Our Bolivian Adventure

Most of you know that Erik went on his mission to Bolivia, the poorest country in South America. A lot of the cuisine is, to put it nicely, reflective of that status. However, many of you might not know that a ton of people that immigrate to the United States from Bolivia all end up in Northern Virginia. We're not sure why, but there are a ton of Bolivians around here. Erik has been dying to have a salteña ever since he got home, and we finally got to get him one. You'll have to forgive the quality of the pictures because Erik didn't want me taking pictures to begin with, so I had to bring the small, old camera and take the pictures very very sneakily.
The first thing that Erik got was a Inca Kola. Apparently these are all the rage in Peru. It looked like Mountain Dew, but tasted a little like sugary carbonated water to me! I'll stick with the Diet Coke.

For our appetizer we ate a chicken salteña and sopa de maní (which is peanut soup). Erik said the peanut soup was a little different than what they had in Bolivia, but the salteña was almost spot-on. I'll admit - I was a little scared to go have Bolivian food, but the salteña was actually really good! Really messy to eat, but very, very good. (The best way to describe a salteña is kind of like an empañada, with meat, potatoes, veggies, and whatever else stuffed inside. Ours had green olives).

Eliza and Esther had some salchi-papas.

Britt came with us and got some Milanesa de pollo, which was her absolute favorite when she was in Argentina.

The highlight of the dinner was getting to experience some true-to-life piqué macho. Erik has made this for me, and for a lot of his and my family, but it was pretty Americanized (his words not mine). Here is the real-deal piqué macho:

Chunks of meat, hot dog slices, red onions, tomatoes, and hard boiled eggs sitting on top of french fries, soaking in the juice from the meat. Don't think it looks very appetizing? Me neither. But don't worry, they bring you a nice big bowl of mayo and ketchup to dump on top. (Apparently, Bolivians eat mayo like it's going out of style). Still not a believer? Let me tell you, it was awesome. My first bite was teeny tiny, because I really anticipated it to be awful. But, I think I ended up eating more than Erik.

This particular restaurant had some dishes from Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, and a couple of other South American countries. Next time we are going to venture a little further from our house and try a Bolivian-only joint. The funny thing is, a lot of the restaurants that are owned by Bolivians will only serve the Bolivian food on the weekends. The rest of the week they have American cuisine. I guess it must be hard to keep a Bolivian-only place in business.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Cupid was good to us this year. Thanks to Gramma Jackie, NeNe &Papa, G-Pa & Lynn, and Nana & Papa Wayne who sent us such awesome Valentines presents!!

Since we are having so much snow, G-Pa and Lynn sent us these awesome jammies to keep us warm. They were a big hit. They made Esther so sleepy that she couldn't even look up to take a picture. She had to go right to snuggling with her blankie.On Saturday, Cupid knocked on our door a little early - (a tradition in Erik's family, to ding dong ditch with the present left by the door). He left us some really fancy cupcakes, and left mama some pretty roses with a gift card to the Outback! Woot! I can't wait to go!!
This is Esther's excited/surprised face:

She then had to show everyone her cupcake, and twirled and danced with it:
Followed by some serious loves:
Eliza loved hers too:On Valentine's Day we dressed up in our cute shirts that Nana and Papa Wayne sent us:

There were pretty heart socks involved too, but they didn't make it in the pictureEliza enjoyed a pedicure with the pretty nail polish and stickers from Nana. Auntie Britt came out to spend some time with us in case the baby comes early, and she helped make Eliza looked Bee-yoo-tiful

Cupid brought Erik the scriptures that he has been wanting for so so long - the little compact ones that aren't in a quad. They were discontinued for a while but started selling them again! Hurrah!

We also got to go out to dinner on Saturday for some authentic Bolivian food - but more on that later.........

Church is cancelled for tomorrow

Apparently, we just experienced the "storm of the century" here in good ol' VA. It's true - we were a little wary of the weather warnings for this storm after they cancelled school last week for a mere two inches. But, we will be the first to admit, there is a lot of snow out there today. A lot. It snowed for the past 32 hours, and according to the weather report, we officially got 21 inches in that amount of time. Eliza and Esther loved looking at the snow from our apartment window. Esther really, really, really loves snow. She just squeals when we take her outside to see it, especially when it's still coming down.

When the sun finally came out this afternoon, we ventured out to take a look.

As soon as the flakes stopped falling, there were tons of plows out. We didn't take too long to get outside and they already had the sidewalk plowed. Check out the height of this drift! And, check out our new stroller! Eliza can stand on the back, which she thinks is the coolest thing ever.
The snow was really pretty. It made it feel like Christmas all over again.
Believe it or not, there is a Jeep Grand Cherokee under this snow.
Here are a couple more cars in our neighborhood.

Good thing I didn't go into labor. I don't know if we would have made it through the snow!