Janine and the Boys visit U.S.

The family took advantage of their flier miles and had booked a trip to NY a while back. They had about 12 days visiting friends and from all I've heard it went well.
A few snapshots of some museum trips and general hanging around.

Our House

Here are some pictures of our house "Villa Punk". That's our sporty little car parked out front. It's a bit of an industrial facade, but in a way it's perfect for here. Not inviting to robbers in appearance or access. On the inside it's comfortable and homey. Perhaps in the near future we can remodel a bit. I have some ideas.

Starting below left, then clockwise;
1.Top of the stairs landing. 2.The playroom. 3.Patio parilla. 4. Up the street. 5. Our Bedroom. 6. The kitchen. 7. The kid's room. 8. The guest room. 9. Frontage. 10. Down the street. 11. The galpon. 12. Kid's playing. 13. The bathroom. 14.Entrance 15. Garage door 16.Kid's beds. 17. Kid's closet. 18. Kitchen. 19. Patio again, kitchen and side entrance. 20.The dining area, stairs and the living room. 21. Patio toward front. 22. Upstairs landing.

The galpon, the huge space behind the house, is a part of the parking garage next door. The original lot included both the house and the garage. When it was divided, the city required the split off lot to be a minimum size, so the house got the 'galpon'. The kids are happy with a field to play a variety of sports.
They will have to give it up for a short time though. I am taking a little less than half for my new workshop and right now its' full of my stuff. When I slow down on San Salvador, I will build a wall separating the two areas and give the kids back some space. Yeah, yeah, I'll get to it.

So, that's it. Our house.

Vincent turns 10

Vincent had his 10th birthday this past weekend and the party was a success. One of our usual places was chosen; Wimbledon. They have a large covered field for futbol and another paved court for everything else.
Vincent invited both 4th grade classes and almost everybody came. Add a few friends of Luca and we had quite a crowd.









The teenage 'helpers' were great as usual keeping everybody active and we could hardly clear the place out after three hours of craziness. It was a blast. OK, for me it was a bit less than blasty, but we did watch an important futbol match btw. Uruguay and Paraguay. Uruguay won two, almost three nil and it was a really good game.

La Paloma

I have a few more pictures from our vacation to La Paloma in January.
It's still a favorite beach destination of mine, all things considered.
I wouldn't rule out trying our hand at a summer business there someday.

Here's both Luca and Vincent catching a wave!

Janine looks

the part in that wetsuit.

The boys have a refreshing smoothie by the beach.

Our friend Claudia has vertigo,
but went to the top of the lighthouse anyway.

"El Grillo" gives the kids their first instruction on surfing.









La Paloma Futbol Club (LPFC) portrait.

El Campo

In November of '07 we were invited to a friends small ranch somewhere in the countryside. It was a gorgeous five, count em, 5 hour ride, at times we drove an hour between any road or driveway break at all.


We had a couple of great days riding and relaxing. There was a caretaker couple that cooked and kept the place up.


As cows are too big to be butchered often, we ate only lamb, sheep really, in everything. I don't really like lamb, but it was the only the only meat on the menu and there was no snacking. Like camp, the only food was at mealtime. So everybody built up quite an appetite. A very old refrigerator was able to keep butter and milk cool enough not to spoil, but everything else was farm to table. It was great. We made an asado with a kind of screen lean-to, gaucho style. It was simple and natural.



The best was the riding. It was new for our kids to ride wherever they pleased 'out on the range', but our friends were really familiar with the land. Their oldest son Pedro was a natural on a horse.
The horses were gentle for the most part. No one had put the one stallion in the pen, before the girls mounted up to ride and there was an incident. Janine's horse became the object of affection and there was a ruckus. I wasn't there, but Jani said she jumped from her horse to get out of the way, injuring herself a bit on the fence. That was all for her.
The men had better luck. I'm not any great rider, but was galloping like a cowboy. We went for hours, running when we wanted, passing through fields and fields. Lots of cattle, some windmills. It was amazing.
I snapped a few pictures. I can be conflicted about taking pictures. It's nice to have the image/ memories and of course handy when trying to share the experience, but stopping to capture an experience interupts it and sometimes spoils it.
It's a conundrum, no?
I hope we get the chance to go again sometime.





























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