The Edge of the Earth

Patagonia. The edge of the earth.  Something about it has drawn me in for years. Its proximity to nothingness except snow and ice.  Its harsh and breathtaking landscape.

We finally ventured to the extreme south of Chile to see it.  Three flights and a 4 hour drive later, we were like ants coming upon one of the most spectacularly majestic landscapes I have ever seen - Torres del Paine.  Its two-toned ridges are well-known throughout the world, and as we crept closer, the views just kept getting better.

We stayed right at the entrance of the park in Hotel Rio Serrano.  I highly recommend it.  The rooms, the common spaces, and the restaurants all have gigantic windows where you can just stare into the face of the grand mountains.  I found myself doing this quite often.  Even the kids were in awe by their greatness.

It seems to me a family of four with two young kids is quite in the minority of the type of visitors to the park.  Mainly there were two kinds, one being the large tours (mostly of empty-nesters and retirees enjoying a more luxurious type of tour), and then the 20-something hardcore backpacks who were there to hike the "W".  The "W" is a 4(ish) day hike around the Torres where you get up close and personal with nature day and night.  Obviously, we didn't fall into either of these categories, so we choose to stay in a hotel and do a more self-guided tour.  It really worked out well.  We stocked up with a cooler and food in Punta Arenas (where we flew into and stayed one night), then toured the area and the park at our own speed.

We drove basically the whole road through the park so we got to see everything.  Along the way are tons of trails for hiking as well as gorgeous viewpoints.  There are many alpaca, lagunas, and rivers as well.  I loved this trip.  Now, for pics.


View from the plane.  This is NOT Torres del Paine.  I have no idea what it is, but as soon as I saw it I thought it was Elsa's ice castle.

Somewhere along the road from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales.  Isaac learned how to blow dandelions, and from that point on he tried blowing every flower he found, dandelion or not.

The view from Puerto Natales

My loves single-filed in our first hike to an old cave from the ice age

Isaac loved riding in the backpack!

Sadie is obsessed with horses.  She wanted to ride it but obviously that wasn't a thing.

Scary mylodon in the cave!

Majestic alpaca

This was one of my favorite viewpoints, but the wind was ferocious.  As in, you would be walking, concentrating on hiking and balancing against the very strong winds, and then all of a sudden an even larger HUGE gust would come and knock you over so you had to catch yourself or you would fall over.  Poor Isaac couldn't even walk in it.  

Holding onto my children against the wind.

Lago Pehoe (pronounced "pay-o-ay").  That is a little hotel right on the water that you have to cross a bridge to get to the island.  It's very very adorable and has the best view in the park!

The kids are adorable.

Best view.

Each kid wanted to touch the lake.  It was FREEZING.

The view.

Hiking to Salto Chico, which is a little waterfall.  We didn't get a picture of the falls because the trail was extremely tricky around there, so we were focused on holding onto the kids.  This is actually right by the hotel called Explora.  We went in for a quick refuge against the wind, and it is spectacular.

Mark it down in history - Steve's first selfie.

Our hotel had great common spaces, and here Sadie is enjoying playing pool against Steve.  She won obviously.

The sun sets around 10:30pm and rises again around 4:45am.  The kids woke up around 7 and immediately opened our curtains to look at our view as well as the horses that walk around all day in the pastures around us. Sadie has great bedhead, right?

Hiking to Lago Grey to see Glacier Grey.

We made it to the beach! It was crazy windy as we hiked to the icebergs.

Steve trying to cover the kids from the winds.

We ended up having to leave the beach area before we made it all the way to the glacier viewpoint, so we stopped in at Hotel Grey (the only hotel on Lago Grey) for some hot chocolate and a great view of the glacier.  So, it worked out!

Playing outside by the hotel.  They loved running around chasing the ducks and the horses.

Jugo break!

On the way back we stopped at Puerto Natales for coffee and lunch.  We found this great place that had a kid area with tons of dinosaurs.  You can see Sadie is a great sharer.

Only family pic in Punta Arenas (it was actually snowing).

Isaac will be back to Punta Arenas again some day (as the legend goes), or he will have safe passage (also how a different legend goes...)

Potty Training. It Happened.

Thia post is about potty training. It might be extremely boring or TMI for some of you so feel free to ignore. For others it might be interesting. Just know I am writing this for future me and future Sadie.

I put off potty training as long as I could. I had no desire and so there was no rush. The problem was, Sadie was ready. She told me when she was doing her business, she was very interested in what everyone else did in the bathroom, she loved reading "Everyone Poops" and other classics. So when I was in the US I invested in the book "Oh Crap! Potty Training" and started reading. I am definitely the type of person who, when knowing nothing about a topic, needs to immediately dive in and research the hell out of it. I need to create a reference manual and instructions as well as an explanation of the various philosophies for myself so I can choose the right way for me. At least that WAS me. And still sometimes is i guess. But, for potty training, a few different mothers of 3 recommended it to me, and I decided if it worked for them it will work for me. And it did. I read the book and decided we would just go cold turkey for both day and night.

The first week was full of surprises. Sadie did awesome. She got it within a couple hours. There was a lot of naked time and a few accidents (especially when we left the house. Yes she pooped on the beach.) But most of all, because of her age and personality, i had to really let go and let her learn this herself. Hovering and asking her if she needed to go were bad. Leaving her alone and trusting her were (hard!!) good.

Most of all, i learned that people make way too big of a deal out of potty training. I probably didnt need to read a book to figure it out. When parents are under pressure to do it in "3 days" like many online posts promise, then the kid is also under that pressure, and there are negative results.

Using the toilet is a learned behavior. Just like anything, with practice and understanding of expectations, it gets easier.  We are about 3 weeks in, and i would definitely say she is "potty trained". There will be the occassional accident for a while yet I am sure, but so what. I have never been less afraid of poop and pee, and so proud of my daughter for pooping in the right place when she does. Seriously every time I get excited and so does she.

In sum, i recommend the book. It has some great advice, especially how to talk to your kid about it. Certain statements to use (ie never ask them if they need to go, they will say no 99% of time). She also had really great tips about how to night train and make it easier on yourself.

So, good luck! Put that poop in the potty!

Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  While I love Christmas (the other probably obvious choice), fall is my favorite season, and for whatever reason, there is just something about Thanksgiving that makes my heart so full.  Is it the food?  Perhaps.  But, in my memory bank, I can play various Thanksgivings over and over in my head and just feel the love, the warmth, the comfort. And, there's not even presents! ;)  I just love Thanksgiving.  I love going through recipes and deciding which ones to make.  I love envisioning what the dishes will look like.  I love waking up and getting the food prepped and smelling all the delicious rosemary and sage and onions. I love seeing the turkey carved. I love sitting at a large table full of family and friends and talking about what we are thankful for one by one.  I love playing football after a huge meal (even though someone always gets hurt).  I love choosing which pie to try (and then sneaking in a few more slices throughout the evening).  It's such a great day.  I love it.

I wasn't able to celebrate the last two Thanksgivings in the US.  In fact, last year, I didn't celebrate with food at all.  This year, however, I got my chance.  I made a turkey, cornbread stuffing (without two major ingredients!! SAGE was one!!), cranberry sauce, and cheesecake (no pumpkin here!). We took it over to our friends' house, and celebrated with 25 other people with swimming and football (it's summer here, remember?).  We had a lot of fun, and the food was wonderful. 

Our Trip to the USA 2015

We love America.  We love our family and friends there.  And, yet, we aren't able to go very often, so when we do, we try to balance packing lots of activities in with also not creating more difficulties when traveling with two under 3. 

This time when we went, Isaac and I got to sit in Economy Plus in the bulk head seating with use of a bassinet (if you ever travel internationally with an infant, REQUEST THE BASSINET).  I have requested ever time, but this is the first time I got it.  It was amazing.  However, Isaac didn't love it, slept for 3 hours in it and then the rest of the time wanted to be on my lap.  It's tough traveling with kids, let's be honest.  But, we did it and it was worth it!

First up, Isaac's baptism.  Matt and Katie were Isaac's godparents, and we really enjoyed the day with lots of family and friends (thank you to all those who came!!), food, and swimming.  Isaac was a little tired through the whole ceremony (we woke him up from his nap), so no smiles :(, but got to love that white suit!

On that day we also took some great family photos.

 I love this one with all the cousins! (sans Isaac who was too busy sleeping...)

The next day happened to be my birthday, so we celebrated by going to a pumpkin patch in Marble Falls that had every fall-related kid activity you would ever imagine.  Sadie LOVED feeding the goats and jumping on a large blog.  Isaac was super into the little pumpkins.

Our trip to Austin was rounded out by a trip to Salt Lick.  I've never seen Isaac eat so much...

Next on our agenda was Houston for a very very spectacular wedding.  We were so lucky to be a part of it as Sadie was the flower girl.  She isn't even 3 yet, and she has already walked down the aisle (with a very handsome Noah!).  I love that everyone in my family is such a good dancer.  So much fun.  So much love.

And, finally, the kids were able to spend some quality time with Great-Grandpa.  Here is my favorite picture of the trip.  I can't believe how much they look alike!

To all our family and friends that made our trip so wonderful, thank you for making time for us!

To all those we missed during our visit, we will make up for lost time soon!

My daughter, my pirate warrior

When Sadie was 8 months old she was diagnosed with Duane's Syndrome, an extremely rare congenital eye condition. What it means is that she was born without an optic nerve in her left eye that controls the muscle.  In other words, she is unable to move her left eye outward.  There is no cure.  This is something she will have to live with for the rest of her life.  The good news is that in theory her vision shouldn't be affected, although there can be issues with head posture and movement as her body compensates for the lack of peripheral vision on her left side. Over the past two years things have been seemingly developing well.  However, during our recent visit to the pediatric ophthalmologist, we learned that her vision is substandard, and the dreaded eye patch to strengthen her left eye was recommended.  You can imagine how thrilled Sadie and I were at the news.

So, here we go. Let's convince an almost three year old to wear an eye patch for 2 hours a day (thank goodness it is only 2 hours!).  The first day was seamless. Shockingly.  Every day since then (as long as she gets to set the timer and look forward to ice cream and Peppa Pig when it goes off - with a few occasional reminders during the 2 hours- she does pretty well.

Every day when I watch her with that eye patch on, I can't help but feel sad for her.  Not constantly, but as a very empathetic person (and her mom!) I hate to see her have to go through anything abnormal or potentially painful.  Luckily, this isn't painful for her, and so far Isaac hasn't made fun of her or tried to pull it off her.  Needless to say we stick around the house for those couple hours.  It could be a lot worse, and for that we are lucky.

So here is my beautiful daughter being her awesome pirate self.

Lesson in Cooking: Mussels

In case it isn't clear, we live by the ocean.  This means that there should be a ton of fresh seafood options.  We have two big fish markets (one south in Colosso) and one north on the main drag.  It is quite difficult to go to these places with kids, so I only go about once a month.  The fish we have gotten has always been very good.  The other option is that sometimes there is local fresh seafood in Jumbo.  I look every time I go, and yesterday, we found very fresh mussels.  I'm not a huge fan, but Steve insisted since he LOVES them.  So, we bought about a kilo, and last night I made them.  Here is my story.

Have you ever prepared mussels?  I haven't.  I've never even thought about buying them and attempting to prepare them myself, but I like a challenge.  After reading some things online, I decided to use wiki instructions to clean them: http://www.wikihow.com/Clean-Mussels
It took quite awhile to choose, soak, scrub and rinse a kilo of mussels.  The most fun part for me was watching them "breathe" while soaking them.  I was extremely careful about making sure the mussels were still alive, so I ended up having to throw some away (they must have died in transit from the store to our house).  After an hour worth of cleaning, I used this recipe to actually cook them.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/steamed-mussels-recipe.html

I sauteed some shallots, garlic, and fresh thyme in olive oil, tossed in the mussels and added chicken broth, white wine, red pepper flakes and butter for a good steam (I omitted the recommended tomatoes only because I didn't have any).  It was pretty quick to cook them - only 5-10 minutes.  I poured them in a bowl and served with fresh bread and steamed artichokes.  It was a great grown-up meal, and the mussels were fantastic! The broth was especially good.  Try the recipe!