USA trip 2008

Greetings from North Carolina! We are at the 2/3 mark of our US summer trip, and having a great time! We flew into Atlanta first, and spent the night out on the town with my aunt and uncle. We only had a short time there, but it was great for Elvis to get to see another city and to spend time with them. Then we came to NC, and we have definitely toured pretty much all of the state...this past week we drove over 1000 miles just in NC! We started off in Gastonia, for my college roommate/best friend's wedding to her long-time sweetheart. Congrats Tyler and Chris! The wedding was beautiful and Tyler was absolutely stunning. We had a great time hanging out with them and other friends that came up for the wedding...especially had a good time playing Wii for the first time! I was sore for days after a very animated boxing match. Another fun moment from the wedding was the rehearsal...all of us bridesmaids showed up wearing '80s prom dresses, poofy sleeves and all to surprise Tyler. You should have seen her face! Also, Lester made a guest appearance in the rehearsal. =) here are some pictures of the pre-wedding festivities:

And a few of the wedding day...

One funny anecdote from the wedding day was at the rehearsal, they were anouncing all of the bridal party. When they got to my name, I was wondering if the DJ was going to be able to pronouce it, and sure enough, he said..."Ashley.....Ashley........Ashley de Janeiro"!!!!!!!!!!!!! Apparently the "de" threw him off and made him think of a city in Brazil. I mean, Henriquez and janeiro really do look alike. Ha!

Anyways, after the wedding, Elvis and I and my parents made our way up to Lake Lure in the mountains of NC. We spent a week there at a great resort, taking day trips to nearby towns, waterfalls, rivers, caverns, etc. We did a lot of fishing (but with no luck!) and I think our favorite stop was Sliding Rock, where we slid down a 30 foot rock that a river runs over into a freeeeezing cold natural pool at the bottom! It was great and especially Elvis wanted to do it again and again. We also fell in love with Asheville and all the quirky shops. Elvis really loved the mountains and says he would love to hike the Appalachain Trail someday. I think i prefer the resort...

Another fun anecdote was that we randomly stopped in a thrift store outside of Hendersonville, and it turns out that the owners started the thrift store to help out an orphanage that they started in El Salvador!! All the money goes there. So that was a great time of encouragement for us as well as them I think as we shared stories. here are some pics from the mountains:

We finished our mountain tour by driving down the Blue Ridge Parkway to Blowing Rock, then heading up to the town I grew up in, King. We didn't get to stay long there, but we met with the mission team that will be going down to El Salvador with us in July, and had a great reunion with my former piano teacher and a great lunch at Mi Pueblo (of course) with some friends from our old church. Then we moved onto High Point, where my other BFF Brooke hosted a fun cookout with lots of college friends, and Elvis got to go to his first US minor league baseball game. I don't think we really watched the game, but rather just enjoyed catching up with friends that have been living all over the world the past few years. It was also fun to see how Aaron, the first baby of our group of friends has grown up! Sunday, we went to church with the newlyweds, Kelly and Brian, and had a great time worshipping with them and eating Indian food with them and their parents. We are trying to eat all the exotic food we can while we are here! Then we stopped through Burlington to spend the afternoon with our friend Jessica...it's always fun for us to be with her because we get to speak in spanish! That's always a relief for Elvis even though he is doing awesome with all this Southern English.

So, now we are back in Wallace for the week...i've got a sinus infection but i hope that wont keep me down for long. I wish i could mention all the special people and places that we saw this week, but it's impossible! just let me say though that it was so good to spend time with friends from here. And so good to spend time together and with my parents and be amazed at the beauty of this state which i lived in for so long but am seeing again with new eyes as i show it to Elvis. We will update you later on the rest of the trip!

Goin' to carolina in my mind...

....and in real life in two short days!!!!!!! sorry for the lack of blogging...you would think that i would have tons of time to blog since i'm on vacation, but we've been really busy this week...elvis had final exams and projects in all 6 of his classes this week (and has gotten reallllly great grades!!!) and so next semester will be his last!!! well, then the thesis, then whenever they get enough people together to graduate they will have one. we're just glad this semester is over and we're moving on to the last one. i've been cleaning house all week, painting the garage, doing stuff to try to get the house all ready for marty and sara to come!!! i always thought it was silly that my mom made us clean the house before going on vacation...i mean, no one is going to be there! but now that i have my own house, i totally understand..after our first trip to the US we came back to a not-so-clean house and that was no fun at all. so, marty and sara get here in a couple of weeks (yes, we will still be in the states but we will get to spend two weeks with them when we get back) so we are really looking forward to having them here! we love having guests here and showing them all of our favorite spots here in the country, although marty pretty much knows it better than we do. i'm glad that elvis and i will still both be on vacation while they are here so we can just play all day!!

so, although we are so pumped about going to the states, seeing everybody, celebrating tyler and chris's wedding, relaxing after a tough semester, tomorrow will be a bittersweet day. Quesito is going to a new home =( we decided that he needs more attention than we can give him, especially with all of our traveling. also its really hard to have guests over with him around, which we love to do, and we want everyone to feel comfortable in our home (i mean, can you believe that some people don't feel comfortable having a little furry thing permanently attached to their leg during their whole visit, in a not-so-appropriate way?!) . plus, his antics have pushed me to my limits one too many times! if it sounds like i'm trying to convince myself that this is the best thing to do, you're right, even though it was my idea. of course, after making this decision and finding someone who wants him and will take good care of him, he's behaved better than ever and he is really making it tough. but we know it's for the best of everyone. if we miss him too much, we might keep his offspring which will be coming pretty soon! (yes, we are going to be abuelos!) here's one last picture of quesito, in his little doggie cabin. Adios, Quesito. We'll miss you.

Rain rain go away!

Here in El Salvador, we only have two seasons: hot and dry or hot and rainy. The rainy season just recently started, and on top of that, a tropical storm passed through central america this week so literally it rained from thursday afternoon until wednesday afternoon, just stopping for a few minutes every now and then just to start raining again. I mean, I like dark, rainy days, but I really wanted to enjoy some sunny days since I'm on vacation. Plus, we needed to catch up on washing some clothes because we only have enough water pressure in the mornings to wash, so if we aren't at home in the mornings, we can't wash, and if there is no sun, we can't wash because we hang our clothes out to dry and obviously you can't do that in the rain. We can hang some clothes out in the garage to be protected from the rain, but still if there is no sun, it ends up stankin' like something crawled up in there and died. So, all that to say that we have a mound of clothes to be washed.

This morning, we were really excited to see the sun out, so while Elvis was in class (he had a presentation in his 6:30am class...and i thought that 8:00am classes were killers!!) I put in several loads of clothes to wash and was so happy to finally get to wash clothes! So guess what happens just as Elvis is hanging out the last load to dry (I can't really reach the clothes line..good excuse for him to always have to do it! )....yep, the black clouds roll in, and the raindrops start pelting down from the sky. ARGGGG!!!

The good thing is that in our neighborhood, we have literally everything you may need within walking distance...several banks, grocery store, ice cream stores, like 20 tiendas, hardware store, about 10 hair salons, about 20 billion pupuserias , a Taiwanese cookie and wantan stand, fruits and vegetable stands all along the sidewalk, our church is a 5 min walk away, and lots of home open up their garages to sell used clothing, fresh cheese, and many have made diners in their garages. Oh and I almost forgot about the best part! The pirated DVDs on the corner! We can get all the newest releases with perfect DVD quality (not videotaped in the movie theater) for $1...I mean they've had Narnia for weeks, Indiana Jones, etc. Our top pick of the month is "Lars and the Real Girl". Plus there's a pirated Christian CD stand...that one makes me laugh sometimes. Anyways, I've gotten off track. What was the point? Oh yeah, so luckily, we have a laundry mat right in front of the house, but we are trying to decide whether it is worth it to pay $.30 per pound to dry these clothes, because wet towels weigh a lot more than you would think.

The other interesting thing about rainy season is that with the first rains come out these gigantic mutant ants called "zompopos de mayo". Remember "Honey I Shrank the Kids"? Remember what the ants looked like to the dwarfed kids? Yeah, it's pretty much like that. Not only are they humongous, they have wings. And they smell weird. And the worst part is that the kids in my class love to collect them in their pencil cases. I mean, just imagine opening up that thing and seeing 30 inflated winged insects crawling around, letting off their stank. I almost peed my pants the first time I found out about that little hobby in my class. So, these mutants come out with the first rains, then you don't see them anymore all season. Upon reading about them on google, they are found in other countries too, and are eaten in places such as Guatemala, Japan, Columbia, etc for being rich in protein. Yummy. Here's a video so you can get an idea. Just keep in mind that they get bigger than this one you see here. I'm pretty sure they will take over the world one day, but it must be rainy day in May.

Whew!

So, I (ashley) am officially on vacation!!! We survived this past week of my kids' graduation, my jazz/bossanova concert, our visitors from Guatemala and USA, and everything went really well! Unfortunately, our recording of the concert doesnt have the best sound quality, so I'm gonna see if someone else got a good recording and then I'll post it. I thought I was gonna faint or ralph after the first song because I was so nervous, but that went away thankfully and I really enjoyed playing and doing some jazz improv. Here are some pictures:
Here are some photos from graduation...I've been working on downloading a video also, but haven't had any luck yet so keep checking back!


We also had another very special visitor this week...a lil' iguana friend came wandering over (we have little geckos in the house and patio always which are good for eating little bugs, but we'd never had an iguana of this size). Elvis had eaten iguana before, but never had one as a pet, so he was pretty pumped about it. And the more that I watched him, I got more and more intrigued because he really looked like a little dinosaur, and you must know that I love dinosaurs. We were gonna keep him and even made a little leash for him, but he pulled a Houdini and escaped from the patio. Not sure where he is now...hope he doesn't turn up in my bed!

So, that's the short summary of what's been going on here...I promise to put up a video of our concert when I get a good one!

P.S. Countdown til we are in the states: 11 days!!!!!