April Adventures: Dallas

We made it back to Tacna safe and sound on Monday morning after taking the overnight bus from Puno. We spent the last two days getting settled and organized, and are happy to have clean clothes and be able to eat home-cooked meals.

Now that we have had a chance to settle in and upload the millions of pictures we took over the past few weeks, we can start recapping our adventures over the past month.

We left Tacna on Wednesday, April 14th, flying to Lima in the afternoon, then overnight from Lima to Miami and then to Dallas.  We hung out at the Dallas airport for a little while, where we learned there is nothing but vending machine food outside of security, and met up with my mom and headed into the city.  We got to spend a nice day there eating good Mexican food and visiting the JFK Museum.  On Friday morning, we headed to the Dallas/Fort Worth suburbs to meet up with JP's extended family and get ready for the big event: JP's brother James's wedding.  Since JP was a groomsman, we got to go to the rehearsal and dinner, and catch up with family from Arizona, New Mexico, New York and Florida.  Here is JP hanging out with his niece and godchild, Evelyn, at the rehearsal dinner:

The day of the wedding was rainy, but JP and Patrick both managed to look very handsome in their purple-vested tuxes:

Here is the bridal party all together at the altar:

My pictures didn't come out that well in the church, but the ceremony was lovely and everyone enjoyed it.  Here we are after the ceremony:

After family pictures we headed over to the reception and enjoyed a good meal, delicious cake, and dancing!  Here is the happy couple with the cake:

Most of JP's family left on Sunday, so after seeing them off we headed back into downtown Dallas where we got to see my mom again before returning to Peru on Monday.  One of the entertaining parts of our stay was the balloon convention that was being held there.  Check out what greeted us when we walked in the door:

The balloon Dirk Nowitzki!  Who of course was supposed to inspire the Mavs to playoff victory, but things didn't quite pan out.

Here is me and my mom checking out the balloons after a cold walk in the city:

Our trip to Dallas was fun and family filled, but fast!  On Monday we left Dallas around 10 am, flew to Orlando and then to Miami before arriving in Lima around 11 pm.  We spent Tuesday in Lima doing some advance work for the Brophy group's visit at the end of May, then flew to Cuzco on Wednesday. Cuzco adventures will begin in the next post.