Fiesta de la Navidad

Friday night was a Christmas Party in El Golf ward here in Santiago. I heard it mentioned briefly in Relief Society but then I got called out to take a toddler to the bathroom and so I didn't catch the time. A different Relief Society activity was on Wednesday at 7 (had a paper invitation for that one) so I thought maybe 7 is the standard starting time. So we asked around to check, those we spoke to thought 7 too, so we went at 7 for the party. But it was at 8. So we played soccer.



Had a good game, our kids are learning to say "Aqui! Aqui!" (here) and "A mi! A mi!" (to me).

Then at 8:00 we went in to the chapel - the people who told us it started at 8 were the people who arrived there at 7 like us and they were the people who were setting up for the party, and they were still setting up. The internet guy who Corey had been waiting for all day called to say he was on his way and so Corey ran home to open the apartment for him. The kids ran around the halls, we danced to Christmas music, and didn't help set up at all. My kids did come and ask me many times "When is it going to start?" "I don't know." Then we found out we were supposed to bring our own plates. I called Corey to ask him to bring plates and forks for us. Around 8:45 people were still arriving, setting up, and visiting. 9:00 we sat down as our plates had arrived via Kurt, Corey was still at home with the internet guy.


It was now starting. Or so we thought. My kids were relieved. After a welcome by the bishopric there was a prayer, then each of the counselors said a few words for a few minutes, then the bishop, all the while my kids were struggling to be patient. Hyrum, who wins top complainer for the evening, was saying too loud (luckily he doesn't speak Spanish so hopefully no one understood) "I can't stand listening to Spanish anymore!! I wish I never came here! Why can't we eat yet? Why do we always have to do what the adults want?!?!" Then a missionary who served in the ward for 8 months said a few words and received a gift from the ward - his parent's were there with him to pick him up. Then, my kids thought the torture was over, but no! There's more!! We adults just LOVE tormenting our young! HAHAHAHA!! (evil laugh) So next, they played the Christmas Devotional message from President Monson, which I must say was excellent, but my kids were dying - it was 9:15, the food was waiting for them to come get it, and they had to sit and listen to Spanish again, AND to top it off, for some reason they had it on slow speed, so the message which should have been 9 minutes and 45 seconds was 15 minutes. At 9:30, an hour and a half later than they had expected, my kids were finally given some food. They asked for people to remain seated and they'd come serve the tables. A brother came and gave my kids a serving of corn and ranch salad, and they ate it and licked the ranch dressing off of their plates, which was a little embarrassing...

Ethan and Hyrum there with their hands on their plates, bringing them up to their mouths for another lick.

More food came around - turkey, rice, more salads, it was delicious and worth the wait. We made the kids wait until 10 people were eating cake before they could go attack the desserts. Corey fatherly advice: "You just don't want to be the first one to the dessert table..."

There were two other parts to the activity, which I didn't think they'd do cause it was getting so late, but they did - the young women sang the Nativity Song as the primary kids came out dressed in their parts - this part was my favorite and it had Corey and I almost crying with laughter...

Can you see Hyrum?

He's the one in yellow...

We're not sure what he was - I thought he was a wasp, Joe and Ethan say he was a bee, Mel says he was a firefly, Corey thinks it was a grasshopper costume, it had a huge abdomen sticking to his bottom, it was hilarious.

Ethan, Wesley, and Kurt and Ashley's daugther playing their parts -
Ethan was a reindeer? Don't know about Wes and Mckinley...

Joseph and Mary - I was still trying to get a photo of Hyrum that did his cuteness justice. His little resigned smile was just priceless. I love it, Corey was visiting with someone at the other end of the hall when they started, so I was trying to take pictures but also trying to call to him to come see. He made it in time to capture the moment and we were both in tears from laughing so hard. LOVE YOU HYRUM!! You're the cutest, and are hereby pardoned of your top complainer award for the evening.

The other part of the social was wrapping presents to send south to areas affected by the earthquake. 11:12 and the party's still going!

11:40 - we decide to head out. Hyrum's done, that's my watch there that is on my arm that Lily's bottom is resting on - she's asleep on my shoulder.

We all slept in on Saturday until 10. Chile has cured us of living the good schedule that we were on in Costa Rica. We're all back to normal. :) Feliz Navidad in one week! We've gotta get a tree or stockings or something. We've been postponing it, slackers. but we're going to try and do something special each day to try and get some of that Christmas spirit.

Kid's Day

Viña del Mar is a beautiful city. Unfortunately I didn't discover that until Wednesday as we were leaving. That is because I couldn't get my kids to leave the hotel. They loved the Kid's room. And since I let them call the shots, that's what we did. Someday Corey and I will come back here with teenagers or no kids at all and it will be a different experience. Until that day, it is possible that each day and everyday will always be Kid's Day.

So the kids went to the Kid's Room (the Mini Club side)

And they painted

and showed me their painted creations: masks and wands!

And sculpted clay

and drew

(I love seeing Abi at work.)

and climbed, slid, and jumped

We did go outside once while Lily was napping, and the kids had fun in the pool...


but it was a little cold...


Then, after they've spent themselves, it was off to bed again - 5 little monkey sleeping in the bed

two more chose the crib instead.


Joe won tonight's bedtime battle to be with the baby (Joe, you're a little big for this crib, aren't you?) We really did go home on Wednesday, cause we were already pushing our luck with 2 days cause only brought one change of clothes for everyone. Tomorrow is laundry day - I haven't done laundry since Costa Rica.

Week 1 in Chile

So sorry I haven't posted all week - We just got our internet up last night. Here are things I want to write about... I'm posting this now to remind myself and will put links up as I finish telling the stories :) Or might just delete this when I'm done.

Friday - Arrival

Saturday - Hanging in the apartment, unpacking a little and trying to find clothes for Church and other stuff. How to do wash here?

Sunday - Melodie's Birthday

Monday - Packing up again, Walk to Park. Drive to Vina del Mar

Tuesday- Kid's Day at Vina del Mar - Going to stay another night, Corey went to the market and got bread, so it was also lots o carbs day. I ate a lot of bread with manjar.

Wednesday - bye Vina del Mar! Tiff got a ticket. Move into our apartment. Did laundry

Thursday - No internet. No phone.

Friday - Figuring out a schedule, Soccer at 7, Ward Christmas Party

Saturday - Finish unpacking

Sunday - Plan the week

Monday - Back on the Exercise Wagon.

Viña del Mar

The kids looking out at the bay from our hotel balcony.

We woke up Monday morning in Kurt and Ashley Avarell's apartment. As you probably know, they let us crash there while they went out to Viña del Mar using our timeshare - a win-win trade. Unfortunately, the internet out there was too slow for him to be able to do his work, so he had to come back for his phone calls on Tuesday. So we all agreed for them to come back to their home and we'd go spend a day in Viña del Mar. We originally didn't go there cause the timeshare only had a 1 bedroom available, and whereas Kurt and his wife have two kids, it worked for them. We didn't want to be naughty and squeeze 9 people into a 1 bedroom, but left with no other options when the internet didn't work for Kurt, we decided to go anyway.

So Monday morning, I packed up all our belonging again, only thankful I didn't have to worrying this time about weight distribution among the bins or having things tightly packed. We took a change of clothes and swimsuits for Viña, then left the rest in the Avarell's office room.

Corey stayed in their apartment to work until they arrived to give them their keys, and the kids and I headed out into the city to walk two blocks to the city park that we'd heard was awesome. Unfortunately, after we got there and saw no people in it and all the gates closed, we learned that it is always closed on Mondays for maintenance. Fortunately, we would have probably had to find that out by accident eventually, so we're thankful we got that learned on our first Monday in Chile. So we walked around the park in an attempt to walk to the mall, but I was just so turned around - I have no point of reference here - all the buildings are big and look alike and I just don't know which way is north, so we just stayed put and waited for Corey to be done. He picked us up, and with Google maps on the cell phone in hand, we were off to Viña.

It was a lovely drive - lots of grapes growing for the wineries that Chile is famous for.

The kids all got a good nap

We're almost there...

We see the ocean again! Hello to the Pacific, but the water is freezing down here in Chile.


We had a beautiful view of the bay from our room at the Hippocampus Resort - ocean breeze!

The kids watched some TV while I unpacked a little

Lucky kids - they get to watch the same shows that were on in Costa Rica. TV makes everywhere feel like home.

Hyrum and I went exploring for a while

Corey, the man who makes it all possible. Here he is out in the lobby where he could pick up a pretty good signal.

The kids loved the play room, and wanted to spend most of their waking hours there - I didn't mind.
Fun slide and toys to play with, crafts to do, kids to play with. That was good cause they met lots of outgoing Spanish speaking kids - these girls were all so cute with Lily, Abi, and Wesley.


Fun fun! They got to color worry free since it wasn't our room and it wasn't any problem to accidentally draw on the table.

At night time, we gave the kids the bedroom with it's two twin bed's pushed together. Corey and I got the couch.
I guess they all thought the bed was really crowded, cause the kids were fighting over who got to sleep in Lily's play pen with her.

Melodie won - we decided to make it a birthday privilege. :)

Angels In The Air

On our flight to Santiago last week, there were also many wonderful people who showed kindness to us and served us. The kids felt famous. I went to buy a snack, and when I came back the line had formed to board the plane and we had missed our chance to board early as a mother with small children. So we waited, and everyone in the line was looking at and smiling at my cute 7 kids on the floor.

Ethan would ask "Why is everyone staring at us?" and then the rest of my kids look up and see everyone staring, then the look at each other wondering what is going on. I just smiled and continued to answer the questions "Todos suyos?" (All yours?) "Si, siete!" (Yes, Seven!)

Puerta 31 to Santiago, Chile! On the flight to Chile, just like on the hour flight to Panama, there had to be an adult sitting by my children, in case of an emergency, to help them with their oxygen masks. So the stewardesses who were responsible to enforce that rule took care of it by asking other passengers to change seats and switch things around and volunteer to come sit between my kids. I was really glad on the flight from San Jose to Panama, to see Ethan conversing very cutely with Marco in the row in front of me. After some time visiting, he told Marco "You're better at English than I am at Spanish." Marco taught Ethan how to say Salt Lake in Spanish - "Lago Salado". On the flight to Chile, Ethan and Hyrum sat by this sweet guy, who when asked where he was from, teased "from a galaxy far far away" and that just got Eth and Hy both so excited that they were obviously sitting by a Star Wars fan, that they teased and played and were noisy little pests for a few minutes - the guy asked them if they were monsters! He was so sweet though, he even let them sleep on him!! I don't think many grown ups would have tolerated a 6 hour flight like that. And he let me take a picture of it! He definitely wins the angel award and I'll be sure to point out this kindness he showed us on judgement day if he needs any help getting past the pearly gates.

Think he'll ever know that there is this unnamed picture of him posted on the internet somewhere? Ethan and Hyrum were both embarrassed when I showed them this picture. :)

7 Kids Asleep

Here at Curt and Ashley's apartment, all the kids get to sleep in one room together. That one room has two twin sized beds. The bedroom is about the width of a twin bed and the length of a twin bed. This is how it works:

This twin bed that Mel and Hyrum are sleeping comes all the way to the door - but you can open the door the whole way, and then that's where the bed begins, and goes all the way to the wall with the window. The other bed is a trundle mattress, which has been put perpendicular to the first bed:
Looks like last night it was Wes and Abi that got that spot. Little kids fit nicely there since it's shorter in length since the bottom third of the bed is tucked under the top bed.

Joseph has opted to take the floor again, cause whoever takes the floor gets one of the two pillows. Lily is Queen so she always gets the other pillow.

Hmm, but it looks like Ethan hijacked the pillow during the night. Poor Lily, does she know Ethan is sitting on her head? He wasn't in there when the night began. Lily does wake up crying during the night, so he probably got in her crib one of those times to help her. I think she had a rough time on the flight to Chile and has been a little out of sorts since. All she can remember is being totally exhausted and not having a place to lay down and relax that didn't have a kid or an arm rest or a foot chair bar in the way. She had a rough time, which made it a little rough for me. The worst of it was from 3-4 a.m Chile time (12 - 1 a.m. Costa Rica time). That stretch about did me in, but we survived, and I was kept busy from 4 - 5 cause I had to try and fill out 8 custom papers while I had a ticking time bomb of a sleeping toddler in my lap, a good challenge that helped that hour pass, and then it was time to get off the plane and go pay $1120 in reciprocity fees to the Chilean government so they'll let me in the country ... (8 people x $140 for US citizens, which said fee is based on how much your home country charges nationals of Chile to apply for a visa there, so I guess it's the US government's fault I have to pay that cause they charge Chileans $140. This entry fee, called the Entry Reciprocity Fee, is required of all citizens of the following 5 countries: Albania ($30), Australia ($60), Canada ($120), the United States ($140), and Mexico ($23). Kinda sucks, I don't like government fees.)

Don't Live Without It!

When we were in Brazil, we visited a family and they had the greatest thing in the world - a door to their kitchen! That you could close! I sat at their dining table eating, looking at the kitchen door, dreaming... wow, with a door like that, I could keep kids out of the fridge! I could keep cookie crumbs contained! I could cook without kids grabbing my legs! Not that I don't appreciate each of those blessings for how they enrich my life. Nevertheless, a kitchen door was at that time in March 2007 placed on my mental list of things I will have in my dream home.

So, could you imagine my delight when I saw this in the apartment!!! A door to the kitchen!!!

And like I said, the apartment we'll be renting is, I'm pretty sure, exactly like this one where Curt and Ashley live. I will pray that it is. For I desire a kitchen door. With a kitchen door, you can close it while the meal is being eaten, thus assuring no children escape with sticky hands and fingers to ruin the furniture that is not yours.


Open the kitchen door, you see a little family of 9 sitting down to dine at a 2 person (maybe 3) sitting breakfast nook. You can also, with a kitchen door, assure that no child leaves the table who would claim to not have finished eating - you have to open the door and leave, so they can't accidentally leave their partially eaten plate and return later acting like someone carried them captive away from their food.

Everyone eating pan y manjar. Corey has officially introduced "once" to our family. "Once", the Spanish word for "eleven", is like tea time for Chileans. From the quick internet research I just did, it appears that it's called "once" because there are eleven letters in "aguardiente" which means brandy or hard liquor. The origins of once:

Tradition has it that long ago men that wanted to drink their liquor, or “aguardiente” in Spanish, during the time of day that is now “Once” invented a code to hide the fact that they were drinking at 5:00 in the afternoon. This code was the number of letters in “aguardiente” which is eleven or “once” in Spanish. With the passage of time, tea time became known as “Once.”

Well, isn't that just enlightening. So our tea time included bread, various spreads, and water.


The kids thought it was fun. People buy fresh bread everyday, which I think Corey will enjoy. Someday I'll learn to bake bread. Until then, I'm grateful to be back in a city with a bakery, with lots of bakeries! Campinas had a bakery too, that was an easy way to feed the family. Glad to have that back, too! Bakeries and a kitchen door! Can life get better?

Happy Birthday Melodie!!

Melodie is 10 years old!

Happy Birthday Melodie! We love you! It was a simple birthday for Melodie with the move to Chile that took place 3 days before her big day. Melodie was an angel and didn't complain or anything. Here she is with her present:

And her birthday cake...


With some siblings looking on hoping for a bite...

We only got one slice of cake for her, since we walked to the store and I didn't think a big cake would survive the walk home with a kid carrying it, and I couldn't carry it cause I had to carry kids and groceries myself. And I didn't buy a box of mix cause I'm not sure yet how to cook in our small kitchen. So, a slice of cake for Mel was it. The other kids had eaten enough candy that they got at church anyway.

So something fun, if you look at my facebook profile for the next month, you will notice that I have two 10 year old children. Yes, I have twins! Not identical or fraternal twins, but I have Irish twins. Melodie and Joseph were both born in the year 2000 - Joseph in January, Melodie in December. I remember when I was at the hospital for Melodie's delivery, the nurses were asking me questions - "Do you have any other children?" "Yes, one." "What year was he born?" "2000." The nurse pauses, doesn't write down my answer... "2000?" "Yes." "This year?" "Yup, in January." "WOW!" So there's an interesting thing for Mel and Joe to use ate future social gatherings when they have to tell something unique about themselves.

We love you, Melodie!

Santiago City

Looking North (I think) from our balcony:

We think we've found an apartment for us to stay in during our time in Santiago. It's pretty sweet. Right now we are in the apartment of some friends that Corey met which is just like the one we'll be renting, just different furnishings. Ours will be in the adjacent building to theirs. Here is the view from the balcony here - looking west (I think):


I'm still trying to figure out the main roads to take and which way is north. Last night I did walk to Lider (Chile version of Walmart) and home with 5 kids each carrying two bags of groceries. The weather feels like crisp fall weather in the evenings and mornings, which I LOVE cause we missed fall in Utah, so it's filling that need for fresh and beautiful breezes. Santiago is a beautiful city!! Chile is totally different from the beach town environment of Guanacaste, which we loved, but fun to experience something new. We feel a little like we're back in the US, only that we're not in Utah, we're in a big city like New York, but this city (I think) has a lot more trees and is less crowded and crazy, not that I've lived in New York. Oh, and there are mountains here, which makes it feel like a combination of Utah and New York, San Diego weather, speaking Spanish, it's like a beautiful mix of lots of things we love from lots of different places. We are looking forward to this time here, it will be a grand adventure! :)