The Three Hermanos

Hey all!  Classes ended yesterday and semester exams started today, so classes have been a mix of intense review and fun end-of-semester stuff.  In my preschool class I brought in my trombone and an ABC pop-up book from the states, both pictured here.  We had a final class party where I found out that next semester I'll be moving up to Kindergarten.  I'm going to miss my kids but look forward to teaching the new group!

This past weekend was a busy one.  When Elaine and Laura were travelling over the summer they met Maty, a resident of Buenos Aires who has a travel bug.  He brought his brothers to Santiago for a long weekend and we had a great time.  Elaine is back in Ireland for her mom's birthday so she missed most of the shenanigans.  From left to right are Federico, Maty, and Nicolas.  This was Saturday night when Laura and I took them to Tiramisu for pizza.

Fede and Nico had never seen snow before, and none of the brothers had ever skied, so we decided it was a great (awful?) idea to head into the mountains on Sunday.

We had varying degrees of success.  Maty and Nico called it quits after a few runs, but Fede, an accomplished skateboarder, stuck with me the whole day.

Here's Maty "resting".

Our star of the day, for sure.  Fede had great heelside edge control by the end of the day and was even starting to link heel-to-toe edge changes.  I'm certain he'll be snowboarding again soon.

Jon and Barry, two high school friends, are joining us here in July for our adventures in Bolivia and Peru.  We're spending a couple days at Valle Nevado beforehand to get some Summer ski runs in.  I've been a little worried about what kind of conditions we'd have to offer them, but after Sunday I'm not concerned.  It snowed the entire time we were there and dropped just over a foot in all.  This was lots of fun for me--maybe not so fun for the Argentines.  Learning in powder is a lot of work.  After all this snow, I'm excited for a great season of riding!

Last day for the students: Next Wednesday the 3rd
Last day for us: Friday the 5th
Up in the mountains Sunday/Monday
Fly to Bolivia Wednesday the 10th!

Stay tuned...