Hello, 2013

Well. A year ago I promised you all 150 posts in 2012... I didn't even break 100! The last quarter of this year was a doozy... we moved to Bogotá, Colombia, on November 1, and pretty much hit the ground running. Things didn't really slow down until after Christmas. 

Well, I'm not sure to what extent I'm going to be able to catch you all up on the past two months... but at least, here is an assortment of photos that I finally got around to downloading and prettying up on my laptop (my camera suffered a rain-related mishap in October, so the lens cover doesn't open all the way anymore... which is why a lot of my photos have a dark shadow in one corner. Those that don't, it's been cropped out.)

This is the view out our bedroom window. We don't actually get direct sunlight in our apartment, but we are close to some green spaces - the trees you see there are on the National University grounds.

Another nice green space nearby: this is a sweet little park half a block from our house. This neighborhood is referred to by some as the "Mennonite neighborhood" because so many Mennonites live within a few blocks of each other!

For the past month, my parents have been visiting us here in Bogotá while house-sitting for a Wycliffe missionary who is in the US right now. These roses are from her garden - a sunny little backyard patio where the kids have been having a ton of fun playing. The "Fancy House" (as we've been calling it) is quite a distance from our apartment, so we've been dividing our weeks between the two places, staying 3-4 days at a time over there. Bogotá is seriously huge... although the TransMilenio bus system does a lot to facilitate transit.

We spent Christmas Day relaxing at home, and also at a team Christmas party in an apartment complex that had its own little grassy area with a playground, which the kids vastly enjoyed.

For New Year's, we went to Montserrate - a local landmark with a wonderful vista of the city. We took the Funicular - a train built at a slant to go up steep slopes - to go up, and the cable car to come down. At the top we enjoyed the view and had a delicious lunch at an Italian-themed restaurant there. 

Well, 2012 held a lot of surprises. We'll see what 2013 will bring!