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!