2006 Highlights
As you will see, this has been a busy year....and remember that these are only some highlights. There are more pictures and stories to see when you follow the links. January On January 7, Artie helped Gonzalo and Katy purchase their first car.

Charles and Karen visited January 9-15. They had lived in Santiago in the early 1990s, when Charles was the General Manager at OxyChile. Karen was the first of many OxyChile people that Mónica has tutored in Spanish. Charles and Karen are currently Missionaries in Uraguay and came back to Santiago for meetings and visits.

After much looking, we found the retirement apartment we wanted on January 16, and 3 days later had a handshake agreement. We got quite involved in selection of materials for its renovation. On February 28, Artie got the official papers for our apartment. This will be our home in Santiago in a few years.

On January 24, Marianne had surgery to remove a malignant tumor in her brain. Her sucessful surgery and her kiss afterwards were the best birthday gifts Larry received that day. We were all relieved.

February We were in the notary office signing papers for the apartment on February 10, when Mónica got a call from her son Alejandro from the doctor's office announcing that his wife Flaca was expecting their first baby. A second grandbaby for Mónica!

On February 14, we went to a downtown hotel to spend a little time with Naomi and Seymour, who were in Santiago for a few days before heading out on a cruise. Naomi is the sister of a long time family friend, Alan.

March Bob, Dave and Don were in Chile doing a corporate safety audit, and Artie took them to see the Andes Mountains on March 25th. Note: All possible safety precautions were taken to pose for this picture.

Artie made a business trip to Buenos Aires and got together with his possible distant cousins, Fanny, Selig, and Sarah on March 28.

Steve, Carlos, Manuel and Steve posed for this shot inside the Talcahuano plant on March 31 during the visit of the two Steves. They helped provide an independant view of safety performance and offered inspiration for continuous improvement. The Steve on the right, a long time friend of over 25 years, stayed on with us for a visit. Steve's Visit has more photos and stories of what he did while he was here.

April Artie's former boss, Mike, the previous OxyChile General Manager, and currently responsible for OxyChem's global sales, came to Chile for business meetings including this customer golf event on April 4, while Steve was still here.
Sergio, Erhard and Mike		Mario, Steve, Erhard, Sergio, Mike and Artie

Mauricio is now training for the New York Marathon in 2007.

A marathon race was held in Santiago on April 9. This year, our friend Mauricio entered and ran his first marathon. We had to run alongside to catch this picture. Whew! We couldn't make it more than a block or two.

Artie participates as an expert panelist in the Human Capital Institute's bi-monthly global webcasts on the topic of mentoring. He has been a volunteer mentor for several years and is a member of the advisory council for Menttium®, a corporation dedicated to assist high potential personel to develop in their careers. The photo is an image of the welcome screen for the webcast on April 14. See Human Capital Institute and Menttium for more information about these organizations

Irv, head of Energy Services for Occidental Petroleum, came to assist OxyChile with energy issues. On April 26, he joined Artie and a couple of the plant management team on a tour of one of Endesa's hydroelectric power generation stations.

On April 22, a day before Artie's birthday, Mónica hosted a joint birthday party for him and for a visitor from Mexico. Mireya and her husband Alejandro were in Santiago before going on a cruise to Brazil. They are next door neighbor's of Mónica's son, daughter-in-law and grandaughter who live in Mexico. Mónica knew them well from two long visits there.

Who is the little paper cut-out figure in the hands of this Chilean school girl? It's "Flat Stanley!" He arrived in an envelope April 26th as part of a school project for our great niece, 8 year-old Maddie, in Upton MA. Each student in her class was asked to send Stanley to friends and family, so that he could get around, and then report back on his experiences. We had fun showing him around town, and even to the US Ambassador to Chile's house! To see more, check out Flat Stanley's visit. And who is the Chilean school girl? This is Abigail who comes to our apartment once a week for English lessons with Margy, who is improving her Spanish at the same time.

May May 6th Artie achieved his next level belt in Aikido, the 4th Kyu. Having started in March of 2005, he's now got over a year "under his belt," and is still learning more while enjoying the process. This photo was taken the day he was awarded the new level, by Sensei Hugo Veliz, on the left, and Sensei Gonzalo Parra, on the right.

Mónica made one of her special home-made dinners at the new apartment, the first for invited guests, for our special friends Gina and Pablo, on May 11th. It was an early "farewell," to wish them luck in their plans to head to the Research Triangle in North Carolina, to live there with the family for one year while Pablo completes advanced executive course work at Duke University.

		June
Adella enjoys photos of friends in Chile		Devlin and Peter pose for after-wedding shots
In June we made a trip to the USA. Cristián joined us from Spain. We stopped briefly in New Jersey to see Artie's 92 year old mom, Adella, on June 3rd, then headed up that afternoon to Bear Mountain NY for niece Devlin and Peter's wedding. From there we enjoyed a few days in our New Hamshire condo, visiting friends and having visitors to share our 37th anniversary on June 7th.

June 7th we worked on a project at the apartment assembling a new table (which proved we could still work peacefully together after all these years), and then went out to dinner to celebrate the anniversary with our family and Den and Cari, who drove up from Baltimore to spend a few days with us.

		Dennis kept us laughing with his funny faces (only for the camera, since he doesn't always look like this!), and Cari relaxed with us while we enjoyed some of Cristián's music. After Dennis and Cari left, nephew Danny came up one afternoon, June 9, to visit and enjoy Cristián's music too.

After taking Cristián to the Boston Airport June 10th, for his return to Spain, we made a quick stop to see Sherry and Stewart and their daughter Ali at their downtown Boston apartment. We enjoyed a quick home-made dinner they prepared and then ran back to our condo to prepare ourselves for the next day's return to Chile.

		July
We decided to shop for a new kitchen, and on July 4, we signed the contract for the new cabinets for the kitchen and the laundry room in the Malaga apartment. Angélica helped us with the designs at their business, above.

On July 17 Artie went to La Laguna with Mónica and Gustavo to look at a vacant lot with an ocean view. Mónica wants to invest the money from the sale of her apartment in el centro (top floor upper right) into an asset that can grow in value and provide for her retirement.

August On August 12, Cristián, who had returned from Spain on July 5 for his summer break, earned his 4th Kyu in Aikido at the central dojo.

Alice and Carl visited us from August 17-23, and on August 20, the four of us visited the Sewell community and copper mine. We finished the day at Mónica's for dinner.
		While dinner was being prepared, Cote tried to hear baby Agustin's heartbeat with the stethoscope that used to belong to Margy's father. She needed one for her university studies.

Angela and Ariff visited us August 24-29.		Ariff conducted an Aikido seminar and Artie translated.

September On September 20, we bid farewell to Cristián when he returned to Seville, Spain for his 3rd year of study for his doctorate in early music. His grandmother, mother, uncle, Antonia, his girlfriend, and sister were at the airport with us, all wishing him the best.

By late September, the kitchen and laundry room had an entirely new look. This picture shows the finished kitchen, with new floor tiles, sink, granite countertops, oven and cooktop and cabinets.

October From September 29 to October 12, we were back in the USA (Texas and Colorado), starting in Dallas where we sorted through all of our stuff in storage to decide what to continue to store and what to send to auction. We also visited with many friends and coworkers of Artie in Texas.

After Dallas we vacationed in Colorado where we enjoyed visits with friends and family as well as a little bit of sightseeing.

We had been hoping to be back home in Chile for the birth of Agustín, but he arrived a few days early on October 7. We didn't get to see him until he was 8 days old, but he rewarded us with a smile! Mónica's son, Alejandro and his wife Flaca are his proud parents, and we are his proud Gringo grandparents.
Agustín is the new center of attention for all of us!

		Artie's new boss, Dennis, and his former boss, Mike, visited Chile for a three-day business review October 18-20, including a trip to the plant.
Antonia came to say farewell on October 30 before she headed to Holland to study for 2 years. She was delighted to have our old digital camera to be able to share pictures of her new adventures with all of us.  Now Cristián and she are on the same continent!

November Margy's sister Kathy and Bob arrived November 1 for a 3 week visit. They joined us for our Thanksgiving dinner with our Chilean friends at the country club. We have never held this on the exact date, but it is a wonderful chance to gather with friends and share the USA's tradition of Thanksgiving. There were 35 of us this year!

The four of us took a Patagonia vacation together from November 6-10. What a fantastic trip! We could see why people sometimes refer to Torres del Paine as one of the best natural wonders of the world. After we returned home, Kathy and Bob went off to Easter Island on their own for 4 days.

On November 25 we made a verbal offer for a beach house on the Chilean coast in the small town of Mirasol. This is a little over an hour west of Santiago. We had been accompanying Mónica on trips to the coast while she looked for vacant lots to build a house for rental income, and we fell in love with this home.

December Artie signed the official purchase offer December 6. On December 18, there was another meeting at the notary to transfer the money and sign more documents to make the deal complete, for occupancy on January 5, 2007. We took a trip to the USA December 7-17 and got to see Ann (from Australia) and lots of other family and friends.