Stokes in Peru

Happy Thanksgiving everyone~ Although by this time of night, I imagine everyone is quite stuffed and thoughts have turned to "Black Friday", at least for some of my audience. I hope everyone had a great holiday, of course, Thanksgiving is not celebrated down here, but Marianella and I will be hosting a Thanksgiving dinner the weekend after this one to commemorate one of my favorite holidays. Fortunately, the standard menu for Thanksgiving is pretty easy to do in Peru as all the food items (except stuffing) are staples of the Peruvian diet. So, it's time to catch you up on what's been going on in our lives. The big news is Marianella and I found our own apartment (or departmento) recently and moved in one week ago exactly. The apartment is located in an area of Lima called San Borja, a very nice suburb that we were hoping to find a place in. We found that apartment hunting was quite competitive in our price range, and after enduring some frustration for a few week

It's with a heavy heart that I update the blog today, as I heard from my Mom that our family dog Snoopy passed away around 5:30 this morning. My parents brought Snoopy home from the dog pound when I was a sophomore in college and she lived an extraordinarily long life for a dog, particularly for a dog living in the country. Consider that my niece Laura who is currently a junior in high school was not born yet when Snoopy became a member of the family and that gives you an idea how long she was alive. While we were lucky to have her with us for so long, it makes it that much harder to say goodbye. Neither I nor any of my siblings lived at our parents' homes during Snoopy's life, but she was an easy dog to grow attached to. She welcomed all visitors into the household, greeting us with a wagging tail and an accepting nature-a great watch dog she was not. She was the first dog allowed to live in the home while we were on the farm and she quickly grew accustomed to the easy li