What you are probably looking for…
is here at Penelope’s Place.
Introducing Karin Seubert, ESQ
In the middle of September, Karin found out she passed her bar. YAY!!!!! Our mom was able to go out to Idaho for the ceremony. Congrats Karin! Sorry it took me so long to blog about it!
Adam’s uncle took Karin fishing to celebrate and she caught this…I can’t wait to go to Idaho to visit, and catch one as well 🙂
The past month…
I wish I could say that I’ve been busy at work, but that would be a lie. To all my faithful readers (if I have any left), I’m sorry that I’ve been lax in my postings. No excuses. But, what has kept me away for so long? I’m happy you’ve asked. We’ve been busy enjoying our summer and the gorgeous weather. I’ve started running again, which is a real accomplishment for me. Since I started in the middle of January, I’ve clocked in 55 miles. I’ve even started Leyna on the running kick, and we run together for a mile and a half a couple times a week. I’ve been doing things with friends- weekly mah jongg games, walking tours of La Serena, going to parties, learning to salsa dance. Also, i’ve been working on my cooking repertoire, and have been busy adding new recipes to my collection. Some of my most recent favorites include black bean patties, asian salmon and fish tacos with a papaya coconut salsa. Steve and I are also bust planning our next trip which is at the end of April- we’re going to Easter Island and then on to Tahiti for a 10 day tahitian cruise. I actually finalized our accommodations for Easter Island today- it’s always an experience speaking on the phone in spanish. Oh, and how is my spanish coming along? Well, slacker that I am, I have still not gone back to my classes yet, but I have been practicing some. The other weekend, Steve and I went to a poker tournament at our friends house where many of the players spoke only spanish so I got to practice there for about 6 hours. Why so long? Because yours truly came in second place bringing home about 40 bucks!!! Steve had a busy 2 weeks at work while he was queue coordinating and acting head of science operations. To celebrate him being done, we snuck away for a couple days to our favorite town, Pisco Elqui. We stayed in a wonderful cabana and had a truly relaxing time. Leyna dog has been doing well, though we’re busy trying to curb some of her bad habits (biting and jumping). I have also been busy hanging out with my friend JOanna, who, sadly, will be leaving at the beginning of April to move to Portland. Well, that’s enough for tonight, don’t want to blog about everything at once. Hope all is well with you, and happy days, we are now the same time as you folks on the east coast, which makes my life much easier (yeah, yeah, because it’s so hard already). Here are some pics below to enjoy!!!
Leyna dog cute as ever!
For someone who pretends to hate “those damn dirty hippies”, he has now joined their ranks!!
A few pics from La Serena walking tour
Pisco Tour
Pisco Elqui
Not only did our cabanas have a beautiful view, nice pool, masseuse, a scrumptious breakfast brought out to the veranda, but it also had a putting green!
Before I sign off, I almost forgot to mention one of the biggest highlights of the past month, my grandma turned 90!! Happy birthday again, hot stuff!!!!!
Happy Birthday Adam!!!
We haven’t been able to get our pictures working yet, so I apologize for no pic. I hope you have a wonderful birthday, and we can’t wait to see you in OCtober! Happy birthday, bro!!!!!!!!
In Lieu of fireworks
We made homemade cupcakes (silver-white cake with buttercream frosting) for tasty flavor explosions in our mouths. BOOM! YUMM!
Today…
Today,,,,,, it felt like we were in the states. The day started off beautifully, it was warm and sunny, probably in the upper 60s and after sleeping in and catching up with Cara, we decided to bring thee pup to the park. We had fun playing frisbee in the sun. We then met up with a group of friends and went go karting, which was a blast! Afterwards we went and saw The Da Vinci Code, it was alright, I found it to be somewhat entertaining, and we just got home with our dinner, Kentucky Fried Chicken, YUMMY!!! Not sure what our plans for tonight entail, but most likely wine and friends. Hope you guys are all having a great weekend as well!!
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Wed- Isla Damas here we come
On Wed we went to Isla Damas for the day with a group of friends. There was 7 of us from the science community and then 2 nice men joined the group who were from Europe. Our tour guide was great and we had a fantastic time. Jon got to try for the first time Chorros- which is some kind of orangey slimy mollusk- sounds appetizing! We left at 8 am got back around 6 pm, I made a quick dinner of quinoa and black beans, then I went off to book club for a little bit at 8 while Steve and Jon were hosting a poker game at our house. The poker game ended up going into the wee hours of the morning. The last people left around 330 am. Yours truly, won 2 games, hurray!!!
Day 5
On Thursday we decided to visit the town of Andacollo, where every December 26 more than 100,000 pilgrims overrun the gold and copper mining town located 1,050 meters above sea level to pay homage to the Virgin of Andacollo. I’m sure the signs in town explained her story, but I’m not sure what it is. We visited the 2 churches and the museum which contains tons of gifts given by the pilgrims to the Virgin, including toys, rosary beads, pictures, letters- honestly, some of the weirdest stuff ever. In the end we couldn’t even find the supposed little Virgin figurine that was found in some mine, again another story I don’t know. Afterwards we decided to follow the suggestion in our tour guide book to “take a decent gravel road to the Hurtado Valley, where it’s possible to make a loop to Vicuna and back to La Serena.” Little did we know that it would be a 6 hour drive on nothing more than a goat path over mountains through the Hurtado Valley, over more mountains and into the Elqui Valley. There was never any guard rails, the road had eroded in places and was a mass of sloped hairpin turns. Now many of you know my family so you can just imagine what was going on in the car. My dad yelling at me to “slow down, use a different gear” and I think many “Jesus’s” were being muttered among other things. My mom was in back (who by the way is afraid of heights) muttering nonsensical questions constantly. Then of course, I tried to use 4 wheel drive and a warning light came on in the car “trans temp”, and we couldn’t find the manual and we hadn’t seen anyone in hours. By the way, the manual was in the car, in the drivers side door, but all in spanish, no help there. I was driving and yelling at the both of them. In the end, now that we are home safe and sound, it was a beautiful drive. We started out at 1,050 meters in Andocollo drove through the desert down to sea level then up over some mountains and down into the Hurtado Valley back up some more mountains and finally down into the Elqui Valley. We saw beautiful deserts, valleys, mountains, vineyards, people and animals. The pics from the drive don’t do it justice. I probably wouldn’t do it again, but it’s fun to hear my parents talk about their brush(es) with death!!!
Andacollo
The views
Us at the scary parts
Day 3 of our vacation…
Today we had a great day, unfortunately Steve had to work so he missed out on some of it. To begin with, we started out at the mall (always a good place to begin), changed some money and then off we went to…
La Feria, the open air market that has the best produce around. We bought tons of fruits and veggies for a total of under $5. My parents seemed to really like it there, especially since the melons were so fresh and reminded them of summer and at the same time CT was in for some snow…
After the market, we went out to Deli Cafe for a light lunch of sandwiches and coffee…
We then stopped at home, said hello to Steve and the pup who were on a lunch break, and then headed to Plaza de Armas to the artesian markets and then to 2 of the local museums, the Museo Historico Gabriel Gonzalez Videla and the Museo Arqueologico. Gabriel Gonzalez Videla was from La Serena and was president of Chile from 1946-1952. The museum is located in his old house. It contains extensive personal artifacts of his and his family including some pics from when he came to the US and met with Truman. It also contains some rooms full of paintings from famous chilean artists and also an exhibit containing replicas of chilean coats of arms and armor. The archeological museum contained exhibits on geology and fossils, agricultural origins and early coastal settlements, and regional cultures. It also contained a Maoi from Easter Island that has toured MIlan, Barcelona and France. I can’t wait to go see Easter Island! One of my favorite exhibits had some shrunken heads. How did they do that? I’m sure the plaque next to the exhibit explained it but my spanish is not that good yet.
After the museums, we came home, my parents relaxed and Leyna and I went hiking. Steve then came home from work, we had some snacks, wine and pisco sours, played set back, then went to Tololo Beach Restaurant for a nice dinner of fresh fish. Now everyone is exhausted and ready for bed.
I think that we may plan on going to the beach tomorrow. Good night!!!
Don’t you just hate…
When you and your parents are all dressed and ready to go and you let the dog in and she looks like this…
and then you have to get unchanged, give her a bath in your nice clean bathroom and make the whole house smell like wet dog?