Venezuela

On September 2nd we got back from Venezuela. The kids and I, and my little sister Andrea and her little boy, went with no husbands for two weeks to visit my dad. I have to say that it was no vacation; just a ton of work! I did come back with a greater appreciation for Mitch though!
Here are a few thing that happened while there:

We were able to visit my "Abuela." I hadn't seen her for 3 years and Kayden had never met her. Although her memory is basically gone (she didn't know who we were), it was still nice to see her again.While there, one of my dad's dogs died, a macaw escaped (but later caught again) and we had two encounters with these snakes--one killed one of my dad's parrots--Roberto. All events were very unusual. In fact, my dad had never seen any snakes before on his property.
Poor Roberto. He was the most talkative parrot. They were just too late to save the parrot--they found the snake coiled around the bird.My dad killed both of the snakes--Andrea and I felt so bad for them.


While there we stayed at this place where there were iguanas everywhere!
I love this picture. After my dad put sunblock on himself he asked if he had any white on him, and of course we said no. Right after I took this picture, I just couldn't contain it any longer and started laughing! My dad felt so stupid--when I say he cares about his appearance a lot, that is an understatement!
Below are some random pictures:
I was trying to take a picture of the "ranchos." (I think they are called shanties?) There are actually a lot more places where the ranchos are even more saturated but my pictures didn't turn out. It is funny though that if you drive by close you'll see that they all have tv's and many have satelites.
"Papi" and me (with my eyes half closed.)

Papi and Geraldine (his wife.)
Andrea and Luke (or "Catire" as everyone there would call him).

Our plane rides with the kids were the worst of all. Especially the ones on the way home. We actually got stuck in the plane leaving from Venezuela for an hour and a half because the Venezuelan army wanted to check each and every single suitcase. Why? Who knows! That's Venezuela for you! I'm just glad I packed all my valuable stuff on my carry on bags! The situation in Venezuela gets worse every year. While in the airport, we met with a couple of pilots who told us that last year he was riding in a taxi when a couple of Venezuelans also in the taxi started fighting with the driver. Apparently the taxi driver was off course. The driver had been bribed 50,000 dollars to kidnap foreigners! No surprise here though--my ex step-mother was kidnapped once and my sisters have had many threats. Anyway, "Viva Venezuela!" hahaha