WE'RE BAAAAAAACK!

It has been blog silence for the past month, but we are back! I'll start with the plans for what is next, then I will wax nistalgiac for the past month of family visits.

It is currently 11:00 AM Wednesday morning, January 9th. We have been up since 4:00 AM when we arose from our four hour nap to quickly dress, pack the car and drive Caitie to the airport. After four weeks of traveling with Mom and Dad one would think this 18 year old would be ready to fly back to Italy, but I think all three of us were sad to say our goodbyes at the airport. She is off to Boston where she arrives later today to spend eight days with her two close friends, Catherine at Harvard who she has been close to since high school and Lara, her roommate at NYU. She doesn't have Boston weather clothing, so hopefully they will stay indoors or loan her something to stay warm.

Mike and I leave on a 3:30 flight to Dallas, then a midnight flight from Dallas to Santiago, Chile. We arrive tomorrow morning in Chile. We have arranged two days at some dumpy hotel (described in the guide book as built in 1934 and never remodeled) in a beach resort town, Vina del Mar. After that rehabilitative stay planned to help orient us to Chile, we take off in a rental car for the wine country. We have negotiated a week long stay in a resort in the wine country which we hope is as nice as the wine country stays we enjoyed in New Zealand. We will let you know.

After visiting the wine country we head back to the big city for a day in Vina del Mar or Valparaiso, then catch a Celebrity cruise for a 14 day trip down the coast of Chile, to Uruguay, then Argentina and finally ending in Rio. We arrive in Rio just as Carnival, the original mardi gras,begins. We have a three day hotel arranged and tickets to one night of revelery. I can't believe that they start the show at 11:00 PM and go all night, but we will do our best to hang in there and get some great photos to share.

After our first three days in Brazil, we have nothing planned until our departure on February 22. We have heard all about the wonders of Argentina from Auntie Donna and Uncle Gerry who visited with us yesterday and told us about their previous and upcoming trips to Argentina. So, we may not last long in Brazil, and instead spend our unplanned three weeks visiting beautiful Argentina. You'll just have to follow the blog to see what we are inspried to do.

We arrive back in the US at the end of February where we take up our dogsitting responsiblities in Palm Springs while my mother and sister take off on their cruise through Asia. We will be keeping up the blog so tht those of you who ever want to visit Palm Springs can hear all about it.

On April 11th, we fly to Fort Lauderdale to catch another cruise. This time we will spend 14 days crossing the Atlantic, stopping in Bermuda, the Azores, Portugal and Spain. We will have about ten days in Spain to drive from our final port in Barcelona to San Sebastian, a city in the Northern Basque area that we want to visit but couldn't reach on the last swing through Spain. From San Sebastian we fly to LA pick up our car in storage with my mother and drive back to Seattle to coincide our arrival with Caitie's return from college and the termination of the lease of our home.

Now let me tell you how we did over the past month. The blog left off as we were waiting for our flight in Queenstown. Although flying from New Zealand to Australia, then to LA is counterintuitive and takes about 8 hours of unneccessary time, beggers flying on freqeunt flier points can't be choosy and will agree to any waste of time that doesn't cost money. So, we sat for days and got home. Our first destination was LA where we visited with my mother for a few days, did laundry and took care of reorientation to the US errands. Then we set off for Vancouver. As we were standing in the line to clear immigration, we saw on the arrivals board that Caitie's flight had touched down, and sure enough, a few minutes later she appeared at the end of our line. We caught up with each other in the baggage area, and after lots of hugs and waiting we discovered that her bags were still in London. We filled out the apprpriate paperwork, rented our car, then took off for Bellingham.

Our ten days in Bellingham were wonderful. Son, Mike and his wife, Dana opened the entire house to us, including the entire downstairs where Caitie had a room along side the room for us. We met their new cat, the most amzaing cat I have ever seen. It plays tag! The basic rules are that you run and hide, at which time the cat tries to find you and when you spot each other the cat turns and runs to hide and you give chase. Amazing!

Sons Matt and Jonny joined us for Christmas at Mike and Dana's. We exchanged gifts and shared a dinner of turkey and fixings and all of the wonderful baked goods coming from Dana's oven. She made us rolls, banana and pumpkin bread, apple pie and wonderful cookies. It was great.

On Christmas night we all jumped in Mike's car and he drove us to the casino where Matt was hard at work. None of us had ever visited the brand new casino, so it was fun to see the place where Matt puts in his long work days. Jonny spent a few days in Bellingham then had to return to Ellensburg for his job. He had to drive through horrible snow storms to get to our family Christmas celebration, but it would not have been the same with out him.

After Bellingham we faced the snow in Oregon and drove to Walnut Creek, Califronia where we visited with daughter, Megan and son-in-law, Matt and the two most awesome grandchildren in the world, Athena and Ricky. We also had a nice visit with my father and his wife, Pat. We were in the Bay Area for four or five days, passing around a stomach flu that Megan had first and shared very politely with most of the rest of us. Other than the flu, the visit was terrific. Athena went shopping with Caitie and me- a true girl's activity at which she shines (I am predjudiced in that I think she shines at everything).

Finally, we drove to Southern California where we arrived about a week ago. We have visited with my sisters and nieces and my mother. Mike has been super patient hanging out with lots of women.

And now we go. Keep in touch. We have never been to South America, so this will all be new. Until a long tomorrow....
Deanne