Doings and Transpirings

Our place in Valpo, delicious food & drink.  Join us.

"The colors, children!"

   Hey, folks.  Matt here.  We hope you're well and that everything is going great for you.  Summer vacation has been proceeding nicely here in Chile.  I'm keeping up the family tradition of being a sweaty-bastard; Sara continues to flourish in the warmth.

Pan de Azucar.  Big country out here.

   So Valparaiso lived up to its reputation as the place to be for New Year's Eve.  After a nice pre-party of machas a la parmesan (razor clams with parm) and Michael Jackson videos, we went to the port to see the BIG show.  That was the best fireworks display I've ever seen, well worth the trip out.

Sara & Miguel having pool time

   Sara had to go back to work the next week and I made my way outdoors for an adventure.  I tried to make a bid for Volcán Tupungato, a big honking 6570M peak on the border w/ Argentina.  I had to get a new 0f bag and permission/maps from the Chilean Army in order to go.  I really wanted it, but unfortunately mis-navigated and cost myself 2 days I needed for acclimatization.  Therefore, I had to bail from the trip about 6 days early.  Total bummer.  However, I saw a bunch of beautiful scenery that not many (including Chileans) get to see.

Obligatory cat nap picture

   When I got back, Sara had finished working and was out in Quilpue with her friend, Elspeth, and her family.  I went out to meet them for a few days and ended up staying about a week.  It was great to be out of the city (super HOT) and spend time with Sara.  Elspeth and her family were very kind to have us out there.

I am great.

   Right now we're prepping for my parents, brother, and sister-in-law to arrive this weekend.  We're looking forward to good times in Santiago, down south, and in wine country.  After, my brother and I are also going to have some Andean adventures, which should be fun.

Eyeing a rocoto.  Not our cat.

   That's about it for us.  The kitty is growing very quickly.  We just put up a balcony garden in order to keep her from getting too close to the edge.  It also looks nice and has some good food/spices in it (ají, rocoto, basil, green onion, rudo).  Well, gotta run as we're having people over for poker in a little bit.  We hope all is well with you and yours.  Please send us pictures, write an email, gchat, whatever and let us know how you are.  Smooches.

Merry Holidays Everyone!

Christmas morning kitten!

Kneading homemade dough for monkey bread!
Keeping the tradition alive!

We hope you are enjoying some refreshing eggnog and fruit cake during this festive time.  After watching some classic Christmas movies on Christmas Eve (Charlie Brown Christmas and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation), we went to bed to wake up early Christmas morning to celebrate.  I attempted to make homemade monkey bread to eat during gift opening.  I give the monkey bread a 7/10.  Matt made a delicious American breakfast complete with bacon, eggs, home fries and mimosas!  Later on, we went to our friends Jessica and Greg's for Christmas dinner with their family. They have two small kids so we played with a lot of cool toys.  Matt, Trocita and I opened gifts from family and each other.  Trocita received many jingly balls and feathered toys.  
 Thank you so much Kathy, Steve, Yasmin and Paul for such lovely presents.

Baby Trocita!

Speaking of Trocita: we got a cat!  She is the cutest little thing you every laid eyes on.  Our friends Canuto and Dominque's cat, Boo, gave birth to four little gatitos on October 13th.  We picked up our little fur ball a few days before her 2 month birthday.  For clarity on the name: trozo in Spanish means "nugget" or "chunk."  When adding an -ito onto a word, you put a "little" in front of it.  Lastly, you can change the 'o' to an 'a' to make it feminine....meaning, "little (lady) chunk/nugget."  Well, after all this we learned that you cannot change trozo to the feminine.  But, we're still going with it.  It's a name after all.  Trocita is very kitten-like; she is into attacking everything, especially our toes, sleeping a lot, pouncing and making us go "awwwww."

Thursday night concert: Ariel's Pink Haunted Graffiti 

Matt finished up school last Friday meaning his 7-weeks of hard work have earned him 7 weeks vacation.  What a lucky guy!  I finished with my kids on December 14th, but am still at school cleaning, planning and wrapping up the year.  I will officially be done on January 4th.  Both sets of our kids did really well throughout the school year.
For New Year's Eve, we are heading to Valparaiso where there will be an estimated 12 million fireworks set off.  NYE in Valpo is said to be a must-do while here in Chile.  Matt is planning to do a big multi-week hike by himself.  I am SO excited about that (note the sarcasm).  After that Matt's parents, brother and sister-in-law will be visiting for almost 2 weeks.  We will be traveling down south to Petrohue, then to the Casablanca Valley to drink wine and then back to Valapraiso and Viña del Mar.  There will surely be another blog post documenting all of our adventures.  I`m not sure if Matt`s dad will take any pictures though...
For the first week in February, Matt`s brother will stay here and go climbing.  I`m sure they have some fun, Andean adventures planned.  I have no definite plans for the month of February.  I may take an intensive Spanish course to keep chugging away at my goal of learning this language.  Or, I may find a little cabin somewhere, pack up the cat and get out of the city!  We shall see!  Matt returns back to school the 3rd week of February to start his second semester at Nido.  He was hired back to finish the school year which means the pay checks keep coming!  Yes!

Sandwich Festival "Doble Queso"

We will continue to keep you updated on our South American adventures.  We apologize for slacking a bit.  We also hope to hear from all of your adventures, wherever you may be in this world!  
PS  So all of you know, we will be traveling back to the East Coast next (your) summer for most of July.  We will both be in the NY/RI/CT/ME area for the last three weeks of the month, with Matt possibly being there the entire month.  Any of you west coast folks should definitely plan your vacations around US!