el retiro

so last weekend our church had a retreat which when we first heard about it seemed like forever away.  now, it's been and gone.  we had a wonderful time.  a speaker came from argentina and spoke on the church as a refuge, family, and army.  it was fun to go somewhere and spend time with our church here who have really been like family to us.  we are so thankful!  

we spent time playing soccer on the beach, throwing the frisbee, and just hanging out.  

we have four more weeks of school!!  we will be heading to uruguay to help the stallings with their project, "fields of the fatherless," an orphanage they are starting.  

incendio

We woke up last night at 12:30ish to the sound of crashing glass in an apartment nearby.  We laid there for a few seconds and after the crashing continued I decided to see what was up.  I went out on our patio and saw things (glass) falling around me and a couple people on the street looking up at our building and pointing.  I thought someone was on the roof throwing things.  I looked up and fire was pouring out of an apartment four floors above us.  We grabbed clothes and a few things and headed down the stairs.  Glass was falling around us as we left the building as more windows were blown out.  We sat in the median of our street and watched flames go up the side of the building as the apartment burned.  Thankfully the building is constructed of all cement and the fire didn't spread.  Chile's volunteer firemen used the fire hoses in the building to put out the fire which we've heard was started by a candle.  We still can't understand why there are no smoke detectors or alarms in our building.

jillian's happy birthday!!

august flew by for us.  the highlight was that aaron came to visit.  we had a great time with him.  it was so nice to see family and a familiar face!!  andy went to santiago thursday morning to meet him at the airport and then i met up with them friday night.  we went to dinner at a fun restaurant in santiago (soaking wet from the rain :))  and then on saturday we caught metros and buses to go to the cajon de maipo.  we hiked there and had a picnic etc..  then, we came back to viña where we had a birthday party for me!  chileans throw themselves birthday parties, so that's what we did.  it was very special.  thursday night we went to pucon (in the south) and hike volcan villarrica.  we snowboarded down.  it was great!!  i would post pictures, but i am having technical difficulties.  

¡¡¿¿hay nieve!???! ¡¡que raro!!

it's been forever since we last posted because we've been crazy busy. we had three weeks vacation and traveled up north. andy will post more about that later. lots of pictures to sort through. we had a great time, and now we're back in viña for another semester. our schedules are great this semester, and we even have saturdays off. to celebrate we took a metro ride to limache and a micro to olmue to the "campana" national park. there are several hikes there, one to the top of cerro campana and others. we didn't do the one to the top because you have to leave the park by 17:30, and we didn't have time. we did a different circuit which was great. it was about seven miles, and it felt so good to get out and do some hiking!

i guess this is the first time the coastal mountains have had snow in like eight or eighty years. we have heard both figures and everything in between. we're not sure who to believe, but we are certain that everyone agrees it's been a cold winter. we are so thankful for the coming spring and the warmth it promises!! trees already have blossoms and smell so good!

here i am about half way up with my cool, new sunglasses!

look... snow!!

view from the top.

andy on the rock wall.

here we are on the micro going home!

the completos!!

good grief!   it has taken me three downloads to get this picture up.  sorry.  so these are the completos. 

they are very popular here in chile.  they are hot dogs with tomatoes, palta (avocado), and whatever else you want on top.  they are quite popular although we haven't really become accustomed to them.  :)!!  claudia and i made 46 completos friday night.  it was fun!!

luis

here's luis.  he's a good friend from church.  he's hilarious.  heg out's acting out snow white here.  

retiro en loncura

so our church had a young people's retreat in loncura last weekend.  it was great.  we went with about forty other people and had a great time relaxing, playing games, worshiping, etc...

we arrived on friday night.  we made completos for everyone.  yummy!!!

saturday we had to leave early for el quisco and the worldteach midservice conference.  

here we are at the micro station waiting to catch a micro from loncura to valpo.  

feliz día papá!

happy fathers day!

these are some pictures from our father's day here in viña. we spent the day at church, walking on the beach, calling fathers, and hanging out reading on the roof.

we are really looking forward to being able to use this roof when spring comes!

lately we have been freezing! there is no central heat here, so when it's cloudy we spend our days and nights with lots of layers and even teaching while wearing our down coats! when it rains it gets warmer and everyone says this winter is colder than normal because there's less rain.

we've been pretty sick, but thankfully we're finally feeling better. andy still has a cough, but hopefully that will be better soon too.

in andy's picture you can see the coca cola apartment building.  it gives the official time and temperature at night.

this picture was taken a couple of weekends ago after we bought our paletas. these are fun for the beach!







my school is at the end of this picture, by the three apartment towers that look similar

well, have a good week!  

chau!

los dos pelaos

we went to a going away party for some friends of our grupo casero last night. everyone "hacered una vaca" to buy food and we made fajitas! no, fajitas are not common here. in fact, we heard multiple people ask what the bowl of brown stuff was (refried beans). jillian and i have missed Mexican food, so we were so happy. here is jillian and her friend claudia. they were in the kitchen preparing the guac and other fixings. the other is a picture of me and christian. "pelao" is what they call bald people here, so everyone is always calling me and christian "los dos pelaos." he is so short that people say i look like his dad. weird, i know.

Recent Happenings

Well, we've had a good month. If you haven't looked at our "chile photos," this first picture is posted there. It was when we took pics in Valpo. I just thought it was so good I'd post it on the blog.

These next two pics are some of Jillian's students. Many of our students don't like college, but these are a few of Jillian's good students that enjoy learning and Jillian enjoys having in class.


This last pic is from a conference we went to in Santiago with our church last weekend. The church asked if we needed a place to stay and we said yes. We were housed with a famous Chilean TV star. His name is Pato Frez and he is on a show like our Good Morning America. Everyone knows him and was talking about him and asking us questions about him. He's the one in the white sweater. It was kind of fun and another great experience in a Chilean home.

Well, that is all we have for now. We hope all is going well in your part of the world. We will talk to you soon!

300 more pics

i've posted 300 more pics in our chile photo album. we had a long weekend, so we spent some time roaming the streets in Valparaíso and we also took a tour to Valle de Casablanca where there are are 8 vineyards of which we saw three. the pictures might be worth checking out. click the "chile photos" link on the right to view the albums.

mural in on a building Valpo


champaign bottles fermenting on one of our wine tours

We moved into our new apartment a few days ago. It is very nice. It is the one off in the distance with the arrow above it.

This is our mini kitchen/dining room.

This is our bedroom. Exciting eh?!

more viña pics

Here's the beach that is close to us.

Jillian and I by the beach.

A castle on the coast close by.

Jillian by the coast. Right behind her is where we saw one of the sea lions playing around.

One of Jillian's favorite coffee shops on the sea called Enjoy Del Mar.

fotos de chile

i've posted a link on our blog to all of our photos that we've taken here in chile. see it? it's right there on the right. they will probably be pretty boring for most of you, but check 'em out!

duoc

so we are getting somewhat settled in vina. we live in a great house and got a bigger bed!! there are twelve people that live here and after two weeks, we know everyone's name. it makes it easier!! we are learning a lot of spanish, but have a loooong ways to go. tomorrow i am going to start having kids from the neighborhood come over to learn english with guillermo and paloma (two of the kids that live here). i'm excited. there is also an orphanage down the street where i am going to start trying to volunteer.

the school we work at is called duoc. we work at different locations, but the same school.

our place in viña

well, we are moved in. the family is so nice and everything about our situation is pretty dang good, except for one thing...... our bed is a twin! they have told us a few times that they can get us a bigger one, so we need to decide. we will keep you posted. other than that, we have internet access in our room, we are only a five minute walk from the beach, and they have a bike that jillian can use to ride to school. not bad. here is a link to a few pictures and info for our casa: the link

off to viña

well, we head to the coast tonight at 5:15 pm. viña del mar is a coastal city about an hour and thirty minutes from here. we will be staying at maria magdalina´s house to try it out for a while. we are excited! we start teaching monday!

first teaching experience with chilean high schoolers

today we went to college el bosque for practicum. we were able to teach chilean 10th and 12th graders for a little bit and observe a pre-K class for a few minutes. it was very interesting indeed.

entrance hallway to most of the classrooms

some of the classrooms

10th graders in their uniforms waiting for class to start

pre-K students in their second english class ever!

el quisco

this past weekend we had three days off. we went to the beach.

the coast

the cabin we rented for the weekend

cerro santa lucia

Here is Jillian and I on another hike close to our hostel. The small hill is called Cerro Santa Lucia and has a castle on top.


A fountain halfway up the hill.


The fountain is not apt for swimming.

Billboards for Pepsodent!

random things around

here are a couple random shots. this first one is of some llamas that i took a picture of and then the owner came chasing after me with his animals to get me to pay for the picture i took. i just told him "no gracias."

here is jillian with a chilean drink called 'mote.' it is like peach juice with barley in the bottom of the cup. pretty good.

here is what we have to eat for about two of our three meals per day. bread, cheese, palta (avocado), and tomato. yummy.