One more....

When I was about 3, I got my first baby doll.  My mom asked me what I was going to name him.  Well, I didn't know what to name babies -- the only one I knew was my little brother.  And so I named the baby: Baby Michael.  

Sports Memories

Here we've got my trophy line up: I played softball for 4 years, from when I was 8 till I was 12.  My first team was sponsored by Applebees and my second by Centura Bank.  I usually played first or second base because I was great at stretching and snatching up throws that landed short while keeping my foot on the base.  I never played catcher because you couldn't wear the catcher's mask with glasses.  Most of my softball team were my neighborhood girlfriends, and we had a great time.  I can still remember all the cheers!  G-O-O-D-E-Y-E!  Good eye, good eye good eye!  We want a single, just a little single, S-I-N, G-L-E, Single Single Single! 

I also played three years of basketball on local rec leagues. My first team was the Wildcats, then the Tornadoes, then the Stingers.  I was never fabulous, but we had a lot of fun.  On more than one occasion, my teammates passed the ball to me, but I wasn't looking and it hit me in the head.  Ha!  We all had a good laugh. 

I played one year of tennis (I should have talked about these sports in reverse order, we're going from best to worst).  It was on a rec league in Raleigh.  I had a few tennis lessons growing up, but I needed a lot more practice.  I remember being beat by an 8 year old once (I was at least 14).  But I learned the rules really well, and now enjoy watching tennis and shouting out "Deuce!"

Oh, and we can't forget my Shannon Miller Barbie.  All this Olympics gymnastics hype has really got me reminiscing about 1996.  Mike caught me last night with my jaw on the ground watching a TV piece about Kerri Strug when she landed that famous vault.  I was so fascinated with the Olympics that year.  I remember jumping up and down on the trampoline with my cousin, Jen, chanting "USA!  USA!"  And of course Shannon Miller was my hero.  This Barbie could do all kinds of tricks, like spin around and bend all her joints.  I brought her on all of our family trips and played with her in the car.  Good times.

I Spy.....

OK, so in this top box I found......candy wrappers?  I have no idea why I saved those.  I must have had a reason though.  A couple of Christmas ornaments I painted.  I used to paint anything I could get my hands on: last week I found a ceramic fish (circa 1992), whale, and wolf that I had painted as well, and about 40 painted sea shells.  My rock collection was also a huge find (I only painted a couple of those though).  We used to go panning for gem's at Panner's Creek growing up in North Carolina.  I had fool's gold, little garnets, obsidian, pumice, quartz, amethyst, and who knows what else.  I LOVED going panning.

I Spy #2: POGS.  Did any of you collect POGS?  I had that little orange container FULL of them!  But I still don't understand how we played with them or won them.  I just knew they were cool to have.  We also have here an eagle that balances on your finger, a snake made out of beads, a yo-yo (which yes, I could actually make work), a little penguin floating in a bubble, a penny collection (only from the 80's on though), a tiny flower pot, some Asian fans, a mini etch-a-sketch and simon says game, a "prayer rock" that I painted like a puppy, a troll (loved those trolls!), a Tamagachi (remember those!?  You had to keep your little electronic pet alive!), and of course another of my painting projects, my initials!

....and a thing for every place....

One of my favorite sayings is "a place for everything, and a thing for every place."  I am SUCH a sentimental and nostalgic person, that it is extremely hard for me to get rid of things.  However, getting married, receiving many wonderful wedding presents, and moving to an apartment half the size of each of our apartments in Caracas means some things have got to go.  Mike loves sorting and consolidating, so every time we get rid of something, he feels happy, but I feel sad.  Poor guy, every time he holds something up and says "can this go?" I get all teary-eyed and say "but I got that when I was 12 at such and such a place and such and such a time!"  It's been exhausting for both of us.  But such is life in the Foreign Service.  Moving every two years means you can't hold on to every little thing.  And anyway, as my mom always says, "people are more important than things," and Mike's the most important thing in my life now.  Just gotta make sure I pack him up with me each time I move from this point on :)

Luckily, we are about done sorting and donating/tossing, and it feels so nice to be settled into our own apartment, and everything has a place.  To help ease the pain of getting rid of some things, I took some pictures of some of the memories I uncovered and thought I'd blog about them so they're not lost forever! 

I think this will probably be a series of blog posts (there are a lot of pictures), so thanks in advance for indulging me in this bit of sentimentality/memory recording.

The View as We Do the Dishes

We are loving it here. We each received our shipments from Caracas this week and are really starting to feel at home. We sorted through our duplicates, and will be donating quite a few things, which also feels good. The apartment is really coming together, more pictures soon.

Highlights from my jog yesterday: hundreds of people out in the park, and at least half of them were roller blading, including a few 60+ year olds! The skill levels also varied: some were playing street hockey and some were trying to teach other how to simply stay on their feet. Lots of joggers too, running with me around this track in the park. It felt like a 5K again! I can't imagine when the weather warms up, it'll feel like I'm running a marathon! Except I'll still only be running about 2.5 miles :)

We really loved Caracas, but I think we are really going to try to take advantage of our time living downtown here in Buenos Aires because it's so much safer. Not perfect, but we really feel at ease being out and about and it's great. We love walking everywhere! We're not exactly sure what we'll do with our car when it comes......guess we'd better start planning some road trips!

Oh yeah, Iguazu

I forgot to blog about our trip to Iguazu! We went two weeks ago, and loved it. We saw lots of wildlife, including toucans, a cuckoo, alligators, turtles, and....coatis....

The first coati we saw scrambled across the sidewalk in front of us, and we couldn't believe we didn't get a picture! We were disappointed, until we saw approximately 200 more over the next two days. Haha! They were like pigeons, running over to anyone that opened a bag of chips. But they were so cute!

The falls were incredible, the amount of water pouring over was staggering.

Mike also set us up with a boat ride that took us right into one of the smaller falls (small is a relative term). It was AWESOME and we got soaked.

Um, Mike took all the pictures, so I will refer you to his blog to check them out!

Farm Show and Fakesgiving

Yesterday, Mike and I and a friend from work went to an Exposicion de Ganaderia, or in other words, a Farm Show! It was like a State Fair, every kind of farm animal you could imagine, stands selling all kinds of jams, meats, and cheeses (and dulce de leche), and giving away samples! There were companies like John Deere showing off their GIANT pieces of farm equipment as well.

The drink called Mate is an incredibly essential part of the culture here: people carry their thermoses and gourds around all day. We laughed to see a hot water vending machine that people could use to fill their thermos, and a mate stand in the middle of the horse ring for the judges.

Another part of the gaucho culture, I guess, are these ginormous berets called "bouinas," and of course I had to buy one, after seeing all the gauchos wearing them. You can see me sporting the boina and Mike with his new mate gourd in one of the pictures.

Oh, and you'll also see a picture of some cows in pens next to a steak restaurant. Not sure what goes down there, but we stuck to the Choripan stand outside.

Another part of life here in July is that it's COLD! Well, relatively chilly, anyway, highs in the 50's or 60's. With the weather like this, a couple of our coworkers decided we should have a potluck Fakesgiving. It was great! A few non-Americans attended, and though I think they were bewildered about a few thanksgiving traditions, like setting out cranberry sauce in the shape of a can that no one eats (the girl next to me couldn't stop laughing), they loved the food. I made sweet potato casserole, and my goal was to make it taste as similar to my Dads as I could.

Unfortunately......the sweet potatoes here are white with a purple peel, excessively starchified (though yes, they're still sweet), and as hard to cut as tree trunks. I boiled them for half an hour, mashed them, then added exorbitant amounts of butter, cream, and sugar. They tasted fine, but were a greenish-yellow, with a couple of purple chunks. So.......I shredded two carrots, and blended it all up! Pretty close! Threw on some walnuts (no pecans here), and....I made my own marshmallows! Actually not too tough -- you just need gelatin, melted sugar, and beaters or a blender.

So (keeping in mind that I left out all the steps it took to get the potatoes the right consistency, after having so effectively de-starchified them), it took me about 7 hours total. Yup, that is a once a year (or once in a lifetime!) recipe. But I'm so proud they turned out!