The Week that Wasn't

As you saw in last week's post, the Puyehue volcano in Chile erupted and made for some awesome photos. With the wind patterns and the jet stream, the ashes from the eruption affected air travel in and out of Buenos Aires for nearly a week. Flights were cancelled from both the international and domestic airports. While that normally wouldn't matter, school had just gotten out and many families were planning their summer vacations... including us. Our Monday night departing flight was cancelled... then our Tuesday night departing flight was cancelled... and we finally made it out of Buenos Aires on Thursday.

In the end, the airports were closed for two days, open for a day and half, then closed for two and a half days, and then the rain came and dispersed the ashes. From the reports, however, the volcano is still spewing ash and could bothersome for the coming weeks. What's worse is what it has done to Argentina's beautiful lake district, including large tourist communities of Bariloche and Villa La Angostura. Sad.

Bariloche before and after:

Villa La Angostura before and after

So the good news is that we made it out of the country. We had originally planned to spend 5 days together as a family in Park City before I returned for a few weeks while Candace stayed with the kids for the summer. As the week drew on (with us having expected to be gone), Candace was more and more distraught at the possibility of losing her guaranteed one full day of kid-free shopping at the Park City outlet mall. Luckily, with us getting out on Thursday (arriving in Utah on Friday), Candace got to shop all day Saturday before I departed Utah for Buenos Aires on Sunday (arriving Monday).

One of the best things of the week was that Claire was so pleased that every spoke English. When we told her that at the airport in Dallas, she said 'hi' to everyone. She's always been a very social and loving girl, but sometimes gets shy with the language barrier. But there's nothing like speaking your own language.

As I was going to have the kids for a whole day, I was trying to make some good plans. I was lucky. [This next part is dedicated to having good friends] As you grow up and get married and have families, it's hard to stay in touch, especially as everyone moves all around, but there are those few friends that it doesn't matter how much time passes, you can pick up like no time has passed. My friend Andy is one of those. While never companions, we met in the Buenos Aires West Mission. We had a great time during the mission, and continued afterwards. Heck, our mom's even have the same name. He's a firefighter in Park City and offered to give a tour to the kids. So we went and spent two hours at the fire department getting the VIP tour of the station and the vehicles. Claire and Sam (and I'm sure Caroline too) were so pleased to meet a real firefighter. They called him Fireman Andy and talked about him the rest of the day and the whole next day. It was one of those activities that the kids will remember for a long long time. They got great fireman hats, stickers, and bracelets, and I got a pencil (thanks, Andy). They got to climb in and on an ambulance and a fire truck and spent a while talking to Fireman Andy about why it's important for firefighters to be healthy (while playing on exercise equipment). It was such a great visit.

In the past year, such relationships have become so much more important to me. You're the best, Andy.