14 July 2013 - A Week in New Jersey

With temperatures and humidity in the 90s, a trip to the spray ground was in order.  Here are Madeline and Eden.  No running was the rule, but not always the practice.

Cooling off kept all three girls smiling.

Calista and Madeline shared a drink to re-hydrate after a couple hours in the water.

Eden knows how to strike a pose for the camera.

After Jerry's family left for a family reunion in California, we stayed at their house for a few more days.  Their house is close to Thomas Edison's home and factory in West Orange, so we went to take the tour.

Emily and Jessica in Thomas Edison's chemistry lab.

The family in his photography lab and studio.

On Friday, we went into New York City.  Our first activity was a boat tour around Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty.

On the boat with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background.

The girls with Manhattan behind.  The tallest, all glass building on the left of this photo is the new World Trade Center.

One last trip to the Statue of Liberty before we move west.

We went to Chinatown in Manhattan for lunch.  Madeline was so excited to use chopsticks.

In front of the Buddhist Temple in Chinatown.

In the evening we went to a show on Broadway.  Potted Potter is a satire that tells the story of the seven books in about an hour and fifteen minutes.  It's very funny, and was actually family friendly, which is rare on Broadway anymore.

When the play ended, we concluded the evening in Times Square.

Joanne found (or was?) an angry bird at the Toys-r-us in Times Square.

After weeks on the road across two continents, we finally headed back to where it all began.  On Saturday we returned to Washington, PA so we could get ready for Joanne and Jessica to go to Girls Camp, and to attend our ward one last time.

7 July 2013 - Buenos Aires to New Jersey

On Monday morning, we took the bus from Santa Fe to Buenos Aires.  I had a meeting at the Fulbright office Tuesday morning, and it's a seven hour drive from Santa Fe to B.A., so we got the long drive out of the way Monday.  On Tuesday we went to the Fulbright office, then went to the docks to catch a boat to Uruguay.  Here are the girls on the boat.

Upon our arrival in Uruguay, we rented a car.  Here is our car:

It was sunny, but not super warm to be driving a stretch-limo golf cart, but the girls had a blast riding in it, I had a blast driving it, and people all around town had a blast seeing it.  We even had a few times where we came back to it in the parking lot and found tourists taking pictures of it (and even in it a couple of times!)

First we went to the beach, which was awesome, but cold.

This however did not stop the girls from rolling up their pants and wading in.

The town opposite Buenos Aires in Uruguay is called Colonia and it is a Spanish colonial era fort town.  Not much of the old fort remains, but the lighthouse has been preserved and is still in use today.

This is Joanne at the top of the lighthouse with some nearby islands in the background.

Here are the girls sitting on a remnant of the fort wall.

All around Colonia, old cars are positioned on the streets.  It's a very tourist friendly town.

The girls found this little cannon in one of the town parks and staged a scene.

After a full day in Colonia, we ate churrasco at a beach restaurant and watched the sun set.  Pictures of these gorgeous sunsets often don't do them justice.  This one turned out pretty nice.

Tuesday night we took the boat back to B.A.  Wednesday was our last day in Argentina. With a 9 PM flight, we had a whole day before heading to the airport.  We took a hop-on-off bus tour around the city. This is one of the many monuments around the city.

B.A.'s answer to the Washington Monument is the Obelisco.  It's smaller than the Washington Monument, but still impressive, and right in the middle of the busiest street in the city.

This is the official presidential residence.  We have the White House, they have the Pink House.

Our bus took us to the Boca Juniors soccer stadium.  As professional sporting venues go, this is the equivalent of Yankees Stadium for Argentina.

Here is me on the bus in the waterfront district in B.A.  Note that my hood was up, even though the sun was very bright.

After a full day of touring the city, we made our way to the airport for our long ride home.

We arrived back in New Jersey around noon on July 4th.  The girls were excited to see cousins again.

We went to a picnic with Jerry's family, then found our way up a hillside to watch the New York City fireworks on the Hudson River.  As with sunsets, photos rarely do them justice.

Eden and Calista made welcome home signs for us.  They were excited to have us stay with them to play for a few days.

On Friday, we went to Great Falls in Patterson, New Jersey.  I hadn't ever heard of these, and it was really cool to see falls like this right in the middle of a city.

It wasn't all fun and games though.  The back door of Jerry and Danae's house faces most of the storms that come along, and over the years the threshold and step had deteriorated pretty badly.  The cold (and hot) air would filter under the door fairly freely, so we removed the rotten wood and installed a new threshold.  It's a nice complement to the tile floor we did in the kitchen last year.

30 June 2013 - Last week in Santa Fe

Our last week in Argentina was wonderful, but it was hard to believe a month had gone by so fast.  We spent several days playing at the park.

Even though it was winter, we sampled some Argentine ice cream, which is excellent.

This rocket ship was at a park right near my office at the university.

On our final Thursday, the bishop and his wife had us over for pizza.  The little boy on my lap is their younger son Nicholas (they had two boys).  Nicholas and I were fast friends.

This is their older son Jeremias.  The bishop and Jeremias came over to our house for Sunday dinner to help us finish up the last of the food at the apartment.

Our family was asked to speak in sacrament meeting on our last Sunday in the ward.  Joanne gave her testimony and our family sang If the Savior Stood Beside Me (in English).  I was asked to speak on repentance.  Although my Spanish improved markedly in the month we were there, it still isn't all that great, so thank goodness for Google Translate.  The bishop told me that everyone could understand me, so I was grateful for that.  Here is my talk in English, and in Spanish.

We found this store down the street from our apartment.  The girls were appalled that anyone would name their store that.  They referred to it as "that one store".  I told them after my repentance talk that if you don't repent, you have to shop at that one store, and nowhere else, for the rest of your life.

Here are my colleagues at the university in Santa Fe.  From left to right they are Raul (networking professor), Joanne, me, Luciana (systems analysis and design professor), Milagros (programming professor), Horacio (department chair), and Horacio's wife Gabriela.  Horacio and Gabriela invited us over for an Argentine style barbecue on our last Saturday in Santa Fe.