Chile Lindo

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As parents with small kids, I think you end up taking those small moments where everything is going well, be it five minutes, ten minutes, or whatever, and they make an entire day worth it...even though there may have been a lot of effort, a fair bit of whining (not necessarily just from the kids), and a few moments where you thought that maybe the whole endeavor you’d undertaken could have been a mistake...

...yesterday was like that for us. As I mentioned in my last blog post, we had all been smacked in the face a bit by the undertaking of moving here, and the weekend had been ruled somewhat by that stress. We did make the effort though on Sunday afternoon to focus on going to a festival called “Chile Lindo” (loosely translated it means “Beautiful Chile”) in a park close to the rental apartment we’d be staying in, which had rides, games, music, and food and drinks. And it was hot, and busy, and the kids were both kind of running hot and cold...but then we had one of those moments that make all the effort worth it, and I think it helped put our frustrations of the past few days into perspective, as we watched the kids dance like little maniacs to Latin music and crush French fries, while we drank sangrias and ate empanadas while sitting on the grass. And maybe it only lasted fifteen or twenty minutes like that, but it made all that effort worth it, and we both felt great for the rest of the day, and looking forward to more of the experiences like the one we just had.

And that probably helped us laugh a little bit about some of the roadblocks we ran into last week, as we get used to the small nuances of how things work down here...some of which will have to be part of another blog post at some point.

So I sit here tonight and we have moved into our house, and the house has heat, and we now have internet, and the kids have started school today and did amazing...on a side note I think we may have been starving Zoe of learning, as when we picked her up she went into a 15 minute diatribe on dinosaurs, which is the theme at the moment at her school and she is soooo excited for a trip to the natural history museum tomorrow. Zoe literally got to the school, sat down and started colouring, said bye and that was it so I think she was happy to start. She did however mention that she did not know what toys to play with at some point, so just sat there and stared down at the cars on the highway. Maelle did well too, although may have stolen some other kids cookie...anyway, we are settling in here, and it’s exciting to be learning so much about a new place. And a few moments of zen along the way certainly help.

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Photos

Chile Lindo
And here it is your moment of zen...

Comments

[Sylvia Howard]

Thinking of you and enjoying your Chilean Blog
Hi Steph and Family. Love this latest and greatest pic of you four enjoying a picnic. Everyone looks so happy and relaxed. S.