This is going to be much more summarized than I first expected, but it has been a while...

Leaving Tampa, we had put all our stuff in storage and had 2 suitcases each to survive the next 3.5 months. We knew it would be a great adventure plus some real quality time with my fam!

And our story begins...

We arrived in Lima in the first hours of Feb 5th and were headed out to the beach that same afternoon for a fun weekend at the beaches south of Lima. We shared a bungalow w grandma and grandpa... It was super fab!! The coast strip we were in was called Asia, it's like the beaches at St Pete... Tons of different areas w their own private bungalows, etc. The beach had some great waves and everything was just relaxing... great way to start of our vacay!

Justin loving the waves!






The rest of the month we were in Lima, we spent visiting with fam and taking small tours throughout Lima. We visited some real cool museums and sites.

It was also great to see the fam several times.

My aunt Chabuca visited while we were in Lima.I miss her a lot and was really glad to catch up and spend time with her.

The higlight of my time in Lima was my Bday! I hadn't spent a Bday in Peru since I left back in 1989... that's right, 20 years ago! It was really special to be able to celebrate with everyone. My grandma threw a party for me on Saturday and I was sooo glad everyone made it. It really was one of the happiest times I had there. I was overwhelmed with happiness. :-)

I'll leave on that happy note as my eyes are filling with tears remebering those days. Part II: Abancay will come real soon.

Lots of love and be good.

XOXO- RW

Wow... talk about slacker! But, here I am getting back to the blog. Since Aug 2009 soo much has happened,. here we go...

Randomness: We live in the center of downtown Denver and love it! It truly is a completely different life here and it is great to experience this exciting new city and beautiful surrounding areas. I walk a block to work... LOVE that! We have already made some great friends here, people here are ridiculously nice!






We have a had a list of great guests come stay w us since. Our friend Caris had some work in Denver and we were able to catch up. He was our 1st ever CO visitor!

















Jen and Doug visit before their big move to HI!

Bobby stopped by Denver to come to Beerfest... so much fun! We also showed him some other great places downtown.

My mom stayed w us for a wk for Tksgiving! Showed her around downtown and she was able to see plenty of snow that wk! Justin and her even went to the Mint. They have their own brand new pennies!!






Daniel and Ben came by for a couple of days fr MN. Ben is now living out here so we see him a lot! He lives pretty close, always nice to have friends w/in walking distance.




And Ryan, our last visitor of 2009... always a super fun time. We were so blessed to have some many of our great friends and fam over to see us. And now our turn in 2010 to see them, going to the 813 in March!!

Plenty of sunny days in between but still, a lot of snow. I like that the snow doesn't stick and almost always melts w/in a couple of days. Of course, I haven't seen a big storm where it snows for more than 2 days yet but so far so good.

Still, we do get snow... So, I tried snowboarding and I am still in the learning process - leaving it at that, lol. I am enjoying the snow and love seeing it everywhere. I am learning so much about types of snow and what to avoid (such as slick looking snow - slippery ice)!

In Sept we celebrated our 1st anniversary and in Dec we celebrated 8 yrs of being together... wow! It truly has been beyond an amazing 1st year... we feel so blessed!!

2009 was a great year and hard to beat but as 2010 has already started off pretty well, very much looking fwd to the rest of it!!
Hope everyone's 2009 ended on a great memory and that 2010 started off kicking 2009 in the butt!

Miss u all... xoxo!!
RW