Robinson Reunion in Lexington

Gran and Poppa have retired to a lovely piece of property in Lexington, Virginia. We love going there, our kids feel right at home and the summer weather is much more tolerable than we get here in Texas - so naturally we wanted to share it with lots of our friends. From high school. With their families. It was a large group of chaos and fun.

 Poppa was a big hit with the "big" kids, tractor rides for all! 

I went to Robinson High School for 2 months of 8th grade and all of my 9th grade year (thank you ExxonMobil relocations....) but Jon was there for all of his middle school and high school years - and the friendships he started in those awkward high school days have become some of the closest, long term friends that we have. I am lucky enough to have had a year together with the same people, and even more fortunate that I could fall back in step with this crew so many years later. We are also lucky enough to have added spouses and quite a few children to the mix, each addition making the clan bigger and better. This, however, was the first time since Jon and I had children that we were able to all convene in one place. The only local-to-Virginia family missing was about to have their own baby... so naturally we'll have to do it again! 

There is a great hike down to the river straight from the back yard. We were an ambitious crew to take all of the kids, it's a pretty intense hill on the way back. Most did great, there were a couple of falls, we only did it once...

Matt and his mini-me hiking along

Gretchen and Anna are less than a year apart and you would have thought them kindred souls. Granted, they are at this fantastic age where you can become someone's bestest friend in the whole world on your first meeting, but I believe that they will start up again the same way whenever we get to see each other next. They're both silly, energetic, loving and willing to get dirty. Also, totally comfortable with their own style.

Due to the rarity of our get-togethers, every adult was attempting to take approximately 1,000 pictures. Maybe some kids are into that. Most are not. Natalie is DEFINITELY in the don't-take-my-picture-you-can't-make-me-smile category. This was my most proud parenting win of the weekend. Through pure trickery, we went from leaning away from the big kids....

To kind of enjoying participating in the game....

To a true blue smiling photo. Here are all of our "big kids", at this stage big is anyone over 3 years old.

Adam was rocking on the tambourine

And then there are the "little kids". These sweet boys, so calm, so easy, so little! I think Alex is the oldest at 1 year 10 months in this picture.

Then the grand finale of photographs, trying to get the entire children brigade. This was not easy. So much so that there are no pictures after we took this one, everyone was burnt out. I love their little personalities showing through. Gretchen and Anna in front, Gretchen being a little silly. Natalie reading. William and Hudson in charge of babies, Luke is completely chill and Hatcher is ready to crawl away. Alex just wants his toy back, he's also eating something out of his right hand. Adam is giving the, "I'm in the picture, but I'm not gonna sit on this chair" mischievous face. I love it. What a joy to have so many friends under one roof. How amazing to have a second generation of little people to carry on the friendships. Huge shout out to Gran and Poppa for comfortably hosting this massive crew! No matter how hard it was to capture, I'm so thankful that we have documentation of this incredible weekend together. Let's do it again as soon as possible!!

Our Last Week

Leading up to our departure from Argentina, life was understandably complex. We spent most of our free time deciding how to best organize our things to be moved, determine which items we wanted in our air shipment (which turned out to be a bust, the air shipment was tiny), and what we needed to pack in our suitcases so that it wasn't packed in our sea shipment. In the midst of all of this packing and reorganizing, we had a birthday party to celebrate Gretchen turning 3, attended a wedding, gathered the mortgage paperwork on a house the house we now own and said goodbye to our home for the last 4.5 years.

We had some great tips from friends that had already experienced an international move, especially regarding items that you need to bring with you as opposed to packing - just to make life a little easier:

• Proof of car insurance (if you had a car) such as your policy. This will help when you're applying for car insurance in the US, they like you to have continuous coverage.
• Shot records for everyone in the family, recent medical records for anyone undergoing any sort of medical treatment. It helps to have medical records for your little ones too, so that they can get up to speed with a new pediatrician without overlapping care.
• Checkbook. We hadn't written checks outside of our yearly taxes since leaving the US, this was one that we almost forgot about. You need it if closing on house, or for all of those little expenses when starting up your new life (school registration fees, school uniforms, law mowing service, etc)
• All identity documents, Social Security cards, birth certificates, marriage license and the like. You never know what the DMV, post office or other random agency will request.

Considering that most everything I just listed makes it sounds like we had a boring, mundane, work-focused week, it was actually quite exciting. Our last week in Argentina sums up many of the reasons that I loved living there. 

Starting out the weekend, we woke up early to help the new owners of our couch move it to their truck. Outside of our front window, there is an upsidedown pickup truck, which had hit one of the city buses you see in the photo. Not that I loved horrible accidents, but there was always something going on out the front window. 

Like the time a Fernet truck overturned and people ran out into the street at 5:00am to steal bottles of the popular liquor.

Or when it flooded.

Or when a helicopter landed on the street. 

Or once a year when the mounted patrols would parade by on hundreds of horses. 

Or once a year when there was a huge fireworks show. 

You get the picture.

We continued the weekend by attending a wedding. This was our second wedding in Argentina, and as with the first, it is an all night affair. This combines a few of my favorite things. The fact that we could go to an all night wedding (with which we stayed in a hotel because we had a big week of moving ahead and needed to get some sleep) and know that our kids were safe and having a great time with our wonderful empleada, Candy. She gladly stayed the night in our half-empty, totally disheveled home with both of our kids and acted as if it were an honor to be asked to do so. We miss her terribly.

The wedding was also great. Lots of food, lots of friendly people and plenty of last-minute-Spanish practicing before we left. 

Then Monday came, and Gretchen attended her last week of school. On my way to pick her up, I was stopped on the street by Dennis Rodman. Yep. Rodman reached out his massive wingspan arm to stop me and tell me that I looked too serious and needed to lighten up. Not that I'm in the habit of taking life advice from The Rod, but he had a point - I mean, I was walking down the street within touching distance of this enormous, recognizable guy speaking English and I had no idea until he stopped me. 

I love that you just never know who you're going to run into on the street. This was just one celebrity sighting that we had during our stay, others consisted of John Malkovich, Mike Tyson, Britney Spears, Madonna's children and posse (not the Material Girl herself), Ringo Starr and now, Dennis Rodman. Two thumbs up.

As the packers were going through the house, we tried to keep Gretchen as occupied as possible. It's pretty sad to watch your things be packed away and your house become an empty shell. Traumatizing even. So, she spent time with friends doing super fun things. Like going on this amazing picnic with Candy and her family. They made her fruit salad, delicious homemade cupcakes, sandwiches and the entire family (all four children and parents) took both of our kids to the park. They even went to the much further calesita park because it's what Gretchen wanted. Could they be any nicer?

Then we moved into this amazing hotel, the Four Seasons Buenos Aires and had a great view of Av 9 de Julio.

The hotel was incredible and even better, it was 3 blocks from our apartment. I loved that we could go out to a fancy brunch or sit and have a drink at their beautifully decorated bar and it was a 5 minute walk away. I also loved that we could pay in pesos and spend as much as we would at a normal restaurant in the US.

I also love that we saw, and met, James Hetfield from Metallica on his way to the gym. Gretchen gave him a flower that she had picked. He was a nice guy.

We got stuck in a rainstorm as I scrambled to get the last 2 vaccines needed to get the chicos up to date on their shots before we left.

I did not love getting stuck in the rain over a mile from home.

I did not love the cab drivers waving their angry little fingers at me telling me that no, they are not interested in my dripping wet stroller in their car.

I do love that we walked home, in the pouring rain, with no gear and Gretchen thought it was hilarious. I think living in Argentina has taught all of us to be more tolerant when things aren't perfect. Sometimes you need to just go with the flow, walk for awhile in the rain while your daughter's school uniform shields your 6 month old from the downpour.

We had a going away party with some of the families at Gretchen's school. It was at a Burger King that had a play area for kids and when we tried to take a group picture all of the kids freaked out - so here is a picture of some of the moms from school. This was a great group of women who helped me out when I didn't understand, took me underwing when most of my friends moved away and helped us feel more connected to the community.

I love that as a foreigner, I was able to make such nice friends and even though it was hard for us to communicate at times, they still included me in their mom group.

To that point, here is Gretchen with Candy's son Ale on the way to the airport to catch our flight. That's right, Candy and three of her children accompanied us to the airport to say farewell. So incredibly thoughtful. To add to the sweetness, Gretchen and Ale held hands on the way and then both fell asleep in their seats. We are so lucky to have gotten to know this family, and Gretchen and Alex's early childhood was enriched by having Candy (and her family) in our lives.

It's hard to describe why we loved living in Argentina, there were so many reasons, but our last week summed up many of them in one 7-day package.

The Kindness of Friends

After we had Gretchen, we took a few days to be on our own, and then jumped right back into life. We brought her out to dinner when she was 12 days old, we went to the park when she was a mere 7 days old, and in general, life was pretty much back to normal (with the new inclusion of an infant) almost right away.

Things have been different this time around, and I'm blaming the c-section. Holy recovery time! I had no clue how good I had it the first time around! Between that ad the fact that there are now two little ones to entertain/feed/enjoy all day long (and into the night...) we are taking much longer to get back on our feet.  Needless to say, we are thrilled to be expecting grandparents to start arriving next week.

Luckily, our kids are great. Alex is sleeping and eating like a champ, Gretchen has embraced her role as a big sister - and kept the hilarious and often frustrating role as a 2 year old - virtually without incident. Potty training is still going great and life in general is pretty good. The tough part is having these great, fun little ones, and parents that are tired and recovering. It makes for a few "movie afternoons" and "french toast for dinner" nights. We are also lucky in the sense that Gretchen loves all of those things.

It's times like these that make living far from family hard. We would love to have everyone less than a 12 hour flight away - it's just not in the cards for us at the moment. So, I would like to express my thanks to our friends and local support folks that have helped us (more specifically, me) through these early days as a family of four.

So many offers to help, so many visitors that stay just the right amount of time, it has been heartwarming to have so many people reach out to us!

These beautiful flowers that were delivered (I don't even know how you do that here...) to our door, sent by my friend Miyoung:

The lovely ladies at SACS who brought flowers and the killer chocolates from Vasalissa - my favorite! Every night when I was going to eat just one, I ended up with a row of empty wrappers.

And this basket from our friends Jake and Becky that arrived on the morning after Alex and I left the hospital. How thoughtful is this?! Homemade goodies in their own labeled bags - complete with the recipes for said goodies. She even wrote notes about substitutions and omissions that she made. These treats were gobbled down very quickly, and the Homemade Granola (complete with yogurt that didn't make the picture, I had already eaten it...) is a recipe I have already made 2 times on my own. If you are interested in making the best granola ever, visit the 100 Days of Real Food recipe. Becky even left out the coconut, which I was happy to do without!

We are so happy to have these little reminders that even though we're far from home, people are looking out for us. And when the grandparents do arrive, we will greet them with our best 10-point smiles!

Hokie Twinsies!

Little smiles from our little boy!

Mendoza: We Cannot Stay Away

When we found out that some of our closest friends, the Newhooks, were moving back to the US, we knew that we needed to take one last trip with them before their move date.  The choice was simple, we needed to return to Mendoza.

Since this is our third time to wine country in Argentina, it was easy to decide what kinds of wineries to  visit.  We knew that we wanted to go to the smaller bodegas, and that one day we wanted to venture to the Uca Valley, an area that we had not yet visited.  Considering the sheer amount of wineries in Mendoza, somewhere around 1,100, we still looked to a tour company to help us narrow down the options. 

Our buddy Javier was on vacation for this trip, so we booked through Uncorking Argentina, and they put together a tour that was precisely what we wanted.  We visited 3 wineries each day, all of which are sized between boutique and low production (less than 1 million bottles produced per year). 

We started the trip at Mendel, a winery that we visited back in July and loved.  They have a lower line blend called Lunta that is a great value for your peso and their 100% Malbec is a great Malbec option.  The Malbec vines at this winery are almost 100 years old, and are some of the only vines that haven't been grafted with other varietals to resist a certain bug that ravaged the Malbec plants back in the 1940s.  The property was preserved because it was abandoned by the original owners - and recovered by the current owners after 25 years of disrepair.  The highlight of their wines is a Malbec/Cabernet blend called the Unus. If you see this on a wine list, it is an easy choice.

 They have this great sculpture on the property of a man harvesting grapes, constructed solely of machine parts.  He's a really cool representation of the vineyard.

We had a full tasting this time around, with a recently married couple from the US on my right and an Argentine couple living in Australia on Milena's left.  It turns out that the Argentines have mutual friends with the Newhooks - a very small world indeed.  And the groom was all grins as he posed for this picture.

Our next visit was to a relatively new winery to the area, Piattelli, which is actually owned by an American.  It is an organic vineyard and has one of the only female wine makers in the area.  This was our lunch spot on day one, and the food was very good, though the service was a bit disjointed.  After the winery tour, there was no explanation of the individual wines that we had with lunch, so I don't have much to share on that front.  I really liked their Chardonnay and they served a Rosé of Malbec that was too sweet for my taste.

The lunch was epic, I think we were sitting for over 2 hours. For a portion of the time, they had the sprinklers on right next to us, spraying Milena, which was just strange.  It was as if we had arrived too early for our reservation, though they knew well in advance when we were coming.  Interestingly, they are planning to open a winery in Salta, very close to where we all vacationed in December 2011.

We ended the day with a blending session at Renacer, which might have been the only winery that I would skip next time.  We were given four different pure wine types, Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, and 2 others, and we blended our own varietal. None of them were particularly great, but Jon's blend was given the honor of "Grand Reserva".

The following day is when we ventured to the Uca Valley, an area 1.5 hours south of the town of Mendoza. We started the day at Pulenta Estates, which is the maker of some of our favorite wines. The Pulenta Estates bodega is owned by two brothers, who are also related (I think there is a third brother in there) to the owners of Vistalba winery.  It's a funny thing, because the two wineries are both beautiful, and the tours were knowledgable and thorough.  The difference is at Pulenta, you can choose between 3 different tasting levels, each with a difference in price, but all of them consist of the higher quality wines that they produce. At Vistalba, they only offered their lowest level wines, which weren't all that great, and they hope that you will go out on a limb and purchase their higher lines (which aren't cheap at an average of US$50 per bottle).  It seems like a poor marketing move to me - we'll stick with Pulenta.

The next stop was Andeluna, ironically, one of the first wines we tried in Argentina.  They have gone through some changes, they renamed the different lines and changed their labels, but it is still a great, affordable option among Argentinean wines.  We had lunch at Andeluna, which offered a great 5 course pairing lunch.  The tables are set right next to the open kitchen, it was really great to see exactly what the chefs were doing.  They served a gazpacho soup with cucumber that was outstanding.

The last winery on our trip ended up being our favorite new find. La Azul is a boutique bodega that has a whole lotta land.  They sell over 80% of their grapes to other wineries, then they keep the chosen 20% to make their own wines.  They have a Malbec, Cabernet, Azul Reserva and Azul Grand Reserva (both blends).  The prices are on par with Domaine St. Diego, AR$40 for the lower lines and up to AR$120 for the higher lines, and the quality is incredible. Even if you live in Argentina, you won't find this wine very often... yet.  If you do, give it a go, you'll be glad that you did.

During the tour, we tasted the Grand Reserva right out of the barrel, generally a neat thing to do but at this stage, wines are not necessarily ready to drink.  This was smooth and bottle worthy, and it still had some months to mature.  

We had our tasting outside, which was a great place to sit for a drink in the afternoon.  The Uca Valley is much higher in altitude than Mendoza city, so the sun is extremely strong, but they tend to have a nice breeze.

For dinner on our last night in Mendoza, we followed our friend Chef Mun to his new location in the Casarena bodega.  He and Carey have such a great thing going for themselves, the location is beautiful, the dinner is held right in the barrel cellar of the winery, and the food is Asian-Argentine Fusion, not a mix you see every day here.

We had a great time, the dinner was outstanding, as expected, the only sad part is that is no longer have Casa Mun as an option the Capital!  If you are in the Mendoza area, make an effort to get to Mun@Casarena, it is unlike any other meal you will have in Argentina.

It was a great "farewell" trip with our friends.  While we were gone, Gretchen and Talia got together and played - they were having just as much fun at home.  And, even though we were only gone for a weekend, the best part is walking in and seeing this face again!

Cordoba, Dove Capital of the World

It has been recommended to us to visit Cordoba, a city in the middle of northern Argentina, because it's a beautiful place that has mountains, a bit of city life and is a nice reprieve from Buenos Aires.  We have considered going for some time, but only made the plunge when our travel buddies expressed an interest to go dove hunting.  We figured, the guys can go hunting for birds, the girls can hang out at the pool and enjoy some fresh air, what more is there to want in a weekend?  

So, we visited Sierra Brava this past weekend for a guys weekend of hunting, and a girls weekend of hanging out.  Sierra Brava is approximately 1 hour 15 minutes north of the airport in Cordoba, so if you are looking for a place to stay while visiting Cordoba, this is probably not the right place for you.  If you are interested in hunting birds, enjoying great food and relaxing for a weekend, Sierra Brava is just the spot.  

The website is deceiving, the lodge appears to be where a bunch of middle aged men go to hang out away from their families.  Perhaps this is some of their cliental, but we felt quite at home at the lodge with our almost 2-year old girls, and two wives who have no interest in hunting.  When we arrived to the lodge and they immediately offered us the two empty rooms for the girls to sleep in, we knew we were in for a nice weekend.  Literally, NO other location we've visited has offered to let us put our cribs in an unrented room they have - this was a sheer bonus - they sleep so much better in a room of their own!  

We were greeted at the entrance of the lodge with a line up of staff that made us feel like we were 20th century English royalty, and the service was impeccable from that moment on.  They noticed we were going to the pool - there were towels, robes, slippers and a cooler of drinks set out for us within minutes, the guys went out hunting in the heat - they had cold cloths to wash up with and the opportunity to schedule a post-hunt massage, the girls were bored with the pool - there were 1 month old kittens, cows, dogs and geese to keep them busy.  It was a wonderland of nature and the staff made sure that no one was uncared for.

We spent lots of girl time at the pool, even if it was a little chilly for the mamas, Talia and Gretchen had no issue with the temperature.

Talia is fearless in the water.  This little one is not even 2 years old and she can jump on in, then swim to the stairs on her own.  She is a great match for Gretchen, who is a little more apprehensive - but loves to throw items in the pool for Talia to retrieve.

Little Fish!

Gretchen was much more interested in watering the plants.  Then watering the lawn chairs.  Then watering all of the shoes, feet, hands and legs of all of the adults.  She was having a blast with that little watering can!

There's something else I should put water on...

For these city-dwelling little girls, being up close and personal with nature is a novelty.  Gretchen loves "meow, meows" when they are in pictures or on Skype...she was a little more nervous about them in person.  Even if they were teeny tiny.

She did, however, include the Meow, Meows in her nightly "good night" ritual.  "Night, night Daddy, Night, night Mommy, Night, night Meow Meows..." They won a special place in her heart. 

It was a great place for these little ones to run around and play in the grass.  A bit different from last year's December trip when they wanted nothing to do with grass...

December 2012

December 2011

For those interested in Sierra Brava's original intent, the dove hunting is the best in the world.  The world record holder for doves hunted in a day (12,115) set this record while staying at this lodge.  This was Jon's first time hunting anything and he shot just short of 250 birds.  In comparison, Jeff said that his last time dove hunting he was out for multiple hours, took 4 shots and hit zero birds - this time Jeff hit over 600.  I'm not a huge hunting-activist or anything, but seeing how over populated the birds are in this region (not unlike the deer population in Virginia), I have no problem with the activity.

 The one full day that we were at Sierra Brava, Saturday, the guys hunted in the morning and then a bus brought us out to meet them for lunch in the field.  The chef, Nacho, can do some amazing things with a grill and the lunch was outstanding.

 Something tells me that this is not the kind of comfort that hunters always enjoy.  They even had a bathroom set up for us:

And I've never heard my family members mentioning their little ones watching Minnie videos on the iPad while eating lunch....

 It was a great weekend, with lots of time spent together and a little bit of something for everyone.  Thank you Sierra Brava!!