Counting the days.....

Happy December, everyone!

And a belated happy Thanksgiving. I would first like to thank all of you for being part of my life. I love you all and feel very fortunate to have the boyfriend, dog, family, friends, job, and city to live in that I do. So thank you.

The past few months have absolutely flown! Many times I have thought of writing or tried to write, but as my job is so computer-based, and given that Antonio and I don't see each other much during the week, I do not feel very inclined to connect to another computer when I do have free time. Sorry!

I have been absolutely fantastic! I love my job. I have had a great semester filled with events that I coordinated: taking international students to a vineyard, the Chilean Stock Market, a Star Observatory, a special Chilean restaurant with dancers, and hosting many Chilean movie nights. I also coordinated and hosted the 2013 Korean Film Night that I coordinated with the Embassy of South Korea, which was a big success (we showed two Korean films that came out last year with a reception in between where the Cultural Representative of the Korean Embassy and my boss, Erich Spencer, the Director of International Relations spoke -- 30 people showed up to each movie, which was more than we expected! I also coordinated the end of the semester Farewell party for the international students. And the best part is that my coworkers and bosses have all told me how much they love me and love my work!  Yaaaay!

Most recently I have been preparing for next semester's group of 95 international students who arrive the first week in March.

The most exciting part is that I WILL BE IN THE US IN 10 DAYS! Yes, you read that right: I leave Chile on December 11th, 9 pm, to go to Lima, Peru, change planes, and arrive in LA on December 12th. I will arrive in Portland, Oregon at 2 pm on December 12th and will be in the Portland area until December 26th. The 26th I will get on a plane with 9 other members of my family to fly to Los Angeles for the wedding of my cousin Steven O'Herin to his lovely fiancée Christy. :) Nigel will then drive me (and hopefully my aunt and cousins) to San Fransisco on the 28th until the 30th when we will return to Los Angeles. Nigel leaves December 31st for Oregon with the rest of the Oregon clan and I will leave Los Angeles on January 2nd to arrive in Chile on January 3rd in the early morning.

SO! That means that I will be able to see some of you! Sorry that I won't be able to get to all of you but hopefully I will see as many as possible. Already my days are getting filled up with doctor's appointments, reunions with college and high school friends and holiday festivities. But I will do my best! 

Biiig hugs to you all and hope to see you soon!  Oh, and I am also counting the days until Antonio and I can move out of his dad's house and into our own apartment in January!  Sooo close to freedom!!!!

Love, Kaia

Three days down, the rest of the semester to go!

Last Wednesday, I had my first day of work at the Universidad de Chile Faculty of Economy and Business (Facultad de Economía y Negocios -- FEN).  I liked it so went back to have a second and third day Thursday and Friday.  It was fun. The End.

Just kidding!  It's not the end. It's the beginning!  And I am immensely content and excited about it.  From my first day on the job I have felt nothing but friendliness.  I have been included and welcomed heartily by everyone from my supervisor, Stephanie (the Head of the International Relations office), to the director of my office and the director of Student Affairs on campus, all the way to the students, tech people and other staff peoples.  I have a university email with an email signature that looks spiffy and includes the university logo (took forever and a day for the tech guy and I to do), my desk arrived on Friday, my phone is in the building, and my computer is a week and a half to its arrival.  AND I will get my own, bilingual, fanciful business cards!!!!!  (I've never had official work-related, personalized business cards before). And I can join the staff four days a week Zumba class after work for only $10-ish US dollars a month.  HAPPINESS!!!! 

And the best part is that I am included, valued by my supervisor and coworkers, treated as an equal and the directors mentioned above both told me they were very happy to have me working here.  YAY!  I feel like I'm dreaming and am tickled with joy.  But details:

I work with Stephanie, the Head of the International Relations office, and Soledad, the Outgoing Student Exchange Coordinator (she works with Chilean students that want to study abroad).  My technical position name is the Incoming Student Exchange Coordinator so I will eventually be in charge of assisting and welcoming the students coming from around the world to study at FEN.  The three of us semi-share two assistants who are Chilean students here at the university.  Jaime is amazingly talented in everythin and most often works with Stephanie and I, and Nacho (short for Ignacio) is also wonderfully helpful and usually works with Soledad (although he is going abroad in September to France).  María (can't remember the second part of her name) is replacing Nacho for the semester and seems really nice but I don't know her all that well yet (she's also just learning the ropes herself).

Once the office-space finishes being re-organized (they are giving us cubicle walls to separate departments), I will have my desk next to Soledad's facing Stephanie's walled office with the two assistant desks behind us.  I promise pictures when that happens as currently without my computer and with the existing random assortment of desks it is not too impressive nor clear on the organization.  We are located on the second floor of building Z, which is called this because it is actually built in the shape of a "z" on its side, and are located in the middle, diagonal portion of the Z.  

The campus itself is fairly small, made of up our building, the main Hall, building Placa, and the Tower which is like the administrative building (a CRAZY architect built it as it has a confusing zig-zag of stairs and half-floors going up the center of it).  We are located next to the Faculty of Architecture and are over the fence from the Universidad de Chile Student Association that is the seat of government for the student protest leaders.  Needless to say, when there are protests, all but one of the campus gates are closed for that reason. :D  Fortunately, the campus is about a 7 minute walk from the metro Universidad Catolica, which is where I got off when I was working at the travel company so my one hour-ish commute has not changed much (except that now I go south instead of north from the metro exit).

So far my three days have been fairly administrative and training as the semester has yet to begin.  However, our 108 students have already begun to arrive from their more than 17 different originating countries.  This semester we will have at least 29 students from France, 24 students from Germany, 13 from the US, 10 from Holland, 6 students from Colombia, 4 each from Spain and Denmark, 3 students each from Finland and México, and 1 to 2 students each from Sweden, Portugal, Poland, Italy, Vietnam, Israel, Belgium, Argentina, and India. 

This upcoming Wednesday is the Exchange Student Orientation so really this week all the fun and craziness begins!  This is the biggest group of students that the school has ever had so it will be exciting!  I will be assisting Stephanie with preparations for orientation day and then in attending the loooong line of students waiting to meet with us to add or drop classes or ask questions.  During the rest of the semester I will: answer student questions, welcome whatever international visitors come to the school, send off transcripts from last semester, plan semester activities (welcome and good-bye party, etc), accept applications and prepare for next semester, and assist to plan and chaperone the occasional educational trip. 

Every summer and occasionally during the year, groups of students and their professors will come to the school for an educational field trip or intense semester.  Most of these consist of classes in the mornings with special tours and talks in the afternoons.  These outings are what our office gets to chaperone.  Last Friday, for example, I was invited to join Soledad in chaperoning the trip to the Chile central bank (Banco Central de Chile) to learn about Chile's financial system and walk through the beautiful historic building.  I can tell that in this job I will quickly get back up to par on economics and business related topics. :D

Last small but important technicality/detail is that my visa papers are yet to be entered into the system at the office of Extranjeria.  But tomorrow is the last day of the time-frame they said it would take so I plan on calling to inquire tomorrow afternoon.  As soon I have my the document that confirms my visa papers are processing, I can negotiate and sign a contract. And when my visa finally comes and I am able to renew my national ID card, they will be able to pay me (which hopefully will be in not too long).  Will let you all know when I get news.

So that's the latest from Santiago de Chile!  I hope you all have a wonderful week and that you enjoy your warm temperatures. We can see our breath inside the house so by that I mean it's cold here. But not below zero, thankfully.  We did have hail the other day though!  Big hugs to you all!

Love, Kaia (^_^)

P.S. For more info and visuals, feel free to check out the university website in English: http://fen.uchile.cl/index_eng.html, and the Office of International Relations website: http://international.fen.uchile.cl/ (this is to be improved as the semester progresses).

My first day! And Race/Classism in Chile

Greetings from chilly Chile!  I have wonderful news: After a week and a half of being sick with a stubborn cold I am not only feeling better but will have my first day of work on Wednesday, July 17th! 

I still have yet to hear from the immigration office that my paperwork has been added to the system (aka it hasn't yet), but I should hear from them by the 22nd, I hope.  In the meantime, my supervisor Stephanie has requested I start work at 10 am on Wednesday to begin a week-long training before the 100 or so new exchange students arrive on the 24th.  I am super excited!  Stephanie already sent me my university email to activate which proves that it was not all a dream and that I am legitimately working at the Faculty of Econ and Business of University of Chile!  SOOO excited.  She's even ordered a PC for my desk.  And a chair, I imagine. :p

In other news we spent yesterday in Valparaíso.  The idea was to finally go scuba diving (bad weather cancelled it last time), but unfortunately transportation was against us and one bus, the metro, and two buses left us almost 2 hours late.  Grrrr.  Ah, well.  Next Saturday we hope to make it work.  Despite the downer of not scuba diving and arriving embarrassingly late, we did have a fun day walking along the coastal road, tidepooling, admiring the giant waves smashing against rocks, noticing the different eating habits of sea birds and visiting the Chilean naval wharf.  We even got to tour the deck of one of the frigates(?), and managed to get a close-up view of the famous sailing ship, the Esmeralda, which was named after the ships of the same names that played important roles in Chile's independence and the Battle of Iquique with Peru. 

Immersion in the world of the Navy also gave me the opportunity to witness first-hand the extent of Chilean racism and classism.  Luck would have it that we decided to visit the wharf on the day a new group of naval officers were to sail off on their tour of duty (we think for maybe a week?).  En route to the other ships, we walked past all the families who were of an obviously higher economic status and with mostly European-like physical characteristics who were there to send off their sons and daughters in the navy.  This means that there was nobody that was as dark-skinned as Antonio nor from a middle-class or poor family. 

Here in Chile, even the military and police force are classist.  Antonio himself pointed out that no police institution or military leadership academy accepted his applications to all eligible positions.  And pilot schools are terribly expensive, as well, leaving pilots suspiciously white and upper-classed.  A sad reality for such a big population of Chile. 

Antonio told me quietly, as we walked through the crowd that, "You won't find anyone from poor families in those smart uniforms on the top deck.  If there are people like that, they'll be the ones down below deck, or the ones painting the ship and doing maintenance."  He has told me on other occasions how no one would hire someone who looked like him as a bank teller or promoter.  And all because just like the US and other countries, Chile has been brainwashed into thinking that pasty, see-through, blotchy, blemish-highlighting, burn-easy, lighter-colored skin is the image of beauty.  Sad, as I feel completely the opposite (I guess you shouldn't be surprised since I did fall for a handsome darker-skinned Chilean.)

Obviously, given the recent judicial news in the US, we, too, have a long way to go before we can be color blind in our thoughts, actions, reactions, statements and politics.  Chile and the US will need to do a lot more to amplify the definition of beauty and celebrate and embrace the differences that make each of us so special. 

But like in the US, the only way for this to happen in Chile is for people to actually talk about it:  

    -  It is rare to find an advertisement or commercial with a darker-skinned model. In fact, my US friend was asked to be a model in an ad in the paper and in a music video in the mountains.  She is dark-haired, but tall, light-skinned and blue-eyed.  (Some reacted to this news with "We can't even find Chilean models for our own commercials?!  We have to go find US people for that, too?!")

    -  One thing that bothered Antonio about my Chilean host family (remember that though of darker skin they were a military family), was that they claimed they were from the middle class even though they had a daily nanny/housemaid.  They are not the only ones who live in the Chilean economic bubble-- oblivious or easily forgetful of the other reality of so many other families in the same city. 

    -  The "conflict" in the Araucania region between the Mapuche (the biggest group of native inhabitants in south-central Chile) and the Chilean government has yet to be addressed and resolved in a non-violent manner.  Police and Mapuche extremists are both a bit too "gun"-ho on the violence, if you get my drift.  On our train ride from Temuco back to Santiago there were Police escorts on either side of the track through this region and past the burned train cars from a few days before.  And all this despite the fact that Mapuche culture promotes peace and a hard-working life ethic.

    -  Photos are still requested on job applications and last names will get you just about anywhere (if you have the right one, that is).  In DC, when chatting with a Chilean politician and mentioning my boyfriend's last name, Painemilla, the Chilean responded, "Oh, I have some Mapuche friends/colleagues," or something similar. 

And this goes both up the socioeconomic scale as well as down: It's hard for Antonio to be motivated to meet the families of my students or friends, and form a friendship with them, when they are from a different economic class. It's hard for him not to loose patience with their complaints or comments which seem trivial or naive in comparison to those from people in our neighborhood who are confronted with a harsher reality. 

All of this proves that there needs to be dialogue on both sides, prejudices discarded, and opportunities created to bridge the gap that exists socially as well as economically. 

Just some food for thought from one of South America's strongest economies and countries.  I will keep you all posted about how my first few days of work go!  Big hugs to all! 

I encourage everyone to take a few minutes to think compassionately of others outside your box, your world, whatever that may be.  We are all human in the end, with the same needs, wants, and the capacity to love and be loved!  And that is really all that matters. 

I suspect that as I get further immersed into Chilean culture I will have more interesting insights to share, but I promise to try to make them shorter. :p  Apologies for the long email!

Love, Kaia (^_^)

• 
  

I GOT IT!!! (Originally written June 27th)

Today I had my interview and ... it went REALLY well.  So well, in fact that ... they offered me the position at the end of it!!!!  I GOT THE JOB!!!!!!  My position title is "Incoming Student Exchange Coordinator" in the "Nexo Internacional" (International Relations "Link") office at the Faculty of Economy and Business (Facultad de Economía y Negocio or FEN) at University of Chile (Universidad de Chile).  This means that I will be working 8:30/9am -5:30/6pm (with one hr lunch) at what is basically the study abroad office with the incoming exchange students.  My duties will include answering the questions of potential and accepted exchange students from outside of Chile, to assisting them enroll in classes, planning and organizing their welcome/orientation, events during the semester, going away party and any problems that pop up throughout the semester.  And to help with any other international delegations that arrive, etc, etc. 

Stephanie told me that 100 students are to arrive July 24th and that we even have some students from the American University Business School and Israel! 

I am SUPER excited.  My supervisor, Stephanie, is British and then the other woman in our office is Chilean and works with the outgoing Chilean study abroad students. 

Thank you so much, everyone, for you good luck wishes and messages, and for believing in me!  I can still hardly believe I will be working at one of Chile's best, if not THE best, university!!!  (Btw, it's a public university -- double cool!!!!). 

Regarding when I start... that depends on my visa.  I am technically, on the street-wise, illegal as my national ID card has expired as of the 20th of this month.  BUT in the system, they have registered and are processing my application for "Permanent Residency."  They received it via snail mail the 17th, so in 30-45 days after that date, I should hear from them.  I'm going to see tomorrow if I can get a better idea of how things are going.  If I get denied for some reason, the most likely is that they will give me another one-year Temporary Visa.  The good thing is that Stephanie told me that they would be willing to wait for me to be able to work for them, even if it's not until August (hopefully not!).  Fingers crossed, they'll figure out a way for me to work legally for them beforehand. 

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!  Will let you all know the start date and more details as they come to me. Btw, I will be paid way more than I was ever offered at any other job up to this date.  YES!  Dream job -- CHECK!  Dream of having own apartment some day... CLOSER!!!

Hugs to all!

Love, a super excited and happy, over the moon, KAIA (^_^)

BIG exciting newses (^_^)

HELLOOO friends and family!

I have TWO big news-es to share with you all. 

1) Yesterday I had a job interview with the Study Abroad office of the Faculty of Economy and Business of Chile's number one university, Universidad de Chile, and... I WAS JUST INVITED TO THE SECOND ROUND OF INTERVIEWS!!!  Tomorrow I will meet with the Director of the office and hopefully after that I'll be invited to the third round.  I have all my extremities crossed that I will get this job.  It is definitely my dream job... working with incoming exchange students to get them enrolled, introduce them to the University, Santiago and the country in general, help with their culture shock, social networking, and planning events for them.  ALL things that I would be fantabulous at!!!!  Can't wait for the interview tomorrow!

2) Thanks to a loan from Mom and Dad and a sale on LAN plane tickets, I'll be home for Christmas!!!!  December 12th-26th will find me in Portland, Oregon trying to spend as much quality time with as many people as possible in the two weeks I will be home.  December 26th through January 2nd I will be in Los Angeles for my cousin Steven's wedding to his beautiful finance Christy on December 27th.  I am super excited to see you all and actually have Christmas in winter!  It will be such a relief to have Santa comfortably suited up in all his layers and cold weather clothing.  It is so alarming to see him suffering from heat stroke and waaay too rosy in hot summer Chile!  They really need to design a Chilean outfit for Santa.  I am accepting applications for designs, fyi. :p  But until then, Winter here I come!  Please be sure to have hot chocolate, apple cider, lefsa (Norwegian potatoe pancakes), Seigo Soup (another Norwegian tradition, if I'm not mistaken), and all hot yummy Christmas things ready! 

Otherwise I have just spent the past month and a half job searching, hanging in there (it's been tough to stay motivated) and taking a bit of vacation (we spent a weekend in Valparaíso for our 4 years of dating anniversary, and spent almost a week visiting Antonio's sister in Temuco and his cousin in Puerto Saveedra in Chile's south -- beautiful!!!).  I will post photos of our vacation adventures as soon as possible.

Happy Father's day to all my Father Figures, Grandfathers and Grandfather figures, and Uncles and Uncle Figures!!!  Basically all my male friends and families that are not of my generation. :)  It takes a village to raise a child and I want to thank you all for being part of my village, even when I have left to join another far off village.  I feel thankful for all of you every single day.  Please enjoy your Father's Day and every day remembering how much you positively impact those around you, whether you realize it or not.  Keep it up!

Love, a super excited Kaia (^_^)

Autumn in April... What?!

We have reached that time of year, finally.  The days are growing cooler, the nights are becoming colder, and the tree leaves are floating to the ground.  School is in full swing, boots are back in style and yet... it's APRIL?!  Welcome to the Southern Hemisphere!  Yes, though I have lived here a little over a year and a half now, I still seem to struggle with matching seasons to months.  My brain often likes to think that Halloween is around the corner, followed by Thanksgiving with Christmas quickly trailing it.  And yet, the calendar still reads April.  Bother.  I now have a whole new understanding of the "Christmas in July" that so many speak of.  Seeing how our Christmas/New Years cards for the Chilean family arrived in February and we have not had time to send them out, we may be just join in celebrating a June/July Christmas anyways.  Better late than never, right?  

I know it's been a while since I last posted but we have been very busy.  Antonio's Dad, Prudencio, came home from the hospital in late February / early March after a little over two weeks in the hospital.  He is now fully recovered from his infected hernia operation wound, but Antonio continued to work at the family store full time until the second week or so of March.  Unfortunately, Segundo, the employee, decided to disappear for a week and a half so Antonio was back in the store again until the first weeks of April. This time was very stressful and difficult for us as Antonio not only had to work weekends, but we were not able to spend much quality time during the week together, either.  Now Antonio is finally able to dedicate himself completely to his studies and is doing quite well in his last year and a half of law school. 

The other stress factor of the past few months has been my job.  The end of March was when my three months of training ended.  However, at the meeting with my bosses, the told me they did not feel confident that they wanted to contract me yet.  They gave me two options: I could start to look for another job, or do another month of training and see how that worked.  I obviously requested an extra month of training, but found myself questioning whether or not I wanted to continue working with them for the next few weeks.  Last Friday I finally decided that this job is not the best fit for me.  I really miss interacting with people in person and being able to utilize this talent of mine on a daily basis.  I realized that the stress and pressure to improve faster, without the stability of knowing whether I would actually have a job at the end of the month, was not worth it.  I am now looking for a job where I can use my people skills on a daily basis.  Completely computer jobs, without much human interaction during the day, are just not my cup of tea.  

On a brighter note, I will be applying to a Study Abroad part-time position and a job at the US Embassy this week and plan to send my CV to every headhunter office in Santiago, so I have faith that something will work out.  If not, I can always go back to teaching. 

Outside of work, I have continued enjoying my English-for-dance class exchange with my wonderful, adoring Chilean friend, and have been adopted by a group of Chilean elementary school teachers who I met through the sister of my friend's Chilean boyfriend.  We go out every few weeks for drinks and usually message each other during the week.  It's nice to have a group to hang out with!  I have also really enjoyed getting to know my coworker, Alissa.  It will be sad to not be working with her anymore, but I look forward to maintaining our friendship and eating lunch with her anyways when I can! 

Other excitements: This upcoming Saturday, April 27th, Antonio will turn... 29!  Woohoo!  I have some plans up my sleeve so it should be a fun and super exciting day for the both of us. :p 

Antonio and I managed to go Salsa dancing once this past month and have started attending the occasional Sunday tango lesson!  Also, if all goes well and timing and money work out, my hope is to spend Christmas in Oregon this year to see everyone and now to also attend my cousin's wedding.  Yay!  I've got my fingers crossed, and will start stalking the flight sites looking for cheap flights.  Let me know if you see any!

Hugs to you all!  Hope you are all enjoying your spring.  :p

Abrazos (hugs) from Chile!

Love, Kaia (^_^)

A new year...a new post!

Happy New Years, Everyone!  Welcome, 2013!

I hope you all are doing well and enjoying your first week of 2013.  For us the year seems to be starting with quite a bit of heat, but then again we are in South American summer.  We had a wonderful New Years with Antonio’s family that included shish kabobs on the bbq, cake, champagne, salads, and the Christmas presents mom sent for Antonio's family that arrived the last day of they year -- perfect timing!  The party ended at 3 am with all very happy.  Antonio and I decided to start the year off right by going to a salsa club, too.  We didn’t get home until 7 am.  So welcome, 2013! 

This past year was full of challenges, new experiences, and joys.  

Antonio has really enjoyed his new university where smaller classes have enabled him to get to know his professors better and helped him make many wonderful friends.  He had his last exam last week and is happily adjusting well to summer vacation.  (I did however catch him reading a law book before bed the other night.  These law addicts!)  If everything goes as planned, he will be graduating from law school in a year and a half!  After that he will have a 6 month paid internship (so in 2014) and then he can be sworn in as a lawyer in Chile.

I, too, am glad the year is over despite all the fun I had with my students this year.  I had more than 30 students in total though not all at once.  Almost all of them were kids with a few adults.  As fun as it was to travel to new parts of Santiago, I am really excited to spend less time on the bus and metro.  I enjoyed most of my classes and am a little sad to know that I will never have class with my students again. Buuut, that means that I will never have to plan classes again.  Yay!  I will continue classes with the restaurant owner’s daughters every Thursday or Friday evening, and will also continue my English-class-for-excersise-class trade off with a young Chilean dance instructor I met on the bus a few weeks ago.  With her help, my posture has improved dramatically, and I am slowly getting back into shape.  Yay!  

Lukas is well and just as attached to us as ever.  He sends all a lick and an enthusiastic tail wag. :) 

Our biggest challenge recently has been house and dog-sitting for my ex-boss of the institute.  We have enjoyed the beautiful neighborhood close to the metro, the bicycles, the much needed personal time for the two of us, and the cool apartment (Antonio’s dad’s place gets hot!), but have had to deal with two very badly trained dogs and a not fully working kitchen.  Despite these drawbacks, the dogs are very sweet and are getting better in some aspects.      

The most exciting prospect that the new year holds is my new job!  As some of you may have heard, my Christmas Eve gift was getting offered the position of "Travel Planning Assistant" with the tour company Liz Caskey Wine and Culinary Experiences.  Liz Caskey is a US business-woman-gone-chef-and-wine-expert who, with her Chilean photographer husband organizes these personal tours for mostly US and Canadian travelers to experience the best, most authentic wine and food of Chile, Peru, Argentina and/or Uruguay.  What I will be doing is communicating via email and phone with the clients and potential clients to help them plan their trip to one or more of these destinations.  I'm really excited and looking forward to learning more about wine, travel and food in the Southern Cone.  

My first day is January 7th and my hours will be 9 am to 6 pm, Monday through Friday, with one hour for lunch!  I will also have the emergency phone some weekends in case a flight gets delayed or missed, etc, but that apparently doesn’t happen all that often.  The office is farther from my house and the apartment I'm taking care of than my teaching office was, but from my house I will be able to take one bus to get there, and from the apartment (where I am living until the 18th), I can easily take the metro.  I haven't seen the office yet, but there will just be two of us employees, Liz and her husband Francisco.  As far as I can tell, they have yet to hire the second employee, but I haven't heard it from them officially yet.  

The best part of having a regular day job is that I will have a steady monthly income that is much higher than what I was making as a teacher!  After the first three months of training/trial, they will offer me a long-term contract which includes a raise and benefits including health care, which is also really exciting!  If all goes well, this will be Antonio and my first step towards being able to find our own apartment.

May you all have a wonderful 2013,

filled with daily delights and small wonders!

I will renew our invitation to come visit, and I hope to see at least some of you here or in the States in 2013!  Thanks for reading my updates, despite their length.  I really do appreciate and love each one of you and would like to thank you for all the support you give me.  Please find attached a warm hug, and our Christmas card: Lukas, Antonio, his Dad Prudencio and I.  

Enjoy! Feliz 2013!

Love, Kaia, Antonio, and Lukas