This and That

Who is going to clean our pool now? Our cheap, awesome, dependable pool/lawn guy moved back to his native Brazil. Now we're hosed.

U.S. candy vs. Argentine candy = CLEAR U.S. VICTORY. There is an Argentine candy called "sugar" and one called "sugar MAX". The good thing about halloween in Argentina is Candace and I will NOT be stealing much of our kids' candy. We had a neighborhood halloween schedule from 4-7 pm on Sunday. We went out at 5:15 and a few of the houses were already out of candy. Another family we saw had a bowl on their stroller giving out candy (or trading it) to people they passed on the street (the family was Argentine). It was weird. Novices. So tomorrow is actually halloween, but we're all done.

Claire had a school halloween party on Friday morning.

My work had the halloween party on Friday afternoon.

School had "International Day" fair on Saturday morning.

Expat trick-or treating on Sunday night.

Private neighborhood (not ours) trick-or-treating Sunday night.

Sam has a school halloween party on Monday.

We would be much better off if the Argentine candy was worth its weight in sugar... which it isn't.

The other night, Candace and I stayed up until 2 am watching several episodes of Season 1 of Alias. While Netflix lost a ton of customers due to the raised rates for streaming... we are still happy customers since we can't stream to Argentina anyway.

The weather is getting warmer and the humidity is being felt.

Caroline and Claire are really good friends.

Claire speaks Spanish randomly and we are always surprised at how well she does.

Sam is going to be a big kid.

Out and About

So I skipped a week... big deal. When I started the blog, I committed to Candace that I would do it every week. What I meant was I would do it every week that I felt like it. Some Sunday afternoons are better served relaxing and NOT doing the blog than actually doing it. On the positive side, there are two weeks worth of activities to document.

First, Candace is fond of taking Sam and Caroline (or sometimes just Sam) to Claire's school to pick her up, where they can hang around the playground for a little while and get out some energy. Once when they were playing, Claire palled (or is it paled) around with an older girl. Claire would copy everything the older girls was doing. At the end of the playtime, Candace asked Claire what she was doing, and Claire said that the older girl was training her how to be a 4th grader. We thought that was pretty funny. Unfortunately, we will not be in Argentina when Claire is in 4th grade.

For Sam and Caroline, have you seen the Berlitz language commercial with the German Coast Guard guy manning some communications equipment? After a second, you hear a British accent saying "We... are... sinking. We... are sinking...." The Coastie leans into the microphone and asks, "What are you sinking about?" It's pretty funny. Well, having seen that video several times, I ended up watching it again recently after seeing a link to it. The same day at dinner, we had the following conversation:

CAROLINE: Blafgel vlkjw vlkj;vioi osnelkn nrlkn;ls.

SAM: Caroline, what are you talking about?

Made me laugh. If you haven't seen the Berlitz clip, you should find it.

We were lucky to have a long weekend for Columbus Day and we ventured to a place called San Antonio de Areco about 90 mins away. It's a traditional sleepy Gaucho town. We drove up with another family, bopped around the main square, toured an old ranch, found some horses for the kids to ride, got some lunch, and finished with ice cream. It was a great day trip.

The old house:

Argentine Family Mouritsen:

Claire taking care of her little sister. For the overprotective parents, don't fret, we didn't send them off by themselves. And they had a blast!

And nearing the end of the day, this is what happens when you don't let an 18-month old pick up horse poop.

Anniversary

One year has passed. We miss you, Lily.