~Fun Food Friday...P.B., choc. chip cookies...(and pics of the Smiths!)~

I got this recipe from this website when I googled Peanut Butter Choc. Chip cookies.   And I quote....
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"These cookies are the absolute BEST peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. Ever.
No, seriously, they are!  =)
These cookies are melt in your mouth, crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder a pinch of salt
1 cup chocolate chips
Preparation:
First of all! I recommend doubling the recipe. You won’t regret it. =)
Preheat oven to 375ºF (175ºC). Line a cookie sheet or two with parchment.
Cream butter and sugars until creamy, then add egg and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add Peanut butter and continue to beat until combined. Add flour, baking powder and salt and stir to combine. Add chips and stir again. Drop small spoonfuls of dough onto parchment (you should get a dozen per sheet). Bake 12 minutes or until just golden. Remove from oven and allow to rest on the sheet 1 minute before removing with a spatula. Serve with gallons and gallons of milk. :D
If you have kids, hide a stash for yourself, because these only lasted 2 days in my house. And I doubled the recipe. I had 3 cookies out of about 6 dozen that were baked."
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~Here's the picture I took of my cookies (made from this recipe) that I served to Bro. Smith and Stephanie and my family.  They were good and we enjoyed them.  And as Always....Enjoy!~

~On Monday after 6 days of classes and services, we were all EXHAUSTED!  Thrilled with what Jesus had done, but very tired.  Poor Bro. Smith and Stephanie had only seen the tad of Bogota that they saw when they came from the airport, and the route to and from the church.  I don't even know if they knew that we were surrounded by the beautiful Andes mountains.  So, we wanted to take them souvenir shopping and to see more of Bogota on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning before they left.  Our dear Friends Bro. Erdmin and his family wanted to come over on Monday to visit with the Smiths.  So, here they are visiting....and then....~

~Stephanie gave us a gift of money to buy us all lunch!  Thanks, Stephanie!  So we enjoyed...~

~a yummy typical Colombian lunch together!~

~Then we took the Smiths to buy some souvenirs at a neat market near a mall.  We came home and walked to another mall near us to buy some ice cream toppings, and some Oreos and a few more souvenirs/typical candies for the Smiths to take back.  While Stephanie, Kimberly, and I were shopping, Phillip and Bro. Smith let our 3 middle kids play in this neat "sandbox" that was free.  Mary was sleeping in the stroller.~

~Walking home to enjoy some ice cream in our house.~

~Tuesday morning we got up and ran to take them to Monserrate mountain to see a neat view of Bogota.  Here we are before we went up in the gondola.~

~Here are some of us in the Gondola.  It's a pretty cheap price per person to go up and come back down in the Gondola, and so it's something fun we like to do with our visitors. (as if you haven't noticed. =) ~

~Elijah and Noah riding up the mountain.~

~All of us at the top.~

~Phillip and Bro. Smith~

~There's a Neat HUGE market up on the mountain that sells LOTS of things!  We were SURPRISED to find out that sometimes their prices are CHEAPER prices than down below in Bogota!  Here's Bro. Smith, Stephanie, and a little Blond haired Elijah.  Here they lovingly call someone with blond hair, "Mono"...meaning Monkey!  I think it's a pretty appropriate name for our Elijah. =) ~

~While we were shopping around Stephanie said, "Sis. Heather look, these are the 2 Mexican guys that were with the Mariachi group that sang at Kimberly's Quinceanera!"  Sure enough there was Jeanette the leader of the group and she had brought her 2 Mexican friends up to see Monserrate. (One of her friends was taking our picture.)   So, we got some pictures together.
(Some friends of Pastor Jimmy had paid for this same group to sing for Bro. Jimmy's birthday 3 years ago or so.  Jeanette had passed out her cards and I had saved her card knowing that I wanted to do something for Kimberly's 15th birthday years down the road. =)  We had a nice visit together.~

~We found a fun spot up on the mountain to eat our lunch. We sat by a picture window...with a BEAUTIFUL view of the Andes mountains behind us. ~

~We were Happy...for we were finally going to eat!~

~2 cute "cowboys" that I found to take a picture of.  =)~

~Sarah, Stephanie, and Kimberly with the huge city of Bogota behind them.~

~Kimberly and Sarah with the beautiful Andes behind them.~

~Stephanie with Bogota in the background.~

~It got so COLD and WINDY up there on that mountain that in the short hours that we were up there we drank hot chocolate, cafe' con leche (coffee with lots of milk), and TINTO...which is black sweetened coffee.  =)   Stephanie took this picture of my sweetheart and I hugging to keep warm. (It was a fun excuse! ;-) ~

~Drinking our coffee with milk before we went back down on the Gondola.~

~Mary and Phillip in the gandola.~

~Then we ran home and dropped off some things and walked to Bro. Jimmy and Sis. Farly's house for a DELICIOUS supper and a WONDERFUL evening/mini service with them and their girls and Bro. Jimmy's parents!~

~After eating their YUMMY supper...we sang choruses around the piano together, Bro. Smith encouraged/admonished all of us parents, and we had a wonderful season of prayer for our young people!  After all...our kids are our ONLY "things" we can take with us to Heaven.  ~

~I snapped this fun picture of DEAR Bro. Jimmy's parents walking with Stephanie!  I don't know HOW we are going to say goodbye to all of these DEAR Colombian people when it's our time to move to Argentina!  They have opened their arms and hearts and have accepted us like their own family...and we will leave a HUGE part of our hearts here with them when we go.  Of course, we plan on working with the pastors and churches here for years to come (traveling back and forth, teaching, praying, etc.), but feel that God wants us live in Argentina for the rest of our short years living outside of the USA.  For when Kimberly gets near college age, we feel that we NEED to be with her in the USA to help her make some of the most IMPORTANT decisions of her lifetime!  (College, friends, mate, etc.)  (But we still plan to work outside of the USA for years to come, by traveling back and forth to visit our people/churches.)  So, after we get our Colombian Residencies that we are working on now (so that we can come and go into Colombia as we need to)...we plan on moving to Argentina to work for Jesus there. ~

~And then on Wednesday, it came down to that awful time when we had to say goodbye to the Smiths!  Won't Heaven be WONDERFUL when we don't have to say anymore goodbyes?!  Oh, I PLAN to make it! =)
We had such a wonderful 9 days with the Smiths and feel like they are our family too! =) THANK YOU, Bro. Smith, and Stephanie, for ALL y'all did for our people and our family!~