Spring Break...in Fall

As you well know by now, we are entering fall here in Chile.  Which means that while everyone else in the world (well, just the Northern Hemisphere but it seems like the rest of the world) is headed off to celebrate the arrival of Spring with a mandated school Break (or even some with mandated work breaks), we have nothing like that on the horizon.  Winter break is a week in July and that is just too far off for me.  I am a Northern Hemisphere girl through and through and my soul is just aching for a Spring Break (so to speak).

So, we decided to make up our own.  We are now on Fall Break here at our house.  It started very nicely with the long Easter weekend and will continue with our 5 day journey to the Atacama desert!  I am very excited and so are the girls.  As we leave very early tomorrow morning for Calama, I will not be posting for a week or so.  But I thought I would leave you with some of the highlights of our Fall Break so far...(which mostly just consists of Easter...)

Good Friday had us taking in a movie at the local theatre.  The Lorax.  What a great story and both of the girls were enthralled from beginning to end.  It was fun for the big people too.  Though I suspect I missed a bit of the humor (and the story).  You see, animated movies for children are not subtitled here - they are dubbed.  For obvious reasons.  These movies are aimed a younger children and the youngest of them (from about ages three to eight, I guess) are not able to read the subtitles fast enough to keep up.  It's fabulous for them as they get to enjoy the movie the way it was intended.  It is not as great for me.  It is 90 minutes of Spanish lessons for me.  But it is getting better.  I catch about 80-85% of what is said!!!  And not just from visual context - I actually understand the words.  But I digress...

We headed out to dinner afterwards.  Ruby Tuesday's was the only thing open at the mall so Ruby Tuesday's it was.  Not a horrible place in the U.S. (though not what I would consider fine dining, or even dining, but it is a meal that has some comfort value...and a lot of calories).  Something is lost in the translation though.  The girls food was better than ours and that is saying something when they had chicken strips and fries.  Or I should say, MadHatter had chicken strips and fries.  Stinkerbell layed on the bench and refused to eat.  This should have been my first clue that we would  not be heading to the beach the next day as planned.

Stinkerbell sprouted a fever, a cough and runny nose that night.  We had to disappoint a very excited 7 year old that was waiting for us to come play with her at the beach that day.  Truth be told, we had to disappoint some adults to - me and B (and I bet P and D too, whom we were headed to meet).  As they had been looking forward to this trip for days, and I was dreading telling them that we would have to stay home due to Stinkerbell's fever, I made them a special breakfast...

The chickie hatching out of her egg softened the blow that we were going to have to stay put for the day.  But they were still pretty disappointed.  But, as Mom's do, we try to do everything in our power to make sure that the sadness is short lived.  We colored and pasted.  We watched a movie.  The sick little girl napped - and then napped some more.  And when they were both awake, I brought out the last thing I could think of - the hard boiled eggs.

I gathered the eggs and the dyes.  The water and the vinager.  I rounded up the glitter, the glue, some feather and some jewels.  I put some music on to dance to and we went to town on some unsuspecting eggs.

The girls picked what colors we would be doing.  And since we only had 8 eggs, it was easy enough to make 8 colors.  They got to help me add the right number of drops of each color to the water and then stir it to watch it come to life.  I am not sure who was most excited about this activity but that isn't unusual...

 

 This year was so much easier since MadHatter could do it all by herself.  She placed them gently in the water, stirred them to get even color and then took them out to dry.

Stinkerbell still needed a little help.

 And then the real fun began...decorating.

Can you believe my 2 1/2 year old did this completely by herself.  Ears and all.

Feathers, jewels and faces...Oh my!

The rejects pile.

And Sunday was Easter.  Still a bit sick (now both of them had runny noses and a cough, but so did our friends so it was ok to get together).  We spent a slow and mellow afternoon sitting around talking.  At least the adults did - the kids jumped and climbed and swung.  But not before they got a sugar rush well before the sun came up...

(Please  understand that the Easter egg hunt pics are a bit blurry and dark - the sun didn't rise until about half way through...)

MadHatter found Stinkerbell's basket in the laundry...

And told her the Easter bunny would never leave hers there....and then she found her basket...

The Easter bunny left her the best thing in the world...bubbles.

Sugar coma...before breakfast.

And then we headed out for some fun...

  

MadHatters Easter cake.

And our hosts...I took a few pics for them...(ok, a lot...but they won't get to see them until we get back...)

From our family to yours... We hope you had a fabulous Easter.  Lots of food, fun and family.  

We are off in the wee hours of the morn and will see you (with pictures) when we get back from volcano climbing, swimming in the salt flats and watching the geysers erupt.

I. Love. My. Life...