Rainy Days

The last couple days at the farm we’ve had rain.  We’ve split our time between playing inside, getting wet outside and hanging out in town.  We’ve still gotten up for chores each day but instead of all of us heading out the door Danny has taken over the jobs the couple mornings.  The kids and I got to stay in bed snuggling a little longer than usual and then we made a big ole breakfast- one day we made banana-oat pancakes and topped them off with Christina’s homemade jam and yogurt.  The next morning we French-toasted the leftover pancakes.  Super yummy.

We’ve spent lots of time playing indoors.  We’ve taken our work inside and spent one morning shelling peas at the kitchen table.  Christina gave Harper a great matching game with letters, pictures and Spanish words and we’ve played with it a lot.  I wonder how learning the phonemic basics of Spanish will translate to her reading skills next year in school.  I can only imagine in the long run it will help, but vowel sounds in English are different than Spanish so now it is a little confusing when she is trying to sound out words.  We also have spent a while watching old videos on our computer of the kids as babies.  It has been so nice to relive those days and the kids think they were pretty funny as babies.  Harper also begs for time to look through pictures on the computer from back in Carbondale.  She wistfully looks back on all her old clothes, exclaiming, “Oh I remember that skirt!  I loved that one.  Do we still have it at home or did you turn it into a rag?”  Ha.

Matching game in Spanish

Coloring at the kitchen table.

We shelled a whole lot of peas during a rainy morning.

Danny smoking us out of the cabin.

When Cal reaches his allotted hours of time indoors and starts crashing around and jumping off the furniture we head outside.  Cal and Danny spent yesterday finishing the job of moving a huge pile of sticks from one part of the farm to another.  Another time they worked to move a few wheelbarrow loads of gravel from the riverbed to the strawberry patch.  Cal has become a really hard worker.  While Harper’s interest wanes early on, Cal likes to finish things up and is proud of his work afterwards. 

our cooks at the parrilla

Mmmm provoleta

Carnivore Cal

Yesterday we went into Bariloche for the afternoon.  We started at the public library where we got a little room in the kids’ library all to ourselves.  It was great!  The kids read books and colored pictures and Danny and I caught up on email.  After that we ate lunch at El Boliche de Alberto, a touristy and traditional parrilla (steakhouse).  We had provoleta (melted cheese), bife de lomo (tenderloin), bife de vacio (flank steak), chorizo (sausage), ensalada, and papas fritas (fries).  Cal put us all to shame and ate more than anyone.  He seriously ate almost the entire flank steak.  The grill at the parrilla was right next to our table so we got to watch the guys at work as we ate.  It was really fun.  Danny tried to get his last few days of eating red meat in before his Dad and Mom arrive on Wednesday and give him a strict talking to about his cholesterol and diet!

One other rainy day activity Harper has asked me to report is her new haircut!  We chopped off her long and tangled locks Saturday afternoon and gave her a bob and some bangs.  Very cute.