día de la madre 2013

You all know by now that Mother's Day presentations in Peru are a big deal. Remember Brady's clown show? One of my all time favorite Peruvian memories. This year the school pared down on the shows and only Tyler performed (sob). The theme was "My mum is a diva" and included dances to Beyonce, Rihanna, Madonna, Spice Girls, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, and Christian Aguilera songs. {This show was put on by the 3 and 4 year old classes.}

Tyler's dance was precious and her pudgy little stomach made it even better. She hates performing in front of Blake and me, so she told me beforehand that I could come, but she wasn't going to look at me. She also neglected to tell me that she had a speaking part. So it was a fun surprise to hear her say her lines in English with a Spanish accent. After the show Tyler wouldn't talk to me until we had left her friends. I fear this one's teenage years. 

semana santa 2013

This was our third Easter in Peru. I've shared in the past that Easter is not really celebrated in Peru. {Past Semana Santa posts are here and here.} You won't find any egg decorating kits in the grocery store or see any Easter baskets, but there is plenty of Easter candy everywhere! Semana Santa means Holy Week and it is one of the major holidays in Peru. Everything is shut down on the Thursday and Friday before Easter. It is the most peaceful and quiet you will ever find this city. We love it. This year was even more special because we spent almost the entire week with friends, who have really become family to us here. We had dinner every night with different friends. Being with people we love and celebrating Resurrection Sunday made it an incredible week.

The really sad part is that I took almost no pictures. Mainly because I was just always in the moment, enjoying time with friends. But I do wish that I had at least a few pictures of my kids on Sunday. The bright side is that I wasn't the bad guy making everyone pose for pictures!

Riley started the week with a back to school pool party with her friends. The boys had their party a few weeks ago and it was chaos with 13 boys swimming, jumping on the trampoline, and wrestling. Riley's party was a little different. Nice and calm, no parental interventions needed. 


So, I think that I have neglected to share that we finally hired another staff person from the States. In January, Marina moved here to be our production manager and we are so incredibly thankful that she is here! Not only has she been a huge help at the office, but she's a great friend. And a great cook. Marina moved in during Semana Santa and baked way too many goodies for us. Here are her homemade bagels. 

We did a puzzle, of course, just like on any good holiday break.


Riley, Ford, and I have spent the past few months reading and loving all of the Harry Potter books. After we finished each book, we watched the movie together. Our Harry Potter season came to an end during Semana Santa when we watched the last two movies. Marina made butterbeer and Riley made decorations to celebrate the occasion.
 

Tyler is always so good at keeping herself busy. One of her favorite things to do is dress up in the boys' school uniforms, go in the yard with their backpacks, and pretend to do school.

Brady loves, loves, loves watching soccer games. He was up at the crack of dawn on Sunday to watch Liverpool.

And our lovely Easter dinner for the kids. Leftovers, hot dogs, and Marina's homemade applesauce. Yum.

Later the adults had popcorn for dinner. We were a little worn out from our weekend of fun.

giveaway winners

Today I had the kids pick the winners of this giveaway. Thank you everyone who commented. I wish that we had enough hats to give to all of you. 

And now, drumroll please...



The winner of the Becks is Jen H.

The winner of the Owen is Sara K (and she even has a son named Owen!).


And the winner of the Amor is Sarah L.


I have either emailed or responded to each of the winners for addresses. So if you won but don't have an email from me, please email me at goodfellows in peru at gmail dot com or leave a comment with your email address. 

wedding

We were so excited to be able to attend the first wedding of one of our KKp ladies, Silvana, this past weekend. Actual wedding ceremonies for those living in Pacifico (the community our ladies live in) are rare. As a side note, civil and religious marriage ceremonies are completely separate in Peru. You have to go to the courthouse and be married by an official there for a marriage to be legal. Then most people choose to also have a religious ceremony with their pastor/church. It is common here for people to attend both ceremonies. 

We attended Silvana's religious ceremony which started at 9pm on a Saturday night! Of course it took us awhile to find the church because directions here are never straightforward, nor are all streets named. When we finally found the church, we found that the wedding had not started yet (thankfully), but a church service was underway. We walked in and found a rad old man singing along to a keyboard and electric guitar with lots of incense burning. Let the cultural experience begin!

(Note: we waited to take pictures until we were sure that it was allowed/not offensive. Because everyone was excited for Silvana, lots of pictures were being taken!)

The church service included a reading of the 10 Commandments. 

The musicians.

The ceremony. (This is the rad dude who was singing when we got there.)


Silvana and Simon's son, Emerson.


Blake was asked on the spot to share some words of blessing with the couple. 

Lucy, one of the ladies in our program, also came.


Silvana sang.


Tyler started to get a little tired.


Simon threw a small bouquet to the single men.


And then Silvana threw her bouquet to the single ladies. Lucy caught it!

At this point, a few of us were asleep and we finally politely excused ourselves to go home at 11:30. Silvana later told Blake that the party went until 5:30am. 


Congratulations to Silvana and Simon! Their church could not have been more welcoming to us and made us feel so comfortable. We were so thankful to be a part of their big day night. 


Here's a few videos that capture the experience a little better.

spring collection

The Krochet Kids spring collection launched last week and there are lots of new products from Peru! The most exciting part of this collection is that we are making all KKi shirts at our site here. Because of the American Giving Awards we were able to buy all of the necessary machines and hire trainers/staff to open a "cut and sew" program. Six of our original ladies moved over to this program and they are all very excited about it! It's an opportunity for them to gain more skills and learn more about the clothing industry. My personal favorites from the spring collection are the ipad/laptop covers. I am so in love with the design of them!

Check the spring collection out here.

And to say thanks for being on this journey with us, we want to give away one of each of our new hats. All you have to do is leave a comment with which hat you like most. Whichever hat you say that you like most is the hat you will be entered to win. I will write all of the entries on a slip of paper and have my kids draw the winners. Comments will close on April 1st at midnight and the winners announced on April 3rd. 

The Amor

The Becks

The Owen