January and February in Chile

Chile: January and February 2010

One of our joys with our house near the beach in Mirasol, Chile, is the beautiful garden. We have such fun taking pictures, walking peacefully through the areas, and absorbing the beauty. Above, Margy (left) and Mónica (right) take photos.

The garden is really a kind of Eden, including the bare bottom of Mónica's one year old grand daughter, Valentina, shown here with her Mom, Flaca.

The brick path winds around the garden, past the roses, succulents (cactus), and fruit trees (apples, lemon, pear, figs, almonds and cherries).

Colorful roses, fragrant lavender, fuchsia and unique varieties of Chilean plants adorn the pathways.

Pretty purples.

Morning droplets from the automatic sprinklers.

A fireworks of color and a busy bee. At left, an Agapanthus, or African Blue Lily.

Another beauty, the unique and waxy looking Crassula, or Silver Jade Plant, is in the succulent section of our garden.

And lots of roses, of course.

Our garden also sports several fruit trees, including apples, pears, lemons, cherries, figs and almonds.

Fresh from either the farmer's markets or from our own back yard garden, we eat lots of healthy fruits and vegetables each day while in Chile.

Margy's developed her own special recipe for oatmeal, nuts and fruits for our daily breakfast treat. Yummy!

While at the beach, we enjoyed visits throughout the summer of several good friends.

At left, Pilar and Mario join us for a day, shown here up on a hill overlooking the bay, where we frequently stop for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants.

Another day, Jovina, Naty, Patty, Sebastian, Mauricio and Ale spent the day with us, including an afternoon at the beach.

Complete with beach umbrella, we all headed down to the nearby cove, located in walking distance from our house.

Brother and sister, Ale and Naty, having fun at the beach and just relaxing together enjoying the views.

It's such fun to wade in the surf, and feel the fresh sea breezes!

Back home, Artie tries Ale's cool glasses!

Some days later, another fun visit by Viviana, her husband Cristián, and their son, Cristiancito.

By now, you are probably recognizing the background. Once again we enjoyed lunch together at our favorite restaurant!

Mónica and Gustavo are like "family" for us, and most of our visiting time is spent with them.

Below, Mónica's son, Ale, plus his wife, Flaca, and their kids, Agustín and Valentina, enjoyed a hot afternoon in our backyard swimming pool.

In addition to on-site visitors, we often had "virtual visitors" through Skype.

Here, Margy's sister, Bibba, was showing us a CD that our boy Cristián sent for us from Holland to Bibba (who manages our mail while we are in Chile). It is always fun to keep in touch with family and friends through Skype.

January 22nd, we took our neighbor Clara out to lunch to celebrate her birthday.

Cathy and Sergio invited us to their house for a spaghetti dinner with friends.

She had a crowd! Most are mixed couples of Chilean and non-Chilean spouses, several of whom we had met before.

After dinner, we enjoyed Cathy's friend Eileen's comedy act at a site down the street from us.

Eileen is Canadian, and is married to a Chilean. Her act is a very humorous monologue of the idiosyncrasies of the Chilean male culture, which brought us all to tears with laughter. She has a great style and knows how to connect with her audience. It was fun to see the show and to meet her afterwards.

We met a new friend at Cathy's party, Rosemary, who invited us to her home site in late summer.

Charles and Karen stayed overnight with us in early February, to help celebrate Margy's birthday. Charles was the General Manager for Artie's company in the early 90s, and Karen was Mónica student, thereby connecting all of us with Mónica in the years to follow.

Karen and Mónica decorated the dining room with a "Feliz Cumpleaños" (happy birthday) banner, served a home-made dinner, and presented a cake with candles to Margy. Afterwards, Margy had fun unwrapping all the fun presents.

Margy also got a dried flower arrangement from our master gardener friend, Carmen, which Mónica arranged in vases.

These floral arrangements went beautifully with the beach house. Sadly, the vase on the right, made by our friend Kristin, was broken in the giant earthquake of February 27th. More about that shortly.

The next day, we had 2 more visitors from Artie's old office, Lucho and his wife Angélica. They knew Charles and Karen too, so we all enjoyed the "reunion."

At left, Carmen and Patricio invited us to a lovely dinner at their house, with Carmen's mother joining us. Below, are our family's fuzzy friends at home.

It was a summer of reading and writing. At left, Artie relaxes on the deck with his Kindle. At right, he is working on his book.

With the tranquility of the beach house, Artie was inspired to resume writing a book he started years ago. With long but fun days at his computer, he completed "Slice the Salami - tips for life and leadership, one slice at a time." He hopes to publish this 77,000 word, 275 page book later this year. The photo to right was considered as a back cover portrait.

We always enjoy our walks down to the beach. At left was a new amusement feature for kids who want to enter these plastic balls and flop all around in a shallow pool.

Below left is another beach scene (our community and house are up on the cliff in the background). At the right is a beautiful Bougainvillea plant that we often pass in our neighborhood on the way to the beach.

What sunsets! Nearly every night we gazed at the western sky from our terrace (as show above) or with evening strolls along the beach. Life is good!

What a wonderful way to end our summer stay in Chile. We departed on Wednesday evening, February 24, 2010.

* * *

Three days later, the 8.8 Richter Scale earthquake hit Chile Saturday morning, February 27, 2010.

These are photos taken by Mónica when she entered our Santiago apartment where she lives. Fortunately, she and her family are safe. She had been at the coast when the quake hit, so was not in the apartment when the violent shaking threw furniture to the floors.

As you can see, TV sets and dressers were face down, complete wardrobes crashed to the floor, concrete walls broke into pieces, yet Mónica and Gustavo were safe and sound.

Despite the mess and loss, we are so thankful that all our friends and family in Chile survived the quake. Our hearts go out to all of them.

A few days after the big quake, Mónica and Gustavo went to our beach house to check conditions there. Despite various items inside being tossed about, the house itself was fine.

Our kitchen was strewn with broken and chipped items, and our lovely hand-made vase (shown earlier) was shattered.

On the other hand, there were some remarkable "saves," such as no broken plates that dropped from one level to another, including several that "popped" out of their stand and into a nearby wooden bowl. The bedside lamp above was teetering, but never fell. In all, not bad. As with the conditions in Santiago, the best news was that our friends were all OK.

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One of our joys with our house near the beach in Mirasol, Chile, is the beautiful garden. We have such fun taking pictures, walking peacefully through the areas, and absorbing the beauty. Above, Margy (left) and Mónica (right) take photos.


Colorful roses, fragrant lavender, fuchsia and unique varieties of Chilean plants adorn the pathways.


		A fireworks of color and a busy bee. At left, an Agapanthus, or African Blue Lily.


		Our garden also sports several fruit trees, including apples, pears, lemons, cherries, figs and almonds.

Fresh from either the farmer's markets or from our own back yard garden, we eat lots of healthy fruits and vegetables each day while in Chile.


Margy's developed her own special recipe for oatmeal, nuts and fruits for our daily breakfast treat. Yummy!


Another day, Jovina, Naty, Patty, Sebastian, Mauricio and Ale spent the day with us, including an afternoon at the beach.


		Complete with beach umbrella, we all headed down to the nearby cove, located in walking distance from our house.


Brother and sister, Ale and Naty, having fun at the beach and just relaxing together enjoying the views.


		It's such fun to wade in the surf, and feel the fresh sea breezes!


January 22nd, we took our neighbor Clara out to lunch to celebrate her birthday.


		Cathy and Sergio invited us to their house for a spaghetti dinner with friends.


She had a crowd! Most are mixed couples of Chilean and non-Chilean spouses, several of whom we had met before.


		After dinner, we enjoyed Cathy's friend Eileen's comedy act at a site down the street from us.


		We met a new friend at Cathy's party, Rosemary, who invited us to her home site in late summer.


		Charles and Karen stayed overnight with us in early February, to help celebrate Margy's birthday. Charles was the General Manager for Artie's company in the early 90s, and Karen was Mónica student, thereby connecting all of us with Mónica in the years to follow.


Karen and Mónica decorated the dining room with a "Feliz Cumpleaños" (happy birthday) banner, served a home-made dinner, and presented a cake with candles to Margy. Afterwards, Margy had fun unwrapping all the fun presents.


Margy also got a dried flower arrangement from our master gardener friend, Carmen, which Mónica arranged in vases.


These floral arrangements went beautifully with the beach house. Sadly, the vase on the right, made by our friend Kristin, was broken in the giant earthquake of February 27th. More about that shortly.


The next day, we had 2 more visitors from Artie's old office, Lucho and his wife Angélica. They knew Charles and Karen too, so we all enjoyed the "reunion."

		At left, Carmen and Patricio invited us to a lovely dinner at their house, with Carmen's mother joining us. Below, are our family's fuzzy friends at home.


		It was a summer of reading and writing. At left, Artie relaxes on the deck with his Kindle. At right, he is working on his book.

With the tranquility of the beach house, Artie was inspired to resume writing a book he started years ago. With long but fun days at his computer, he completed "Slice the Salami - tips for life and leadership, one slice at a time." He hopes to publish this 77,000 word, 275 page book later this year. The photo to right was considered as a back cover portrait.


		What sunsets! Nearly every night we gazed at the western sky from our terrace (as show above) or with evening strolls along the beach. Life is good!


These are photos taken by Mónica when she entered our Santiago apartment where she lives. Fortunately, she and her family are safe. She had been at the coast when the quake hit, so was not in the apartment when the violent shaking threw furniture to the floors.

		As you can see, TV sets and dressers were face down, complete wardrobes crashed to the floor, concrete walls broke into pieces, yet Mónica and Gustavo were safe and sound.

		Despite the mess and loss, we are so thankful that all our friends and family in Chile survived the quake. Our hearts go out to all of them.


On the other hand, there were some remarkable "saves," such as no broken plates that dropped from one level to another, including several that "popped" out of their stand and into a nearby wooden bowl. The bedside lamp above was teetering, but never fell. In all, not bad. As with the conditions in Santiago, the best news was that our friends were all OK.