THE TRIP I DIDN'T GO ON AND TRIED TO BE HAPPY ABOUT...

My DH, the Adventurer, was asked to go on a trip a couple of months ago, in December.  Of course, being in mid-December, the Christmas lover in me refused to go (I also didn't want to leave my highschooler alone for 8 days) and so my husband asked our college son if he would like to join in, since he would just be finishing his finals.  I tried to be happy about all this.  :)  

I was so happy I didn't really learn much about Peru or Machu Picchu at all.

They had a really incredible trip.  After acclimating for a few days, they hiked 28 miles over several days, along the Inca Trail, over 14,000 ft. mountains to Machu Picchu.  They were in a group of 10 Christian tourists, had a guide, porters (required) and a chef in their group.  You can tell how steep it was behind them in this picture.

They saw remains of a nation lost 500 years ago.  Little is known about the Incas but they were mastermind architects!

I asked them to take some pictures of Christmas decorations in Peru.  There wasn't a lot, but here is one of a nativity.

Here is one of several Christmas trees they saw made of recycled pop bottles!  

One of my favorite shots - My husband sent this and said it was "Selfie" and in my non-techie innocence I thought the llamas name was "Selfie" - providing my kids a good laugh at Mom's expense.  

So they did bring me back a few neat little gifts - playing cards, chocolate, and an alpaca and hat key ring that we used for Christmas ornaments.

My husband picked out this pretty scarf for me...

and some hand-made orchid earrings.  They saw lots of orchids in the mountains.  

So I guess for not getting to go, I did pretty well with the gifts!  Now I'm happy they went and I'm sure had some good bonding time together. It didn't mess up Christmas too much.  Sometimes you just have to take advantage of the opportunities when they come up.