General Happenings...

Josh and Nate have been practicing new trick in the pool.



Check out the gorgeous impatiens!



When Gary moved into his apartment he found all kinds of left-overs that he was able to get rid of. We benefited greatly from it. We got a hair blower, two curling irons, some dishes, puzzles, and a cart to take to the grocery store and back! Love the cart. I can go a few blocks down the street and visit my favorite fruit stand. I can get a cantaloupe that is so ripe and delicious for about 1 dollar. A watermelon for $1.25.




One other event - Jennie spoke in Sacrament meeting last Sunday and survived. I spoke this Sunday and I survived too! Barely!

a funny thing happened on the way to Young Women's

Our church house...

Jennie’s adventures on the way to Young Women’s and back. This definitely wouldn’t happen in the Provo 160th ward. It started on the bus when a man dressed as a clown started talking to all the girls and doing a comedy act. I’m not sure what he said but apparently it was funny. We successfully snuck (is that a word?) a picture of him. I knew Jennie was hoping he wouldn’t talk to her but – no such luck!

We got off the bus to buy something at Home Center. She found the perfect trampoline. She wants one – complete with the safety net!


At Young Women’s we made prayer rocks. They turned out cute.


On our way back to the bus it was dark but the street was well lit. I knew we were safe but Jennie was still feeling a little nervous. There was an old, thin man in front of us and just as we went past him he turned to someone coming the other way and started ‘talking’ really loudly. It sounded like he didn’t have a tounge or maybe he was deaf. Basically right next to Jennie is started yelling ‘da du da dad ada da’. Or something like that. Jennie jumped a mile into the air. We laughed so hard I about died. Jennies adrenaline was pumping!

Then when we got off our bus there was the street performer with the big doll. She hadn’t seen that before and it was really funny. We left and as we crossed to street we looked back and we saw fire flying! There was a girl with flaming poi balls doing a show.

It was a funny night. Just think how boring it would have been if she had just gone to the church house and back in Alpine or at the Brighton 8th ward!

Visits with Expats

We went to the Wrides apartment Saturday night and had ice cream and cookies. Those Costco chocolate chips are getting put to great use! I’ve got my chocolate chip oatmeal cookie recipe so it works down here. The brown sugar here is in larger granules than normal sugar and it doesn’t pack. I just measure it like white sugar but when you cook it is leaves little tiny crunchy spots in the cookies and it actually tastes really good.
They have friends named the Averell’s that live in the building next to them. They are here with start-up Chile as well. He is an attorney who has been working in NY and is here working on a tax resolution company. It is very interesting to see what other people are doing here.


The Wrides didn’t want to let Jennie go home



Lots of little gringo kids.




!

Street Performers

One of my favorite things about Chile is the interesting things you see on the street. When cars stop at intersections, any number of things may start happening. There may be vendors running around between the cars selling flowers, fruit, bandaides, or news paper. Other times someone runs out and starts trying to wash your windshield. Frequently someone runs in front of the cars and starts performing. Then they walk around to see who in the cars will tip them. We have seen some pretty lame cheerleading stunts, some amazing juggling, dancing, and many other 'talents'. This guy is my favorite. He provided me enough laughter that I actually gave him my spare change. This isn't the best video of him but it gives you the idea.

Random Events

Random things that have happened this week:


We have been learning why we got such a great price on our apartment rental...a few days after we moved in, construction began on the lot next to us. First they demolished what was left of the basements of the old houses on the lot. This week they began hauling dirt in a serious way. This is what it looks like from our terrace. It adds some daytime noise but provides lots of entertainment for Josh.

Josh has been finishing his unit on Incan Indians. This is his mask he created.

Picnic lunch with the Elders. We have 2 sets of Elders in our ward. They are great guys. I like talking to them and making lunch for them because it makes me think of Stephen. Someone is making him food everyday too!

We had a birthday party for Young Womens this week. There are 3 birthdays this month. We swam and had Papa Johns pizza and it was amazing! It tasted exactly the same. We met at Sister Mangum's house. She is the YW President and is Amy and Shannon's old violin teacher!

Gary Davis our business associate in NuSkin arrive with my new contact! I was sooooooooo excited to take off my glasses and get my contacts back on.

Girls Camp

Jennie and I went to girls camp this week. We left on Tuesday morning and came home Thursday night. We had a great time and made a lot of new friends. The first day was pretty hard on us but after that our brains kicked in and we felt a lot better. It was a stake camp and there were about 40 girls there. They followed the camp manual and passed off their certifications. They had skits, a tree of life activity, testimony meeting, crafts, secret sisters and all those good things. A counselor in the Bishopric was there the entire time. His name is Brother Sorensen. He is a ER doctor with the Air Force on an exchange with Chile's Air Force. It was really nice to have him there. Our young women's president is from the US but she is pregnant and has morning sickness so she didn't come for much of camp. We had 4 girls in our ward who were English speaking and 5 that are Chilean. The other leader with me was named Teresa. She is actually from Peru. She is really a fun nice lady and is easy for me to communicate with. People in our ward are use to talking to gringos. Peruvians also speak much more clearly and slowly than Chileans- yeah! The stake young women's president is from Argentina. She had a strong Argentinian accent and I had to get use to her talking. For example the word for 'Ward' is Barrio. Normally it would be said with a little roll of your r's. She pronounces it 'Barshio'. I learned a lot and gained some interesting insights. Too much to write in a blog. All in all - a great time.

Bag it!

Everything is sold in bags here. There are getting to be more things in containers but most people prefer the bags because it costs less money. Here is a picture of a few things that come in bags. Yogurt, manjar, jam, mayonnaise, and tomato sauce are just a few examples. I'm so glad to have my little clips now!

It arrived!

The highly anticipated 'suitcase' finally arrived. It was wonderful!!!! I'm not sure what I was most excited to get. My dish rags (including my famous 'first' knitted rag), a sham wow, utensils, chocolate chips, protein shake mix, it was all wonderful. Thanks Ann for picking it all up, thanks dad and mom for packing and delivering the suitcase, and thanks Arnoldsens for packing 'love and fun' in the suitcase too. Symphony bars and battleship! Everyone is happy!

of fridges and shopping carts...

I don't really like feeling LARGE and there are a lot of things in Chile that make me feel large. Some of these are women who are 4'8" tall and weigh 80 pounds, short kitchen cupboards where the counter top hits the top of my thighs, and very small refrigerators. Our apartment has a very small refrigerator. Sometimes when I'm in my kitchen I feel like I am 'playing house.' Most of the time it doesn't bother me but I have found that kneading bread on a short counter top hurts your back! The rolls turned out great though! I've learned the trick of my oven...only cook things in the very center. Either don't put food on the edges of the pans or plan on that part of the food being burnt! So normally - I just use small pans (cooks 8 cookies at a time).

Below is our apartment building's famous shopping cart. They recently added pads around the edges which makes it look 'high class.' It actually looks like you didn't steal it from the store now!

Campamento #1

Jeff and Nate went to Young Men’s Camp this week. They don’t have scouts so the kids from the USA just do scouting on their own. The church has a very nice property with camp grounds, showers, pavilions and such. There were about 50 boys plus leaders. There were about a dozen from our ward. The boys from our ward all slept in the same tent. A couple of the boys speak English and they were very good to help Nathan. A surprising number of youth in our ward speak English. We read scriptures in the morning and evening. During the day the boys worked on projects like bridge building, attending workshops and they went on a 5 mile hike. Jeff says that the hike was very hard and there were lots of bushes with thorns and cacti. His shins didn’t like that part. They had 3 nice meals prepared for them each day. It was a good experience. Campamento #2 will be next week when Jennie and Jane go to girls camp.

Small World...

Ann's friend Tiffanie Wride emailed me a picture she took of us in the park. I wanted to post it. It is amazing how small the world is when you are a member of the LDS church. We have some kind of connection with so many of the expat members here.

Happy New Year 2011

Thursday we cleaned up the house, did the laundry and then headed out for Vina del Mar. It means Vineyard of the Sea. Jeff and Nate left earlier than the rest of us. They ran some errands and took a bus to Vina. Our friend Henrey Clarke came and picked the rest of us and our luggage up and drove us out to Vina. It is about an hour and a half to a two hour drive. He stopped on the way to show the boys a lake with a lot of fish in it. They fed them with some bread. I think they were a bunch of carp. The boys loved it. Jeff signed up a great new distributor in Vina and had just finished up when we arrived.

We stayed with Bojidarka, a friend of Jeff’s from his mission. Her family's home was the first home he entered in Chile. The next day we relaxed and then walked about a mile to the beach. The weather was nice and warm with a cool breeze. Perfect to wear a light jacket in the morning and the evening. The ocean water was freezing cold! I guess it comes up from Antarctica. Josh and Nate still played in it though. There was a dog there that decided we were his family to play with for the day. He hung around us and had a blast chasing the Frisbee when Jennie and Jeff played with it.









After the beach we went back and had a very nice dinner. Then we all ‘dressed up’ for New Years. Just before midnight a whole bunch of her friends and their families came over. They all brought some glasses and wine and appetizers. Boji had bought some sparkling cider for the kids too. During the day, boats had been pulling barges into position that were loaded with fireworks. I heard that there were 15 stationed around the bay. Lots of big ocean liners were also out in the bay waiting for their turn to go into port. At midnight they all started blowing their horns. Then the fireworks began. It was an amazing fireworks show. You could see several of the stations at one time and they were all synchronized. The show lasted for 20 minutes. It is the biggest fireworks show I’ve ever seen. Everyone left shortly after the fireworks ended. Then the ‘taco’ began. A taco is the name for a traffic jam! All the cars headed out of town made for quite a sight. They also honked their horns in celebration of the New Year. So we enjoyed honking horns for another 2 hours.

The next day all of the grounds around the city were covered with confetti! The city is known for the big New Years celebration. Boji said that the city hires an outside company to come clean-up after new years. She said that they find streamers around the grounds for the rest of the year. By 11 am the next morning the beach was a sea of people. We were so happy that we had gone the day before. We packed up and caught a bus home. It worked out wonderfully. After we got to Santiago the subway wasn’t crowded and we were almost the only people on the bus after the subway.

We dragged ourselves out of bed this morning and headed off to church. We leave about 9 to get to church by 10 without being rushed. After church we’ve been sleeping a lot. We’ve had a great time celebrating the holidays here but we are ready to stop partying! It isn’t going to slow down too much though. Jeff and Nate leave for scout camp on Tuesday and the next Tuesday Jennie and I go to girls camp!

Parque Araucano

On Wednesday morning Sarah, Josh, and Nate went to the park with me. We arranged to meet a friend of Ann’s there. Her name is Tiffanie Wride. She lived just down the street from Ann and Dale. They moved to Costa Rica a few months ago and now they are in Chile. He is starting up his own company and Chile has a program right now called ‘startup chile’. People can apply to bring their new company or idea to Chile and open their business here. If approved they get something like 40,000 dollars of startup money. The government is hoping it will help generate jobs and increase the amount of high-tech industries in the country. If you think I am a brave woman, listen to this…Tiffanie has 7 children under the age of 11! We had a great time getting to know each other and plan to meet regularly.

The park was amazing. It looked like spiderman’s playground. Josh and Nate loved it. I’m really impressed with the parks that I have been to. Another time I’ll have to show you some pictures about the exercise equipment in the parks. I always have too many things to write about each week.