Christmas in Buenos Aires

After an entire year of planning and anticipation for our families to join us in Buenos Aires for the holidays, it came and went in a flash.  We had an amazing time and I think (and hope...) that all of our guests did too.  I felt like it was the perfect balance of site-seeing and relaxing, and although we had an incredible heat wave over the week of Christmas (up to 100 degrees on Christmas Day), everyone really rolled with the punches and made the most out of their South American vacation.  I have to mention that we missed my brother Chris, who is currently working at the South Pole station, and our future sister-in-law Lian, who spent valuable holiday time with her family, but other than having the two of them here, I really don't think things could have gone any better. 

I will elaborate more on some of the specific excursions during the visit, but for now, pictures will probably do the best job of summarizing our December. 

We got a good taste of fireworks, starting off with this incredible show that we watched from our front balcony.  The show also caused some significant traffic issues on the main street in front of our house, especially when the finale caused all of the car alarms to go off at once.  Fireworks were a theme throughout the holidays, with all sorts of amateurs setting off serious explosives all through the night. New Year's Eve people let off fireworks so close to us that the wrappers fell onto our heads.  

 We did a little touring - took my family to the Pink House to see where the president lives.  It just so happened to be the hottest day of my life. 

We had a great group dinners.  This one was at La Cabrera, the perfect introduction to Argentine beef.

We had babies, (our friends triplets were the stars of Christmas Eve,)

 And big boys, and babies to come...

And presents,

 Lots and lots of presents,

We enjoyed expensive martinis, 

 and delicious gelato,

 and games,

 And lots of hanging out time.

The biggest thank you possible to our families for coming all the way to Buenos Aires and making our holidays so unforgettable.  It was a sad transition after everyone left, and to add insult to injury, our little chicks decided to flee at the same time.  The good news: The next visits to look forward to are after our little girl is born and our parents come back to meet their new little granddaughter. 

We hope everyone had as wonderful a Christmas and New Year as we had!  Happy 2011!