Holidays are stuff... and Allie does stuff.

Holidays are nice, they make me realize how much I can't stand not having a job to go to every day! My class schedule started tapering down mid November and by about December 20th, I had nothing at all. At that time, a summer break seemed nice. I had many visitors scheduled, plans for travel, etc. By the time I started working again on the 19th of January, I couldn't wait. Goodness. I didn't really realize it until now, but I love teaching! I'm probably the only gringa in Chile who likes her job! Anyway, this summer I'm interning at One World Nursery and I have a few private classes outside the institute with some students in the neighborhood and with a kid in Renaca. Yayyyy, work! It's back!

Anyhoo, this was intended to be a post about time off from work. My family visited for a little over a week at the end of December/beginning of January. We explored. We had fun. They were all super adventurous and I was very proud. It was great to see them and sad when they left. It will be nice to live close to them again when I finally head back to the states. (It's strange when the idea of a 3,000 mile distance seems "close..." Crazy Chile rots your brain.)

The cast of characters:

Mom on horseback in Con Con on Christmas day. One of our group members was thrown from her horse! Luckily it wasn't Mom!



Dad! Decidedly too optimistic about his pastel de choclo.



Boy! He is just a bucket of sunshine, isn't he?



Vince, one of my best friends ever, also came to visit. We did a bit of traveling and then (unfortunately but not unexpectedly) I got sick and had to leave him to take on South America on his own for awhile. I've been so proud of his ability to meld his extensive understanding of English and French into an ability to comprehend Spanish. Yay, Vince! He leaves today, and I'll be sad to see him go.

Here we are in a fantastic Peruvian Restaurant in Santiago. Yummmmm.... (Photo courtesy of M-dogggg)



Check out my "I'm a pre-school teacher and I'm going to send you to time out" look. I'm getting good at it, huh? Wardrobe helps.



Am I becoming one of those girls who just loooooooves to teach pre-school?

I think so.

Besos,
Allie