastic and wonderful and I have a recipe that will be with me until, well, until I have a heart attack from eating too many of these bars!!!

While enjoying dinner tonight (no chippy chicken, thank you very much!) we received a phone call which only promised to increase the fun factor of the evening – Jenn King asking if we wanted to meet their family at Belts’ for ice cream!  So an hour later the three of us walked down to meet up with the King family.  Here you can see the adults intent on eating their treats (and ignoring the camera) and Maureen and Madie enjoying their ham-tastic shakes (okay, the flavor was bananaberry, but Justin said it tasted like ham!).

We had a very nice Sunday, much of which was spent outdoors.  After church Grandpa & Grandma (John & Sue) Miller dropped by and the five of us enjoyed a nice lunch out at Charcoal Grill.  Justin had to get some work done at home this afternoon, but Grandpa, Grandma, Travis and I went biking along the Green Circle Trail a bit.  It was a very warm afternoon but there was a good breeze, and since so much of the trail is shaded it was great for riding bikes.  

Shortly after we returned home Grandpa & Grandma headed up to Wausau and Travis, Justin and I headed over to Iverson Park for Woodlands’ Picnic and Baptism.  They had grills roaring and we had a great time sharing good food and spending the evening with friends.  

I certainly had plenty to keep me busy this weekend.  I was organizing a wedding at church for a young couple, and between the rehearsal last night and the ceremony today, I had an awful lot of details to keep straight in my head!  This was a rather large wedding (almost 300 guests), with 9 bridesmaids and 9 groomsmen, two ushers, 4 greeters, parents, grandparents, plus the bride, groom and pastor.  Oh, and a full band set up on stage.  It was a bit of a puzzle at the rehearsal fitting everything, but everything came together in the end.  Once all the bouquets and boutonnieres were distributed and pinned on correctly it was easy sailing!  The ceremony went beautifully and the church was cleared out and everyone was on their way to the reception by 4:45 pm.

Yesterday afternoon I was driving home from Wausau after a nice lunch out with my mom, when a rock hit our windshield.  Thankfully it was just a chip and was located on the lower half on the passenger side.  As soon as I got home I called the auto glass repair place (with the little red trucks, beep beep!) and scheduled them to come out this morning.  So we were given the illusive “8 am to 12 pm” time slot.  So I woke up a little earlier than usual, and began waiting.  Couldn’t go for a run, couldn’t go to the grocery store (I needed oatmeal for cookies!), etc.  I jumped in and out of the shower (didn’t want to miss their call!), and then ended up sitting on the couch.  Continued to sit on the couch.  Norm came and sat on the couch with me.  Got off the couch at 11:30, deciding to take a picture of the chip to post on the blog.  As I turned to come back inside the house, here came the truck, pulling into our driveway at 11:45.  The chip was fixed in 5 minutes and my waiting for the day was finally done.  On to the store for the oatmeal, and then mixed up a quick batch of Monster Cookies.  

So we were watching a new show on the food network, and Justin decided he wanted to try what they were making.  It didn’t necessarily sound all that bad at the time, chicken tenders coated in crushed nacho cheese corn chips and a special seasoning blend and pan-fried.  As chicken was already on my shopping list, a bag of doritos was an easy addition.  Obviously my brain is still a little foggy from all the traveling, because it should have had warning bells going off like crazy.  It really wasn’t until it was in the pan cooking that the major doubts began washing over me like a tsunami.  This was going to be bad.  Very bad.  And you know what… It was bad.  Very bad.  The fact that this recipe made it onto a nationally televised spot is proof that the end of the world can’t be far off.  Do not cook anything in doritos, please.  Just eat them out of the bag if you need to, just don’t coat anything in them, sprinkle them on top of anything, etc.  It is now time to go to Belt’s to make up for this crazy bad dinner!

Well, first and foremost, we certainly did not go hungry while in Peru.  And for the most part, the food was phenomenal.  Anyone coming from a meat & potatoes area like Wisconsin probably won’t struggle too much with liking the food from a meat & potatoes (emphasis on the potatoes) country like Peru.  I am trying the think if there were any meals (other than the one at the Chinese restaurant) that didn’t contain either potatoes or yucca (pronounced You-ka, which is another tuber, similar to the potato).  I won’t go over every meal, just some of the more memorable ones, or there would be way too many pictures on this post!  Also, I already posted a picture of our typical breakfast on the first day of the trip, so check back to then if you missed it.  Just add scrambled eggs with ham to the picture, and that was what we had every day for breakfast.

We left our hotel in Chincha early on Saturday morning, and started making our way toward Lima. We made a couple of stops along the way. The first was an interesting experience. Jose Hipolito Unanue was a Peruvian of some prominence that built a huge mansion, pretty much a castle, that is somewhat of a tourist spot now. It turns out he built his wealth by illegally trading African slaves. Parts of the castle that are open include tunnels to the dungeon that held slaves, the auctioning block and paddocks. While the property must have been spectacular to see when it was in pristine condition, it has not been maintained for many years. It is in a pretty terrible state and will continue to crumble away. Honestly, to me it felt a fitting end for that type of place.  Our second stop was at the coast for a lunch near the beach. We walked along the beach, some of the crazier guys went for a (very cold) swim, we walked down the long dock, and shopped a bit at the tables some locals had set up with trinkets. Since it is winter in Peru there were very few others out, but it was still a pretty place. We even saw some dolphins and a sea otter frolicking in the water (what else do dolphins do but Frolic?!).Then we headed into Lima for an afternoon shopping at the artisan markets, finding alpaca sweaters, blankets, t-shirts, purses, and fun other items to take home for gifts or souvenirs. Lima is a busy city that I would have enjoyed seeing more of. I appreciated the chance to see even a bit of it. After dinner we headed to the airport, where we had to part ways with a vital part of our team for the last 10 days – our translators. Pauola, Dave, Claudia, Aldo, Gabriel, Christian, Emily, Raquel, and Gordy truly became like family to us as we relied very heavily on their assistance with the language. Then, after two long flights and a bus ride, we are back safe and sound, with many memories and stories. Thank you to everyone for your prayers! I’ll still have one more Peru-orientated post tomorrow with pictures of some of the food we got to try.

Today was our last work day of the trip. The teams at each work site worked fast and furiously to finish as much as we could. One team worked on laying bricks and mortar walls, one group finished covering a roof with cement, and another team got the electricity working. It was great for Raul, Hector, and their family to be able to flip a switch and the light to come on, in a safe, livable house. The window and doors will be installed shortly and they will begin to move in. This is Raul’s (nearly) completed house, and Hector’s is right next door. Hector has seven daughters, and Raul is his son-in-law. Hector is considered the leader of their community, and has worked very hard on taking care of the needs of his neighbors and family. We really enjoyed working beside him, hearing his story, and getting to know him and his family.

So we now have pictures of many of the steps of building an adobe home (of which we’re working on four separate homes). Here is a quick lesson. The first step is mixing mud for the bricks. This involves getting the correct dirt mixture bought and delivered, having water delivered, and hacking straw to give the bricks extra structure. In some cases, as on one of the sites, the homeowner doesn’t have enough money for the dirt mixture and old, broken adobes (from walls that fell in the earthquake) have to be crushed before the water can be added. The formed bricks need to set out between 4 and 7 days, depending on if the sun comes out! One two-room house needs over 1000 bricks. While the first round of bricks dry, trenches are dug and filled with concrete (mixed by hand) to provide the foundation (all of the homes thatwere destroyed in the earthquake did not have a solid, cement foundation). Then more mud is mixed to act as the mortar and layers of bricks are laid for the walls. A special plastic mesh, called maya, is draped and then painstakingly tied tight to the interior and exterior walls. This is a vital step, as the mesh is what keeps the walls from tipping in the event of another earthquake. More mud is mixed and spread over the mesh. At this point bamboo beams (treated for termites and stained) is nailed to form the first layer of the roof (which serves as a very beautiful ceiling for the interior. Electric boxes, lights, and switches are also installed. Cement is then smoothed over all the walls and forms the top layer of the roof. Install doors and windows, paint it, and you have a sturdy, warm, secure home.

Please continue to pray for health. We are doing well, though Lori pulled a muscle in her back and is hurting. Everyone with intestinal issues are on meds and doing much better!

Today’s tasks weren’t very different from yesterdays, with spreading mud on the walls of another one of the four adobe houses we are working on. We also worked at staining the bamboo for the roof (the stained side is the ceiling and concrete gets poured on top). As you can see in one of the photos, all of my weight-lifting is paying off (don’t be fooled – those branches I’m carrying are willow, and were feather-lite!). It’s hard to believe there are only two days of work left.
Please pray for team health and strength, a number of the guys are feeling the effects of the different foods!

I thought about Julie’s idea of me biking her around with baked goods, and the more I thought about it, the less it seemed like a good idea. Towards the end, this is all I could picture:

That doesn’t exactly seem ideal to me. I probably would loose a lot of weight. Julie would have to dangle a cupcake on a string in front of me to make me move.

Oh, and here’s a picture of me in front of an elusive white rhino.

Here’s a good tangent: I wanted a sweet picture of a white rhino drawing to put up as well, so I went into Google image search and typed “white rhino”. Judging by the pictures that came up, “white rhino” is the name of a particular strain of marijuana, so I figure I am on some sort of DEA watch list now. I hope it was worth it.

Unicorns!

(No more posting after 11PM, I promise)

So here’s what I am thinking. Here in Chincha, lots of vendors ride their bikes, pedaling their wares through the neighborhood, especially around midafternoon when you get hungry! A pastelito (baker) rode near the site where we were working and Gordy and Emily picked us out a few things to try. I think this is a great way to see how my cookies and pastries sell in Stevens Point! Justin could rig up a litle box on top of my bike, I could get a special little horn (ai-ooo-ga!), and I could pedal around town, selling my cakes and cookies! Good idea?

Today, our team didn’t have to make a single brick (our backs were thankful!). As you can see, the end result is often marred by all the dogs around. They’re everywhere. They all just kind of wander around during the day. Thankfully they don’t really come near people for the most part. Our task today was to coat the mesh on the walls with mud, to prepare them for the finishing coat of plaster or cement. Here is Emily, one of our translators, working hard and smiling through each moment!

Today was again packed with making adobe bricks and digging trenches, but I got to experience something that will likely be a highlight of my trip. I got to go with Raquel and Claudia to get some of our lunch supplies for the week. Gordy, Claudia and I took a taxi over to Gordy & Bear’s apartment where Bear gave us the list of things we needed, Raquel met us there, and we took another taxi to the huge open market. It was incredible. The colors, smells, sounds, etc were almost overwhelming. It wouldn’t have been safe to walk around with my camera snapping away (though I wanted to!), but I did get a picture of the cookie stall, which was an incredible array of sugary treats! After we found our way out with our purchases, we next drove to the fruit market, where we bought bananas and mandarins. Claudia was so helpful explaining the different kinds of fruit, and even had me try some! One was an orange banana (delicioso!), a tiny mandarin (fantastico!), and a granido (sp?), which you had to peel open to get to the juicy seeds, similar to a pomegranates’ seeds, but very sweet. It was certainly something unusual to try, but it tasted sweet and wonderful! After the fruit market we went to the regular supermarket to get loaves of white bread (Bimbo brand!), Pepsi, and, of course, Inca Cola (which is a yellow soda that tastes like cream soda but smells like bubble gum – I think it’s great! Claudia and I also decided to share a few small bags of Yucca (You-ka) chips (I’ve loved the cooked yucca we’ve had with meals), and two types of fried banana chips. The yucca chips were mostly just salt flavor, and we haven’t tried the banana chips yet (maybe tomorrow!). It was such a fun morning, and I really am thankful for them asking me along!
We then took the food to the job sites, and after lunch started working on adobe bricks and making mud. Again, very hard work, but we really had a lot of fun, especially between Claudia and Pat trying to coat each other in mud!
After getting back to the hotel and a quick jump in the shower and a absolutely wonderful meal (my favorite so far – but more on that later in the week!), about 8 of our team members, myself, Lori Clapham, Jon Cronce, Jim King, Steve Williams, Andrews Oliver, Lane Kirstetter, and then our translators Emily, Claudia, Dave, and Christian went to a youth event, with junior high age students, with some indoor games and a presentation a psychologist with the mission set up about domestic violence (which is a huge problem here). It was fun to meet with the older students, even after a very long day of work!
Now I am very ready for a good night’s rest, with lots more work tomorrow! Please continue to pray for health and safety, and especially team unity.

Well, we have had the, um, pleasure (?) of experiencing a Peruvian wedding reception last night at our hotel. After dinner half our team visited with Gordy & Bear (Beverly) at their apartment. We had a very good time hearing each other’s stories and spending some time in prayer. We got back to the hotel at about 10:15, and the wedding guests were just eating dinner. The reception was in the courtyard of the hotel, so we definitely heard (and felt) every speech, song, and rhythm of the wedding. Sleep was elusive, to say the least. Well, until SIX AM when the music finally stopped. I am not exaggerating!! On the plus side – near miracle- hardly any of us are overly sore from yesterday!!
This morning after breakfast we drove to a local church for their worship service. It was actually very similar in style to Woodlands, and our translators were spaced among us. Afterwards we came back to the hotel to change and get ready for lunch and an afternoon children’s sports event. There were about 75 kids with ages ranging from 2 to 17, ready to play soccer, throw frisbees and footballs, fly kites, etc. Most of the little kids just wanted attention, as in Carina’s case, who latched onto Jon Cronce. The final picture is of 19 of our team members crammed into a “combi,” or bus the size of a minivan, on the way back to the hotel. Before dinner Lori, Jim, Phil Neff, Tim Olsen, and I walked down the road to the street vendors to find some candy and soda. We had a successful outing, and am I sure Justin will appreciate the new treats that I bring home!

Today was very productive, though I am sure we will be pretty sore this evening and tomorrow. Lots of mixing mud for adobe bricks and mortar, making adobe bricks (as in the first picture), playing with kids, adding layers of bricks to walls, lining the walls with mud and mesh, tying the mesh onto the wall (as Lori is doing in the third picture), moving bricks, etc, etc, etc. We are now back at the hotel, cleaning up a bit (okay, cleaning up A LOT) before heading out for dinner. I’ll write a good entry on the food we have been eating later in the week!

I received word today that Julie and the Woodlands team made it safely to Lima, Peru last night. They left for Chincha this morning. They checked into the hotel this afternoon and traveled to the work site to get an overview of what they are going to be doing. The hotel has wireless internet, so hopefully Julie will be able to blog about what is going on there as well.

Today, I went with Travis, Dad, and Sarah to Luke and Niki’s place in Madison. There we met up with Niki, Max (Niki’s brother), and Luke and went out to lunch at the Great Dane Pub. I had the “THE GREAT DANE’S BRAT & BACON PRETZEL BURGER”. I thought this would be a good chance to compare what I am going to be eating while Julie is gone to what she is going to be having. Here is a picture of my exact burger, with the burger, bacon, cheese, and “brat patty”. The pretzel part is the bun itself, made from pretzel dough. How crazy wonderful is that?

Here is a representative picture of “Cuy“, which Peruvians eat 65 million of per year.

I know that by posting this, Julie is going to bring something weird home for me to eat, just to get back at me. I am sure the food they are having is actually really good, but I just wanted to poke fun a little.

Greetings from Peru! We got to our hotel here in Lima about midnight after a long day of flights. It is great how much they feed you on a long international flight though, isn´t it? We just finished a nice breakfast of coffee, fresh rolls with jam, and papaya juice (thick!). Today we drive down to Chincha, where I hope to load a picture or two when I can! Here are some pictures – the first of our typical breakfast, rolls, jam, coffee, and papaya juice; the second is of a park (of love) that was very close to our hotel in Lima; and the third is of one of the sites we will be working at, with adobe bricks drying. We have seen and done a lot today. Eaten new foods (very good food!), walked past the street vendors with unusual items to buy, and visited several of the sites we will begin working at tomorrow. These Peruvians have lived through some of the worst circumstances in the past year. It is great to hear that we are bringing hope by helping to rebuild, but it is also very overwhelming and hard to take in everything. Please pray for strength for our team, as we will begin working very early tomorrow and throughout the day.