Week 9

In spite of good intentions, I still missed a photo this week for Project 365. But I've thrown in two for Saturday so I still have seven.

Last Sunday after our service we celebrated February birthdays with empanadas and cake. The birthday boys look ready to dig in, don't they? We also watched videos from the summer camp they'd been to the week before.

This is a repeat from Monday but I wanted to make sure EVERYONE saw what a great job my hubby did on the bookshelf unit for the living room :-)  I have more photos on Monday's post.

[Still haven't finished the study/sewing room so no AFTER photos of that yet. But they're coming. Promise!]

Our friends arrive from the U.S.!

Leaving behind about 10" of snow in Michigan, they are enjoying the end of summer in Argentina. We're actually having perfect weather right now: in the high 70s/low 80s during the day and cooling down into the low 60s at night. I'm SOOOOOO GLAD the really hot weather we'd been having didn't stick around for their arrival!

As we were leaving one morning I noticed my morning glories are back! And they're all mixed in with the jasmine and roses, creating a little red, white and blue theme.

A pleasant afternoon on the back patio, getting some reading done.

Wally celebrated his birthday Saturday by taking us out to breakfast (I know, should have been the other way around but he's a giving kind of guy).

Breakfast is usually just some form of bread and coffee here. We had quite the spread, as you can see. The plate of meats and cheeses would normally be eaten in the afternoon, and I guess we attracted a bit of attention by having it in the morning. Saturday evening when we went out to dinner to a different place, another customer recognized us as the people who had had the ginormous breakfast at Vitto's. LOL

My Spanish tutor's dog had puppies a month ago and they are so adorable!

I really hope their mama wasn't too sick last night after scarfing down the whole plate of No Bake cookies I took over for the humans. Silly dog. I guess females of all species like chocolate.

Weeks 10 & 11

I'm finally catching up with Project 365 after being without internet most of the past two weeks while we traveled. Lots of photos to share!

I've only included one photo from last Monday when we were in Buenos Aires but hope that after you finish looking at today's Project 365, you'll take time to check out Thursday's post that includes many more PLUS a video!

As most of you know, we traveled to Uruguay for our annual missionary conference. We left Monday, March 1st, and the first photo I'm sharing was taken at the restaurant where we stopped for lunch during the 11-hour drive to Colón, Argentina. This is the owner/manager standing in front of just a few of the many photos lining shelves throughout the large dining area. When we asked about them, he proudly shared that they were customers and said that many of the "kids" have now become adults and still come in!

Ivan has a friend in Colón that we stopped to visit and we were fascinated by his dining room chairs that were hand-caned with corn husks! Absolutely beautiful workmanship.

Colón is a lovely city and we hope to return some day when we have time to explore. As it was, we arrived late Monday evening and left early Tuesday. On our way out of town we stopped and took this photo by the Uruguay River.

Crossing the border, we found trucks lined up for a mile or more on either side, waiting to be cleared through customs.

Many of the drivers had pulled out tables and were drinking mate (herb tea) while they visited with one another. Looked like they were prepared for a long wait.

Conference was at a campground within walking distance of the Atlantic Ocean.

The ladies have an afternoon tea each year and I was so busy enjoying that time with the other women that I forgot to take any photos during the tea. So I only have this one I took beforehand as they were setting up.

Last full day of conference we took a group photo (which is missing our teammates who had to make a quick trip to the dentist's).

Taking advantage of being so close, we spent a couple days in Buenos Aires on the way home. We took the ferry from Uruguay to Bs. As. Waiting to board, our car is in the lower left-hand corner (with the duffle and suitcase on top).

We waited for our friends at the port in Bs. As. since they were booked on a later ferry. It was fun to walk around; about thirty HUGE sailing vessels were there for a regatta and, because cruise ships dock here, they've turned the area into a very cool shopping/restaurant district.

The missionary friends who hosted us have a park ministry on Sunday evenings. They play games and have story time with whatever kids show up.

I hope you take time to check out the photo-intensive post about our tour of the city on a double decker bus. Included in that post is a short video of these folk dancers in La Boca.

Tuesday was the loooooooong trip home. Twelve hours in which I slept off and on. Conference and Buenos Aires were fun but exhausting! I didn't even think about taking a photo but Ivan snapped this amusing shot in a bathroom along the way.

It looks like it says "No U.S.A." but that's because the cardboard is folded in such a way that the "r" on "usar" can't be seen. LOL

Wednesday I have no photo. If I had, it would have been the mounds of laundry we worked on all day (and Thursday too). Four people, nine days, plus sheets and towels for the week of conference = A LOT OF LAUNDRY.

While we were gone it must have rained quite a bit because the yard was full of flowers, from almost every rose bush in bloom to masses of morning glories cascading over the fence. 

Friday we took our friends to Sta. Rosa. They're going to spend a couple of weeks there resting (we hope!). We were showing them around the area when we saw this beautiful double rainbow.

The last photo is for my mother-in-law. I know she'll be interested in seeing the new grocery store in Sta. Rosa.  

As much as I enjoy traveling and seeing new places, it is VERY good to be home :-)  In the past two weeks we've put over 2700 km on the car (1701 miles, to be exact). I'm quite happy to unpack the suitcase and stay put for a while.

Week 12

After my recent fun travel photos for Project 365, this week's offerings look rather mundane. But mundane is how my life looks 99% of the time. Just how I like it :-)

Upon our return from conference, we were pleased to see our cherry tomato plant is still going strong.

Monday I started catching up on expense reports. Ugh.

There's been no work on the house next door in a while. The outside stucco has been finished for several weeks and no workers have appeared since then.

In my ongoing effort to learn the language I've started watching Spanish television. My favorites are cooking and craft shows.

I thought I had a really cool photo for Thursday because on our way home from Cordoba we spotted dozens of parachutes floating in the sky. I didn't have the camera so Ivan gave me his cell phone but I'd never used it before and with the sun shining so brightly, I couldn't tell that I had NOT actually taken a photo until we got home and tried to load it onto the computer. Boo hoo! 

Instead I offer this sad photo of my hydrangeas. Does anyone have a clue what happened to them? They didn't do this last year. Do I have an infestation of some kind? I am completely clueless about plants. HELP!

Friday it stormed and afterward I took photos of raindrop covered flowers. I love the way the afternoon sun slants and casts a special light on things at that time of day.

And no, I did not change the saturation on this photo. These are the true colors!

Also on Friday, I prewashed the fabrics for my newest quilting project and line dried them. I'm one of those always-wash-the-fabric-first kind of quilters, after one really bad experience early on when I didn't prewash and one of the fabrics puckered, ruining the quilt.

I've been wanting to do something in black and white for a long time, but was inspired to add another color. Considering my current passion for green, is it any wonder that's what I chose? Plus a wee bit of yellow. Not sure I am capable of making a quilt without yellow :-)

Saturday afternoon I finally started cutting and sewing. It took a while to figure out the math on this one. I'm combining elements from several quilts I've seen in magazines so I don't have a pattern to follow. Considering my mathematically challenged brain, getting anything done beyond that is an accomplishment! This is just one row of blocks (it's folded over the line so you can only see half).

I don't have enough fabric (at this point) for a whole quilt. Not sure if I'll just do what I can with what I have -- maybe make a small quilt (four rows) to use on the couch in cold weather -- or do what I can with what I have and then have more fabric sent in order to make it full-size (seven or eight rows). But either way, I'm TOTALLY LOVING the colors and simplicity of this quilt so far. Once I have the rows pieced, I'll applique a few large daisies here and there.

Week 13

Ivan had not made it home yet when I posted last week’s Project 365 so this week I wanted to share just one photo (among many!) from his trip to the air show last weekend. I’m not sure anything thrills him quite as much as the sight of a long line of small planes :-)

Monday we needed to take photos for our D.N.I.s (national I.D.s). Dicky’s is the place everyone told us to go. It’s a small store and was pretty crowded so once we had our photos taken, I went outside to wait. Here’s Ivan coming out -- with not only photos for the D.N.I.s but also the ones we’ll need for our driver’s licenses (the next thing on the “to do” list).

We’re QUITE EXCITED to finally have our D.N.I.s and you can read that story on my post "A Cola in Argentina is not a soft drink".

The ants were quite busy around our house this week. With cooler weather they’re preparing for winter. It never ceases to amaze me how such tiny creatures can carry much larger things for long distances! There was a line of ants stretching across the back yard, starting near a pile of rose petals.

The sky has been incredibly blue this week. That’s something we really appreciate about living here. Falls and winters are not gray and overcast but bright and sunny with intense blue skies.

A ram in the back of a pickup -- while you probably wouldn’t see this in the capital city, it’s not an unusual sight in any other town in the province!

This next photo is more for the family, especially mother. The trees at the house in Sta. Rosa are SOOOOO tall now. Can you see K in the lower left corner, near the gate? I’m sure those in the family can remember when the trees were planted many years ago -- just a few feet tall at the time. ¡Qúe diferencia!

We went to Sta. Rosa on Friday to pick up our friends who have been staying there. They took us to a wonderful little tea house in Belgrano they’d discovered. Lovely place with plate glass windows overlooking the low sierras serving fabulous loose teas and pastries. I ordered #13 on the menu: Deep Africa, featuring red tea from South Africa with touches of coconut, cocoa, vanilla and just a hint of caramel. It was like dessert in a cup!

Anyone have a desire to move to Argentina and become a hotelier? While K and I were walking around Sta. Rosa we came across this hotel for sale, right on the main street. Lovely older building that Ivan says is a landmark in the town. Wonderful piece of property just calling out for someone who is ready for a change in their lives!

[No, Sharon, I’m not specifically targeting you with this photo, but if you want to take it personally, that’s up to you :-)]

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my weekly offering for Project 365! Make sure to stop by Sara’s and visit the other participants.

Week 14

Last weekend we went to Sta. Rosa to pick up Wally & Katie (we'd left them there for two weeks with a rental car and a dictionary -- and they did just fine!). Saturday evening we went to a new tea house in Belgrano that has wifi so I could upload photos for Project 365. While we were sitting on the veranda I snapped this photo that I just had to share this week.

The views of the mountains from this tea shop are just stunning.

Sunday we headed home to Carlos Paz but stopped several times so Katie and I could take photos. A little background: a few years ago they built a new road on the other side of Lago Los Molinos that's not as steep and winding as Route 5. I am SOOOOO thankful for it! There's still a section of Route 5 between Ciudad de las Americas (where the newer road starts) and Alta Gracia that always makes me a little nauseous from the many twists and hairpin turns but we can now avoid the worst of the old road to Sta. Rosa. Anyway, they finally finished the section that connects the newer road to Route 5 near Belgrano so you don't have to go through town; it's a straight shot as you can see here:

My mother-in-law would especially appreciate the new road and how much nicer the drive is into Cordoba (or Carlos Paz) now.

I failed to take any photos on Monday and Tuesday. Too busy having fun with Wally and Katie and TALKING. I even talked my way through a couple of almost disasters in the kitchen :-)  These are NOT soap suds!

It's milk that I was heating for the coffee and as it warmed I whipped it with a little battery-operated whisk I have -- but then I got side-tracked talking (!) and when I turned around the foam was about 6 inches above the pan. I turned off the burner and ran for the camera but it had already gone down several inches by the time I was able to snap this photo.

I completely and utterly failed to take any photos Tuesday night of the large group here to meet Wally and Katie and enjoy asado. 

Wednesday morning was a beautiful clear day so we took Wally and Katie up the chair lift to the top of the mountain so they could see out over the city. Had fun taking self portraits on the way up.

The last half of the week we were all a little tired of the excessive amounts of food we'd been consuming so for dinner began just munching on cheese and crackers or popcorn and apples or sliced cold roast beef and fontina cheese, along with tea or decaf coffee, as we kicked back and relaxed in the living room.

Our friends left today. It was very hard to say goodbye! I missed them before they even got past the glass doors.

It's been wonderful to have them here and we thoroughly enjoyed every minute of their visit. Now it's back to the same old, same old. *sigh*

Hope everyone has a blessed Easter tomorrow!

Week 15

This year seems to be going even faster than last year -- can we seriously already be on week 15 of Project 365?!

I did better this week about taking photos every day but not very exciting ones. We're back to walking almost every day and most of mine are from those walks. But it was either that or more photos of clothes hanging on the line. And for those who do not share my laundry fetish, I know you'd just as soon never see another line of clothes -- yours or any one elses :-) We did make our monthly marathon shopping trip to Cordoba this week and I have two photos from that, but not super interesting ones. My life has settled back into the ho-hum of ordinary, which suits me just fine.

Last weekend the young men who helped us over the summer went back to Bible Institute, but before they left they hosted a two-day soccer tournament. Ivan took a ton of photos but I think these three typify (IMO) what boys this age most like about sports:

Agree or disagree?

Y'all have followed the progress of the lake which, for a while, I was calling the field-formerly-known-as-a-lake. You'll be happy to know the recent rains have done a fabulous job in filling it back up as you can tell in this photo that once again shows the boats are afloat!

Seen in Cordoba: we got a huge kick out of this -- the sofa is about as big as the auto!

Empanadas are meat pies and every region of Argentina has their own favorite filling. Because this is a touristy area, you can get a wide variety but my favorite includes ground or chopped beef, hard boiled eggs, sweet potatoes, and raisins; a meat pie with a slightly sweet flavor. I've not been shy about admitting my challenges with producing an edible pie dough but that's not a concern with empanadas because I have a wide variety of packaged doughs to choose from:

This is the cooler case at Walmart holding probably a dozen varieties, that all come in packs of 10.

We have access to fresh bay leaves year-round because of this giant bush about a block from our house that's on public land, right next to the road!

Parrots are a huge pest here. They're prolific and persistent. And LOUD. Half the parrots had already flown off when we stopped to take this photo, but the four you can still see weren't about to leave their tasty snack shop (a.k.a. someone's garbage) until we got even closer.

I have no idea what this viney flower is, but it's lush and beautiful. It covered not only the fence at this house but climbed up the house and draped itself elegantly over the second floor balcony.

This is the plane Ivan's been helping his friend work on. Anyone want to buy a home built, experimental airplane? Our friend Julio designed and built it (with a little help from his friends) but can no longer fly it (due to health issues) so he's looking for a good home for his baby. Saturday it made an inaugural appearance at a small air show held in a nearby town.

That's all for this week...couches on cars, parrots and planes and purple flowers, soccer takedowns and supermarket treasures.