Day 23

Friday, July 4th!

Friday was an absolutely wonderful and exciting day! Fridays Iris goes to the market in Quillacollo to get fruits and vegetables for the week. Because this is one of my favorite things to do (open air markets, that is) I forfeit my morning at the hospital to help her carry everything. This Friday it was crucial that I go because I needed to search for pie dishes in order to make some Dutch Apple Pie as part of our 4th of July celebration!

We managed to waste a whole lot of time looking around before we even got to the fruit and vegetables. I found pie plates, but Iris wanted to see if we could find them cheaper elsewhere so we took note and left. I had to change money over so I did that. Then a bunch of us stopped on the side of the road for some fresh orange juice from one of the ladies selling it. It was probably about 15 cents each and quite refreshing. Here's a pic of us enjoying it!

We stopped and bought super cheap movies. 4 for 16 bolivianos which is just over $2. Unfortunately, we have been unable to get them into English. One was part of my gift to my dad for Father's Day....sorry Dad. Oh well.

Eventually we headed to the fruits & vegetable area and did our shopping. I bought some dried peaches to make the peach drink they have here. I am hoping to bring some home with me so I can make it for my friends & family when I get back! They look kind of like little brains but they are super sweet and very tasty. We also bought some bread from the same lady we bought it th week before, and you really can't get anything better than fresh bread at the market. Especially when 2 little round loaves cost about the equivalent of 12 cents. Anyway, so we finished our shopping and headed home where we had lunch and then the party prep began!

We made all kinds of excellent creations! I made 2 Dutch Apple pies, which I started making the crust and Iris helped by cutting up tons of apples for me! She actually cut up too many because she was just cutting them up as she watched a movie with Ester. Around the same time, the girls started to get back from the surgery from that afternoon, so they started on other things. Charlotte made this jello salad with whipped cream (which she had to whip with a mixer because cool whip doesn't exist in Bolivia) , jello packets, cream cheese and cut up fruit. Megan and Kat helped make the rice krispie treats...which actually consisted of combining puffed rice with cornflakes...they turned out the almost exact texture of real rice krispie treats. They also put dulce de leche between a layer of 2 rice krispie treats ( they made a quadruple batch) and that was definitely a big hit! We also had hot dogs, hamburgers, macaroni & cheese, deviled eggs, and potato chips. I am pretty sure that none of it tasted like what you would have in the states (except maybe the hamburgers & apple pie) but it was a big hit and we had fun preparing it and celebrating July 4th! We then went outside and set off some fireworks. We did sparklers and even had a few Roman Candles. It was so great!!

We finished off the night by seeing Hancock. Sadly, Iris wasn't feeling well and Tomás decided to stay home to take care of her. We felt bad because he wanted to see it in the first place, but he's a committed husband! Turns out, Linda & her son Tim met us there for the movie so we all watched it together. Sadly, it was a little disappointing. Very entertaining, but not my favorite of all time.

The apple pie was a big hit and the first one was gone that night. Thanks to mother for emailing me the recipe last minute. About 5 people have requested the recipe since! :-)