Horseback Riding Two Year Olds and Gringo Torta

Yesterday was Jeremy's birthday, so we started the day in the traditional Weyland family way... with a freshly baked Kringle for breakfast. Restricted to the hotel implements, I peeled fresh Chilean lemons and chopped up the rinds instead of grating them, so the Kringle was super ZESTY but delicious!

With the Chilean Bicentennial holiday fast approaching, the festivities were already in full-force. We received several recommendations to visit Padre Hurado Communal Parque in La Reina (a region of Santiago with a great view of the Andes), so we hopped in a taxi and headed there for the day. The park was set up with tons of activities for kids and adults, including bouncy castles, animals, games, airplane/army vehicle displays, etc. They also had traditional fondas set up where there were bands playing Chilean folk music and lots of delicious traditional foods, including melt in your mouth sausages and meet kabobs.

The best part of Padre Hurado Parque was the horseback riding. When we first approached the ride we figured they might let four year old William ride a horse, but there was no way they'd let two year old Jackson! I inquired about the price (equivalent to $4 per kid) and before we knew it, both kids were saddled up and riding ponies across the track with massive smiles plastered on their faces! I kept thinking that there was no way they would let a two year old ride a pony back home in Canada and despite the otherwise incredibly strict rules in Chile, I think this place is pretty cool :) Hopefully this means both kids will be riding horses AND speaking fluent Spanish before we come home in two years!

We rounded out the day with a dinner out (sin los ninos) in the Belle Arts area of Santiago (which looks a lot like areas of Paris) at a Basque restaurant for some very traditional Spanish cuisine, which was incredible. Angelica (our new nanny) babysat the kids and did remarkably well given that Jackson kicked off the evening by flinging a full glass of milk across the living room. I think she might be a Saint! Angelica speaks no English, so working with her has stretched the boundaries of our Spanish abilities and necessitated a lot of use of Google Translator. At the end of the night, she was talking about the "Gringo Torta" and how Jackson kept asking for "Gringo cake" so she kept giving him more... where the whole time Jackson was actually saying Kringle. From now on Kringle will be referred to as Gringo cake in our house!

Today Jeremy did some reconnaissance on "autos usados" (used cars) - we're looking for a large vehicle with seating for 7, so we can hit the slopes every weekend in the winter and truck around our visitors. No luck on this front yet, but there are lots of interesting options available that you can't buy back home. We also borrowed a friend's car and did some more driving around in the neighborhood where we now have two offers out on houses (and should know the status by Tuesday). I have to say that it is going to be very different not living downtown, but living on the side of a mountain Hollywood style is pretty cool, so we're willing to take the plunge for two years (especially given William's school and Jeremy's office is still less than a 10 minute drive away). No matter how you cut it, living out here will be an adventure!