We have been trying to buy a home for forever it seems like. Last week we finally had an offer accepted, and we're moving forward! We are supposed to move in in a month and can't wait! We went for the inspection on Saturday, and it went really well. We took a bunch of pictures while we were there. It's just a cute little starter home and hopefully a great investment! We are planning to sell it in 4 years when Aaron is done with school.
We just returned from some amazing hikes.... if you can call them that. We went camping and hiking this weekend down in a place called Escalante. Aaron is going to be a guide for a young men's youth retreat coming up in a couple of weeks and he had to train for it. We were hiking/climbing/swimming/sliding/crawling through these slot canyons, and the pictures below don't even come close to doing it justice. We are still recovering...
We've taken a couple great trips since our last post... obviously.... it's been awhile :) We took a quick trip up to Idaho to visit Emily and Joe and their new baby boy, Vaughn. Check out their blog. He's a cutie!
Then just last week, we rented a cabin up at Powder Mountain. Kim's parents' came,and Aaron's sister, Andrea, and her husband and daughter, Jake and Morgan came for a day as well. We went snowboarding and snowshoeing a bunch. It was awesome!
Aaron found some cheap tickets on Southwest, so we were able to take another trip to Seattle to see our family. We were only there for the weekend, so we packed in a lot of fun. The boys went to a University of Washington football game, while the girls got my cousin Brie all dolled up for her homecoming dance, and it was still pretty warm out so we were able to get out on the boat a couple more times before the winter came. Always a good time at home!
We decided against our best judgement to go out camping on Labor Day even though the weather channel told us there would be thunderstorms. We went with our old neighbors and awesome friends the Underwoods - Becki, Steve, and Katie. We got to our campground and found it sunny and warm and thought that we beat the odds. We started gathering fire wood, put up our tents, and walked down to the lake to drool over the boats. It started to get a little windy, but we thought we could still be safe. There was a bit of a drizzle, and we thought, "yeah, this isn't real rain." The rain gods laughed and threw us all they had. Aaron and I stayed dry and luke warm curled up in our sleeping bags in the very center of the tent while the puddles filled up around the corners. Sufficient to say, we didn't sleep that night, and packed up and headed to breakfast when we woke up. It was a great adventure and really was a blast. A night to remember!
Aaron's sister Andrea had a little girl last week, and she is quite a cutie. We have been over to hold her about everyday. Her name is Morgan, and her favorite thing to do is sleep...Sounds like my kind of day. We will have pictures up soon. We have just been so excited to get over to their house, we have forgotten the camera :) Until then, here's Andrea and Jake's blog: jawaldron.blogspot.com.
Kim turned 26 on Saturday and we had a great time celebrating Chilean style this weekend. We went to a jazz concert, which we were actually really impressed by. We were not really sure what to expect, but it turned out to be really fun.
After the concert we went salsa dancing with some friends from Aaron’s lab at the University. We were a little worried because neither one of us has ever done salsa. But they had a little instructional session, and we had a blast. Aaron’s lab partner, Angela, had the club reserve and decorate a table for us, and they brought out a cake. We stayed out way too late, but were the first ones to leave at 3:30am.
We also got to watch every session of General Conference in English! It was quite an awesome conference.
This is a picture of Kim's first painting from the class she is taking down here. She is really loving it. The teacher speaks absolutely no English, so she is learning a lot about painting and Spanish at the same time.
Everything is still going great. There is not much new. We are just trying to live it up for our last 2 weeks. It's hard to believe that we will be back in the states so soon. This has become another home for us, and we will definitely miss it here. But we are really looking forward to seeing all our friends and family back home.
Kim’s parents made it down last week, and we all had a great time. We were really spoiled to stay in nice hotels and cabins and eat really good food. It was much different than our Argentina trip. We spent a couple days in Concepcion and showed the parents around the city. Then we rented a car and headed south to some awesome destinations.
Driving in Chile was quite an experience. We found that you have to be pretty aggressive to get anywhere; Carl had no problem with that. Belinda on the other hand was happy to sit in the back seat. But we were all glad we didn’t have to take the buses around everywhere.
We spent two more days in a little resort town called Puerto Varas. It was a cute little town settled originally by Germans. The mountains and the lake were beautiful, and we stayed in a German style cabin run by a little German lady who made great pastries. We went to a Chilean ski resort at the top of a volcano and enjoyed the German cuisine and scenery.
We then took a ferry to the culturally rich Island of Chiloe and spent 2 more days there. We saw more penguins, cool old churches and cemeteries, and did some great shopping at artisan fairs. Then we had to send them home, but we saw a ton in that one week.
We´ve been in Concepcion almost 3 weeks now, which means we only have about 4 more. Time is flying now. Aaron is a master in the lab. He is extracting DNA like a mad man. Kim has found some ways to keep herself busy too. She is helping at an English school in the evenings and is going to go check out a painting class today. Her parents get here in a couple days, so she is trying to get hotels and cars and the trip reserved and ready without understanding much Spanish. Now it seems as though there´s too many opportunities and not enough time.
