Puno!

The last weekend in August we went to Puno with Chris for work. Every year Chris organizes through his company a big project called "Diamonds for Puno" to collect clothes, food, medicine etc. to donate to a small village in Puno. For those that don't know where Puno is, it is on the border of Bolivia and it is very cold and there are many small towns that the people don't have very good living conditions. Children die every year from the cold, and all suffer from not having warm enough clothing. So they organize this project to help improve the lives of these people.

We decided this year to take the boys with us, to give them an opportunity to do service and to see that not everyone is as blessed as they are. It was a wonderful experience for all of us and I was so glad to see how giving my boys are. In fact I had to keep an eye on Z or he would have given away everything in my bag. I had put some snacks for them in my bag and he decided to give them all to the little kids, he had such a huge following that Chris had to go to the local store and he bought every cookie/treat they had in the store. The store was tiny so with $10 he was able to clean the store out. It was a touching experience to see my boys with kids and adults that don't have shoes, jackets, food and are suffering. I had the boys each pick a toy of their own to bring with them to give to a kid that they choose, and they did so with joy. Zander had the opportunity to give his favorite shoes away to a little boy his age that did not have any, his face just glowed. I look forward to next year for sure!


It was a quick trip, but we were able to go to Lake Titicaca to see the floating islands and what an amazing experience. Here is Cooper while we were on the boat out to the islands.

Here is the line of people waiting for us to arrive and recieve their packets. Many of these people had to walk for hours to get to the main center of the village early Saturday morning. It broke my heart to see some grandma's being wheeled in wheelbarrows because they could not walk. It really makes you realize how blessed we are to have the things we have.

Lake Titicaca and one of the floating islands we stopped at, see the fish in the air. When we stopped to get off the boat Zander ran and climbed all the way up to the top of this fish. The funny part is that he could not get down so Chris had to climb up and help him down. The people build these structures, their islands and boats out of a type of weed called tortora, they are incredible to see.

Chris and I in front of one of the houses on one of the islands we stopped to see.

This is how these kids get to school everyday. I was told that it takes about 1-2 hours to row this boat for them to get to school everyday.

Trying to stay warm on the boat! This is Iris with me, my lifesaver. She lives with us 5 days a week and helps me with the kids and the house. We love her dearly!