We're Legal

FOR SOME REASON ENTRY 21/1/2007 DIDN'T POST. It's posted now. Feel free to read it.

This last week has had its ups and downs needless to say. Everything is fine with us, but we actually had to work on finding someone to help us buy a car, get a certificate of domicile from the police department and go to AFIP (equivalent to the IRS in USA).

First off, we went to the local policia comisaria (police station) and due to my absent mindedness and inability to speak spanish we were given misinformation. All the research that I had performed prior was correct, but due to our extended time on vacation (roughly 8 weeks now in California and Argentina combined), lack of mental stimulation, wine/beer consumption daily, great food and lack of exercise, I have become bluntly--stupid. I truly feel like I'm walking in a daze sometimes. I'm lucky if I know my name. I'm sure a lot of you have felt the same way after one or two weeks on vacation, now muliply that by 4. After sending a few emails and being redirected by Laura Zurro, ebook author of Moving to and Living in Buenos Aires, we were able to go the local comisaria on Monday and request a certificado de domicilio (certificate of domicile). This is written in detail in Laura's informative ebook. See link to Laura's website for more great information. Once you go to the police station and they fill out the paperwork with your address, they send a police officer to your apartment/hotel the following day. They told us that the officer would be at our apartment between 0800 and 1400 (2 pm). Jen and I looked at each other in disbelief. This was worse than setting an appointment with the cable guy! What do you do in an apartment that is maybe 1/5th the size of your previous house for 6hrs with a toddler who wants to play outside? You charge the DVD player the night before for 4+hrs of movie watching. Initially, when we arrived to BA (Buenos Aires) and found out that we would have a day of waiting at the apartment for a police officer, we figured that this would be a day of rest, much needed after all of our exploring for the last couple of weeks. However, we didn't plan on the building adjacent to us being manually dismantled with sledge hammers and jack hammers. Sections of ceilings and walls from the top down are being broken apart, which appears to be a unique thing to do around here. Literally, within spitting distance from our bedroom window are the jack hammers, so it is very noisy during the day. Needless to say, I do not like to be indoors when it's nice outside. Truly, I do not like to be indoors at all during the day for more than a couple of hours, so I think this was harder on me than the girls. Couldn't go on a run in the morning because I was worried the police officer might show up at 0800 . Furthermore, I'm on vacation, I don't wake up before 0700.

The police officer arrived around 1200, however, this is also the time Payton was going to sleep, she just happened to take a nap for over 3hrs. Therefore, the day was shot. Oh well. Ww probably needed a day off of our feet.

Wednesday: Payton started the morning off early calling my name "daddy." It was a little after 0600, Jen actually got out of bed before I did to see what Payton wanted. I think Jen is also enjoying vacation, because I don't think she has seen the light of day before 0800. I have been getting up with Payton every morning at 6:30 or 7:00. Payton's early awakening was a blessing in disguise. We got ready and took our dirty clothes to the local lavadero autoservicio (laundry facility where clothes are washed for you). It seems like there is a lavadero on every other block. We took 4 full plastic grocery store bags to the lavadero and they charged us 4USD.
After we dropped off our dirty clothes we took a taxi to downtown Buenos Aires AFIP office. This is the office that will grant us our CDI (clave de identificacion - equalivent to USA social security number) corresponding to our current address. When our taxi drove up to the office, it was closed, however there was already a line forming at 0845. I immediately got in line, Jen and Payton went window shopping down the street at a children's clothing store. After about 10 minutes they came back for the usual diaper changing necessities. Jen later told me she took Payton back to the children's store (Voss) where they had a children's play table with toys in the middle of the store. The sales person cleared off the table and told Jen to change her diaper right there (Never would have happened in the states). It was very nice of the woman to help us out. During Jen's absence the door opened and a flood of people, not following the traditional first come first serve philosphy, swarmed through the door. I immediately followed the signs to the information desk requesting a particular form for the clave de identificacion. After approximately 2-3 minutes of making a jackass out of myself, the employee informed me the AFIP office is next door and doesn't open until 1000. When I walked outside I was able to view the sign above the door, seeing the name of a local financial bank. We weren't able to see the names on the buildings when we first arrived because every store has a metal barrier that blocks the front facade, and they were all closed.

We found a coffee store down the street and waited until 1000. Walked into the correct office and filled out the forms in duplicate and were out of the AFIP office with our CDIs in a matter of 30 minutes. It's official! WE'RE LEGAL! Now we can buy a car, open a bank account and win the lotto with our CDI.

We immediately found another taxi and had him drop us off at the public international yellow fever vaccination clinic. For those of you who were wondering why we didn't get the yellow fever vaccination before we left for Argentina, it's simple-Jen and I got the immunization but Payton was ill when we had a sheculed appointment for her and she was ill off and on for the remainder of our time in the states. We wanted her to be 100% healthy before the vaccination because there is a less than 1% chance of encephalopathy. We don't want to put her at any more risk than necessary. How do we know that this is a safe vaccination clinic. We logged onto the CDC Traveler website and there is a specific list of international clinics that are authorized to give yellow fever vaccinations. We obtained the information and we're emailed by a local english speaking physician to this specific Vaccination clinic. We had one more thing going for us today. The vaccination time was between 11-12 for yellow fever and we arrived at 1050 in the morning. Unfortunately, we didn't know that we needed Payton's passport number for her to receive the immunization. I offered to go back to our apartment and come back within the hour, but Jen said that was silly. One of the ladies at the office suggested calling someone back at the hotel to get Payton's passport number, however, that wasn't a possiblity since we are here without other friends or family. Jen (DAVE I HOPE YOU ARE READING THIS) came up with the idea to call her dad who has all the information on us in a folder at his home. I grabbed the cellular phone and dialed their West Coast phone number and when the our call was connected I heard this disturbed and tired voice on the phone. I franticly turned my wrist and looked at my watch. OH SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Actually, I think the correct mental thought had, OH F--k it's 0500 in the morning. I pussy footed with Dave and handed the phone to Jen. The bad thing--He didn't have a copy of Payton's passport at the house after all, we forgot that we had left the copies in the safety deposit box. The call was for nothing. We apologized and offered to pay for a dinner out on the town. SORRY DAVE!
The nurse was nice enough and allowed Payton to get the immunization anyway under the stipulation that we come back tommorrow with the proper documentation. Payton handled the injection like any other toddler in a foreign country would when seeing a strange woman dressed in her Nurse whites and a tuberculin syringe/needle going for her arm. She kicked and screamed! After a couple of minutes she was over the trauma and we were headed back to the apartment in a taxi.

In the afternoon we walked to a local Renault dealership and inquired about the Kangoo. We spoke with Juan Harrington, a very nice salesman who spoke spanglish to us. It was enough for us to understand each other. However, I'm coming to terms with the fact that if we don't speak or anunciate properly portenos have no clue what we are trying to say. For instance, we were talking about amenties we wanted ie. air conditioning. In Spanish it's aire acondiacionado and he had no clue what we were talking about. Very frustrating for the both of us. At this point we are working out the numbers on the different types of Kangoo. It appears that we will be purchasing a vehicle within the week. Amazingly enough, it is very different purchasing a vehicle in Argentina than the States. In our case, at Renault, they do not have the vehicle on site. You negotiate the deal prior to ever seeing the actual vehicle. Once you come up with a price, you put a deposit on the vehicle (usually 1000 pesos for a 40000 pesos vehicle) and within 3 days the vehicle will be at the dealership. Then you inspect the vehicle and if it's to your liking, you have to go to a bank and place the rest of the money in Renault's account. Argentina has laws in place where they can not sell and accept money at the same location. They also don not do test drives, very different from what we are used to. I've been in contact with an Argentian who went to University of Oregon and traveled to Argentina by car from Oregon and now is partners with his brother who rents RV's to tourists to travel around Argentina. His brother, Sebastian, is very informative in the art of purchasing vehicles. So later this week, hopefully, we will be able to get a cheaper price with the assistance of Sebastian.

After the visit to the car dealership, we went to a very nice mall with a children's museum called Museo de los Ninos. Basicilly it was similar to the Children's Museum in Bend, Oregon except for it was on steroids. This place was huge and had corporate sponsors ie. McDonald's, Nestle and milk sponsors to provide actual equipment used in their industry, but on a smaller scale. It was amazing. We were there for a mere 2 hours, but Payton was nonstop. Buy the time we left it was 7:00pm at night and we hadn't even eaten dinner yet. Unfortunately for me, we ate at the mall. It's not like eating at the traditional mall. There were a wide variety of restuarants, some of them were serving actual steak. I was skeptical at first, but when we went to a Patagonia grill kiosk restuarant and requested a bifre chorizo, the girl went to the fridge, grabbed a 4-5lb redish hue steak (prior to cooking) and threw on the parrilla grill. This steak looked awesome. It looked like someone just cut it right off a slab of beef. After eating at the mall of all places, we left there just before dark and beelined back to the house in 30minutes . I think it was a little shorter than 2 miles away. Payton fell asleep on the way home, the earliest she has gone down in 2 weeks. Her bedtime has become 10:00, very different that in the states. Dinner is just served so late here. It is hard to get a meal before 8:00. She seems to like being up later.

Here is a sample of some of the Palermo (Barrio in Buenos Aires) homes. These are actually considered to be old mansions.

Thanks for all of the support and continue to send us comments and emails, it's greatly appreciated.

SUN, RAIN AND MORE RAIN

I guess it's been a few days since our last entry. Monday we continued our walking around the outskirts of Recoleta. We discovered more parks! Payton is loving the fact that there are so many parks in the area. We are truly blessed with the location of our apartment. We found the expensive (tourist) part of Recoleta ie. Four Seasons hotel, Versaci, Prada etc...It's nice to see that they're just as expensive in BA as in the states. We are starting to look at vehicles while they zoom by us. I've read a lot about BA driving being more harsh and crazy that American cities. I would have to say that they are definitely more aggressive than some metropolitian cities, however I do not find thier driving to be as aggressive as I have read. Remarkably, there are few vehicles with any signs of damage/repair to them from accidents. We haven't seen one accident yet. In addition, I have read that they do not appreciate pedestrians and do not give them the right away. I would have to disagree. They have actually been quite courteous and that may be due to our 2 year old Daughter strapped to us. Argentinos are so loving of children, and not just their own children, everyones children.

Tuesdays weather was questionable from the get go, overcast with the chance of rain. We didn't pay much attention to the forecast or the "prognostico" (spanish for weather forcast). I don't know why, but every time I see the word "prognostico" I have the sense that someone is going to abuptly bend me over and perform a colonoscopy on me. I start the morning off by watching the prognostico and I am sure that I don't have the most pleasant look on my face. Back on task here. We planned on walking to Plaza San Martin with Payton in the Chariot jogging stroller for the first time, and we would view all of the surrounding areas. We were approximately 1.5hrs walking distance from our apartment and had just walked onto the Plaza San Martin where Payton found another crowded playground at the plaza. Well, just when we were walking towards the swing, we saw a flash of light around us followed by a bone shaking sound of thunder. Amazingly enough, the playground became empty quickly following the thunder and lightening since all of the play equipment is metal. We steered away from there and walked toward a statue of General San Martin when the rain started pouring down upon us. I don't know if many of you know, but I truly love the smell of recent rain on wet asphalt. However, this time my enjoyment of the rain and pavement was short lived when I started smelling the porteno who was on the other side of the monument from us. He literally smelled like someone who had excreted urine/feces all over himself for the last week. As the rain continued to drop, the foul smell continued to emminate towards us. We increased our pace and found ourselves underneath a grove of trees by the palace San Martin. We were extremely glad we brought the Chariot so that Payton was enclosed and dry, while mine and Jen's shirts started to adhere to us. Since it is summer time here, we initially thought it might be a quick shower and we could continue on our way, but unfortunately this was not the case. After approximately 5-10minutes we headed back home. During the entire walk back to the apartment, the rain didn't subside and our clothes were no longer a barrier for our skin, but merely an additional layer of wetness. I should say the rain was actually quite refreshing. We finally made it back to the apartment and Jen and I were both wet, but Payton was dry and she had slept the whole way home.
Wednesday we made it back to Plaza San Martin to finish what we had strated the day before. We walked into the train station, unfortunately no photos. We couldn' t proceed past the lobby area without a ticket. With the hundreds of people entering and leaving the station, we felt a little uncomfortable with the three of us and the Chartiot. Let me say one thing. I don't think anyone in South America own's a Chariot or jogging stroller. When we were walking yesterday Jen made the comment, "If my left breast was hanging out of my shirt, I don't think anyone would notice it over our Chariot." I think that statement sums it all up. We get a lot of looks and smiles while walking...or I should say Payton get a lot of looks while riding in the Chariot.
Our walk yesterday, Wednesday, took us to the Puerto Madero, Plaza de Mayo and the Obelisco.

















It was warm and humid, and we had our worst food since in South America. Truly, my meal was probably the worst I've had in years. We were hungry and hot and we found a restaurant that looked inviting with air conditioning. We were walking the pier at Puerto Madera and I knew it was a tourist restaurant, but once again, hungry. I should have known when they had menus in
english and spanish as well as TGIF/CHILEs stile photos of food specials on the table. After eating our meals, I was disgusted. Jen's and Payton's were not nearly as bad as mine. I was actually surprised to see the restuarnt full of porteno's. We cand explored a little more before heading home.
Today, RAIN! We stayed around the neighborhood and walked through some nice furniture shops. Quality goods for reasonable prices. Jen wants to buy some things and send them home. Unfortunately, without being taxed up the wazoo, we have to find an Argentinian/American with a DNI (equalivant to social security number) to be the one to actually ship the merchandise. We'll see! We finally found a coffee shop that I like and it is inexpensive. It only took me a week! Payton's sleeping now, taking her afternoon nap, so we will have to wait and decide what to do for the rest of the day. Thanks to all for your encouraging and thoughtful emails. I realize the blog is quite lengthy. I apologize.
I am back, and now it is the evening. Everytime I set down to put an entry in, I tell myself to shorten things up. Obviously, it's not happening. This afternoon we again visited the park, as we do everyday. Today was different in that Payton suprised us. Her gross motor skills exploded today.














She climbed up a metal arch ladder independently and asked to go on the big girl swing, which she also did great on. Unfortunatley she lost her concentration on the swing after about 5 minutes and she let go, causing her to fall off, but there was sand beneath her and she wasn't very high off the ground. A few tears and she moved on. This park is a busy one and she watches all of the older kids and has started to mimic their actions. It is fun to watch her experiment with new movements and abilities and most of all to watch her blossum into such a sweet little girl. Don't be sad grandparents, because we will keep you so informed of her
changes that you will feel like you are with her too.

To all of our family and friends, please continue to send emails and comments. We love to hear from you! For those of you who don't know us, send us your thoughts. We are getting roughly 100+ visitors a week to our blog. I promise this boring stuff will end soon once we leave BA and our adventure truly begins. For the family: A picture of Payton doing her thing in public and saying, "Don't look at me."

First Days of City Life

Jen and I have never lived in a city. The closest we came to the city was living at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda Maryland for 3 months for an internship during college. So, the whole city life is something new for the three of us. For those that don't already know, our family previously lived in Bend, Oregon.





Right now the temperature is 15degree's Fahnerheit. So we're used to skiing at this time of year. In addition, the town is only 100,000 people strong. Not 3-7 million depending on the information you read regarding BA. My noise decibel level at night in Bend was the cat fight beneath me when the racoons attempted to get in through our kitty (cat) door. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the noise and I'm actually getting used to it. In actuality, the noise level is minute compared to the multiple visits to Sacramento/San Francisco, CA when we used to visit our friends for a weekend. It seemed that there was always a siren from police or ambulances attempting to save another soul... Let's get back on track! We've been in BA for a total of 3 days now. We are enjoying ourselves. The city truly has its own feel and beauty with its European accents throughout the city. On day three of our adventure we are actually able to go to the grocery store and pay for our groceries without feeling like I sat on a blackberry bush without any clothes on. I'm skipping ahead here, but it needs to be noted that my wife, Jen, was awesome at our neighborhood restaurant where they sell empanadas. We, mainly she, was able to order our food and say "To Go" without the porteno blinking an eye. For those who don't know and want to know how to request "to go" in spanish (truly castellano) para llavar. (however, our eyes were truly open when we were told that ll (double "L" is "shh). We are learning things everyday. It's only my ignorance that I thought we could learn the language in a day.
I would have to say that everything is within walking distance. Friday, we walked to a park Parque Las Heras. It was a nice and clean park with plenty of pigeons for Payton to run after. One porteno boy even tried to kick a soccer ball toward my head. Lucky for him, I've been on alert mode, and my reflexes were quite startling to this young boy! If anyone knows me, they will realize that this is truly a big thing for me to say. Especially Mark Portillo. (Mark, just wanted to let you know that the first bottle of wine that I drank down here was Portillo from the Mendoza region-Malbec- it was only 3 USD. It was quite good! Will send you photo later) Like I was saying, the best part of our day Friday was the walk back from Parque Las Heras. We had the fortune to come across a heladeria (ice cream parlot) named il Diverso. It truly had some of the best ice cream I've ever tasted. Including ice cream in Italy, as well as, Tillamock, Oregon. I think I might have had an orgasm in my mouth. I don't think I thought about sex for the entire 20 minute walk back to our apartment. Believe me, for any guy to say that, that's roughly 10-15 minutes where my mind didn't wonder off (Individual male results may vary depending on time served in a relationship).
Saturday we went to the Jardin zoologico in BA, which was approximately 45 walking minutes from our apartment. It truly is a great zoo. They had so many different types of animals! Definitely more than the San Francisco zoo, which we just visited prior to coming here. Besides the normal monkeys, elephants and rhinos, they actually had a greater selection of lions/tigers than I've been exposed to previously.
They actually had a white Bengal tiger. I've never seen anything like it, except for the spray painted tigers on movies. Payton had a wonderful time. They had a playground within the zoo, which Payton loved. She actually was playing so hard she was ignoring all of the other kids and one boy tried pulling her out of his way from the slide (because it was his turn, she ignored him and went first). I realize it wasn't the best thing to support, but he was much bigger than she was. So for my daughter's sake, GIRL POWER!
That night we walked to a tourist area around Recoleta cemtery. I know, tourist area. Unfortunately we paid a little too much for a great dinner. For 30USD I had a Tenderloin steak, roughly the size of my head and Jen had a "thick steak," literally 1 inch thick with no fat. I know we were paying too much, but we were hungry and couldn't find the place we were truly looking for. Although we didn't get any pictures of our meal, I'm sure we will come across some impressive steaks in our travels for others to be envious of.
Today, we walked a significant amount around Recoleta neighborhood, ie. La Recoleta cemetery (not bad for a tomb),
the British embassy, Avienda Libertador and watched tango dancing across from the Iglesia de Nuestra Senora del Pilar. We had a great day. Once again, after coming back to the apartment, Payton said, "I had fun today!" She has said this every day since Friday. This truly brings happy thoughts and tears to my eyes! Our time with our daughter has been priceless and time I will never forget. I'm also enjoying time with my wife as well! The only bad thing that has happened to us so far was that I lost my Nalgene bottle. I either didn't tighten the cap of my Nalgene bottle when attaching it to my bag or forgot it at the ice cream store today. (We went to an ice cream store called Freddo, HORRIBLE!) If we ate there on Friday, I might have given up on ice cream altogether in Argentina. Plus, for those who know that I'm frugal---they short changed me on the
exchange rate - 2.95 pesos to the USD! it should of been 3.0+pesos...BULL-HIT!
On our walk back Payton found yet another playground (I can't believe how many parks and playgrounds are in this area of BA, it's truly AMAZING) and she wanted to go down the slide. The actual slide itself was wooden? I've never seen anything like it. Luckily no splinters for Payton! She's actually becoming quite confident in her abilities to climb things now. See below...



On our walk back we went to a local restaurant called (will put in post later). They were truly great! I think we will have to compare the recommendations of saltshaker.net to ours. We will be trying La Cocina soon... Let's add an important note. See this pic below. The Stella Artois cost me 1.00 USD. Another reason to love Argentina!
Thanks for the emails and comments. Please keep on sending them.

Hello Argentina!

Well we're HERE! First off, let's just say that flying Delta from San Francisco to Atlanta was amazing. Delta's service from the moment we unloaded our vehicle (6 large bags, 6 carry on bags, 1 chariott jogging stroller and 1 bike bag) was amazing. From the supportive lady at the desk to the flight attendants on the plan. Everyone was great. When we were at the gate, we spoke with one of the customer service representatives and he actually took our carseat on the plane to make sure it fit appropraitely for us. You might be asking yourselves this very question, "I thought they were flying to Buenos Aires?" We'll we did, but our experience with Delta was extremely frustrating in Atlanta. It truly seemed that they had there head's up there A_ _! We landed in Atlanta 20 minutes before our scheduled arrival (good tail wind I guess) and went to our scheduled concourse E2. Approximately 2 hours before our departure they changed depature gate to E32. If anyone has every flown out of the Atlanta international terminal, then you will know that E2 is on the opposite side (1/4 mile +) of E32. Therefore, we took, or should I say, I took five carry on's, car seat to the other gate. Jen had her hands full as well with Payton and our Eddie Baurer ice chest. (We bought this ice chest at an Eddie Bauer outlet in 2002 and used it extensively, it's been a part of our family ever since). At this point in time we are starting to get hungry and anxious for our flight. Now a little over 1 hour before our flight the gate attendant speaks over the intercom and informs everyone in the gate area that our plane will be departing from Gate E1. F-------Great! We heard this and left for the gate, however on our way we decided to eat before we got on the plane. We ordered our food, bagged it, and walked another 1/4 mile to the opposite side of the terminal (where we were 1 hour before). As we're edging closer to the depature gate, I started noticing a lack of people in the area waiting for depature. Well, no surprise here! I spoke with the gate attendant at E1 and they once again changed there minds and stated that our flight would be leaving from gate E32. Our previous gate. I abuptly questioned Delta's actions and thought processes behind this and the wonderful gate attendant behind the desk just smiles and apologizes. At this time, I had sweat rolling down my forehead, flushed in the face and my ass was a little sweaty as well, and it took all of my energy not to grab this guys pants and pull it above his panus and give him a wedgie. It get's better. We get on our flight 1 hour after our original departure time and board the plane, then they decide that the main cabin door is malfunctioning and not closing appropriately. Well, with every typical airline, after standing at the problem area and discussing with the mechanical liason of the airline they miracously decide it's safe to fly one more time.
Enough of that! Our flight was a little bumpy, reminded me of Space Mountain at Disneyland as we were flying over Jamaica. The pilot, calmy stated that it's always "bumpy" over this area now. GLOBAL WARMING?

After sleeping a mere 5 hours of our 10 hr flight, we landed in Buenos Aires with an inviting temperature of 94 degree's. It was refreshing, until my ass started sweating again. (I should say that I've had a couple glasses of wine befor writing this, so maybe a little too open, but leave me your comments and I can be more candor or refrained depending on your input). If we weren't so tired from our flight I probably would be upset with the fact that we didn't take one picture of us gathering our bags. It was pretty funny seeing the expressions on everyone's face as we were loading all of our luggage. As you leave the baggage area, the Argentine's have a scanner for all luggage to go through, well, the guy must have saw my face our understood a little English (you got to be f-----kidding me) when I was walking toward the scanner, he merely waved us by. Yes! The kiosk of our prearranged taxi was right as you we were exiting the baggage area. We used Manuel Tienda Leon taxi service. They were awesome. I prearranged everything from home over the internet. We used Dina from commercial services. We were referred to her because of the amount of luggage we were bringing with us. Originally, she quoted me 130 USD for a minibus to take us from Ezeiza (airport) to our apartment in Recoleta. Usually it's 20 USD for a taxi to Capital Federal. I told her that we could fit in a minivan. After a couple of days of discussing the size of our luggage she quoted me 60 USD. We waited approximately five minutes when we saw this MINIBUS (21+ passenger) drive toward the taxi area. Our driver walked by us and looked at our luggage and how many people and reconfirmed with the representative at the kiosk if there were only 3 of us going on the minibus. He was a little reluctant, but he helped us load our stuff in. Remarkable, the bike still had to go inside the cabin of the minibus becuase we filled the trunk up with our luggage. The driving needless to say is almost unspeakable. They do have a unique ability to cut each other off while driving. Some cross streets don't even have yield/stop signs. There are so many one way streets, even our driver got lost. It took him over 30 minutes driving to find our apartment. Our apartment location is awesome. We are located in the heart of Recoleta. We are two blocks from multiple coffee houses (even though I haven't had any coffee yet). A couple of blocks to the market, restaurants, and parks. Our apartment is very nice, but a little small. I think everything will be small compared to our previous 2600 sq.ft house.

The first couple of days were laid back. We had some serious jet lag, so we laid low and stayed in our neighborhood. With this posting are some pics of our apartment and Payton at the park. More pics to come, a little hesistant the first couple of days walking around a strange city with a camera straped to our necks.

Happy New Year! New Years in Northern California

Happy New Year to all of our friends and family! We had a great Christmas and New Year. It's been roughly 24 days since I worked last and I'm doing GOOD. I think I might have thought about my previous job a few times. I'm truly amazed that I'm not bored yet. I guess it's all the good food we've been eating and daily busy work. In terms of busy work, we had no idea how much work was going to be involved in leaving the country for a year. Basicly we have been getting our lives in order (on paper). A lot of logistics.
What have we been doing the last couple of weeks? In short, we stayed in Eureka til Christmas morning. We had a nice time in Eureka and actually had some nice weather. We had a good time visting with Jen's family. Payton loved feeding the pigeons with Nana and Papa at the old town gazebo and we were productive with our "to do list" (all of those logistics). We drove down to my parent's house in Willits, CA "Gateway to the Redwoods" or what I commonly call, the "Southern tip of the Emerald Triangle", on Christmas morning and spent Christmas day with all of my family. There are two other grandchildren (ages ranging from 5mos to 1.5 yrs old) in the family, so as you could imagine there were many toys and a lot of noise, which makes for a lot of fun and entertainment. Now that my Dad is retired, he's become quite the cook, we truly had upper-end restaurant quality meals. Who knows, maybe he'll become a personal cook for his second career! On the 29th of December we drove down to the San Francisco Zoo and toured the grounds with my sister Jenny, her Daughter Riley, her mother-in-law Chris, and Grandma, as well as my Sister-in-law Michelle, her son Sebbie and my parents. Payton had a wonderful time. She liked the lions the best and roared most of the day. She also loved riding the train around the zoo. They had a South American exhibit, but it was closed. I guess that's for the best, no point in ruining the unexpected sights prematurely. I should add that the Eureka Zoo has Patagonian Cavies! The following day we went to the San Francisco Aquarium, which was a lot of fun. Payton loved touching the star fish and could have done it for hours. We thought that one hour of star fish was probably enough, mostly for us, so we moved on.
For New Years Kevin & Michelle, Josh & Jenny and Jen and I went to a strip mall Italian restaurant, Cafe Giostra, with 4 star quality food. If you have read any of our previous blogs, it probably appears that we don't have anything negative to write. Well for the most part you're right, we just haven't had any problems with our food, nor have we been exposed to bad food. However, the service was mediocore at Cafe Giostra. Later that evening, we drove back to Santa Rosa and celebrated the New Year with Jeff and Susan at their new place, which is quite cute. New Year's was about family and good wine! Thanks everybody!
Now we're back in Willits and will begin the painstaking task of streamlining what we take to South America and what we leave behind. So far I have minimal clothes for everyday use, and too many clothes for all the activities we will partake in . I'm sure Jen and I will have some interesting discussions tommorow. Good thing my parents will take Payton to the Mendocino coast so that we can spread EVERYTHING out and start organizing.