That’s the Bellagio, and it was our home for the MLK holiday weekend. Well, more like our crash pad. Since we partied like college kids the entire time, we saw very little of our ultra fancy room.

This was mine and Roger’s first time in Vegas, and we were impressed. The hotels are beautiful. I kept thinking how small Vegas looked, but then I realized it only looked small because EVERY building is huge!

While we were there, we saw Love – a Cirque du Soleil show set to Beatles music. It was incredible and by far the best part of the trip. It was our first time seeing this kind of show, and we couldn’t stop smiling through the whole thing. The music was great (it’s the Beatles after all!), and the choreography and interpretation of the songs were whimsical and touching. I would pay twice my ticket price to see it again.

Another highlight of the trip was eating at Hard Rock Cafe and playing with their Microsoft Surface tables. These huge touchscreens let you explore Hard Rock’s memorabilia collection with your own hands. This was my first time seeing a Surface screen up close, and it was super cool. I can’t wait to get a coffee table version in our house! (One day, one day.)

We even had a Surface screen at our table, but it didn’t work too well. Kids had gotten to the touch screen. Hardware is no match for kid fingers. Here’s the group, happy and full.

On Sunday we headed to old Vegas, land of cheap tables and old-school slot machines (you know, the ones that actually spit the coins out the bottom instead of printing a ticket). Leslie and I played $2 roulette for an hour with winnings from a penny slot (Miss Kitty – yeah!), drank free alcohol, and walked away with $40. And Eric sat down, played a single number (which pays 35 to 1), and actually won. “That never happens!” – direct quote from Eric himself.

Here Leslie and I are having a little fun. We’re trying to pose like the girly statue behind us. However, a weird guy was walking up behind us, and in our rush I posed more like a flamingo than a show girl.

Speaking of goofing off, Roger and Kevin posed with Humpty Dumpty.

They weren’t the only ones…

This is why you go to Vegas with friends. They understand why a photo with Humpty Dumpty is necessary. And they don’t judge you for it.

We had many other adventures, and you can check them out on our photos page. It includes mine and Roger’s photos and some of Camille’s, because, well, she has a fancier camera and mad photography skills.

After Lauren’s graduation, we headed to Hilton Head for a weekend at the beach and stayed at the Marriott Resort and Spa at Palmetto Dunes.  The first day we went to the spa, which was really nice after driving from Atlanta to the coast in constant rain. We didn’t plan much for the weekend, because it was supposed to rain the whole time. But then something crazy happened – the sun came out.

And stuck around.

So on Saturday we headed down to the pool, and discovered flags. Each pool chair had a flag you could raise for when you needed a drink or food or whatever. Hello lap of luxury! There was a bar and a restaurant next to the pool, so you could eat at a table right on the beach if you wanted. We passed on the alcohol (it was before noon) (ok, that wouldn’t really stop us – we were just not thirsty), but we took a short swim and that water was cold!

Then we headed down to the sand to check out the beach. The beach there is pretty, and like most Atlantic beaches I’ve seen, has a huge area of packed down sand where the tide comes in and out. That always amazes me, because on the Gulf the tide comes in about 5 feet. So there’s not a lot of packed sand lying around. It’s all fluffy white sand that gets everywhere (and stays everywhere despite the 3 showers you took to get rid of it).

That afternoon we explored the south end of the island and found Sea Pines. Yeah, we just thought we were mingling with the fancy pants folks at the Marriott. Sea Pines has mansions on the beach and golf courses on the PGA tour. This place is gorgeous! We at lunch at The Wreck of the Salty Dog outside overlooking the harbour and then wandered around that area looking at shops and sights.

Then we headed off to Harbour Town to tour the lighthouse and visit more shops. They had a Christmas shop (Heaven!) where we found a nativity for Mom.  My mom doesn’t officially collect nativities, but during Christmas her house is covered in them. (I’m on my way to becoming an unofficial collector too  – it must be genetic.) Anyway, a palmetto tree makes up the right side of the nativity, and I thought that was a cool way to tie South Carolina into it. It also shows Mary and Jesus on a donkey, which I’d never seen before in a nativity.

Late Saturday evening we went to Brews on the Harbour, a beer, jazz, and seafood festival at Shelter Cove Harbour. This festival is pretty new to the island, as this was only the second year for it. Roger found out about it through an article in a local magazine that did its best to convince Hilton Head Islanders that beer wasn’t just for frat boys anymore.

See, Hilton Head is all about their wine. Every restaurant we went too had a page long wine list. The first restaurant we went to served Roger a Magic Hat 9 in a plastic cup, while my Riesling was presented in an actual wine glass. See the problem here? It was a Magic Hat people! It’s not like we were having Miller time!

So this festival was all about showing the masses how great beer can be. Yay! Unfortunately they ran out of glasses and gave us a Dixie cup instead for the SAME PRICE. And they gave us drink tokens. Tokens? What happened to all the beer you can drink from a tiny cup? Ah well, the festival is still a toddler. It will grow and learn and become a better festival one day. We still had fun!

After a long day I fell asleep watching the UGA/Arkansas game. The lead changed hands 4 times in 5 minutes, but even that wasn’t enough to keep me awake. And it’s a good thing I fell asleep early, because Roger woke me up in time to see the sunrise. I was too confused to say “what the??” and just sort of stumbled out of bed. And I’m glad I did. I got a great picture (see above) and some quiet time with my sweetie.

Check out the rest of our Hilton Head pictures on our photo site.

This is Drufo. He was one of the dogs at the construction site in Ecuador. His favorite resting spot happened to be where the team was digging an 8 feet deep hole. But did that bother him? Heck no! He just jumped down in the hole and took a nap. And don’t worry – he had an escape plan . . .

It means “Hills of the North,” and it’s a special place in the hearts of our Ecuador mission team. In years past the team has worked with the children at the daycare here. The kids are ages 2-5. We visited them on our last work day, and they managed to touch all of us in just a few minutes.

Whenever I have a bad day, from now on I will think of these kids. They made me laugh and hit a spot of pure joy I didn’t know even existed in my heart. But they also made me cry as I finally saw with my own eyes how unfair life really is. The teachers told us the kids had no friends and that we were the only ones to visit them. Some of the kids are orphans who live with families who can barely support themselves.

Miss Alice, a lady at our church, crocheted about 100 hats to give to the kids. They loved them and were excited to find out they could take them home. The hats were adorable and brought smiles to all of our faces.

One of the kids’ favorite activities is dancing. The teachers turn on the music and the kids go nuts. We danced with them until the altitude stole our last breath (so we danced about 5 minutes hahah). I shot a video of the kids before a teacher pulled me into the dancing madness with them.

Someone on the team said they left a piece of their heart at Colinas del Norte. I feel the same.

Today Karen worked construction, so I led the music (Tanya, are you proud?!?). Even though I volunteered for this job, I was really nervous. The songs are in Spanish and the tunes are new to me. But today at VBS not only did I do a pretty good job leading the music, I had FUN! God was there.

Chris hurt his arm working construction and so had to join the VBS team for today and tomorrow. But it was awesome with Chris. The kids love him and he’s a great addition to our team. God knew we needed him there.

Travis shared a story tonight about how his working area was directly in the sun. The helpers at the church tried several times to make some shade for him with tarps, but it never worked. Later, the pastor told the translator he had something to tell Travis. He said, “We tried to provide you shade but failed, so God sent clouds.” Travis said the clouds stuck around the rest of the day. God provided.

We can’t fail. God is making sure of it, and I’m so thankful for His power. At devotion, Gail told us that God is always there providing for us, but we often miss it in the comforts of home. I tell you what I’ve learned – God’s love and power are magnified here. It’s like suddenly His love for us is in focus; it was always there but now I see it so clearly.

Thank you to everyone who gave me (and all of us) the chance to be on this mission. I know I’m not alone in saying that the experiences here are life changing.

And finally more pictures! First from the construction site. Today some of the church members came out to meet the team and see their progress.

I’m sorry again for the lack of VBS pictures. I’ll try to snag someone’s memory card and copy some of the photos. I snapped these while hanging outside the daycare between sessions yesterday. The kids come out from everywhere and love to have their picture taken.

The construction team is in south Quito, and the VBS team is in north Quito at a daycare. I don’t have a lot of pictures from VBS, but I promise Karen has taken tons of beautiful photos. We had about 40 kids this morning and 40 after lunch, all between 6-11 years old. We also had the help of two translators – Pamela and Margarita.

The kids listened to the story of Elijah and watched a skit. OK, the skit was not great the first time we did it, but by the afternoon we were getting much better at it. We also sang a bunch of songs (the kids love to sing!) and worked on crafts.

After lunch we had an hour of free time (thanks to Pamela and Margarita offering to prepare one of the crafts for next time), so we explored some of the area around the daycare. Our guide Adriana took us shopping and took us to the school where the kids went. The kids were so excited to see us. We had a great time being with them and taking pictures.

After work we headed to the market, ate dinner, and had our devotion. We ended the night looking at pictures Roger and Karen took. I know everyone is tired, but I also know we all had a great day. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

There are so many stories. This blog posting is less than even the Cliffs Notes version. Just know that God is working here – even through those of us who only know a few Spanish words.

We made it to Ecuador! I don’t have a lot of time to write, so here are a few highlights. We landed safely last night around midnight. Earlier today I saw the airport and runway, and now I’m really happy we landed at night. Small runway, huge plane, and surrounding volcanoes – sounds like a good action movie.

Today was for exploring before our work begins tomorrow. We traveled to the Equator . . . twice. The first time we went to the actual location, where we performed some nifty science tricks. Water drains straight down – oddest thing I’ve ever seen. Roger has a movie of it and I’ll post it later.

Next we went to the “Middle of the World” where the French originally thought the Equator ran. Hey, they were only off by about 200 feet, so that’s not too bad! There’s a beautiful monument at the park and shops surround it.

Middle of the World is a really neat tourist spot. There’s a lookout on top of the monument, and we could see for miles.

After lunch we went to church at Mama Yolis. The construction teams last year helped build classrooms for Mama Yolis, and we got to see the finished rooms today. Church was done in Spanish with an English translator. That was definitely a different experience, but I enjoyed it very much.

Tomorrow we start the real work – construction and VBS. But for now, I’m off to dinner. We miss everyone!

And here are their 700 classmates who graduated with them. The speaker called students’ names for over an hour!

Graduation was Sunday afternoon, so we all went to dinner Saturday night at RB’s. It’s a restaurant right on a port, where people can dock their ships while they eat. We ate upstairs on the outdoor deck and afterwards hung out on the pier watching pelicans and dolphins play in the water.

Immediately after graduation, Lauren and Christian left with their staff sergeant for boot camp. They’re both joining the Marines and will be in boot camp at Paris Island until their September graduation. It was really hard to tell them goodbye, but everyone is so proud of them!

More pictures are on our photo site.

We got to the courthouse early to grab seats and then explored the town a little.

The play is fun. It starts outside the courthouse with a small set of house fronts. Then it moves into the courthouse for the trial and final scenes.

My only criticism is that the play version is a little preachy (the book is more subtle about the issues of classism and racism), and they leave out most of the Boo Radley stuff. So anything dealing with Boo later seems really forced. But that being said, I still had a great time.

Hunter and Michelle let us stay with them while we were in town, so we got to spend quality time with their son Aiden. He’s now 2 and he’s a lot of fun. Roger snapped this shot of him while we were all playing outside. Isn’t he cute?

Saturday night a group of us went to Chelsea’s for dinner. This was mine and Roger’s first time at the new Chelsea’s, and we were impressed. The old one was a great place to see bands, but eating dinner there usually proved a little difficult. The new place has a lot more room, and the food was as good as ever.

We had so much fun with everyone. It makes me miss Baton Rouge even more. I guess we’ll have to start going back more often! The rest of our pictures from the trip are posted to our photo site.

We only got to try one kind of Heineken, but it was included in the price of admission so no complaints here. We learned that Heineken is made from water, hops, barley, and Heineken “A” yeast. The room where they mix the mash smelled pretty bad (in my opinion), but the resulting beer is good. It’s actually better than the Heineken we get here at home. Not sure how that happens.

We learned about the Heineken family, who are well known for their humanitarian efforts. Heineken was one of the first companies to offer their employees a pension, and at one point when the economy was particularly bad, they offered early retirement in lieu of lay offs.

They also designed the “Wobo” bottle which could be recycled to build houses. The bottles were designed with flat sides and ends that fit together, so people could build walls out of them. Of course, the walls were made of green glass so I don’t know how well that works for a house. But then again, it could be perfect for a college frat house…

After the Heineken museum, we went to the Albert Cuyp Market. It’s basically a farmers market mixed with clothing stores. You could buy anything from fresh seafood, cheese, chocolate, or flowers to boots, purses, scarves, jeans, or formal evening dresses. The tourist websites describe it as a “general market.” No kidding. I considered it a lovely place since they sold flowers in the dead of winter.

Continuing our touristy actions, we went to the Rijksmuseum. This was our second time through, and it was just as great. It’s just a really neat museum, and I recommend checking it out if you ever have the chance. They have paintings, Delftware, silver, and all sorts of random historical items. It’s a great way to learn about The Netherlands’ history and see some pretty incredible (and old!) stuff.

The Rijksmuseum is located near Museumplein (a big square that’s home to Rijksmuseum and Van Gough Museum). At the edge of this square is the ultimate in tourist attractions and photo opps – the Iamsterdam sign. If you’re taking your picture with this sign, you are most certainly not from Amsterdam. So naturally we asked Adam to take a picture of us with the sign, and then we herded him to the sign for a picture of himself. I used my favorite Mom line of “you’ll be happy later that I begged you to do this.”

Adam had to put up with additional Roger and Rachel antics at Museumplein too. But after all, would you have handled this any differently? I’m looking at you, Kevin. I mean, the ice cream was just asking me to be silly. And so I obliged. Because I’m sweet. And I was too cold to think straight or consider my actions.

To balance out our time spent in a cultural institution, we hung out in the Red Light District. Here we experienced a few oddities – swans hanging out in a canal (yes, you read that right – SWANS, as in the huge white birds), the granny window section (what the?), a Chinese New Year parade complete with enough firecrackers I thought we were under gunfire, and a new understanding of the dangers of weed.

Wouldn’t the first two problems listed on this book ensure the third problem would not happen? That was at the Hemp Museum Gallery, which was actually really cool. Aside from the weed references, they also had images of how hemp was used in shipping and other areas of industry all over the world. It was fascinating to see all the ways hemp could be used. It’s more versatile than cotton!

The Chinese New Year parade was hosted by a huge Chinese restaurant in the area. They had dragons and loud drums, and they marched through the streets. When they ended at the restaurant, they gathered in a circle and played the drums for a long time. Then they eventually set off the firecrackers. This happened several times while we were there, but I never got used to how loud the firecrackers were. The sound reverberates off the buildings. It’s unsettling, but maybe I’ve just seen too many gangster movies.

In the Red Light District we found a bar and coffeeshop called Hunter’s. And since we know a particularly awesome Hunter from Baton Rouge, we figured the place had a good chance of being cool. We were right. Other than the bathroom being super tiny (but clean at least!), the bar was a cool place.

We saw several odd things while walking around the city, including a South Carolina flag hanging from a hotel and this nifty fry guy statue hanging out in a store front.

The fry guy is representing Amsterdam by illustrating the cone of fries they love to eat. The fries in Amsterdam are ridiculously good. They’re a must if you ever go. The only downfall is they eat fries with mayonnaise. Ick. I passed on the mayo myself.

Speaking of fries, we ate at the McDonalds at Schipol Airport while waiting for our flight. They don’t really have breakfast like we do, so at 8:00 am we were eating the following: Rachel – the worst croissant I’ve ever had and some of Roger’s fries; Roger – Quarterpounder (what happened to the metric system?); Adam – a “Big and Tasty” which was apparently a burger with gouda cheese. Hrm. They also served “McKrokets” which I thought was hysterical.

On the up side, Schipol is one of the most beautiful and efficient airports I’ve ever traveled through. It was decorated really nicely for the holidays. This picture is from the lounge we waited in, and it’s only a hint of how the rest of the airport looked.

After our last trip, Roger dreamed about Amsterdam nearly every night. And they were frustrating dreams where he was with a bunch of friends, but they don’t realize they’re in Amsterdam until the last day. So I asked him if he is still having dreams about Amsterdam, and he said he is but they have more closure. He now always knows he’s in Amsterdam so the dream is much more satisfying.

So does this make Amsterdam a dreamy place? Oh yeah, I went there. I made that corny joke. And now I’m leaving you with it. To ponder it. All day. Now, who wants to go to Amsterdam? I’ve heard it’s a cool place.

We got back from our trip Monday, and I haven’t had a free moment since then to sit down and write a blog post. And since our hotel charged $5/hr for internet, I decided not to blog while on the trip either. So here’s the first part of our trip in a nutshell (for all your squirrel fans out there).

First things first (and YES, I have to do this) – thank you Evan for text messaging me the Peach Bowl score. I seriously worried you got the score backwards until I could get home and look it up for myself at ESPN. Geaux tigers! But moving on . . .

We arrived in Amsterdam at 7:30 New Year’s morning. Here’s Adam and me at Schipol airport relieved to be off the plane and ready to start our adventure. During the short train ride to Centraal Station, we were excited to see snow on the ground! But that’s the last of it we saw for the entire trip. Ahh well.

When we stepped off the train we were greeted by partiers still walking around with beer, tons of red fireworks paper, and piles of trash everywhere. It was eerily similar to every New Orleans morning in the Quarter but fortunately without the urine-in-the-gutters smell. But by the end of the day, most of the trash was history and the city’s holiday decorations could take center stage.

This was my first time traveling somewhere besides my hometown during the holidays, and I definitely recommend it. It’s cool to see another city’s lights and decorations. These lights are at Leidseplein, above the Irish pub and restaurant.

There was also an ice skating rink surrounded by Sinterklaas statues (more on that later) and holiday vendors selling things like chocolate-covered waffles (good grief they’re good!), apple tarts, and more. It was like a fair but without the rides, farm animals, and gigantic squashes. A few more pictures of the decorations at Leidseplein:

Everywhere we looked we were greeted by Santa Claus Sinterklaas statues. I’m convinced some of the statues are just Santas the Dutch ordered and then sneakily painted green gloves on. Although I have to admit I’ve never seen these types of Santas here in the states, so my theory could be woefully wrong.

One place we missed last time we were in Amsterdam was Hard Rock Cafe. It’s near Leidseplein in a square where you can place chess on a large board painted on the ground, with pieces that stand about knee high. The square is also decorated with Christmas light chess pieces.

We ate there one night, and it’s kind of odd. You’d never know you were anywhere besides America from inside that place. Even the music they play is the same as all the other Hard Rocks. I had macaroni and cheese for goodness sake!

But it was good and a fun place. It’s right next to a canal, so the view is nice. I also noticed one of the waiters liked to sing to the music as he walked by. Nothing like hearing American rock with a Dutch accent. Very cute.

Did you hear that? It was Roger telling me to wrap it up already. If he ever buys a wrap-it-up light, there will be a war at our house. (If you don’t know what that means, ask me later.) Part 2 coming soon – Heineken brewery, Albert Cyup Market, Hemp Museum Gallery, and more!

Also, all of our pictures are on our photo site where you can download or print full-size images of our beautiful faces.