Honeymoon in Peru

Hello from Ollantaytambo, Peru! We´ve been here for 4 days now, and are making our way to the jungles of Iquitos tomorrow. It´s been lovely so far -- the first day was spent recovering from our 26 hours of travel (6 of which were spent trying to sleep in the Lima airport). After two days exploring the sites around Ollantaytambo, we hopped a train to Aquas Calientes, effectively "base camp" for Machu Picchu. This morning, bright and early at 6 am, with several hundred other people, we got in line for the bus to Machu Picchu where we rushed to the classic overlook and then waited... and waited... and waited for the fog to lift. Which it finally did. It looks just like the picutres, only more spectacular.

Tomorrow we are off to Cusco for the night before we fly off to Iquitos for our 3 day jungle adventure. We should return home Thursday, but they´ve changed our flight out of Iquitos Wednesday evening, leaving us only 90 minutes to get from domestic arrivals to check in for our international flight, then make our way through immigration control, pay our airport tax and navigate security. Who knows if we will make it... but we will get home eventually.

And when we do, you will have our new travel blog to look forward to. It seemed kind of silly for us both to blog about every trip we take together, so now we are going to put all our travel pictures and commentary on one communal blog. We´ll let you know when it is ready for prime time (it may take us awhile to sort through the 400+ pictures we´ve taken thus far... with 5 more days to go).

It's Good Luck, Right?

All along we have been telling people: we don't need a tent for our outdoor wedding. It doesn't rain in Seattle in the August. But as the day gets closer, the weather reports are more and more confident that it will in fact be raining on August 9th. And we still don't have a tent. I'm sure we will figure something out. But those who are going to be at the wedding... be prepared to get wet. We'll keep hoping the weather forecast is wrong, but from I'm told, it is good luck to have rain on your wedding day. I'm just not sure they meant rain on your outdoor without anywhere to get out of the rain wedding day.

Anyway, I'm off to take Gilbert to his fish-sitter, and then pack pack pack. I've managed to get out of my afternoon clinic committments, so I'm taking an earlier flight to Seattle, which will give me some time to hang out with Mom and Kate before the craziness of the weekend begins.

Four Days and Counting

There's a lot left to do in those final hours before the wedding:

1. Assemble photo guest book and hope people figure out what we are trying to do with it.
2. Beg Marcy and Ben to man the guest book (promise cocktails) and hope it turns out as we hope it will.
3. Pack, and try to remember all important things. Like the wedding rings.
4. Pack separate suitcase for Peru, because with our tight schedule, we will be flying directly to Lima from Seattle and then returning to San Diego.
5. Figure out how stuff left in Seattle will make it back to San Diego.
6. Write wedding vows. And ceremony. Kind of put that off until the last minute...
7. Try to remember if we have paid all of our vendors.
8. Inform family members that we have decided to do the rehearsal at Gasworks Park.
9. Pray, beg, plead with the weather gods that it will not rain on Saturday. And hopefully will be a little warmer than the 65 degrees that the weather channel is currently predicting.
10. Relax, because regardless of the last minute details, and regardless of the weather (a little rain never killed anyone!) it will all be lovely and regardless of what happens, I get a two week vacation as of Thursday. And that's always something to look forward to.

Cooking in Bulk

I love to cook. I love spending the afternoon in the kitchen, chopping and slicing and mixing and baking. It is just so rare that I have that kind of time. But today I did, and since we were having Adam's family over for dinner, it seemed like a good time to do that. There had been a request for my chile rellenos, which I happily set to work making. It's an easy enough meal for 4, I figured it couldn't be that hard to scale it up for 8. Everything was going fine until I actually set to work with the frying. The first batch came out well, so I set to work on the second batch. A little smoky, but still looked like they were turning out ok. Then went to finish up the third batch, and was out of batter. Hmmm, do we just go with the ones I've made so far, or whip up some more batter? Since the batter only consisted of egg whites and flour, I decided to make more batter. Quickly, since I was working with a pan of hot oil. So I dumped the egg whites in the bowl of the Kitchen Aid, turned it to high and realized the oil on the stove behind me was burning. I pulled that off the burner, but suddenly a large puff of smoke started emanating from the burner. Luckily, I had removed the batteries from our smoke alarm last time I set something on fire in the kitchen and I didn't see any flames, so we were fine. I headed back to check on my egg whites and noted that nothing had happened. There were no peaks forming, just foamy egg whites. I had not bothered to rinse out the bowl before putting the new batch of egg whites in, and it seems the yolks from the last batch were prohibiting my egg whites from forming peaks. Sigh. At this point I'm on the verge of losing it, because once again my oil is on fire, I have a dozen chile rellenos getting cold, and I was supposed to be impressing people with my cooking prowess. Luckily, Adam's mom swept in to save the day. She rinsed out the bowl, put some new egg whites in to whip and within a few minutes, I had finished up the last of the chile rellenos. Without burning anything down.

I am told they were good, but I didn't think they were my best. Too much batter, not enough cheese. I did however make strawberry shortcake for dessert, and that was, as always, delicious.

Lesson learned. Chile rellenos are not meant to be made in bulk. Next time we cook for the family, we will be making hot dogs.

One Week To Go...

In just over one week I will officially be... well, I will still be Dr. Tracy Susan Tylee. Yeah, the whole marriage thing is somewhat anti-climactic if you aren't changing your name. I play with the idea, as long as I get to keep my last name. I worked long and hard to be Dr. Tylee, and I am not ready to give that up. I am willing to consider Tracy Susan Silberfein Tylee however. It meets my requirements: 1. can still be Dr. Tylee, 2. can just leave off the Tylee if I want to be Mrs. Silberfein, and can have a secret life that my patients won't know about and 3. my initials would still be palindromic. Quite honestly, it really depends on how much of a hassle it is to legally change my name.

In other news, well, there is no other news. Programs are coming along. I sent Adam on a wedding favor errand today, so I'm putting those together now. While drinking margaritas. I do love me a good margarita. I'm getting more and more excited about the wedding as the day approaches. I look forward to the rehearsal dinner, and the chance to hang out with my original family and my new family, and for everyone to spend some time getting to know each other. I'm excited about breakfast with my bridesmaids (at least with Kate and Emily) and my day of pampering before the rehearsal dinner. I can't wait to see how the wedding goes, and can't wait for the after-party at Kate's where I can take off those stupid (although incredibly cute) shoes and hang out with everyone drinking ALL THAT BEER (we have ordered a lot of beer). And the brunch on Sunday will be fabulous because it will be my family and friends and Top Pot Donuts.

So those of you who will be there next weekend, I can't wait to see you! And those of you who won't, let me know and I'll send you pictures! My margarita awaits.... hmm... I think I need to send Adam to the store for more limes.

Home Again, Home Again

For those of you who have been on the edge of their seats... "did she make it? did she escape salt lake city? did she have to sleep in the airport?" ... I am home. I was #15 on the stand-by list with 16 available seats, and was actually lucky enough to score an exit row seat. Granted, it was a middle exit row seat, but after 8 hours in the SLC airport, I didn't care. I even made it home by midnight.

Today I've been trying to finish off the last of our wedding tasks. I just realized the final payments for all of our vendors were due last week. Oops. If they really wanted to be paid though, they should have contacted me, right? How am I expected to keep track of all these things? Luckily, Adam is between jobs right now (gave notice Thursday, was asked not to come back Friday, starts new job after the honeymoon) so I have him running all kinds of wedding errands. Tomorrow I am going to teach him how to make programs. So all compliments on the wedding programs should be directed towards him.

I did figure out how to get the pictures off my camera. Finally. Even though the cord is still MIA. So as promised, the blanket for Little Bear; it's super soft, and was really fun to make. I have enough yarn for another so first one to tell me they are pregnant, gets one:

The kiddo, chillaxin':

And of course, the full album of Little Bear v.2.5.w:

Weekend Standing By

I flew to Missoula this weekend to visit Tom, Kat and the baby. The rest of the Tylee clan (minus Kate) made the drive over from Seattle. I took advantage of having a family member who works for the airline and managed to get a very cheap ticket for what otherwise would have been a very expensive weekend trip. I had a very good time hanging out with everyone, I get very homesick whenever I return to the mountains. It is just so beautiful out here, I feel so much more at home in the northwest than I do anywhere else. Tom and Kat live in a great little house in a little town outside Missoula, complete with local malt shop. I got my pizza, I washed dishes for the new family, I admired the little baby.

And now I am trying to get home. Dear lord. Remind me never to fly stand-by on a Sunday! Yes, I got a very good deal on my trip here this weekend, but the downside is that I have to fly stand by, and I have the lowest priority of everyone. Right now I am in Salt Lake City. I have thus far been bumped from two flights and there is only one flight left. This last flight seems to be running at least an hour late (although if you believe the flight status indicator on the computer, it is actually going to be 3 hours late and is currently somewhere over Michigan. This would of course be the one time I choose to travel without a book. I've managed to entertain myself through the brief wait at the Missoula airport and the very short flight to SLC. I had a beer once I got here, and then played solitaire for awhile. Then waited and waited and waited and hoped that that plane they were waiting for was going to be late and all 5 people were going to miss their connections... but no. They all came running at the last minute and I was bumped.

So now I wait again. And since I have used up all my entertainment tricks, I shelled out the $8 for internet access, because the internet can keep me busy for hours, which apparently I'm going to need. I actually wanted to buy the new David Sedaris book, because that too would keep me entertained, and I was trying to protest the idea of charging for internet access in airports. But no, the Salt Lake City airport bookstores do not stock David Sedaris (I checked 4 different stores) so I threw my priciples out the window and paid for the internet.

And I still don't have a cord for my camera, so still can't show you any new pictures. I did however take a picture of Little Bear on my cell phone, so for your viewing pleasure I give you "Blue Steel":