Posts Tagged ‘family’

The last two weeks have flow by; it’s hard to believe I’ve completed my last Spanish class and homestay in Quito. My Spanish has definitely improved and I’m having fun trying to speak it. I hope to continue to practice for the next month while I’m in South America.

I can’t say enough great things about my host family here in Quito. They welcomed me into their home and made me feel like part of their family. They have a lovely house just a block away from the school and very close to La Mariscal, a popular area for tourists with restaurants, bars, cafes, and shops (in fact, it’s sometimes referred to as “gringoland” since there are so many white foreigners).

In the house, I have my own room and bathroom upstairs with everything I need. When I arrived there was a huge bouquet of beautiful pink roses in my room as a belated birthday gift!

My host mother Dolores is so sweet (more…)

It’s been really nice to be back in the US for the holidays. We’ve been able to see both of our families, catch up with friends, relax, and plan the next phase of our trip. For Christmas we spent 12 days traveling to both Virginia and Minnesota to visit family, and the common theme for the entire trip was SNOW! Between the huge East Coast snow storm and then the Midwest snow storm, we got our share of snow this holiday season. And for the most part, we loved it!

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We went to Moab for a weekend and met up with Ben’s mom.  It was GREAT!  Seriously, I can’t tell you how much I love this place…

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Here’s a few random things I’ve been up to lately…

HP Ski Day at Bogus – Cross Country Skiing with my co-workers Soumya and Theresa:

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I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year!  Ben and I had a great time in Minnesota visiting family and friends.  It always goes by too fast though, doesn’t it?

Click Continue Reading to see the rest of the photos…

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Here are some photos from Thanksgiving at my grandparent’s house in South Dakota (including a few below from my sister-in-law Heather).  We had a great time – lots of family, food, desserts, card playing, and fun!

(NOTE: click on Continue Reading below to see the rest of the photos!)

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Last weekend the Albertus family (plus us two Scott’s) took a weekend trip to a lake in Minnesota.  We stayed at a nice resort called Ruttgers on Bay Lake and took advantage of tons of available activities including: water skiing, swimming, fishing, jumping on the water trampoline, tennis, campfires, Clay’s birthday, board games and yard games.  We had so much fun!  Here’s some of the highlights… (more…)

I’ve already posted about some of our activities in and around Coeur d’Alene.  But we also had a fun time along the way.  Here’s two google map snapshots of our route, and some photos of the trip:

A = Boise    B = Grangeville    C = Coeur d’Alene    D = Route of the Hiawatha    E = Moscow

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Ben, Beth and I rode a “rails-to-trails” bike ride in Northern Idaho called Route of the Hiawatha.  It’s an old train route in the mountains, going through 10 tunnels and over 7 trestles (bridges).  The coolest part was a 1.66 mile long tunnel!  The tunnel was pitch black (bike lamps required), and super cold.  It was damp and only 40 degrees F inside.  We were warned ahead of time to go slow, because if you go fast you’ll get mud splashed in a straight line up your back.  Sure enough, a few guys sped past us and they all had thick mud streaks right up their backs!  Anyway, the scenery was gorgeous and we had a really fun time.  The trail is 15 miles long downhill, then you take a bus back up to the top.  Here’s a few photos from the ride.

Start of the adventure:                                         The view:

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Last weekend Ben’s sister Beth came to visit.  We decided to take a road trip to Northern Idaho, an area that Ben and I hadn’t yet explored.  There’s a popular destination called Coeur d’Alene which is on a lake in a mountainous area.  Also we heard about a cool rails-to-trails bike trail that we were really excited to try out.

We drove 7-hours Friday night and Saturday morning to get to Coeur d’Alene.  The drive was long, but really pretty – windy mountain roads, rivers and canyons, golden-colored wheat fields, and small towns.  After arriving, we had the afternoon in Coeur d’Alene, so we took out the kite to take some photos… you can see a few of those in Ben’s last post.  Here’s another good one, and also a photo of our reward after a long day of driving and kite-flying.

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