One week in country.

Well, it's been a week since we left our home in Colorado and make the trek to Chile.

It was a long travel day and I didn't sleep much on the flight from Dallas to Santiago.  I did meet an awesome mom in seat across the aisle.  She was chaperoning a youth mission trip to another part of Santiago with a group of 40 kids (looked like 10 years old to 18) from a church in Washington.  Her daughter was on her fourth year of making the trip and it was the mom's first!  The mom and I had great talks and it was awesome to meet a sister in Christ and share some of the goodness of God.  For a little while, I was a bit offended that no one tried to save me at the gate or on the plane, come on!  Forty kids on mission with their adult helpers and not a single attempt at salvation???  Once I got over myself, it was great getting excited about what HS is doing around the world.

One of our old friends from Aspen (Renato) now lives in Chile again and met us at the airport with Claudia's father.  It was good to see him again!  Great memories with him and cool to meet a friend's dad!  He was a really loving guy and so sweet I just wanted to take him home!  I bet Claudia does too - how hard it must be to go so many years without going "home".

We had a weekend filled with Kiko's family.  His sister, her husband and their three children met us at the airport and then came over for a lunch at Cecy's apartment.  We settled into our rooms and the cousins played.  Martin and Tristan are only a few months apart in age and they are great buddies - even if they don't speak the same language.  They are determined to be friends and it works.  Maybe there is a good lesson there, eh?

On Sunday, I slept through church!  So bummed.  We are going to visit the English speaking churches in Santiago and there is a Spanish speaking church I want to visit as well.  This Sunday will have to be #1.  We are going to check out the Santiago Community Church.  So looking forward to it.

We did have a great surprise - Kiko's dad took a bus overnight to surprise him!  He had his daughter's high school graduation on Saturday and then took a 9 hour bus ride up to Santiago to see his son (and family!)  I cried.  I think both he and Kiko did too!  It was an awesome  surprise!  We had a long asado (bbq) - and then I crashed out taking a nap with Tanner in the late afternoon!

It was a long but fun weekend.  The four hour time difference was just enough to get me and the kids slightly "off" on our time for sleep.  They were hungry for dinner at 10 pm and not ready for bed until 11:30 or 12!  It took us all a few days to get right.  They are now fighting off colds so praying for healing and protection.

We have taken a few walks, visited a skate park nearby, checked out the local mall and grocery stores and are getting oriented to our part of the city.  Kiko got to go to the opening day of friends' motocross track and will be able to ride his own dirt bike there tomorrow.

Last night we visited Ruddy and it was so nice to see him - he came to see us years ago in Aspen.  His English is great now - and my Spanish is actually worse than it was when we were here in 2009.  Tristan and I are both going to start Spanish lessons next week.  I loaned someone a copy of my book, "Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish" and don't remember who it was!  I am going to have to buy it online for my iPad as I found it to be the most useful book I read.

Products here are about two to three times the cost of the same item in the US and that really bothers me.  The ships are coming directly from China and yet, the retailers are really gouging the Chilenos.  Shame.  And it keeps me from eating much processed food as I refuse to pay so much for it!  The produce is amazing and tomorrow I am going with Enrique to the market where he buys produce for the week.  Very excited!

I am really grateful for Kiko's friends.  He has amazing friends.  I am super fortunate that I married into a great family and such a network of terrific friends.  Very cool for me!

A few funny cultural things:
1.  Tristan asked yesterday if Vale, the nana, is an apartment servant and why we have one.  She comes in the morning to clean Cecy's apartment, makes them lunch and makes dinner and leaves it for Cecy and Enrique.  In the afternoon she goes to Pao's to clean and make dinner there.  Tanner is warming up to her, very, very slowly and Tristan is totally unsure about it all.
2.  At the mall Christmas display everything was in Spanish and it somehow surprised me!  Norte Pola and Feliz Navidad!  The kids are excited for Christmas but a little thrown off with the seasons and it being Christmas in summertime.
3.  Kiko and I keep mixing up English and Spanish.  For instance, telling someone to turn on their lights last night, I was saying it in Spanish and HE was saying it in English!  I was yelling, "Las Luces!" and Kiko was yelling, "Your lights!  The lights!"

I really will post some photos.  Really.  Ok, I might.  Soon.  Ish.

Where did that come from?

This where the name of this blog came from...

Watch the clip above if you want to know how we came up with the name for this blog.  It's one of our family's favorite movies and we quote that line all the time.  "South America...It's like America....but South!"

Happy Thanksgiving to our North American friends and family!  We are very grateful for coming from such wonderful, loving, generous parents who know how to live well and love well.  Kiko and I feel like our lives have been especially marked with extraordinary friendships throughout the world, for which we are also grateful.

We plan to have our turkey dinner with the Holloways, an awesome family we have loved for years, near Aspen.  Christina was Tristan's teacher from 11 months old until he was almost 3 and her little boy, Luke, is one of his best friends still!  I am bringing roasted vegetables, gooey pumpkin butter cake, and cream puffs drizzled in chocolate.

Tonight will be a cleaning and laundry extravaganza in our house!  For this of you who have seen the horror that is my office - I might post a picture of its organized beauty for you.  It makes me want to work in it!!!

I have to run - I have had a headache for four days so Kiko is going to play chiropractor on me and see if he can help my neck.  Pray for me, friends!  God heals and I need that healing to manifest now!

Getting ready...

Today is the day before Thanksgiving and I am thankful we are having dinner at friends tomorrow. My house has been upended!  We are packed and ready for the flight on Friday afternoon, minus last minute carryon items. IF I can keep the boys out of their backpack and suitcases. They keep retrieving toys out of them. And pulling out out clothes to make sure I did pack the favorite t-shirt that has been requested roughly five thousand times.  (Thank you, Shawn White for designing for Target!).

Momo keeps me excited by counting the sleeps with me and the boys are beside themselves with anticipation!  So fun!

Today I have to mail Christmas presents to my nephews.  This year I was finished shopping by mid-November!  Deadlines are good for me.  I will sure miss my family this Christmas but poor Kiko has missed Christmas with his family for years and its about time he got one!  Thank God for this blessing of an extended holiday and the opportunity to grow our business in Chile.

We have totally full bags that we already took to the airport to weigh and each one is right at 50 lbs.  Two of our four suitcases are presents!  Yay for Christmas!  We hope to make it really special for the boys sharing their first holiday with our South American family in the summer!  I might miss peppermint everything but am excited to see what they traditionally enjoy for Christmas.

I packed 1/2 my clothes in a size too small. How's that for motivation?

We had a fiasco with our airline seats as we thought to check on them the other night for some reason and discovered our assignments were changed and our little family was not sitting together on a 9 hour overnight flight. For a minute it was tempting to let some stranger deal with my two year old at 3 am but responsibility won out and we spent an hour with an American Airlines supervisor on the phone insisting she could do nothing and that the flight was sold out nearly and the best she could do was put me and kids in the back of the plane and Kiko in the middle. Um....no, thank you, that's not very helpful.  Kiko got on Skype with his father in law at his travel business in Santiago and they were able to change our seats to our preference.  I am really not impressed with American and am hoping the many issues we have had with our tickets prior to departure are the worst of it!

Our friends, the Phillips, always have awesome testimonies of favor when they travel and we are releasing that over us for this trip!

I better sign off as it doesn't appear the house is willing to clean itself today.

Chao!  (Chilean for bye!)