Finale

Every one's at school today except Buddy and I! Whew! A few hours of quiet time after a month of rushing, stress, goodbyes, hellos, stress, packing, traveling...did I mention stress?

We officially moved out of the house on December 11th. Our movers were awesome but incredibly slow so the process took five whole days...8:30-5 PM each day. We gave Lilian the Thursday off so she could come in and clean the house on Saturday when it was finally empty. Each day after the movers left, John took exceptionally good care that things were clean, patched and perfect. It was driving me a little crazy but he did an amazing job.

Backing up in time a bit...the night of the final performance of Aida, we had a huge flood in the house. The gardener came to clean the pool and set the water pump incorrectly, causing our water reservoir container to overflow into the house. Since we were enjoying the play, obviously we weren't home to catch it in time. The kitchen was ankle deep with water (at least it was clean water!) and because the reservoir is up by the attic, the kitchen ceiling was a mess. We dried it out very well, lost a few things to water damage but the wood floors were saved and no one died. Unfortunately, the landlord decided to blame us for the damage to the house. Interesting thought process but there you go.

We had been told by people at the Embassy to use our security deposit ($4400 straight out of our pockets) as our last month's rent. It was warned that we would never see the money again if we left the country without it. I had a hard time imagining our landlord taking our money - we really loved this guy...until he blamed us for the gardener leaving the pump set wrong. We had already used the deposit for November's rent (our last full month) and Dr. Claros was very unhappy about it.

Fast forward a few weeks - our closing on the house was December 17th. I was running errands but John was so very ready. He had a list of about 25 improvements we had made in the house, including five sets of lights - and they were a huge improvement over what had been there. We had always expected to leave them with the house as a "Thank you" to the doc. We'd installed a cabinet over the washer and dryer, John had removed and fixed some stained glass windows, small stuff and not so small stuff but this all was over a span of just 10 months. The doctor dismissed the improvements with barely a sniff and tried to charge us $150 for replacing the hot water pump which kept dying on us because it was so old.

To say I was upset was way under estimating my dismay. I was heartbroken. I was disgusted. I was beyond angry because I felt sick with disbelief that this man we made part of our family was playing money games. This all went on for over 3 hours. I showed up about 45 minutes after it started and tried to cool John off - he was shaking with anger. Then I got a full picture of what was going on and told Dr. Claros I was horrified by his behaviour. That's when I started taking down the things we had planned to leave with the house.

It was a terribly sad way to part with our Argentine home. I cried my heart out and didn't want anything to do with the dinner we were planning to go to with some friends of John's from his class. We went anyway and had a great time. It was balm I needed to restore some faith in the Argentine people. Funny how one person can really upset your view on the whole.

The only silver lining in the experience was it made it much easier for us to take our leave of the country we'd made our home for 2007. We left behind some superb friends - especially Mary and Drew - the kids left behind some superb friends of their own too. Nicole's heart wrenching farewells to her two closest friends was simply exhausting.

We had an amazing year, full of adventures and experiences we'll treasure for always. Our visitors added so much to our time there. It's wonderful to have adventures but it's more memorable when you can share them with those you love.

My favourite memories of Argentina ~

1. Iguazu Falls
2. Ushuaia - penguins!
3. Dog walkers with a dozen big dogs attached to them!
4. Cafe con leche
5. Medialunas
6. Tostados
7. Watching Kim learn Spanish
8. Petting a lion and two tigers (sorry Mom!)
9. Aida - my star!
10. SCAC - soccer tournament - my other star!
11. Getting lost finding the zoo then it was closed when we finally found it!
12. John's work hours (7:30-3 with every Friday off!)
13. Hippie Fairs
14. Tango lessons
15. Tango shows - even the never ending one!
16. My first Mate
17. Our parties
18. Nicole's Quince!
19. The kids' wonderful school
20. Our beautiful home

Adios Buenos Aires - looking forward to visiting you again!

Lisette as Princess Amneris in Aida

Farewell Blog

We're sitting in the Buenos Aires International Airport, waiting to board our airplane back to the States. It's been a rough week but now we're heading to family for the holidays. That's what makes it so much easier when it's not easy at all.

I don't have much time but I wanted to post one more blog while we were actually still in Argentina. It's been quite an adventure - definitely worthy of the 250 blogs I've created here.

There will be one postscript blog...I'll fill you in on our lives since moving out of the house and reminisce on our year in this beautiful country.

Feliz Navidad!
Love,
Shelley

Almost Gone

Well the packers have been doing an outstanding job. John has been working himself to the bone, finding things that I'd completely forgot about...for instance, he rescued my Eiffel Tower from being forgotten in the garden!

My work has been done for the majority of the week - I got myself and Jake packed and the kitchen organized so I'm taking this week off...yesterday I got a pedicure and my hair done. Rough work in the midst of an international move, eh? :-)

Our hotel is gorgeous, John and I move into a suite today...it wasn't available until now so we were in a very nice room but with all of our luggage and boxes to be mailed, the quarters were tight.

As our Argentina Experiment winds down, we're forced to reconsider our time here and reflect on all we've done and seen. I think that will be the subject of my final entry...so stay tuned!

Update - Packers

Great day! They sent four guys, three of which unpacked us almost ten months ago. The kitchen and dining room are completely packed as is the garage and most of the living room.

We've decided to move into the hotel tomorrow night...it gets the kids settled and gives the girls a quiet, tranquil environment to study for their exams. Besides - it's beautiful! John and I zipped over there this afternoon to check it out. If all goes really well, there's a chance we'll splurge for the massages!

I just spent a few hours and a whole lot of dollars buying Christmas gifts over the Internet and arranging for them to be mailed (wrapped!) to John's parents' house. Beats having to find a place for them in our luggage or wrapping and mailing them to ourselves! Now I just have to verify I'm basically done and then I'll be so very happy! I have got some wonderful gifts from here too but the kids want boring stuff like gift cards and Nintendo games.

They said they'd hold off packing up the computer so hopefully I'll be updating daily!

Goodnight!

Packing Masters

We're good. We're very, very good. Comes with experience I suppose. We're so good I'm sitting at the computer a mere 30 minutes before we expect the movers to show up...I'm that secure in how prepared we are. Ha! We'll see about that by tonight.

This weekend was spent on prepping. We also threw in three parties and a babysitting job. Oh, and the girls are getting ready for their finals this week. Stress level should be through the roof but John and I especially put in a lot of hours getting the house ready. So here I sit!

We won't move into the hotel until tomorrow or maybe even Wednesday night. We're keeping the packers limited to the main level and maybe the attic today. The attic scares me as I haven't been up there this weekend - don't know how bad it looks.

Hopefully this computer won't disappear into a box today and I'll update this evening!

Besitos!!

One Down

Our Express Shipment was picked up today. This is the shipment that will be sent air freight, hence arriving at our next home much faster (one month) than our regular household goods shipment. We're limited to 1,000 pounds - and we used up every ounce.

The movers showed up at 8:30 this morning but I was at the Elementary School to watch Jake's performance. He woke up with a fever and he looked like he needed a hug...but was horrified when I told him to go on back to bed. He insisted on going to school for the concert because..."I have a solo!" Great - another performer in the family! So I drove him to school and brought him home after the concert. He did great in his solo and the Tylenol this morning seemed to last all day.

This afternoon I went and did some shopping at an open house at a friend's. The idea was to pick up Christmas gifts but I think I bought more for myself. Oops!

Tonight Lisette had another performance at school, kind of a Talent Show/Showcase thing. Now she's got friends over and Nicole has her "friend" (yup, it better just be friendship!) Matt over. They're all preparing to head out to a party - the girls will only be able to be there for an hour and a half, the party starts at 11:30 and their curfew is 1 AM...I'm tired just thinking about it!

My favourite thing about having kids, well one of them, is listening to their conversations from another room. Lisette's friends are cracking me up! At the moment they're playing with Buddy and smelling him (he got bathed today!)

Goodnight! Hope John'll play taxi tonight!