Tuesday and Ylfa's birthday!

Here's something funny that happened the other day before I start in on Tuesday's activities...Lauren and I were crossing the street, which can sometimes be a bit dangerous with the taxis and buses turning corners, etc.  Anyway, after we got to the other side of the street, there was almost a car accident with a car trying to turn and other cars trying to go straight.  Lauren and I looked at each other and wondered if we'd caused the car accident.  She said, "I guess we're just that hot."  I said, "Yeah, or that white."  We laughed for about a block after that.

Lauren and I were up first as always, so we put out the birthday cards we made for Ylfa and the earrings we had gotten for her from the Casa de Artesenia.  They were little silver hummingbirds.  She was happy to see them at her place at the table when she came out to eat breakfast.  She laughed a bit at my card because I had attempted to write "Happy Birthday" in Icelandic.  She liked the earrings too.  After breakfast I started weaving because I was trying to use any spare time to get my weaving done because Tino told me that I had to have it done by Wednesday night.  I wove all through the morning because Angela had gone to get her school uniform fitting.

Angela came into the weaving room when she got back and asked if we were going to have the ballet class.  I got ready and since the others were already back, I told Lauren that she should join us for the ballet class.  Angela and Pilar have really been enjoying the class.  It was funny to see the contrast between Lauren and Tino's girls because Lauren has had highland dancing lessons in Canada that I imagine to be kind of like river dance.  She has a very stiff frame and Angela and Pilar are very loose still.  They all had fun though and Lauren was telling me I should always have class at that time so she can come.

Ylfa had chosen what we were eating for lunch.  She wanted hamburgers and it was interesting to see their interpretation of a hamburger.  We've had hamburgers in restaurants here, and they are the same as in the states, but their version didn't have a bun.  Ylfa was still happy with it though.  Ylfa had also gotten some soda to have with lunch.  In addition to our usual soup and main course, Ylfa had bought a cake also.  It was a chocolate cake with really creamy chocolate icing.  It also had green grapes on the top with some red glaze over them.  It had come with two candles on the box, so we gathered everyone around and sang happy birthday after she had lit the candles.  She cut herself a big piece and then I cut pieces for everyone else.  It was such a good cake.

Ylfa cutting her piece of the birthday cake.

After we ate, Lauren and I went for a walk since we thought we should try to walk off all the food and also take advantage of the nice, sunny day.  We found a mall that was at one end of Plaza Constitucion.  We walked through and looked into a bunch of shops before we had to go back to the house so she could go to the mountain school.

I ended up working on my weaving instead of the website.  Angela and Pilar have been on the computer for the past few afternoons anyway playing a car racing game.  They came into the weaving room with Mari to help me put more yarn onto the spindles you use for weaving.  Pilar was helping Mari and Angela was goofing around.  She was cracking me up because she had a piece of gummy stuff and she was sticking it to her hand, her shirt, her nose, and other things and then hanging a long stick from it.  When Mari first saw it stuck to her hand, she really thought it was magic.  She was also putting some yarn fuzz on her head and I helped her decorate herself with some extra yarn that was laying around.  She's the cutest little girl.  There was a political gathering going on in the restaurant across the street.  They were playing music really loud and people were giving speeches.  I had my music on, but you could barely make it out over the noise from the restaurant.  When I turned it off, Pilar and Mari said not to because it was much better than the other music even if you could hardly hear it.

About an hour and a half before we were going to go eat dinner, Ylfa broke out the rest of the cake.  She said we should have some because it probably would be all gone by the morning.  She, Lauren and I all had another slice of cake.  It was so yummy.

I wove up until everyone was starting to get ready to go out to dinner.  We were going to La Caramba for Ylfa's birthday.  I was debating whether or not to wear some of the boots I bought here because I wasn't sure if it was going to rain.  I decided that I would wear them at least for pictures with the girls.  Lauren was putting on makeup, so she put some on me also.  I decided to wear my boots and if it rained I'd just get a taxi home.

The girls!!!  Me, Ylfa, and Lauren.

We all walked out together, all the volunteers, Tino's family, and also Mabel and Lorenza.  For awhile I was walking with Mabel and Angela.  I held Angela's hand until Mari took her other hand to cross the street.  After that Pilar started walking with me and was telling me Christmas jokes in English and also Peruvian legends from around here.  I really liked the one about Huaytapayana.  I guess that was the name of a man and he wanted to marry this woman, but her father didn't like him.  Her father turned him into a mountain and his tears created lakes that were his five sons.  I'm probably not getting it totally right, but it was something to that effect.

When we got to the restaurant, I sat by Mabel, Angela, and Pilar.  Pilar continued telling me stories while we tried to decide what to eat.  Most of the table ordered two big meat plates, but Angela and I got fish.  She got trucha milanesa and I got trucha con maracuya.  It had said for one of the plates with maracuya that it was an aphrodesiac.  I thought it might be fun to try that.  It was really good.  Very sweet.  Pilar and Mari were telling me that it's a fruit from the jungle.  I looked it up online and it says it's a type of passion fruit.  I also got french fries with it.

Trout with maracuya sauce and french fries.

The meat plates the others had gotten came with sangria, so we all had some  (minus Pilar and Angela) to have a toast.  Angela went to the bathroom twice while we were there and Mari said that she's always liked to go into bathrooms to say if they're nice or not.  She said that a lot of times Angela doesn't even have to go to the bathroom, she just wants to see what it looks like.

The whole group at La Caramba.  Pilar, Lorenza, Dwan, Lauren, Angela, Tino, Mari, Mabel and me.

I was so happy it hadn't rained.  We all figured that it was the first time that we had all been there that it hadn't rained at least a little bit during the course of the day.  I was happy that I didn't have to take a taxi to save my boots.  Lorenza and Mabel were laughing at me because I couldn't whistle.  The only reason I couldn't was because I was laughing too hard.  Lorenza was trying to get me to whistle by holding your bottom lip with your fingers.  She can do it really well, but I told her I really couldn't do that one.  Mabel said we should stop whistling on the street because a taxi might stop or some guy might think we were whistling at them.  :)   When we got back to the house, Pilar found her book of Christmas jokes and was telling them to all of us at the kitchen table.  My favorites were "Where do you find reindeer with no legs?"  "Exactly where you left it." and "What is a snowman's favorite breakfast?"  "Snowflakes."  She was really cute telling us all these jokes in English.  Mari made peach pisco drinks that were so good and we all sat around the table talking for awhile with our drinks.  After almost everyone left the kitchen to go to sleep, Mabel and I got on the computer and were playing songs and singing along to them.  We were also showing each other pictures and talking about our lives.  We dragged ourselves off to bed just before midnight.  It was a lot of fun to spend that time with the whole family.