Chantelle

You Are Original and Innovative

You are very open. You communicate well, and you connect with other people easily. You are a naturally creative person. Ideas just flow from your mind. A true chameleon, you are many things at different points in your life. You are very adaptable. You are truly an original person. You have amazing ideas, and the power to carry them out. Success comes rather easily for you... especially in business and academia. Some people find you to be selfish and a bit overbearing. You're a strong person. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people. You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts. You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals. You are a seeker. You often find yourself restless - and you have a lot of questions about life. You tend to travel often, to fairly random locations. You're most comfortable when you're far away from home. You are quite passionate and easily tempted. Your impulses sometimes get you into trouble. You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together. You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow. You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily. Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

Things I Love Today

1. Democracy
2. Gravity
3. Thor-lo socks
4. Rain
5. Girlfriends

I Feel Five

Last week while driving Chris to basketball, Noah and I had this conversation:

Noah: "I think I'm five now."

Me: "You haven't had your birthday yet, you're still four."

Noah: "I did, I grew, and I'm five."

Me: "Your birthday is after Halloween, after Christmas, after New Year's."

Noah: "I think I'm five. I just feel five."

Internet Explorer Doesn't Want to Display This Webpage

Every time I go to a new website, my Internet Explorer gives me this: "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage...." I then hit refresh and voila, the website.

This makes me feel more like Internet Explorer doesn't want to display the webpage, more than it can't. Or that it is like Sam, when I send him to look for something like his shoes or (insert lost object here). He goes off searching, while the rest of the family shears a sheep, cards and spins the wool, and knits enough sweaters to clothe Bill Cosby during the Cosby Show years, then he returns and says he can't find his shoes or (insert lost object here). If you are a mom, you know the next step. You say, "if I come looking for your shoes or (insert lost object here), and I find them, then you are going to be in TROUBLE!" And then you go and look and find the shoes or (insert lost object here) and you find them where they belong, in the closet, or on top of the nightstand, or in the bathroom. You know, pretty much in plain sight, and in less that 45 seconds.

So what I'm saying is that maybe my page should say: "Internet Explorer is too lazy to look very hard for the webpage, so go find it yourself."

-humorous postscript: When I hit the publish post button I got "Internet Explorer cannot show the webpage." Nice.

5 Things I Love About Paraguay

1. Friendly, friendly people. My spanish is not great, and every time I am certain I don't know what I'm talking about, someone will take the time to help me (whether or not they're able to). When I can't find what I want in the grocery store, when the waiter and I are obviously not communicating, when Noah's profe (teacher) is trying to tell me something important about school, there is always a shopper, patron, mom, or somebody who helps me. Now, if we're talking about Paraguay drivers being friendly, that's another story!

2. The smell of flor de coco during Christmas.

3. The beautiful red earth, green vegetation, and blue sky. All together they are a stunning combination.

4. Trees in the middle of the road. I have said this before, I will say it again: trees in the middle of the road are AWESOME!

5. McDonald's delivery. I know this is not exclusive to Paraguay, and that other restaurants also deliver, and that it is kind of pathetic, but I love McDonald's delivery. For those times (every time) when I'm too lazy to leave the house for my Big Mac Attack! To tell you the truth, in the United States, I didn't even like McDonald's!

Tagged!

List 5 Joys, 5 Fears, 5 Obsessions, 5 Surprising Facts, 5 People to tag:

5 Joys

1. My boys
2. Chocolate
3. Mountains
4. Oceans
5. The Cosmos

5 Fears

1. Large cockroaches
2. Sharks
3. Fire
4. Anaesthesia
5. Losing my hair

5 Obsessions

1. Dark chocolate
2. Shoes
3. Sweaters
4. Ice cream
5. Altoids (or other strong mints).

5 Surprising Facts

1. I am learning how to play the harp.
2. I love trivia and other useless knowledge.
3. I am shy.
4. I live in Paraguay (not surprising to some of you).
5. I like fixing things, putting things together, and building things.

5 People to tag

1. The Erb Garden
2. The Gray Family
3. Tales of the East
4. Leelee's Point of View
5. The Bruner Bunch

(Sorry Higbee/Warner clan, I don't know that many bloggers!)

The Answer Is No!

Noah dared ask this question today:

Can you plug your 110v computer speakers directly into the 220v outlet?

Rain, Rain Go Away (or Not)

I find it interesting that on rainy days there are very few kids in school. Today at Noah’s preschool there were only five kids in his class. My boys and I try to figure out the reasons for this. We have come up with these:

1. Paraguay, being hot and humid much of the year, makes other people feel cold when we (who are originally from Salt Lake City, Utah) are comfortable and happy. For example, today my boys went to school in shorts. They wore sweatshirts over their t-shirts, just in case they got cold. When I went to pick up my youngest from pre-school there were kids in gloves, hats, scarves, and what I would consider a winter coat. May I add that it is 19 degrees Celsius (that's 67 degrees Fahrenheit) today? Maybe it’s just too cold to leave the house?

2. The streets are full of water and they don’t have a car/boat to get to school. I wish that my internet speed allowed for photo uploads, because I have a great picture of Rio (or Avenida) España during a rainstorm.

3. It’s too dark in the morning to wake up. We didn’t wake up this morning, because my boys were convinced it was way too early to get up, when in fact, it was 7 AM. However, being the mean mom that I am, I made them all hurry up and get ready, and go to school.

4. They are afraid of the falling power lines, trees, etc. I can really see where this is coming from. On our way to school, Noah and I had a nice discussion on why you should NEVER (really, never, ever, EVER!) touch the wires that are hanging from the poles into the middle of the street (because you will die! And also, I said so). Plus, my empleada tells me that I should watch out for trees falling because they fall and kill people during rainstorms.

5. Like Chris says, “The sign says school, but my heart says jail.” And they (or we) are looking for any excuse to miss a day of “jail.”

So, these are our top five reasons. Do you have any others?

You Can't Always Get What You Want

The other day Marcus was in my room playing the Wii, when Noah came up to me and said, "I usually get what I want, don't I?"

I replied, "Yes, you do. What do you want?"

Noah: "I want to play the Wii, so tell Marcus to get off of it."

Me: "No, you don't always get what you want. Marcus was there first."

Noah: "THAT'S NOT FAIR!"

I Have Just Won a Major Award

It's official! According to a panel of four independent judges, I am now the Meanest Mom in the World!

Do you suppose this award comes with a cash prize?

The Internet Here Stinks!

I have spent countless hours trying to upload photos/video to this blog. In the last few months I have been completely unsuccessful.

I really hate the internet here. We pay about the same as we did in the US, for a "broadband" connection that is only marginally faster than dial-up.

Our friends that have good, fast, reliable internet are paying over $200 a month. To me that's just about a car payment, and I refuse to pay it.

I Obviously Don't Know How to Dress Appropriately

Last night/this morning, Chris left on a trip to Brazil with his school basketball team. I am both nervous and excited for him to go. He's flying alone (with 55 other students and 7 chaperones), to the world's stupidest airport (Sao Paolo), to a foreign country where he won't have cell phone service. Not that I'm worried or anything. I'm sure he'll have fun, and like he says, anything is better than a week of school. As a parent I can think of some things worse than a week of school, but I'm not going there right now.

His flight left at 5:45 AM, which meant that we had to be at the airport at 3:45 AM, which meant that we had to wake up a little after 3 AM, which meant that I should not have gone to sleep. In the US, if I had to take anyone to the airport early in the morning I would get up, pull on my comfy pants, put on my glasses, slap my hair in a ponytail and go. Right? Well, I assumed that's how it should work here. But you know what they way when you assume...that's right something about....

Anyway, I get to the airport in my early-morning-it's-way-to-early-to-be-awake-and-showered-and-cute clothes, and notice something very strange. All the moms at the airport are dressed to the nines. Their hair is done (at the salon), make-up is on (again, at the salon), they are wearing fancy clothes (sparkly, dressy, furry, satiny). I am feeling like a huge slob, I am wearing no make-up, my thick glasses, my sweats, and a Green Day sweatshirt. Soooo cute. Well, next time I will know better. I'm telling you though; I honestly didn't know that going to the airport at 3:45 in the morning was a formal occasion.

Man Cold

I have five or six posts that are still in draft form, mostly because my internet is so slow that I can't post any pictures. And the posts are about trips we've taken, and events (like birthdays) that are just better with photos. So sorry, I am trying to catch up.

In the meantime enjoy this video. We started about a month ago with Marcus being sick. Followed by Noah. Then Kevin and Chris. Then Noah again. So I am now a PRO at the man cold. "How do you think I feel, I've got your stupid cold haven't I?"

--okay forget it, here's a link, my internet isn't quick enough to upload the video--

Man Cold: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXLHWmjA5IE

Happy Birthday Marcus!

Marcus turned eight February 1. Eight years old. He is such a grown up, good boy. He is also lucky. Each winter we try to take a vacation to get through the cold and snow. Although this year, being in opposite-land, we needed to get away from the heat and humidity. Anyway, he spent his fifth birthday in Hawaii, and this year he got to celebrate his birthday on a cruise ship, somewhere in the South Atlantic Ocean, between Puerto Madryn, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay. I think he had a good day. We hung out on the ship, went to the "show" after dinner, and then attended the chocolate buffet, which I believe was planned just for his birthday.

When we got home from our trip, our maid had decorated the dining room with balloons, flowers, and fun decorations. He got to open his gifts from everyone, and we took him out to dinner.

We haven't decided whether we are going to wait to go home, or have him baptized here. He kind of wants to wait, but also thinks that it would be cool to be baptized in Paraguay. We need to figure it out.

South American Cruise 2008

We are just leaving Ushuaia, on Tierra del Fuego, in Argentina, we have had a great cruise so far…

Our ports:
Puerto Montt – we visited a small town called Fruitallar, another town called Puerto Varas
Puerto Chacabuco – very small town, we got a taxi and rode to a waterfall, looked at a cool pedestrian bridge, played in the river…
Punta Arenas – awesome! Penguins!
Ushuaia – we went on a train ride to Tierra del Fuego national park, it was beautiful.

We’ve also seen glaciers, the Straits of Magellan, the Beagle Channel, tomorrow we go around Cape Horn, where the Atlantic, Pacific, and Antarctic Oceans meet. It’s going to be cool! The sun has been setting really late, tonight official sunset time was 10:47 PM. It’s very weird, but cool. I never actually thought that I would see this part of the world.

We have three more stops before Buenos Aires: the Falkland Islands, Puerto Madryn, and Montevideo…I hope that we can find some cool things to do in those ports. I will post photos in a bit…

The Voice

Last Sunday while we were at church Noah was feeling a little bit crazy. He was having a hard time being quiet, and a harder time holding still. He couldn’t stay in our bench and kept going back and forth from our bench to the family behind us. When he wasn’t doing this he was climbing all over the bench. Basically, he was loud and distracting. While I was sitting and trying to listen to the speaker, Noah yelled, “Mom! Listen to me!” I turned to look at him, and he had both of his fingers in his ears. I thought he was trying to plug his ears so he didn’t have to listen to the speaker, or to me telling him to be quiet. Instead he said, “Something is wrong with my ears. I can still hear the voice.” I suppose that when he is misbehaving and deliberately doing what I told him not to do, he can claim that “the voice” told him to do it.

Happy Birthday Noah!

Today is Noah's birthday, he is now four years old. He is the funniest, craziest boy in our family. He asked for a Nintendo DS, which we didn't get for him, because I thought he was too little. So we bought these crazy chairs/hats/pool toys/scoops/step stools for the crazy boy!

We went to dinner at one of his favorite restaurants, La Paulista, and then had chocolate cake and ice cream.

He loves all of his gifts, especially the truck that turns into an ape. And the really big shark, and the other truck, and the Diego stuff...and where's his DS?

Happy Birthday, Noah!

Buenos Aires

Two days after Christmas we got in the Suburban and drove to Buenos Aires. Kevin has a friend and collegue who lives there and offered his house to us while he was spending the holidays in the United States. It was very generous, we really wanted to visit, and so we took advantage of his offer, hoping that we (or he) didn't live to regret it.

We were happy that the roads were good, and the countryside was pretty. It looked like the Midwest: flat, fields, farms. There were fields full of sunflowers that were beautiful. Acres and acres of golden yellow happiness. If I ever become a farmer, I will grow sunflowers. I'll tell my friends, "I grow sunflowers, rainbows, and happiness, right here next to my unicorn ranch." How awesome would that be?

Anyway, we drove from Asunción to Rosario, Argentina, where we spent the night in a Holiday Inn, ate at McDonald's, and heard a rumor of a Subway. We also left Noah's blankey in the hotel, "my favorite blankey, with frogs, that cost four hundred dollars!" It didn't cost quite that much, but it does have some sentimental value. I didn't discover it missing until we were a half an hour outside Buenos Aires and Kevin was not going to turn around to go and get it. Fortunately, when we called, the hotel had the blanket, and we were able to retrieve it on the drive home. Noah rode with it over his head the whole drive home, he was so happy to get it back.

Buenos Aires was fun, it is a beautiful city, with plazas, and green space, and statues, and cool old buildings. We visited the Casa Rosada, where I really wanted to go and sing from the balcony, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina." The boys told me that I couldn't and shouldn't. We also saw Eva Peron's grave in the cemetary at La Recoleta. It was an old cool cemetary, with vaults made of marble, granite, and a colony of wild looking cats. I could have wandered in that cemetary for hours. We visited La Boca, a colorful, fun place, with street tango dancers, cool arts and crafts, and painted buildings. We drove on the the widest street in the world, Avenida 9 de Julio, past the Boca Juniors soccer stadium, and alongside the Rio de la Plata. We took a trip to a zoo, swam in the pool at the house, and had a relaxing time. It was a good trip, and traveling to Buenos Aires from Asunción is like taking a time machine from the past to the present. The internet was fast, the people (mostly) obeyed the traffice rules, and the streets were mostly smooth, wide, and nice. One thing I have noticed while visiting South American cities is that the painted traffice lanes seem to be a guideline at best. Where there are four lanes in the road, the drivers make five or six. I asked Kevin if maybe I was approaching the whole painted lanes issue completely wrong, and that instead of assuming that we were supposed to be between the lines, we should be straddling them.