The Casa Hunt

The Last Ride and Saying Good Bye

2012-02-10T14:13:00.001-05:00

The Saturday of our departure Randy, my dad and brothers in law went for a last bike ride. Good idea to exercise and stretch your legs before a 24hr trip. They enjoyed a nice ride.

The luggage was packed and the time to leave to the airport was getting closer. My sister and their families came to spend that last afternoon with us, gave us lots of hugs and kisses and wished us a safe trip. We were so sad to leave our loved ones but so grateful for 5 amazing weeks we spent with them. Our goal is to be able to visit every 18 months.

I don’t know why I don’t have pictures with Laura and Felipe, Gabriela and Fran. They were there, I promise.

The Food

2011-07-31T17:36:00.000-04:00

We ate like pigs while in Chile. So many yummy dishes and sweets that you don’t find here or I don’t ~~want~~ know how to cook. I thought it would be appropriate to give the Chilean cuisine its own post.

Empanadas

Salty dough filled with deliciousness. There are so many combinations; meat, chicken, seafood, vegetarian, fried, oven baked… Chicken-mushrooms-cheese is my favorite. This restaurant has over 30 combinations. It’s hard to decide!

Once

We think we are Europeans, we have tea time. It’s called Once –eleven- I have no idea why. That’s the last meal of the day and we know how to enjoy it. A huge cup of coffee or tea (barley hot drink and herbal tea in our household) with some pastries and bread with ham and cheese or marmalade. Yummy! The bread is amazing in Chile, made fresh twice a day, so no preservatives. Every neighborhood has at least one bakery, and the smell of warm bread is just amazing. That what I miss the most food wise, Chilean bread has no comparison!

Chinese Food

Chinese food is completely different from the Chinese food you get here. I think Chileanized Chinese is way better than the Americanized. For starters it’s not buffet style so the food is made fresh when you place your order. I guess because it’s not Americanized it has more of a vegetable flavor with out the extra sugar, heavy sauce and fats.

Sea Food

With the extensive coast that Chile has, sea food is big down there. I’m not crazy about it, I only eat Tilapia and fried fish but my parents and sister enjoy see food very much. There is a great variety of fish and shellfish dishes. I love Randy’s face every time he ate fish. He wasn’t sure about it! I really enjoy that every place offers lots of different fresh salads. I love salads!

Churros

You already know how much Randy loves his churros.

A lo Pobre

A lo Pobre translates as poor style, but there is nothing poor about it. This is a typical Chilean dish consisting of meat topped with one or more fried eggs and served with French fries and fried onions. The most popular is steak but you can also find grilled chicken and pork chop a lo pobre.

Churrasco & Completos

These are the Chilean version of the hamburger and hot dog. Our junk food. Completo means complete, because a hot dog is only complete when you have warm fresh bread and a hot dog topped with multiple things. My fave is the Italian completo which has diced tomatoes(red), mashed avocado(green), home made mayonnaise(white, just like the flag of Italy) and your choice of ketchup and/or mustard. To die for!!

Churrascos are some serious sandwiches. Thin cut slices of steak grilled and served on a toasted bun. Again the topping vary. The most popular are Churrasco Italiano (tomato-avocado-mayo) Churrasco Chacarero (tomato-french style green beans-mayo) Churrasco Barros Luco (steak and cheese) and Churrasco Lomito (steak-mashed avocado and mayo)

Parrilladas

Parrilladas are essentially an individual cook-out brought to your table. The meat begins grilling at the restaurant’s kitchen and they bring a bracero pot to your table where the meat is still cooking if you want your meat to be well done. The parrillada includes different cuts of beef, pork chops, chicken, potatoes and sausages. The side dishes are generally a large variety of salads.

Now, who’s hungry?!?!

P.S. Randy and I underwent a vegetarian diet after our trip. We lost the gained weight and out cholesterol and triglycerides are back to normal!! I know you were concerned.

Donde La Cuca

2011-07-30T12:46:00.000-04:00

Friday night was our last night in Chile, our flight was leaving Saturday evening. We had lots of fun at our farewell dinner party. We got together with family and friends and went out to Donde La Cuca, a dinning and dancing place where their specialty are Parrilladas. Delicious! The live band was pretty cool but the music was so loud, we had to scream to hold a conversation. At the end of the night we were happy to have spent another great night with our dear ones, dance some Tropical music and the twist!

Olmue

2011-07-29T12:56:00.000-04:00

We had such a nice day with my Mom and my dear grandma Luque. It had been pretty cold and cloudy the last week so taking advantage of a beautiful warm and partially sunny day we decided to take Abuelita Luque for a nice afternoon trip to Olmue, a little town in the countryside. I love it there, the air is so pure and you can buy fresh fruit and vegetables in abundance at a great price since it is agriculture land. There are antique stores to visit and lots of great restaurants. We have our favorite that we visit when we are in Olmue.

Minus the cable lines the view is pretty amazing.

We stopped at this store on the side of the road to check the baskets out. They had some unique stuff. Mom bought me a cute basket to bring home.

I love the rustic and country vibe of this restaurant.

I want to copy the floor! I was thinking when we do our patio we Randy could try this out.

I love my Abuelita!

We are just like the Von Trapp family……Not!

2011-07-27T07:03:00.000-04:00

My parents ward (church) was hosting a talent show with a dessert contest. My dad wanted to sing with his family and grand kids the children songs he used to sing to us when we were little and now my sisters sing to their kids. It was so fun to sing as a family even though none of us have a super amazing voice.

The first song is about numbers, the second about a kid robot and the last one about Martin’s little cow.

My favorite parts of the video:

00:57 – Cristobal’s face is so funny.
4:18 – Vicente singing loud
4:28 – Vicente grabbing Cristobal’s hand. Cousin love, melts my heart!
5:05 – Annya didn’t want to sing. I probably said something like Hey, are you singing loud? She was not having it. Grumpy pants!
5:37 - Vicente waving to his mom at the other side of the line.

Randy wowed the audience doing some math tricks.

My dad is the bishop (unpaid pastor) and with his counselors rock the house!

This was pretty funny, the guy said I don’t know the lyrics so I’m going to make them up. He started mumbling at the mic. It didn’t matter, everybody was having a great time!

The dessert contest was great, so many delicious sweets to taste. I love me some Chilean desserts! Randy made a cheesecake and it was the bomb! Everybody kept coming back for more and asking him for the recipe. He didn’t win first place but we can say it was the peoples favorite. When I went to grab the pan this lady was using her finger to clean the pan and wouldn’t let me take the pan until she was done licking her fingers to the last drop.

Because my nephews and niece are so stinking cute, here is a bonus video.

Around the kids the most serious insult is calling each other a baby. They would come to you all upset because the cousin/sibling called them a baby. -“I’m not a baby, right?” -“Nope, you are not a baby”. And happy they go to keep playing. These are the kids teasing grandpa Francisco and calling him a baby. The name-calling got creative and we heard them call him; ugly duckling,egg face, girl, Donald duck and grandpa little kid. All of this to get tickled in “punishment” for the insults. The parents patiently waited until the kids finished saying good-bye to go home.

PS- I had to compress the videos to 100MB to be able to upload them and they look terrible. Does anybody know a better way to post videos on blogger, without having to upload them to youtube and make them public there first?

San Pedro de Atacama Desert [3/3]

2011-07-24T18:13:00.000-04:00

Day three in San Pedro brought more tours for Mom, Dad and Randy and a still pretty huge migraine for me, so not fair! I decided to skip the morning tour, stay in bed and rest my headache. I was napping and I got woke up by the procession AGAIN! We heard them last night at midnight, then some time in the middle of the night, around 6 o’clock and now at 10 AM. I went out to see them dance again. This time is was just a small group of young people, nothing compared to the big group and production of the night before. It was still pretty cool to see them.

About noon I started to feel better so I decided to go walk the town and get some souvenirs for my sisters, Randy’s parents and our awesome neighbors that were taking care of Kala and Cleo. The stores where so charming and full of character. Again the people behind the counter where so polite, soft spoken and friendly. I just wanted to hug them after I paid for my stuff.

These are some of the things I bought for my self, sorry no pics of what I gave away.

A hand painted pen holder made of clay. I HAD to get some of these cute pens to go with it. They are a couple of northern people dressed in their native clothes.

A couple of frames made of cactus wood.

A Nativity! I love it.

This is hand made using the old school square loom. I love the scene and colors. I’m going to frame it. I noticed that all their crafts are so colorful and bright. I wonder if it’s to contrast the dry and brown of the dessert.

The rest of the gang headed out to see the Salar de Atacama –salt flats- and flamingos. Randy again took some neat photos.

We were visiting in the wrong season to see the flamingos. There weren’t many of them.

After the salt flats, the tour continued with a visit to the town of Socaire.

They use the technique of terrace farming for better use of water.

So when the Spanish came and started Christianizing the natives and building churches. They couldn’t build the bell towers on top of the church because the natives had different traditions. What I think I heard about it is that for the natives the church building represents the man and the bells represent the woman and a women (bells) can’t be on top of the men (church building) because it would be showing superiority. Randy said that he heard something different and that I’m making up my explanation. We’ll get back to you on that one!

I thought the donkey and llama on both sides of the door were cute.

Randy couldn’t believe the conflictive message of this sign. “Don’t throw trash”

The group stopped for lunch and the special of the day was; rice, quinoa, 1slice of tomato, shredded meat on some kind of pure and purple potato! Randy said it tasted just like any other potato. So weird to see it purple.

While they were touring around I was anxiously waiting for them. Our tour guy was going to pick us up at 3 PM for our next visit. It was 2:40 and they where suppose to get to the B&B before 2. They got home just in time to grab a towel, swim suits and get in the van.

On our way to Puritama hot springs!

A massage cabin!

The water was so warm. Relaxing! A perfect end for our last day in San Pedro. What a fantastic place to visit!

San Pedro de Atacama Desert [2/3]

2011-07-23T15:15:00.000-04:00

Day two in San Pedro started very early for us. We woke up at 3:30 in the morning. Our tour bus picked us up at 4:00 am to take us to Tatio Geysers. The plan was to see the sunrise up there. Victor (our tour guy) told us to go back to sleep because our body would adjust better to the high altitude and low oxygen. The geyser field is located 2.6 miles above sea level. El Tatio is the largest geyser field in the southern hemisphere and the third largest field in the world, after Yellowstone and Dolina Giezerov. Almost all of the names around San Pedro are an Indian dialect,"El Tatio" roughly translates to Spanish as "the grandfather".

When we got there Victor instructed us to walk very slow and take deep breaths. Don’t go crazy up there, because the low oxygen level could make you sick. So, guess who gets sick up in the Andes?……ME! Awesome.

The tour agency fed us pretty well. Boiling eggs and heating some milk for breakfast!

As soon as I got off the bus and took some very slow steps, I felt ill. I got dizzy and light headed. I told Randy –”Hold my arm, I think I’m going to pass out”. I still wanted to look around and see the geysers, so he held me while I walked at turtle speed like Victor told us. It didn’t help. I started to get nauseous and a huge migraine came in to stay. I was so upset. Randylicious walked me back to the bus, they put an oxygen mask on me and give me coca tea.

Before getting in the bus I wanted a picture at the geysers. I’m totally faking the thump up, I was so sick.

I must look pretty awful, every time someone came to the bus they would look at me with this worried face and ask me if I was OK. There are some really neat people out there, they brought me tea, aspirin and offered their blankets. Kind people indeed. From this point on I gave up my camera and the desire of adventure and sightseeing. Randy and Dad took pictures the rest of the day.

When we told my family and friends that we where going to San Pedro and all the places we’ll visit, everybody that has been there would tell us to bring heavy coats and dress with at least three layers when going to the geysers. It was winter there and at the desert temperatures drop very low. Randy and I thought “It can’t be worse than a Michigan winter”. It was so cold up in the mountains. 14 ºF !! My parents were smarter than us and wore better clothing.

Can you see the small round white stones on the ground, they are kind of forming a line? It was absolutely prohibited to walk pass that point. A few years back a guy wanted a “better” picture and crossed the stone edge. The ground seems solid but it erodes underneath. The ground broke and he fell into the boiling water. He died a few minutes later and 5 other people that tried to help him end up with their arms and torsos burned. Argh! Poor guy! I got goose bumps when Victor told us the story.

Randy didn’t miss the chance of swimming in geyser waters. He was the only brave one that took his clothes off at 14 ºF! He said that there were some parts where the ground was so hot you couldn’t stand up and touch it with your feet.

Please, don’t mind the girl touching her butt and focus on Randy! lol!

San Pedro has the most beautiful sky I have ever seen. So blue and deep.

On the way back Victor kicked every body out of the bus(except me) and made them walk across a bridge to enjoy some wild life and vegetation. Randy took some really great pictures.

This birds nest on the water. So neat!

I love the composition of this picture! The colors and different textures. I might have to print and display this one.

No progress. Still feeling like I was dying.

This are Vicuñas, relative of the Llamas and Alpacas. They were eating by the side of the road. The driver stopped and let us take pictures.

Part of the geyser tour was to stop at the tiny town of Machuca. We did that on the way back. I was amazed to see how small the community was. And I wonder how they sustain themselves, since Machuca is high in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. These days tourism plays an important part. Every tour agency brings their clients to this town. Here you can buy souvenirs and try Llama shish kabobs.

I was dreading this stop, I just wanted to get to our B&B lay down and rest. The smell of the llama meat grilling made me so nauseous. I couldn’t help it and had to run out of the bus and hide behind it and let loose. Yep, I threw up for about 10 minutes. I was so embarrassed.

Randy, Mom and Dad walked the town.

Randy getting creative with his pictures.

Randy thinks this is where they make the adobe blocks, but he is not sure.

When we got to our B&B I went straight to bed. My dad got a headache also, and everyone was pretty tired since we woke up at 3:30 am. We decided to cancel our afternoon tour and rest. Everybody woke up recovered but me. I couldn’t get rid off my migraine. I decided to stay in bed the rest of the day. My parents and Randy went out to walk around and find a place to eat.

I was in bed feeling sorry about my self when I heard live music. I thought maybe the hippy guys staying in the B&B where playing their drums and stuff, I was thinking that they sound pretty good actually. The music started getting louder and louder and I recognized it was folk music, from the northern area. The music mas getting louder and louder, I realized it was a procession. How cool! I did not want it to miss it. I got dressed really quick and ran out to find the people right outside my door.

We were talking with a teacher and other people that had moved to San Pedro from Santiago or other parts of Chile to open tour agencies or other kinds of businesses. They said that the original people of San Pedro doesn’t mix with the new community. They are native descendants and like to keep to themselves, have their own schools and don’t interact much with the big mass of tourists and new comers. They make a living farming and have business selling crafts, traditional alpaca knitting, souvenirs and native-style pottery. They are very soft spoken and polite. They always have a gentle smile. I felt bad about my rude city-people manners.

This was a religious procession. I don’t remember exactly who they were honoring. They were dancing and playing their folk music. I was really touched to see how they keep their traditions even though their town is crowded with intruders.

Their outfits reminded me of the three musketeers! Most of Chile’s folklore and traditions is a mix of the native’s dances and music with Spanish traditions.

I followed the procession until they got inside the church for mass. I thought for sure I was going to find Randy and my parents among all the people watching them. There was no way you could not hear the music. I didn’t see them so I decided to go back to the B&B. They got there 10 minutes later. I was so excited about the procession and couldn’t believe they hadn’t seen it. We all went back to the church right in time when they were coming out of mass and started dancing in front of the church for another 30 minutes!

They must have been celebrating something super important because the procession passed in front of our door again at midnight and 6 in the morning!

I was able to get this video but it’s so dark it’s hard to see the dance moves. They guys dancing was especially neat to see, their foot steps were so intricate and they would kick really high. Until this day I have the music stuck in my head!

The three musketeers, I’m telling you!

I love that we got to see and appreciate different traditions and cultures. I was taught in school about all the different natives that lived in Chile before the Spanish conquered us. I was taught about the high-plains cultures that live in the Andes Mountains and the identical ways with the Peruvian and Bolivian high-plains cultures. Even though I was born, raised and I’m 100% Chilean I have never been up close and personal with that side of Chile. I’m so thrilled I enjoyed this experience with Randy.

San Pedro de Atacama Desert [ 1/3 ]

2011-07-22T00:07:00.000-04:00

I’m so excited that I’m blogging about my favorite part of our trip with my parents. I got so happy looking threw the pictures, selecting which ones to upload. I might have gone overboard with the pictures but I find all of them so dear to me and full of memories.

So, going back to Sergio’s wedding. We had to cut the reception short to come back to the B&B. We changed really quick, grabbed our stuff and ran to get in the taxi that was waiting to take us to the bus terminal. We took an overnight Grayhound to Calama. We got there around 5:30AM and had to wait for our next Grayhound that was supposed to get there at 7:00, it got there at 8:00. The terminal was freezing cold. My dad took this pic of us trying to stay warm.

We were so happy so see our next Grey Hound pulling in. We had “business” seats, we were reclined almost flat. Perfect to take a little nap and warm up the body. We woke up when we got to our final destination!

San Pedro de Atacama is a little town located in the middle of the Atacama Desert (driest desert in the world) in the high plateaus of the Andes Mountains at 7,900 ft above sea level. This is a really old town that was first inhabited by the Atacameños Indians. The climate is extremely dry, hot during the day and cold at night (hint the desert). Around the town there is archeological and lots of natural wonder sites to visit.

When we got there we had to find a place to stay, there were a lot of people giving you flyers and inviting you to visit their bed and breakfast. We chose one, and made all our reservations for the expeditions we wanted to take and headed out to walk the town. I INMEDIATLY fell in love with it. It is such a picturesque and charming place, it has a natural magnetic and mystic vibe. People usually say they feel a connection with Mother Earth and refer to the place as spiritual. I agree, I could feel a relaxing sensation. Peace.

The “down town” is really tiny. Just a few dirt streets with adobe buildings. That’s where restaurants, tourist agencies or souvenir stores were. These adobe constructions are what tourists want to see. I was so surprised to see how cosmopolitan the place was. Most of the people there were European tourists. We saw lots of French, Swiss and Swedish people, Brazilians and the occasional gringo. There were also tons of hippies and free spirited people that have come to live there, mother earth was calling! I just loved it!

Walking San Pedro Town

You could have your picture taken with the Llamas. The guy was walking to his kiosk with them. I love the accessories on their ears. They were super cute.

This house was built in 1540!

We visited the famous church of San Pedro

This is the main door to go in. I love the huge nails and the color of it

The ceiling was so neat. Never knew cactus wood existed!

This is the church’s back yard. Look at the roof, just adobe and so thick

After all the walking we were looking for a place to eat. We found a really cute and rustic place. We asked what was something traditional to eat from the area. My dad and Randy got to try it, Mom and I played it safe.

My Mom is having a Cazuela , our most traditional soup. It has chicken, corn, green beans, butternut squash and potatoes. All those flavors together makes it so delicious! I had lamb with rice and salad.

This is what the boys had. It’s called Patasca. It is a super high calorie soup made of… this is when it becomes strange… ready? Pigs insides and feet. With potatoes and some huge grains of corn. This plate is traditional and they have it often. Especially after a Minga, that’s when all the men from the neighborhood get together and help each other with house or community projects. While they are working the women are cooking this fat soup for after a hard day of work. I love that concept of family and close community. I don’t love the soup though.

In that little restaurant we had the most amazing dessert! It was a pudding made of Chañar. I had never heard of that before, so it must be a fruit from the region. They explained it to me like a type of nut that you have to dry before opening and getting the seed, which is what you eat. Anyways, the pudding was so silky and delicious.

After that huge lunch we went back to the B&B to get ready for our first excursion.

Laguna Cejar

This lagoon is Cejar. It’s unique because it has an extremely high salt content. It is impossible to submerge. You will float without any effort.

Victor, our tour guide had us on a strict time line that afternoon. We needed to be at certain place for the sunset. He was always yelling: “we leave in 30 - 10 – 5 minutes people, be ready’! Under that stressful circumstances my mom and I decided to let the boys enjoy this one. We didn't want to deal with wet swimsuits and no place to change, since we were in the middle of nowhere. Possibly being late and making Victor mad.

The water was extremely cold. They came out with their skin so red.

Salt everywhere!

Ojos del Salar

This picture is from an airplane. The Ojos del Salar –the salt flat’s eyes- are two perfectly round, naturally formed wells. They don’t know how deep they are. They told us that they have tried to measure with different methods and devices but haven’t found the bottom yet.

Laguna Tebinquinche

This is where we needed to be for the sunset. I’m so glad Victor kept everybody on a short leashe and we were there on time. This is the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen. That’s Victor and our tour bus. They were making some coffee and hot chocolate with cookies to enjoy while watching the sunset.

This Lagoon was so shallow, only 7inchs deep across the whole thing! That’s why it has that mirror like reflection. Randy and I were very deep into the lagoon when my dad took this picture.

When the sun started to set, the ski turned pinkish, then some strong light blue appeared to end with some purple. Amazing!

We went to bed that night with a happy heart. So thankful to witness some of Father’s creations that we have never seen before.

Iquique [Day Two]

2011-07-21T18:31:00.000-04:00

The city of Iquique has lots of war history. An important battle against Peru was fought there. The date of the battle is a national holiday where we honor the navy. Randy learned lots of Chilean history during our trip. I feel bad because I don’t know much about U.S. history, I think it’s time to go check some books out at the library!

As I mentioned before we are museum dorks, so we HAD to visit this one. “La Esmeralda” was the chilean battleship that was involved in the battle that day. The ship sank during combat, everything that was on display were pieces they have been able to retrieve.

I was telling the story of how this specific battle began and what the navy did. Randy stopped me saying that I was telling the story wrong and he proceeded to tell ~~the real~~ his version! I guess I don’t even know my own country’s history either!

After checking the museum out, we headed to see the replica of the battleship that was recently opened to the public. Well, it wasn’t exactly a replica,the guide told us that it’s called a “representation” because if it was a replica it needed to be on the water and be able to sail, the canon should be working and everything else as in the original (see I paid attention!) It was a super neat museum.

The bedroom of Arturo Pratt, the captain. TINY bed, so uncomfortable!

To be able to enter to see the ship you needed to sign in on-line the day before and reserve a spot in one of the guided tours. You could not just go the same day and buy your tickets. We, out of towners, had no idea about that so we got there and there’s a line of people that didn’t have reservations. We stayed in line with them. When someone that had reservation didn’t show up they would let people from the line get in. They where getting ready for the last guided tour before closing for lunch and they had one spot open. I was next in line but didn’t wantto go by myself and leave everybody behind. But if I passed, some one after us would have taken the spot. So I asked the guy with my flirty eyelashes if they could open the spot for one more person. I must have been wearing a nice mascara that day because he let Randy come with me. Unfortunately my mom and dad weren’t able to enter. You can see both of them sitting at a table waiting for us, mom is waving hello!

There is a Duty Free mall in Iquique. A WHOLE mall TAX FREE! We were super excited to go see what they have since taxes in Chile are 19%. The place was HUGE, also was our disappointment. Most of the stores were “made in china” kind of stores. Lots of cheap knickknacks and useless stuff. They did have lots of electronics and perfume stores. We got a couple of perfumes at a great price. There also were some 10-15 designer stores like Gucci, Prada, Armani, etc. But still was insanely pricy. “Look a shirt, normal price 200.00, without taxes 162.00! Not my kind of bargain shopping.

We headed back to our bed & breakfast. Randy and I to get ready for my friend Sergio’s wedding and my parents to rest a little bit before going to check out the nightlife in Iquique. They said the town was pretty fun at night, they took a walk around downtown and they ended up at the city square where some kind of festival was going on, with a stage and a dancing number.

I was so happy to be able to attend Sergio and Kathy’s wedding! Everything fit in perfectly when planning our trip to allow us to be there.

They are a beautiful couple.

Congratulations!

Iquique [Day One]

2011-07-20T21:32:00.000-04:00

After saying our good-byes to Denisse and Charly. We took an overnight Greyhound bus and headed to the City of Iquique to attend my friend Sergio’s wedding. We stayed there for two days.

Great memories were made!

We met Sergio for lunch and he took us to a very popular bay area where restaurants are right by the beach and you can enjoy some delicious sea food.

We got there and it was a single street with houses. Each house had a number, no restaurant name or anything like that.

Sergio told us that house 13 was where he was taking us. The place was really cute, had a beach-rustic vibe.

Coming in we saw pictures of celebrities and the President eating there. We thought the food must be pretty amazing here…Not according to Randy. He declared having eaten the worst fried fish of his life!

We had fun talking about his coming wedding and all the craziness of the last minute details.

And as usual we had a list of medical questions for him that he answered graciously.

This is on our way back. Again super dry scenery, I had to snap this picture to show that the city is pretty much built on sand dunes. It was a cloudy and foggy day.

After lunch Sergio went back to work and we were SUPER excited about the possibility of visiting Humberstone and Santa Laura.

Humberstone (previously know as La Palma) is a little Ghost Town, 30 miles east of Iquique. We took a taxi and about 1 hour we were there.

In 1872 Mr. Humberstone founded the "Peru Nitrate Company", establishing the works of "La Palma". This was a saltpeter works or "nitrate town". Work grew quickly, becoming a busy town characterized by lovely buildings in the English style. La Palma became one of the largest saltpeter extractors of the whole region. The population between workers and their families at one point reached 3,700 people.

“They lived in company towns and forged a distinctive communal pampinos culture. That culture is manifest in their rich language, creativity, and solidarity, and, above all, in their pioneering struggle for social justice, which had a profound impact on social history. Situated in the remote desert Pampa, one of the driest deserts on earth, thousands of pampinos lived and worked in this hostile environment, for over 60 years, from 1880, to process the largest deposit of saltpeter in the world, producing the fertilizer sodium nitrate that was to transform agricultural lands in North and South America, and in Europe, and produce great wealth for Chile.”(Description from UNESCO World Heritage Site.)

In 1930 Germany developed its own saltpeter based on synthetic ammonia and began to sell it at a cheaper price. Nobody was buying saltpeter from Chile anymore. Practically bankrupt, both works were abandoned in 1960 after the rapid decline.

Toys made out of wires and cans

Kitchen utensil

Industrial equipment

I was surprised to see how well preserved the wood was. It hasn’t been restored.

This was the market. It was so neat, it had stores facing the street and some in an inner terrace.

I can totally imagine the water flowing in the fountain. Fruit stands in the middle and all the other stores around. Children running and women chatting as they buy groceries.

The original stove at the Hotel!

I have never seen a pool made out of steel!

The theater was just beautiful. Again all those wooden chairs in perfect condition.

Randy seems to enjoy the show!

I was so glad I got to see that place. Humberston is one of many "nitrate towns" that were establish around 1850. We are taught in school about how the economy collapsed in 1930 after the invention of the synthetic saltpeter. How the families had to leave because the factories closed. I felt really sad for them, I could see that their little town was beautiful and full of life. I can’t imagine losing everything and not knowing where to go or what to do next.

By the time we were done walking the city, It was getting dark. We were in the middle of nowhere. The taxi driver told us to call the taxi station and they would come and get us. We called the station and they didn’t answer. My dad kept trying for another 20 minutes. It was pitch black and we started to get worried. Luckily we weren’t the only ones left behind, a lady from the area told my mom that sometimes the Greyhound buses stop and take you if they see you there late at night. My dad started hitchhiking any car that would drive by, we did not want to spend the night there. A few Greyhounds passed by and all the people that were there would wave their arms and try to make them stop, with no luck. Finally one stopped!! We didn’t know where they were going. We all just ran to it trying to get there first. I was the first to get in and as I enter the seating area, all these heads popped up to see what the commotion was about. The bus was coming from Bolivia, all the woman were dressed with their colorful traditional skirts and wearing a little hat. It was really cute! Since it was so dark you couldn't tell where the empty seats were. They were so sweet telling us with their cute accent and gentle way where to sit and offering an empty seat next to them. To end the story, the bus left us in the Bolivian neighborhood. We asked for directions to our bed and breakfast and we only had to walk 7 blocks. I day full of adventure, culture and kindness!

Antofagasta [Day Two]

2011-07-19T21:28:00.000-04:00

Our day #2 in Antofagasta brought us a walk thru the city and the local fisherman bay. We also visited the Huanchaca ruins. We had a nice, relaxing day.

This is a photo from the bay looking at the city. Look how little land there is from the hills to the ocean! The city expands north to south and runs completely along the coast. I didn’t like how dry it is. Absolutely no green. Except an avenue in downtown that has lots of trees and grass. I didn’t like Antofagasta to be honest. Denisse, my girlfriend that moved there commented on how people didn’t have pride in their city and were dirty. We saw litter quite often while walking the streets. We also thought the streets were stinky. Because it never rains there. Seriously, never! Rain doesn’t wash out the streets and the city does a terrible job taking care of that. She was telling me that one day it started to mist and people where freaking out. Getting ready for a catastrophe or something like that. Well, because it doesn’t rain the house’s roof aren’t build for heavy rain.

There were some ladies cleaning some fish and throwing the fish heads and tails to the pelicans who were fighting for it.

My mom looking at the commotion.

There where these two pelicans really fighting over a piece of fish. Look how one wouldn't give up and was trying to take it from INSIDE the other pelican’s mouth!

We kept walking and found these awesome murals. We thought they were so real. This was the old train station. The murals were a scene from the station in the old days. Pretty cool!

Dad waiting for the train!

It’s always nice to pet a horse!

Mom being social with the water seller!

After we decided that we did enough walking, we took a taxi and headed to the Huanchaca Ruins. They were so pretty, as you can see in the pictures.

Hmm, Dad. Move your head, I’m trying to show the ruins here!!

There you have them!!

This was a silver refining plant. It was built in 1888. In 1893 it was processing 200 tons of silver and had 1.000 workers. It closed its doors in 1902 and was left behind. A few years ago the city thought it would be a good idea to potentiate the ruins as a touristic attraction ( you think?) Before that it was a place for bums and druggies. I’m telling you, people there don’t care much about their city. They cleaned it out, built a museum, charged some money and here we are!

We couldn’t leave without checking the museum out.

They had such a pretty rock garden at the entrance. Colorful and pretty.

Love the round rocks, they brought them from the dessert. All of the rocks in the garden are from the area. They said that millions of years ago the dessert was ocean. They had found sea snails and other jurassic things.

Gigantic Mussel.

Utensil used in the processing of Silver. Those were the silver bricks.

NASA did some testing with the NOMAD. The terrain in the area is very similar to the one on Mars.

The ruins were so pretty at night! They light them and look just awesome.

I give the ruins,the museum and the murals two thumps up! The rest of the city not so much.

Antofagasta [Day One]

2011-07-18T11:54:00.000-04:00

Growing up in the mid region of Chile, my parents always planned our family vacations to the south. To the Lake Region, where it’s much greener, country like and beautiful. We never went north because it’s dryer and desertic. I have great memories of the south of Chile, we went camping many times from city to city along with my Uncle Ivan’s family, my parent’s friends and their families, we would invite cousins and friends to come along. It was always great fun.

I have always wanted to go north and check it out. Many people described the Atacama desert as a beautiful place that you must visit. I told my parents that we should go together. They love to travel and sight see, they were on board in no time! I started planning our trip a couple of months before visiting, asking friends where to go and what to see.

I have a couple of friends that have moved up north for work. So we included a stop to their cities since we where going to be in the area.

Our first stop was Antofagasta, we stayed with my amazing friend Denisse and her brother Carlos a.k.a. Charly. We were just too excited to see them. We have been friends for many years, we went to the same church growing up. My favorite memories in my teen years include Denisse and Charly. My sisters and I consider her our 5th sister and my parents just love her. She has been living in Antofagasta for a couple of years now and has a great career as an auditor.

If you ask me what was my favorite part of out trip to Chile. I would have to say, first just being with my family, seeing my sisters, parents, cute nephews and niece, brothers-in-law and grandma. The next great thing would be this trip we took with my parents. I just loved to have my parents all by ourselves for a week. I love the places we visited and the memories we created.

After arriving we went to check out “ La Portada (the gateway) Natural Monument” off of the coast of Antofagasta. This arc is very popular, a must see if you are in the area. Our taxi driver told us that the white-ish color is from all the bird poop, and it what has helped to keep the arch together and stronger against marine erosion. The arch is surrounded by coastal cliffs that were also formed by erosion.

She also told us that before you could go down to the feet of the cliff and walk a pathway. But because of earthquakes the sand cliffs were unstable and many landslides have occurred. Going down was prohibited. We saw some people walking there anyway, but we decided to play it safe.

I love the texture of the sand and what erosion has done to it.

I would have loved to go into the cave!

Looking at the other side of the cliff. The was an air force base nearby and they were doing some drills that day.

We got to Antofagasta around 3:00pm, Denisse and Charly were at work. We got to their apartment got the keys from the janitor and could relax and wait for them. We met for dinner and decided to go eat at an Argentine Restaurant that looked promising. Argentina has some amazing meat, we weren’t disappointed. We were looking forward to eating some good meat since here the meat is just yucky in comparison. We were surprised when they brought our steaks on a cutting board. We weren’t expecting that big of a steak!!

Right after we got our food, the whole street had a power outage. It was so dark, we started joking about grabbing our food and making a run for it! We had a candlelight dinner for about 10 minutes.

I love Denisse, she is so incredible. We went back home and reminisced with my parents until 2 AM when they went to bed. Denisse and I shared her room and continued the talking until 6:00 in the morning. We couldn't stop talking!! There was so much to tell each other. I felt so bad, she only slept an hour before getting up to work the next day. Charly had an extra bed in his room that he shared with Randy, they were talking about their time in Argentina, soccer and boy stuff until 5:00 AM. Great Friends for sure!!

Dress to Impress

2011-07-17T12:14:00.000-04:00

My dad took Randy to his tailor and got pampered with a custom made suit. Randy always has trouble finding a suit that fits him well. And I really dislike when the jackets are way too long and baggy. We went to pick it up just in time for my friend Sergio’s wedding. He looked so handsome in his new suit and he loved it. He is planning on getting a new suit every time we travel to Chile. I don’t know how I feel about that!

A little sample of the Fall Catalog :)

Around Santiago [La Moneda]

2011-07-16T00:03:00.000-04:00

Our final day in Santiago, Gaby took the day off and Fran worked half a day. We spent the afternoon together visiting La Moneda Palace. Chile's presidential offices. There was a tour you could take but you needed to sign up 15 days prior to your visit. Bummer! So we visited the museum underground, they had an exhibit on national toys.

This is a different room in the museum that showed and sold typical Chilean hand made crafts.

Textiles, Chilean natives style pottery, Clay pottery and wicker crafts.

White Clay , crafts using horse’s hair, tinted black clay and copper.

Some other wicker crafts, silver spurs and a clay nativity scene.

Now, the Juguete Nacional expo.

The exhibit showcased over 600 toys built in Chile from 1915 to 1975. You should know that the Aravenas are museum dorks, we could spend hours looking at stuff behind a glass wall. I loved it!!

Around Santiago [Cerro San Cristobal], Where It All Began!

2011-07-15T23:28:00.001-04:00

You all know the story how Randy and I met. He went to Argentina on a mission, one of his companions was Gino, Gino is Chilean, Gino married my sister, Randy went to Chile for the wedding, Randy asked me out, we went out on a double date with Vivi and Gino to……Cerro San Cristobal! –Saint Christopher Hill-.

This is our first picture together. We were so young and SKINNY!!!

Anyways, we had fun remembering the awkwardness of a first date and teasing each other about what we said and how we acted.

We did a lot of walking that day. I love a walking city!! More opportunity to do some people watching!

We got to the entrance of the park and we had two options, walk to the top of the hill or take the Funicular -also known as a cliff railway or cable railway- easy decision……..FUNicular. What wasn’t fun was the 30+ minutes we were in line to buy our tickets.

We have the tickets!! Now wait another 15 minutes to get in!

And off we go!

Half way, you could get off to go to the Zoo or keep going to the top. To the top we went!

Wave Hello!

Such beautiful views!!

The other side of the Hill.

That tiny hill in the middle is Santa Lucia, the one we visited a couple of days ago.

After treating our sight with such pretty views, it was time to treat our tummies. Fresh made cotton candy sounded perfect!!

Cotton candy equals pink tongue.

We went to the top of the hill to see the Virgin Mary statue that’s looking down to the city. We read in a plaque that the Pope presided a Mass in this place some years ago when he was visiting Chile. Very important statue for the catholic community.

To the side of the statue there was this place where you could ask Virgin Mary for a favor, special blessing or pray for you. I think the tradition is to come back if your favor happened and leave a plaque thanking Mary.

A chapel on top of the hill.

We were super excited to go take the Teleferico -aerial cable car- to go down hill, as we did in our first date. Unfortunately they were doing maintenance on them.

We couldn't get in at this station.

and we didn’t enjoy the ride and this great view.

But we did the next best thing. We walked. San Cristobal Hill is the favorite place for runners, hikers, mountain bikers and outdoor enthusiasts. The hillside has great trails, I think it probably took us a good 1 1/2hrs to get down.

We had a super day!

The Churro Fund

2011-07-15T21:47:00.000-04:00

Randy loves churros so much that he started a churro fund while in Chile. He would ask or sneak out all of the change just in case he would come across a churro vendor. I knew he wasn't going to find one, only at the beach or in the food court at the mall. Randy, just like a little kid kept his moneditas safe and knew exactly how much he had and how many he could buy with that. It’s not like I banned him from spending money on churros! Hilarious and ridiculous at the same time. We were walking back to Gaby and Fran’s when Randy’s eyes open wide as he pointed across the street and yells, -“CHURROS!!”

Two for him, one for me! I do have to say Churros are delicious. Fried tasty pastry filled with dulce de leche. You can also have them filled with chocolate, different kinds of preserves or frostings.

Gaby & Fran [Part DOS]

2011-07-14T11:33:00.000-04:00

While we were in Chile the Copa America, a soccer tournament that involves most Latin American countries, was going on. So one night we decided to stay in, order sushi and watch the Chilean team play. Oh yeah, Randy wanted to show that you can get soft drinks in a 3 Liter (0.793 gal) container.

To celebrate our week together, we thought it would be funny to take the gringo to The Clinic, a Socialist Restaurant!! This place is quite famous and it was packed. To be a restaurant of socialist ideals I have to say the prices weren’t “for the people”, kind of pricey. What’s up with that?!

The place has a protest against the government and capitalism kind of feeling and decor. There are tons of posters with political and irreverent comical sayings that make fun of the conservatives and people with money.

Reading the posters. Some were really funny.

Gaby thinks the food deserves a thumbs up!

They had this inner terrace. I liked the lighting they had.

Around Santiago [Cerro Santa Lucia & Mercado Central]

2011-07-13T11:05:00.001-04:00

My sister lives a few blocks away from Cerro Santa Lucia (Saint Lucia Hill). This little, single hill is in the middle of downtown Santiago and has a cool history. It was originally called Huelén by the natives; the word means "pain, melancholy or sadness". The name was changed in 1541 by Pedro de Valdivia, conquerer and founder of Santiago. The day he conquered the hill the catholic church was celebrating Saint Lucía.

At first it was used as a point of reconnaissance, or a lookout by the conquistadors. A fort was built in 1820. In 1872 the hill underwent an extensive remodeling. They built a road which crossed the hill, added a chapel, a park with fountains and lookouts and the iconic yellow and white facade.

My family lived in Santiago for a few years when I was little and we visited it many times. I remember that a cannon shot was fired exactly at noon every weekday. A tradition for more than 180 years. I thought that it was so cool, and if we were close by you could always hear it! As a kid you would wait anxiously for the cañonazo de las doce!After the earthquake of 2010 to prevent landslides the traditional cannon shot was replaced by some old Jesuit bells.

The pretty entry.

On our way to the fort.

One of the original cannons.

Pretty little chapel.

Our national anthem says:”…Pure, Chile, is your blue sky…Pure breezes cross you as well….Majestic is the white colored mountain…” We always make jokes about all the pollution that there is in Santiago. What blue sky are they talking about? It looks gray to me. Pure breezes?!! Explain my allergies then. Majestic is the white colored mountain? I can’t even see the mountains with all this smog!!

You can clearly see all the air pollution in this pic.

We were on top of the fort and had fun looking at the city and at a nest of hummingbirds. There were like ten flying around.

At the bottom of the hill there was a Feria Artesanal, artisan fair is the literal translation. They are super popular in Chile, there you can find authentic and folkloric (of Chile) crafts, souvenirs,jewelry and clothing. Everything is hand made and usually the artisan is right there to sell you his products. The one there was pretty cool because they made it look like it was a tunnel inside the hill.

After spending a good part of the morning walking Santa Lucia. We got hungry and headed out to meet my good friend Johana a.k.a. Cornflakes Girl and had lunch with her. We went to Mercado Central –Central Market- this place specialized only in sea food. It has two entrances one to the actual market where you can buy fresh fish and all kinds of sea food. We didn’t go there because Randy doesn't like sea food or the smell of it and because my nose is better than a hound dog’s (seriously, I sometimes thinks I have a bionic nose) and I don’t do good with strong smells.

The other entrance its for the restaurants. This was my first time going there and I liked the unique atmosphere and architecture. It is a wrought iron building reminiscent of a London rail way station, was fabricated in England and brought piece by piece to Chile and assembled here for the National Exposition of 1872. Later, it became a market.

I was surprised to see the amount of Brazilians serving tables. I wasn’t expecting that! Funny story, we were sitting outside the market waiting for my friend when this brazilian guy, a host for one of the more expensive restaurants, was out giving people passing by a flyer of his restaurant and inviting them in. He came to us and started speaking in portuguese: “-Tudo bem?… onde você é?.. você é do Brasil, certo?” From my portuguese 101 knowledge I could tell he was asking us where from Brazil we were. We had huge question marks on our faces, so he acted all surprised and started talking to us in spanish –“Oh my gosh, I could swear you guys were Brazilians, I’m so sorry.” And then he continues rambling something about Chilean women being so pretty. He gave us a flyer and invited us to go eat at his restaurant. The guy was super charming but unfortunately for him I wasn’t born yesterday! Like I wouldn’t realize his selling tactics; I will imply you are a tourist, I will call you pretty, you will feel so flattered and won’t resist coming to my restaurant. On the other hand, I did have a gringo by my side so we gave him the benefit of the doubt. After Johana met us, we were walking in to find a place to eat, another Brazilian did the same thing. After we were done with lunch and as we were leaving the market another one tried to do the same thing. There was no doubt now, and before he could finish his little speech three of us told him in unison: “-WE ARE CHILEANS”!!!

Randy played it safe and order fried fish with rice and a sampler salad. I had mussels with parmesan cheese and a tomato/avocado salad. Delicious!! Johana had octopus, french fries and a sampler salad.

While having lunch we enjoyed some musicians and the Guantanamera!!!

Gaby & Fran [Part UNO]

2011-07-12T23:23:00.000-04:00

Gabriela lives two hours away from my parents and the rest of the family. My sweet sister and Francisco came every weekend to see us and the fam. We went to Santiago and stayed with them a whole week, we wanted to spend some quality time with them since we didn’t get to see them during the week like the rest of my family.

We had such a great time with them. As soon as we got there Randy befriended Dominga, their cat. She just loved him and Randy was pretty happy to be the chosen one.

Both of them had to work , but we made plans every night. During the day Randy and I did some sight seeing and visited some friends of mine.

One night we went to Parque Bicentenario. It was a cold night but we enjoyed driving through the city at night and walking the beautiful park.

The park had a super neat playground, of course we need it to try it!

I thought these Ivy sheep were cute.

The swans would come to you as soon you walk by the pond and would look at you waiting for some food. We couldn’t disappoint them, they had some food dispensers where you could buy swan food.

On another night we went bowling. They couldn’t believe it when we told them about bowling leagues and professionals bowlers, they called us nerds. As for me, I suck the same there as I do Here. I had a lamo game.

Vicente

2011-07-10T22:08:00.001-04:00

It was so neat to go to Vicente’s aquatherapy. We loved seeing him in action doing his exercises. Vivi gave us a tour of the facilities and explained to us the different kinds of therapies and conditions that are treated there. I was so impressed with everything. Vivi pointed out a young handsome PT doctor and told us that the little girls he treats all think he is super cute and come with pretty hair and wearing glossy lipstick to look nice for him. So funny how girls are girls no matter what age or disability! Vicente was born with Distal Arthrogruposis syndrome and has been going there for a couple of years. It was so funny when we came in and were walking the hallways, everybody knew him and came to say hello. He truly is an awesome kid. When people talk about their kids being funny I always think to myself, “Well, you haven’t met MY nephew!”. Vicente is hilarious and oh! so charming! He has to much personality for a 4yr old. His humor is so mature, his jokes and what he says is so funny and smart. Everybody loves and enjoys him so much.

We were having dinner at Vivi's and it was time to say grace, Vicente said that he wanted his best friend Liza to say it! Such a sweet boy.

Meet The Family

2011-07-09T12:40:00.000-04:00

Estas son las fotos oficiales de la Familia Aravena Garay para el año 2011.

One of the things that I love and look forward to every time I visit my family is to have our portraits done. I love to see how the family grows in size and how the kids have changed in the last years.

The Aravena Garay Family

My Parents. Francisco and Viviana.

My oldest sister Olivia and my brother-in-law Sabu.

Their cute family.

Annya, Cristobal and Tomas.

My older sister Viviana and my brother-in-law Gino

Their adorable family.

Super cute Vicente and Enzo.

It's time for Randy and me, but you know us already.

My younger sister Gabriela and my brother-in-law Francisco.

My youngest (only younger than Gaby by two minutes) Laura and my brother-in-law Felipe.

We Made It!!

2011-07-08T14:12:00.000-04:00

We arrived safe and sound. It was a long trip but we are thrilled to be here. Our first week was focused on visiting and catching up with the familia. We spent quality time with each of my sisters’s families and Mom and Dad. I have forgotten how wacky the Aravenas are. We’re a house of loud ladies, we speak in jokes, we move our arms and make gestures a lot when we speak that you might think we’re rapping! There are no off limits conversations and I love I can speak about everything with my sisters and brothers. My mother’s musical mornings and her homeopathic remedies that she always offers, my dad and brothers making fun of each other, the fact that we do speak at the speed of light(sometimes we don’t even understand one another) can be a little intimidating. It only took Randy one day to catch up with the craziness. I found him so chatty lately, Who is this guy? I’m so happy he feels so comfortable around them. My family loves him and we joke that he’s my mom’s favorite because she runs every time he needs something.

In the first week we visited my grandma Luque, went to Vicente’s therapy, had dinner at Vivi’s. Lunch at Oli’s. Went to Viña del Mar with my mom and Laura. Saw Transformers with Fran and Gaby. Went out to eat with the whole family.

I’m trying to decide how and what to write about our visit here. But because this blog is also for our family records, you might find long and detailled posts. If it is too much for you to read, just take a look at the pictures .

Showing me their drawings. The theme was The Ocean.

Annya got upset about something and didn’t want to show hers. Her mom did the honors.

At Vivi’s having Once.

In Chile we took after England’s tradition and we have “Tea time” wich is called Once. There are some difrences, our tea time is more abundant. It’s the last meal of the day, the tea or coffe (herbal tea and barley coffe in our case) goes with sandwiches, pies, pastries and coffe cake. Randy made cookies that day and all the kids were excited about it, the adults were too.

Oli and Laury with our little nephew Enzo.

Vicente didn’t want to share his toys with Tomas and went downstairs to ask Vivi for a plastic bag. –“Why do you need a plastic bag” She asked. –“To put all my toys away and hide them” He said. We all started telling him that he needed to share and that toys are fun when we share them and all of that. We also told him that Randy was making cookies to share only with people that share and are nice to other people. Five minutes later he comes back and asks for his cereal and two bowls and said –“ See I have two bowls one for me, one for Tomas. I’m going to share with him. I can have cookies now because I’m sharing my cereal right?”. He totally went around us and didn’t share his toys!!

At Oli’s having Almuerzo

Almuerzo(lunch) is the biggest meal of the day. It’s like having dinner. Olivia fixed some delicius steak for us. We loved spending time with my sister and our seroiusly cute nephews and niece. Tomas was teasing Randy. He would come and say “qi toy” and run away. I could hear Randy trying to figure out what he was saying. –“qi toy? You want what?” Annya yells from the kitchen at the same time I yell from the third floor “He’s saying Aqui Estoy. Here I am!!

Cristobal showing us the beans he’s growing.

I LOVE Annya’s smiling face.

Uncle Randy!!

Picture by Cristobal.

The Copa America (soccer tournament that involves all south and north america’s latin countries) is going on right now. We all got toghether at my parents to watch the national team play. Randy has been following all the games and who is advancing to the next round. So far Chile’s team has done pretty good. My dad works out of town, so does my brother in-law Felipe. My sister Gabriela lives in Santiago, two hours away from my parents. They also came to spend the weekend with us. That Friday I finally saw my dad and sister and gave them a huge hug.

I know my good friend Romy, who's also Vivi's sister-in-law would appreciate this little video.

Saturday night we all went out to eat some deliciuos pizza.

I always feel so bad for the cashiers at the supermarkets in the US. They are on their feet their whole shift. I never understood why they don’t have swirly high stools. We went to the store and thought these wheeled baskets were neat. I won’t say the name but someone asked me if we have food in our supermarkets. We always laugh about this and joke saying –“No, we just built them and leave them empty”. As you can see we do have food at the stores!!!

Too Windy To Launch

2011-07-03T08:59:00.003-04:00

We loved the Balloon Festival. We went last Friday and it was so neat to see the balloons up close and personal. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t cooperating and they couldn’t launch the balloons, but they managed to do the Illumine for a few minutes before they decided that it was also too windy to continue. We enjoyed some delicious carnival food, had fun taking pics and it was a great night to spend with some great people one last time before leaving for our vacay.

Nos encanto ir al festival de globos aeroestaticos. Fue genial poder verlos de cerca. Lamentablemente el clima no quizo cooperar esa noche y los globos no pudieron despegar. Habia mucho viento, pero de todas formas los instalaron y prendieron fuego por unos minutos para luego darse cuenta que el viento era muy fuerte para continuar. Disfrutamos de comida tipica de carnaval, sacamos fotos y fue una gran noche para pasarla con nuestros amigos una ultima vez antes de irnos de vacaciones.

Guatita llena, corazon contento!! Full stomach, happy heart. We say this at our table after some delicious food.

Too loud for Natalie.

25yrs Unofficial Cheer Squad. Neat Ladies.

Yep, the sunset got me romantic!!

Randylicious Has Done It Again!

2011-06-30T12:02:00.002-04:00

This guy is so handy, how can’t you love him. Our bathroom is officially REMODELED. Yesterday I hung the last piece of decor and we are done with this project. You can see pictures of the before and after HERE(click).

Me encanta tener un maestro chasquilla a mi servicio. Randy es tan talentoso, como no quererlo. Nuestro baño esta oficialmente terminado. Ayer colge la ultima pieza de decoracion y doy este projecto como terminado. Pueden ver fotos del antes y despues Aqui (click).

Outie to Innie

2011-06-27T21:24:00.003-04:00

One day Randy was lifting weights and his belly button popped-out. He didn’t know it was an hernia until he was talking with his principal at school. He has had the umbilical hernia for the past six years and decided to have the surgery done a week before our trip to Chile! He can’t lift more than 15lbs for two weeks. He is really taking it easy so he can recover for all the activities we have planned with my family once we get there. This was a super easy and quick procedure. They told him that he should be waking up at the end of surgery but because of the local anesthesia he would feel no pain. When they took me back to the recovery room to see him the nurse said that he should be waking up any minute and ready to go home in 20 minutes. Little did they know!! I went to check on him and Randy was out. Five minutes later, no sign of wanting to wake up. At 10 minutes I started to call his name and he kind of rolled his eyes at me. At 15 minutes I was really trying to wake him up, since they were expecting to kick him out in ten more minutes. He finally opened his eyes and started asking the same questions over and over again. Did you see my incision? How long was I there? How long have I been here? Am I dressed? Then he would fall into a deep sleep again. I woke him up again and told him, –you need to try to stay awake. He would say, I don’t want to fight it , I just want to sleep and again the questions. Did you see my incision? How long was I there? How long have I been here? Am I dressed? But this time he added:- I saw Eli with the dragon in surgery! You probably don’t know what he’s talking about but recently we started watching a series on Netflix called Eli Stone. He’s a lawyer that was diagnosed with an aneurism and has visions because of that. One of his visions was a dragon that helped him solve a case of a patient suing an anesthesiologist. That’s why Randy was visited by Eli with the Dragon!! It is a really good series if you have Netflix and want to watch it. After 40 minutes of the same the nurse came in and with a severe tone woke him up and told him, this is the wake up room, you need to wake up. This should only take 20 minutes!! He didn’t care and fell asleep again. Then he woke up and looked at me weird and said –you look really pretty today. After an hour and 15 minutes and some throw up later the nurse was happy to finally kick Randy out. Now for some serious laughs check out the video below.

Fun Filled Week

2011-06-25T21:16:00.002-04:00

Randy’s sister Sharlyn and her hubby Lee were visiting the family this week. We loved having them in town and had much fun with them. •We had Family Home Evening where Wilson shared with us the work he has done in genealogy for the Hunt side of the family. • The guys helped Quentin with the tree house he’s building. •We went bowling with Todd and out to eat. •Sharlyn, Lee, Randy, Quentin, Stella and Gibson went to the beach on Wednesday but had to call the day short when the weather didn’t cooperate. • The guys went golfing and the Ladies out for Lunch • Lee and Sharlyn introduced us to Swamp People and we’re now addicted. We watched with them the whole first season on Netflix. • We had our quote of card games and conversation. • Lee pampered us with his grilling skills, he’s a pro! and Sharlyn cooked some delicious corn and asparagus on the grill, the best I had. It was great spending some quality time with them and we miss them already. Enjoy some pictures!

Mi cuñada Sharlyn y su esposo Lee vinieron a visitar a la familia esta semana. Nos encanto tenerlos en nuestra casa y lo pasamos super bien con ellos. • Tubimos Noche de Hogar y Wilson nos conto del trabajo genealogico que ha hecho por el lado Hunt de la familia. • Los chicos ayudaron a Quentin con la costruccion de una casa en el arbol para sus hijos. • Fuimos a jugar bowling con Todd y despues a cenar afuera. • Sharlyn, Lee, Randy, Quentin, Stella y Gibson fueron a la playa el Miercoles pero tuvieron de devolverse por mal tiempo. • Los chicos fueron a jugar golf y las chicas salieron a almorzar. • Lee y Sharlyn nos presentaron el programa Amos del Pantano y estamos adictos. Tubimos una maraton de toda la primera temporada. • Jugamos cartas y disfrutamos de buena conversacion. • Lee nos cocino un asado de primera, experto de la parrilla. Y Sharlyn hizo unos choclos y esparragos asados de miedo. Demasiado rico todo! Nos encanto pasar tiempo con ellos y ya los estamos extrañando. Disfruten de una fotitos!

Meet Donatello

2011-06-03T11:49:00.004-04:00

Randy was mowing our lawn and found this little guy chilling’ in the grass. Good thing we went to a turtle show when we were camping, we could easily identify that it was a box turtle. They have a “hinge” under their shell that allows them to close tightly to escape predators. See, I paid attention!! We laid it at the edge of the woods and has stayed there since then. Kala can’t get enough of poor Donatello. She comes up to him very slowly and stares at him. Then she tries to sniff him, as soon as he moves she jumps back all scare. And she is supposed to be a hunting dog?

Remember that post about the stalker squirrel? A few people mentioned that they thought it was a mama squirrel. When I showed Randy the pics I took he even said - ‘that squirrel is exposing herself to me, she needs a bra. She is like a double D in squirrel world!” . Well, you guys were right. A few weeks later she came back with her baby. CUTEST thing EVER!

Randy estaba cortando el pasto y se encontro con este chiquillo en la pasto. Menos mal que habiamos ido a un show de tortugas cuando estabamos acampando. Pudimos facilmente reconocer que era una tortuga caja. Ellas tienen una “bisagra” bajo su caparazon que les permite cerrarse completamente y espacarse de predarores. Vieron que puse atencion!! La dejamos a la orilla del bosquen y se ha quedado ahi. Kala esta facinada con pobre Donatello. Va caminando super despacio y se queda momia mirandolo por un rato. Despues trata de olerlo y tan pronto se mueve la tortuga ella salta para atraz toda asustada. Y se supone que la Kala es perro de caza?

Se acuerda ese post de la ardilla copuchenta? Unas par de personas me dijeron que pensaban que era una ardilla mama. Cuando le mostre las fotos que habia sacado de la ardilla a Randy incluso el me dijo –“esa ardilla necesita usar sostenes, que no tiene pudor?!” Bueno, ustedes tenian razon. Una par de semanas despues, ella volvio con su bebe. Cosa mas tierna no he visto!

Tickets And A Horrible Hair Cut

2011-05-29T23:03:00.002-04:00

In the beginning of track season Randy made a bet with his runners. He wouldn’t cut his hair for the whole season and if they qualify for state, the qualifier could cut his hair the way they wanted. For months I have been dying to chop Randy’s crazy-frizzy-untamed-long hair in his sleep. I didn’t. Well, two of his athletes qualified for state and Thursday after practice they got creative with the coach’s hair. It was the ugliest thing I have ever seen!! And he had to keep the hair cut for a whole day and GO TO SCHOOL LIKE THAT! He was loving it, of course. I fixed the damage with the razor and he is now a baldy and complains about his head being cold.

Friday night we bought our tickets for our trip to Chile! I’m so excited, I can’t deny it! We will be visiting/living in Chile for 5 weeks. Randy is nervous that his Spanish is not at the advance conversation level and has been practicing names like Alejandro, Rodrigo and Bernardo. And how to correctly say words like llama, perro, amarillo and guerrilla. He’s going to come back speaking like a native! Everybody is so anxious for our arrival and that adds more to my excitement. My dad and brother in-laws are already sending Randy itineraries of fun things they want to do with him. The last time Randy was in Chile was in December of 2004. Since then two brother in-laws were added to the Aravena family and 4 nephews and 1 niece were born. I’m excited to meet Enzo, my sister Vivi’s new baby. He will be 15 weeks old in July.

En el comienzo de la temporada de atletismo Randy hizo una apuesta con sus corredores. El no hiba a cortar su pelo durante toda la temporada y si alguno calificaba para las competencias estatales, podian cortarle el pelo como quisieran. Por meses he querido cortarle un mechon de pelo mientas duerme, si le corto un lado de seguro tiene que emparejarlo y cortarselo todo. Verdad? Bueno me resisti las ganas y por meses tuve que aguantar el pelo salvaje-chascon-aleonado y con puntas partidas de mi esposo. Dos de sus atletas calificaron para las competencias estatales y el Jueves despues de entrenamiento usaron su creatividad en la cabeza de su entrenador. Fue el pelo mas feo que he visto en mi vida! Randy tuvo que mantener el corte por un dia entero e IR AL COLEGIO PARA QUE TODOS LO VEAN! Por supuesto para el era un chiste, cero verguenza. Cuando llego el viernes tuve que raparle toda la cabeza para arreglar el desastre que le dejaron. Ahora esta pelado, cabeza e’ tuna. Y se queja que tiene frio en la pela’.

El viernes compramos nuestros pasajes para ir a Chile! Estoy mas feliz que una lombriz! Vamos a estar visitando/viviendo en Chilo por 5 semanas! Randy esta nervioso de que su español no va a estar al nivel de conversacion avanzada y ha estado practicando como decir nombres como Alejandro, Rodrigo y Bernardo. Y como decir correctamente palabras como llama, perro, amarillo y guerrilla. Va a volver hablando como si fuera su lengua materna! Todos estan anciosos esperando nuestra llegada, lo que me pone mucho mas feliz. Mi papa y cuñado ya estan planeando panoramas con Randy. La ultima vez que Randy fue a Chile fue en Diciembre de 2004. Muchas cosas han pasado desde esa fecha: dos nuevos cuñados integraron la familia Aravena, nacieron 4 sobrinos y 1 sobrina. Estoy contenta de conocer a Enzo, es el nuevo bebe de mi hermana Vivi. Va a cumplir 15 semanas en Julio.

Pokagon Fun

2011-05-28T14:31:00.002-04:00

Let me tell you about our last weekend fun. We went camping with some cool people. Our friends The Harberts came all the way from Indianapolis to meet The Maltburgs, Camburns and Hunts at Pokagon State Park in Angola, IN. We had a great time! We went to the beach, the little girls enjoyed the freezing water and playing in the sand and the boys enjoyed playing frisbee and paddleball (with two balls at a time in some occasions; that’s talent!) We went for walks and enjoyed mother nature. The park had a presentation on turtles that was neat, the little ones really liked touching them. We had amazing meals, I never knew that camping food could be so good! Saturday afternoon we got some rain but it was no problem for these super prepared bunch of people, The Camburns brought with them a huge gazebo that kept us all dry. Well, except Phil who was grilling hotdogs and hamburgers for dinner. We all appreciate him so much for taking one for the team! We played games at night and defended our site form the evil force of the Raccoon Brotherhood. Those little thieves were everywhere, but deep deep inside I still think their little hands are super cute and I want to pet them. We loved seeing everybody and we are excited for this new yearly tradition.

Dejenme contarles lo bien que lo pasamos el fin de semana pasado. Fuimos a acampar con personas geniales. Nuestros amigos Los Harberts vinieron desde Indianapolis para enconcontrarse con Los Multburs, Los Camburns y Los Hunts en el Parque Estatal Pokagon. Lo pasamos super bien! Fuimos a la playa, las niñas disfrutaron el agua congelada y jugar con arena. Los hombres disfrutaron jugando frisbee y paletas (con dos pelotas al mismo tiempo en ocaciones; eso es talento!) Fuimos por caminatas y disfrutamos la naturaleza. El parque tenia una presentacion acerca de tortugas que viven en el parque, a las pequeñas les encanto tocar las. Tubimos comida buenisima, no sabia que la comida de campamento podia ser tan buena! Empezo a llover un poco el Sabado por la tarde pero no fue problema para este grupo de gente super preparados, Los Camburns habian traido un toldo que nos mantubo a todos fuera de la lluvia, bueno menos a Phil que estaba cocinando unos completos y hamburguesas en el fuego. Se le agradece a Phil por el sacrificio! Jugamos juegos en la noche y defendimos nuestro sitio de la pandilla de los mapaches. Ladronzuelos, estaban por todas partes. Pero bien dentro, todavia pienso que sus manitos son super tiernas y quiero agarrarlos y hacerles cariño. Nos encanto ver a todos y estamos contentos por este nueva tradicion anual.

Trees Inc.

2011-05-15T22:04:00.003-04:00

There isn't a project these guys won’t tackle. I’m so impressed. Last Saturday they had a tree cutting triathlon. One bucket lift, three houses. They started early in the morning at the Camburns, proceeded to the Hunts and ending at the Maltburgs. Nobody got hurt, the trees landed where they were suppose to and Randy didn’t cut his forehead…success! At the end of the day the boys were super tired but happy for all the work done.

No hay projecto que estos chicos no ataquen. Estoy muy impresionada. El Sabado pasado tubieron una triatlon cortando arboles. Una grua, tres casas! Empezaron temprano en la mañana donde los Camburns, seguido de los Hunts y terminaron el dia donde los Multburgs. Nadie salio herido, los arboles cayeron donde de suponia y Randy no se corto la frente…exito! Al final del dia los varones estaban super cansados pero felices por todo el trabajo realizado.

Restraining Order

2011-05-04T22:28:00.002-04:00

For a while I’ve had an uneasy feeling. I felt like someone was watching me. Staring. Every time I would turn around I would see a shadow in the corner of my eye. I was getting very nervous. I talked to Randy about it and we started locking the doors and shutting curtains at night. But still I didn’t feel safe. A few days ago I came face to face with my stalker. He was shamelessly watching me through the window!! :)

Hace un tiempo ya que tenia una sentimiento extraño que no me dejaba tranquila. Sentia como si alguien me estaba mirando. Observandome. Cada vez que me daba vuelta veia una sombra por el costado de mi vision. Me estaba poniendo muy nerviosa. Le conte a Randy como me sentia y empezamos a poner llave a las puertas y cerrar las cortinas en la noche. Pero aun asi no me sentia segura. Hace unos dias me encontre cara a cara con mi acosador. Me estaba mirando descaradamente en la ventana!! :)

This little guy has been watching me almost every morning running around and getting ready for work. In the evenings he pays attention to what we do and watches Randy and me eat dinner or watch tv. It’s the cutest thing!! He stays in the window for about 10 minutes every time, following our every move. I don’t know what’s so intriguing about us that he keeps coming back. I’m sure the animals at the Zoo ask themselves the same question.

Este chiquillo viene cada mañana y me ve correr para todos lados alistandome para ir a trabajar. En las tardes vuelve y pone atencion a lo que hacemos. Nos mira mientras Randy y yo comemos o vemos tv. Es una ternura!! Se queda en la ventana por casi 10 minutos cada vez que viene y sigue cada movimiento que hacemos. No se lo que encuentra tan interesante de nosotros que lo hace volver y espiarnos. Estoy segura que los animalitos del zooligico se preguntan lo mismo.

The Sweet Life Of Kala

2011-02-27T16:10:00.010-05:00

She sure loves her Papito! ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ Kala adora a su papito!

Giant

2011-02-26T22:08:00.006-05:00

The Monday of the ice storm Randy told me that he NEEDED to make cookies. He browsed the internet to find the best recipe for soft sugar cookies, gathered the ingredients and began making them. They were huge! For frosting he used cupcake frosting. We only had orange food colorant from Halloween. They tasted good, but the frosting didn’t match the cookies. We He still ate them all!!

El Lunes de la tormenta de hielo Randy vino a decirme que NECESITABA hacer galletas. Busco en el internet la mejor receta para galletas blandas de azucar, junto los ingredientes y se puso manos a la obra. Resultaron enormes! Como glazeado, Randy uso crema para cupcakes. Solo teniamos colorante naranjo que sobro de Halloween. Estaban ricas, pero la crema no combinaba con las galletas. De todas formas, se las comio todas!!

Icy

2011-02-25T22:40:00.001-05:00

It has been super icy in this neck of the woods. Last Saturday we had an awesome sunny 50 degree weather day. We did some yard work and enjoyed being outside. Kala ran free like the wind and had so much fun fallowing us around. Then Sunday came, cloudy and cold and with it came an ice storm. Power went out, schools were canceled, roads where unsafe, trees looked beautiful with all that ice. I went to work on Tuesday, Jack’s school didn’t have power so he stayed home. Two other friends spent the night and two days because their houses wouldn’t get power until Thursday. Randy went back to work on Wednesday and we both have today off. I’m grateful for our wood-burning furnace, it has keep us so warm this winter and at such a low cost! I love it! Spring we are ready when you are, but please don’t take long!!!

Ha estado un poco resfaloso aqui ultimamente. El sabado pasado tubimos un hermoso dia primaveral en mitad del invierno. Trabajamos en el patio y disfrutamos del sol y de estar fuera de la casa. Kala corrio libre como el viento siguiendonos para todos lados. LLego el Domingo, nublado y con un frio polar. A medio dia empezo una tormenta de hielo. Se corto la luz, los colegios cancelaron clases, los caminos estaban peligroso y los arboles se veian bellos con todo el hielo. El Lunes fue feriado aca, asi que nos quedamos en la casa, Martes fui de vuelta al laburo. Pero las escuelas cancelaron clases asi que Jack se quedo conmigo y otros dos amigos de el que se quedaron por dos dias porque la luz no llego hasta el jueves en algunas poblaciones. La escuela de Randy volvio a clases el Miercoles y hoy dia Viernes los dos tubimos el dia libre. Estoy agradecida de nuestra calefaccion a leña, nos ha mantenido calentitos durante todo este invierno, y a un precio de huevo!! Me encanta!! Estamos listos ya para la llegada de la primavera, hemos tenido suficiente invierno. Yapo’ primavera llega pronto!!

Little Randy’s Memoirs (Part Uno)

2011-02-23T20:56:00.008-05:00

(Randy and his best friend Bred Greuter)

Favorite Teacher: Mr. Perry

Best Friend: Brad G.

Favorite Number: 11

Favorite Sport: Soccer

Favorite Color: Red

Favorite School: Comstock North

Favorite Songs: Twister!, Melenie, Stuck in the closet with Vanna White

If I could choose any place in the world for a dream vacation, where would I go? I would live in Florida. I would have a job as a lifeguard at Miami beach. I would eat nutrisous foods every day. I would go to Disney World once a month. I’ll have a nice little house.

My Favorite Foods.

If I could plan a special meal, this is what my menu would look like:

Soup: Chicken Noodle

Salad: Regular

Main Course: Chicken Fried Steak

2 Vegetables: Tomatos and carrots

Dessert: Cheesecake

Drink: Root beer

What If?

If I could be any person in the world I would be Pele because I like to play soccer so much.

If I could be an animal I would be a Cheetah because It’s a fas animal.

If I could live during any period of time in history I would choose yesterday because I had a lot of fun yesterday.

If I could live in any city in the U.S. I would choose Kalamazoo because I’m living here now

If I could change one thing about myself, it would be showing respect because I call people names a lot.

If I could have any talent I wanted I would choose playing an instrument because I like music.

If I had all the money I wanted I would bye all the Nintendo games because I like to play on my Nintendo.

If I could make one wish for the world it would be to have peace because we alway have people dying.

The Angry Me

Three things that really make me mad are: Quentin, video games, having to was a lot of dishes.

When I lose my temper I hit something or go outside and play basketball or soccer.

Here is a story about one time I got very angry. (How did it start? Who did it involve? How did you handle it?)

Quentin and I were playing when started to yell at me. He started to kick me and everything. Then finally threw a pillow at him and then kicked him hard on his side. He was on the floor crying loud.

The Strong and Weak Me.

Place a “G” by all the things you are good or strong at. Put a “W” by all the things you are weak at.

science g

being honest g

math g

being organized g

reading g

being sincere g

English g

being on time g

social studies g

following directions g

spelling g

being dependable g

creative writing g

being courteous g

hand writing w

self-control g

music g

finishing what I start w

foreing languages w

taking care of my things w

art g

paying attention g

sports gggg

being independent g

I think my three most important strengths are: Sports, honesty, spelling.

Three areas I want to improve are: handwriting, finishing what I start, foreign languages.

Frostbite 2011

2011-02-21T19:57:00.005-05:00

Once again, I was roped into the Frostbite 5K down in Vicksburg. Liza decided not to be bold in the cold this year. Phil, Jon and I arrived early to help with the preparations. We were on shoveling sidewalk duty which warmed us up for the run. Unfortunately Phil couldn’t run this year but Jon still had the guts to run. I was excited to see one my cross country runners and one of my assistants there. As far as I am concerned it was another successful race and I can’t wait until next year (when we start on the road).

Otra vez, me convencieron para correr en el Frostbite 5K en Vicksburg. Liza fue cobarde y decidio no correr en el frio. Phil, Jon y yo llegamos temprano para ayudar con las preparaciones. Tuvimos que limpiar la vereda de nieve. Tanto paleo nos precalento para la competencia. Desafortunadamente, Phil no pudo correr este año pero Jon tuvo el coraje de correr. Me alegro ver uno de mis atletas de cross country y un asistente entrenador correr tambien. Fue una competencia exitosa y no puedo esperar para el proximo año!

Phil acting like he was doing something.

Jon with his wife Erin. (our one and only fan)

Ambercrombie??? 58? Is that your 5K goal time?

Post picture of the Frostbite Crew!! Everybody was looking to see if Jon was going to finish the race.

Vindication

2011-02-03T21:13:00.004-05:00

We survived the SNOWPOCALYPSE 2011!! We got to stay home Wednesday and Randy stayed home Thursday too, lucky bum! Since last blog entry Randy has been made fun of for the 1 inch of snow he was snow-blowing. We finally got enough snow to vindicate himself.

Sobrevivimos la tormenta de nieve!! Miercoles nos quedamos en casa, ninguno de los dos tuvo que ir a trabajar. Jueves cancelaron otra vez las escuelas y Randy se quedo en casa, suertudo!! La ultima vez que escribi y subi las fotos de la nieve, se han burlado de Randy por los miserables 2cm de nieve que estaba limpiando. Por fin nevo lo suficiente para que Randy limpiara su nombre.

Winter Wonderland

2011-01-08T12:31:00.005-05:00

We had have some snow the last couple of days. This morning while Randy plowed the driveway I took a little walk in our woods. The snow looked so beautiful on the trees. I loved seeing all the tracks the animals left in the snow. I’m really loving this winter and the beauty of it.

Ha nevado bastante estos ultimos dias. Esta mañana mientras Randy limpiaba nuestra vereda me fui a caminar por nuestro bosquesito. La nieve se veia hermosa en los arboles. Me encanto ver todas las huellas que los animales han dejado en la nieve. Estoy disfrutando este invierno y la belleza que trae.

Can’t Do It Cold Turkey.

2010-12-29T23:02:00.003-05:00

Quiero mas Navidad, las personas parecen ser mas amables y menos egocentricas (incluyendome a mi) en esta epoca del año. Las casas huelen a gengibre, azucar y chocolate. Me encanta los pesebres y arboles iluminados que las personas tienen en sus jardines. Quiero mas Navidad!! En un esfuerzo por absorber un poco mas de espiritu navideño con Randy fuimos a Los Jardines Meijer, donde tenian una expo de arboles de navidad decorados con las tradiciones de diferentes paises. Tambien tenian rieles de trenes y trolley al rededor de un cuarto, el trencito daba vueltas por toda esa seccion. Muy entretenido! Nunca habiamos ido a mirar este lugar, me encanto! Especialmente el invernadero y las esculturas en los jardines y terrazas.

I want more Christmas, during this season people are nicer and less self-centered (including me). Houses smell like ginger, sugar and chocolate. I love the nativity scenes and trees light up in peoples front yards. I want more of that. In an attempt of infusing myself with some more Christmas spirit we went to the Meijer Garden Winter Exhibit. I loved it! So neat, they had 40 some Christmas tree decorated on different countries traditions. They also had an awesome train and trolley rails around one of the rooms. I have never been there before, I really liked the greenhouse and outdoor sculptures.

Chritsmas Tree Display Expo de Arbolitos de Navidad

Green House Invernadero

Being absolutely ridiculous Nos dicen los ridiculos

Christmas

2010-12-28T20:48:00.001-05:00

Para español, lea mas abajo!

Our little family has the tradition of having a special dinner on Christmas Eve, Randy and I read about the birth of Jesus and like to reflect on the importance of Christ in our home. At midnight when it’s officially Christmas we open our stockings. We have being talking a lot of what traditions we want to establish for us and in the future. Our families growing up had different traditions. We want to take the best of each family and make our own. I love traditions, the consistency of doing something every year and making it special.

I usually get irritated after weeks of holidays commercials on TV, and all the buy this and give that. I dislike Santa so much that by the 15th of December I can’t take more of the Ho-Ho-Ho. I love Christmas but hate the charade people make out of it. I love having Christmas Eve with my husband, It helps me to receive the 25th with a joyful spirit. This year Randy’s parents wanted to join us for Christmas Eve. We had our late dinner and talk about the birth of Christ. Randy and I went for a walk at the Bronson Park. All the lights were beautiful.

Christmas Day we had a really nice evening with the family. We went to Randy’s parents for a delicious dinner and linger.

Nuestra pequeña familia celebra la Navidad en Noche Buena. Tenemos nuestra cena especial y con Randy leemos la historia del nacimiento de Jesus. Nos gusta reflecionar en la importancia de Cristo en nuestro hogar. A las 12 de la noche cuando es Navidad hacemos intercambio de Botitas. Hemos estado hablando bastante acerca de las tradiciones que queremos establecer para nosotros y el futuro. Nuestras familias tienen un estilo diferente de celebrar Navidad. Queremos copiar las mejores tradiciones de cada familia y hacerlas nuestras. Me encantan las tradiciones familiares, y la consitencia de hacer algo todos los años y esforzarse por hacerlo especial.

Generalmente me pongo de mal humor despues de ver tanto comerciales de navidad en la tele. Compre esto y regale esto otro. Me carga el viejo pascuero, ahi por el 15 de diciembre todos los Jo-Jo-Jo me tienen chata. Me encanta Navidad, pero me carga el circo que la gente hace. Por eso me gusta tener nuestra pequeña celebracion with Randy. Me ayuda a recibir la Navidad con un espiritu de alegria. Este año los papas de Randy quisieron acompañarnos en nuestra cena de Noche Buena. Tubimos nuestra cena tarde en la noche y leimos en la biblia el nacimiento de Jesus. Despues Randy y yo fuimos a visitar un parque que decoraron con luces. Las luces estubieron muy lindas.

El 25 fuimos a la casa de los papas de Randy. Tubimos una fantastica cena y pasamos la tarde con la familia.

Randy’s Birthday

2010-12-26T20:45:00.000-05:00

My hubby had a birthday. He got a double celebration. One with our great friends and another with his family. Sorry, I forgot to take pics on both occasions.

We copied from BG and Karen their breakfast tradition. My family did the same thing, we would wake up the lucky one singing happy birthday with the cake and candles. My mom would make hot chocolate and have a special breakfast. We love the idea of starting the day being celebrated. Randy’s dad cooked an awesome breakfast for the whole family.

Randito estubo de cumpleaños. Tubo dos celebraciones, una con nuestros amigos cercanos y otra con su familia. Se me olvido sacar fotos en ambas ocaciones.

Copiamos la tradicion de mi familia y la familia del hermano de Randy y tenemos un desayuno especial para el festejado. Mi familia se juntaba afuera del dormitorio del festejado y lo despertabamos cantanto el cumpleaños feliz con torta y velas. Mi mama nos hacia chocolate caliente y teniamos un rico desayuno. Me gusta la idea de empezar el dia siendo celebrado. El papa de Randy cocino un super desayuno para toda la familia.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

2010-12-17T20:42:00.001-05:00

Este año me ha encantado prepararme para Navidad, es nuestra primera Navidad en esta casa y queria que fuera especial. Hace años atraz vi en una revista que habian decorado la chimenea con baldes rojos. Me encanto la idea pero no habia forma de implementarla en nuestra otra casa. Porfin lo pude hacer este año! Me encantaron como quedaron.

I have been having a lot of fun getting ready for Christmas. Especially since this is our first Christmas at our new house. I saw on a magazine years ago, that they decorated their fireplace mantel with red pails. I loved it but didn’t have a fireplace in our old house. So now I had to do it, I love how they turned out.

Getting creative while taking pictures. I love to get inspired with what I see around me. I was flattered when after posting this picture on facebook, lots of my friends copied the idea and posted their own version.

Flock

2010-12-04T20:39:00.000-05:00

We have had visitors the last two Saturdays. I counted 25 of them. I love my backyard and the wildlife I get to see. There is so much beauty to enjoy in the creation.

Hemos tenido visitas dos Sabados seguidos. Un grupo de pavos silvestres nos han honorado con su presencia, conte 25! Me encanta mi patio y la vida animal que podemos disfrutar. Hay tanta belleza en la creacion.

Black Friday

2010-11-27T20:36:00.001-05:00

I haven’t really taken part on Black Friday shopping before. Mainly because I haven’t needed anything that bad to make me wake up at 4am and fight my way out of the store with it. This year was different……for Randy!!

We threw away our old TV when we moved from Butler and never bought a new one. We were actually proud of ourselves having a tv free house. After seeing the ads and the great deals, we went from our empowering no tv world to make the arrangements to get a brand new, shiny, big tv. This is to show you how easy it’s to persuade us, we are terrible! Randy and his brother left at 11pm the night of Thanksgiving and camped outside the store. Crazy!

Cada año en el dia despues de Accion de Gracia, hay ofertas y liquidaciones en las tiendas. Se le llama el Black Friday. La gente madruga para aprovechar las ofertas. Nunca he hido de compras en este evento, porque no necesito nada con urgencia que me haga levantar a las 4 de la mañana e irme a la tienda a pelear por una liquadora o par de zapatos. Este año fue diferente…. para Randy!

Cuando nos cambiamos de casa votamos nuestra tele antigua y nunca compramos una nueva. La verdad es que estabamos orgullosos de nuestro hogar sin television. Y le deciamos a todo el mundo que no hechabamos de menos la tele y que encontrabamos que teniamos mas tiempo y mejores cosas que hacer. El panorama cambio cuando vimos en los catalogos las super ofertas en televisores. Caimos redonditos! No lo pensamos dos veces y a las 11 de la noche partio Randy con su hermano para acampar afuera de la tienda!! Estuvieron desde las 11 a las 8 de la proxima mañana cuando abrieron las puertas. Esta gente loca, lo que hace por ahorrarse unos pesos!!

No Shave November

2010-11-22T20:32:00.000-05:00

Every year in November the Chuckapalooza takes place at Randy’s school. There are prizes for the guy that can grow the longest beard or have a cool mustache. This year he entered in the “creative” category. He won the administrative staff’s favorite prize. He was so proud of his cool beard. A student’s parent trimmed it.

Cada Noviembre en la escucela de Randy tienen una competencia entre los profesores. Compiten en quien puede crecer la barba mas larga o un bigote creativo. Randy se inscribio en la categoria “barba con el mejor diseño”. Los administrativos del colegio votaron por Randy como la barba favorita.

Guilt Trip

2010-10-18T21:45:00.004-04:00

If you ask me I will tell you that my parents and brother-in-laws are awesome. It’s their awesomeness that is causing me guilt. They recently went on a 40 mile bike trip. They are in their fifties, I’m in my late twenties and seriously can’t bike for more than 10 minutes without complaining that the seat is uncomfortable . I let myself go, the only sit-up I do is to get out of bed! I’m sure a 10 yr old can beat me an an arm wrestling contest. I’m so physically lame. Mom and Dad you guys are a great example, I promise I’ll get up an hour earlier each day to exercise and stop embarrassing our family name!!

Lee and Sharlyn

2010-10-17T11:37:00.004-04:00

Randy’s sister and her husband were in town last week. They live in Alabama so we don’t get to see them often. One night the family came for a bonfire. What a good night we had!

La hermana de Randy y su esposo estuvieron visitanda a la familia por estos lados. Ellos viven en Alabama asi que no los vemos muy seguido. Una noche la familia vino a nuestra casa para una fogata. Fue una buena noche!

Celebrating Independence Day

2010-10-06T21:23:00.003-04:00

I really enjoyed all the celebrating that took place while in Chile. Like I mentioned before everybody was in a great patriotic mood as we celebrated the bicentennial of Chile. We decided to go to our church camping grounds for the day and meet with friends and family for a cook-out Chilean Style.

The boys doing what they do best, guarding the grill!!

Felipe’s mom and my mom getting some salads ready

After having the real thing, I refuse to go back to hot dog and hamburgers. That will be an insult to the cook-out!

Vivi and The Marins

Abuelita Luque!

The Ritoque Sand Dunes

2010-10-04T22:04:00.003-04:00

My friend told me about this great place where you can rent horses and a tour guide will accompany you and take you for a horse ride on the dunes.He said I should really check it out. I’m glad I did. We love horses in our family so this seemed like a perfect activity for Mom, Dad, Gaby and me. We loved it. The ride lasted 3 hours, the shortest they offered. They also offer a 6 hr ride, 4 days expedition (with the horses) in the mountains and 10 days in the desert. Crazy!! I don’t think we are that experienced riders, three hours sounded more than enough for us.

Family Weekend

2010-10-02T23:19:00.005-04:00

After the wedding we said good-bye to the newlyweds and send them on their honeymoon. The rest of the family packed their bags as well and headed to a resort/country club in San Felipe, a town near the mountains. I’ve never been there before and I found the scenery absolutely beautiful. We had a wonderful family weekend.

We were all trying to guess what were those things planted in the hills. We were driving around the town and got close to them. They were avocado trees! I guess we were in avocado territory because there were TONS of avocado orchards.

This picture totally melts my heart!

Enjoying the heated pool

Future Dancer/Gymnast. Look at that technique and elongation!! (Don’t mind my face though)

Let me explain the funny hats. No, it’s not a Chilean tradition! It was a rule of the place we stayed in. They heat the water and then filter it. They don’t want hair to get trap in the heating system. They had that rule just for the indoor heated pool.

Staying active is very important for the Aravenas!!

Don’t forget Yoga and Tai-chi.

Get off the court little dudes, let us show you how it’s done!

Failed!

Ouch!

I love my Family!!