Another Quick Trip Home

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!

Camping Seattle Style

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!

We Have a Niece

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.

Happy Birthday Kim

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.

Less than 2 weeks

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.

We had visitors

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.

Into the groove

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.

Ushuaia, Argentina

Here we are at the end of the earth with the Penguins!

Surprise

Kim’s parents are coming down to visit us in a couple of weeks and we are really excited! When we first got down here, Kim emailed her mom and told her that she is in for a big surprise. Belinda emailed back and said that instead of letting her be surprised, why don’t we prepare her. Well, you really have to come down and be surprised in order to understand fully, but we thought you might all like to know a bit more about life in the Patagonia, and maybe it will help prepare Belinda a little.
First of all think of toilet paper and a toilet seat as a luxury. In some areas, you might just find a hole. Don’t count on soap either, which makes us wonder a lot about eating out in restaurants. And they put mayonnaise on everything and fried eggs on everything. Almost no one speaks English, but they still try to talk to you in Spanish even though they know that you don’t understand. Most of the streets are not paved, so we are never really clean. And they think that everything is just as it should be…. Why pave the streets? Who needs toilet paper? But it is a great experience. And it’s beautiful!

It worked... we have a picture!

A beautiful sunset at San Martin de los Andes, Argentina

New Home

We now are in Concepcion, Chile; we made it back. We found a cute little apartment near “El U” the University (isn’t that funny – they also call it The U). It is really cute, and it is run by a nice family who has been so helpful. It is brand new, and we are actually the first ones to live here, so we have the whole place to ourselves. We are just happy to be in one spot for more than 3 days and not on a campground.

Aaron kind of goes to work tomorrow. The university is slowly coming off of summer vacation, and not all of the professors are back. So he won’t start in the lab until next week probably. And I, well, I will probably be updating the blog a bunch and trying to get pictures on it :)

4 Weeks Gone Fast

Well four weeks of being homeless and moving around every couple days is beginning to get a little tiring. But we have seen some awesome sights and met some great people. We just got our passports stamped in the southern most city in the world ¨el Fin del Mundo¨. It was so beautiful. We got to see penguins and glaciers and sea lions - really cool. We also met another young great couple from Colorado (Kristi and Kent). They are living in Buenos Aires for 6 months just for fun. They let us stay in their awesome apartment and we shared some great times.

We are now making the long trip back to Concepcion, Chile where we will hopefully have our own apartment or a place to call home for a couple more months. We are making a couple stops along the way (just can´t get out of Argentina it´s so great), and we plan to be in Concepcion on Monday or Tuesday.

Miss you all!

We have loved all of your comments. Thanks for your love and support. Congratulations Andrea and Jake about the girl! And we are glad you have been able to use our blog to announce it the Clifts and to the rest of the world wide web. Brett and Heather, your blog is much prettier than ours. Thanks to everyone, we love you!

We have now made it to the beach! It is beautiful. We will stay for two days and then we are heading to Buenes Aires to catch our flights to El Calafate and Ushuaia. Then we head back to Concepcion, Chile, where we should finally be able to add some pictures hopefully.

Just came from a tiny little town of 5,000 called Sarmiento. Where few have teeth or know how to read. But they are wonderful people, and we had some awesome Argentine meals. We saw some of Aarons old friends and made some new ones as well.

This morning we were really wanting a big Dennys breakfast since all they have for breakfast is coffee. But we will have to wait. Could be worse... off to the beach.

Argentina Beginnings

We this week has been quite an exciting one. We arrived in Argentina in ultimately one of our top 5 most beautiful places we have ever seen. The little town is called Villa La Angostura. It is on a lake at the bottom of a valley of mountains... sound familiar. Well it´s even more beautiful and remote than Sandpoint, Idaho. We never wanted to leave, so we stayed there for 5 days. :) I really wish that these darn computers would let me load pictures! Well, when we get back to Concepcion, we will have our computer again and will load a bunch.

While we were in Villa, we took a ferry ride and saw Venessa Williams and Venus Williams! Totally crazy. Aaron was hoping to see her husband Rick Fox, but he must have been watching a game or something.

We went whitewater rafting yesterday. It was so awesome. We are addicted to it already. We are now at the bus station leaving another lake town called Bariloche. We have been here for 3 days and we are heading to El Bolson. Not on a lake, but on a river :) After that we will go to Eskiel and then Sarmiento (this is for our moms so that they don´t wonder where we are).

Arriving in Chile

We made it to Chile. We had a bit of a challenging start (Kim paid $10 for the bathroom and Aaron chose a $50 taxi), but we have learned quickly, and things are beginning to smooth out. People have been really helpful. Aaron´s professor is going to find us an apartment in Concepcion while we´re in Argentina, and we´re leaving tonight. Concepcion is really great, we are happy that this is going to be what we come "home" to in one month. We´ve gambled on the tap water and seem to be healthy so far. Not many photos yet, but we´ll try to add more periodically. We love you and miss you!

Christmas Break

We're enjoying our time with both of our families in Seattle. We've been able to visit with them for a whole month! It's been great!

We leave for South America in one week on January 22. We will be backpacking through Argentina visiting Aaron's mission for one month. And Aaron has an internship in Chile for two months. Kim will just be enjoying her time abroad and updating the new blog :) Should be an awesome adventure!