Yay for Parents!

I went out to dinner with Corey's parents (Mark and Lynne) along with Chandler, Erica, and Kate on Sunday evening at Inka Grill in the plaza and it was wonderful. Corey has such an adorable set of parents. He is literally the spitting image of his dad and his mom is so cute and makes you feel right at home. I had a delicious musrhoom, artichoke, and asparagus risotto. If anyone wants to go to a not incredibly over-priced (but still on the more expensive in Cusco) restaurant I would highly recommend going to Inka Grill. I feel like they are becoming my pseudo parents as they have been here for only 3 days and I have seen them three times. They came to my concert last night and today we took the chocolate making workshop, which by the way, was AWESOME! The process of making chocolate is super interesting and we got to take home 24 pieces of chocolate that we made. I made ones with raisins and ones with coconut and cinnamon. Yum! I think the cutest thing that Lynne (which is also my mother's name without the e at the end) wanted to meet Marco so that she could relay to my mother what he is like. :) It's super fun hanging out with them and seeing how they interact with Corey. He is a very very loved kid which is always a pleasure to see and be around and they are hilarious when they all interact.

So of course, with other people's parents around I started thinking about my own parents and how much I love them and miss them. My mom has had her fair share of health issues lately like me so we have been in better contact lately. It should be like that all the time really. I plan on keeping the contact much more frequent. I have been pretty good with my dad too. His girlfriend sent me a letter and I have to reply to it. Maybe I will do that tonight since I have a bit of free time. Anyway, I appreciate my parents more than they even know. I am blessed to have such wonderful supportive ones that tell me "go for it" when I say that I want to move to another continent and live here for who knows how long. I really wish they could come visit but plane tickets aren't exactly cheap at this moment in time. No matter what, I know that they will always be there for me and I am forever indebted to them for having raised me to be an independent, responsible adult.

In other news, my brother is coming this Friday and we are going to go on a few adventures ourselves. I have to get into tourist/traveler mode because that is what we are going to be doing. I also need to figure out if I want to splurge on a train ticket to Machu Picchu or take the chance of having to walk a lot due to landslides if we take the bus. We shall see. I'm just pumped that he will be here to hear me sing with The Guardians here at the hostel on Friday!