The Waterstraut Waterspout: Columbia

Ok, sorry Columbia, but I have got to lightning speed through your blog to get them all done before it's June. (Blame my OCD for that one).

It's a country that is type-cast as the bad-boy of the Americas, with one of the trademarks being drug wars. The country does have an official US Department of State Travel Warning, but many people visit the country's Andean Peeks, rain forests, and savannas every year without any trouble at all.

Columbia = Coffee. It was our among our trademarks and landmark (Specifically the 'Coffee Axis' area). There you'll find jeeps full of coffee pickers and poncho wearing senior citizens sipping coffee in cafes.

Columbia also produces somewhere around 90% of the world's emeralds.

And apparently supplies us with a ton of flowers. (Over 450 million flowers are exported to us from Columbia just for Valentines Day, every year!)

In cool geography, they have El Totumo, a 50 foot high crater that is full of mud (and you can get in at and 'swim' around).

They also have 'The Liquid Rainbow', which is said to be one of the most beautiful rivers in the world. The rock formations make the water seem like it's all kinds of different colors (red, green, bright blue, yellow and orange).

In history, we have the legend of El Dorado that originated here. El Dorado is the king who supposedly covered himself in gold dust and threw gems into a sacred lake all to impress some goddess.

And as for a wide variety of life, this country supports somewhere between 10-20% of the world's biodiversity.

This is also a country with 'lost tribes' including the Nukaks. Nobody has come in contact with this nomadic group of hunter/gatherers since 1988, because they live so deep within in the Amazon forest. Apparently they dunk types of vine roots in rivers to release a drug that stuns the fish and makes them easier to catch.

Oh, and as for fun facts, Columbia's Avianca Airline was the first commercial airline founded in the Americas.

The boys made their postcards.

Calib's featured flowers and people drinking hot chocolate with chunks of cheese in it (we weren't brave enough to try that).

Peyton's featured a coffee farm and the Nukaks living deep within the Amazon.

And Hayden did a two sider. On the first, you could see mining for emeralds, and on the second side, Shakira was holding a concert.

The Publix on the way to Costco has an awesome international section, and we found these little cookies, 'product of Columbia' there. (And oh my gosh, I just realized we had Columbian pop in the secret pantry and I didn't use it. Crap!)

For dinner I wanted to come up with something a little different, and easy (it was a long week), so we had Colombian hot dogs, Papas Chorreadas (Potatoes with cheese sauce), Ensalada de Aguacate y Tomate (Avocado and Tomato Salad) pineapple and the Flips.

This dinner earned five spoons up, but some of the things on the plate were hit or miss.

First, let's discuss those hot dogs. I was fine with the pineapple sauce, and the cabbage coleslaw. But then when it said 'top with ketchup, mayo and mustard-- and then a few crushed potato chips, they had lost me. But, I try (really pretty hard) to make sure that I at least give the recipe a go in it's entirety, even if I'm skeptical. So, I might have made a face while I did it, but I put everything on it the recipe said. (Peyton skipped the condiments, but the rest of us went all in).

Asa ate his just fine (but he wasn't thrilled with them), Peyton took one bite, made a face and swapped out for a normal hot dog, mustard only (see, I saw that coming and came to the table prepared, thank you BOGO hot dogs at Publix this week), while Hayden and I enjoyed ours and Calib made a second just like the first (to be fair, Calib and I are pineapple as a pizza topping people, so we were on board with this one).

I wish my camera took better pictures- or took pictures at all when I told it to (boo!)

Now the rest of dinner everyone enjoyed. Those potatoes, come on! It's potatoes and cheese, and it is every bit as amazing as it sounds. I even snuck avocado into the salad, and Calib was the only one who noticed. The boys might be getting slightly sick of pineapples, but when we are anywhere tropical, and Sprouts has a good deal, it's become my go-to.

Those Flips were gone in a second. We go around the table trying our food, and I looked over after we tried everything and all of Peyton's Flips were gone.

Wednesday is our Sprouts/shopping days (today we did Target, Sprouts, Trader Joes AND Publix), so we picked Columbia coffee for this week in honor of today's country.