Breakfast of Champions

This morning we went downstairs to have our free breakfast from the hotel. I got the “Light Breakfast” which was fresh juice, a bowl of seasonal fruit, and toasts with cream cheese and jam. Well, the juice was really good and was actually fresh there were strawberry seeds in it. The “toasts” was bread that wasn’t crunchy and get was burnt. The cream cheese wasn’t cream cheese. I don’t know what it was; it had the consistency of tofu. The jam was good, I think it was apricot. I actually never got the fruit bowl. Jake got the “Continental Breakfast” which was toasts, scrambled eggs with ham & cheese, and fresh juice. His “scrambled” eggs were in a little white bowl and where sunny side scrambled…..looked like a bowl of snot.

After breakfast we walked the three blocks from the hotel to where Jake’s conference is being held. I wasn’t allowed in so I sat in the plaza that was across the street. I sat and sketched for a little bit. It was too cold to sit for longer than an hour and a half. It didn’t seem that cold when we left, but I really needed to have my jacket. I walked back to the hotel and sketched some more from the view our of our hotel window.

Jake was back to the hotel at about 12:30 for a lunch break. We walked a little ways from the Hotel and stopped in a place called “el guaton” which means “The Fatty”. Jake had a hot dog with mayonnaise, avocado, tomato, and sour kraut. I had a “grilled cheese” with Gouda and was on an oversized hamburger bun. We split some fires…they were a little greasy. Jake will be heading back to the conference in a bit. After he is done we will take a walk around the city and find a grocery store. There is a little fridge in our room so we are going to get some milk and some cereal to eat for the next week. Hope everyone is doing well at home.


Mandy & Jake

We Made It

Hello everyone,

We made it safely to Chile on Friday morning. We haven't really been able to get to an internet cafe.

We took a bus from Santiago to Valparioso this morning. This is a tourist town and is very expensive......It is a pretty town but it is definitely more than it would be in any other place. We are going to be here until Saturday for Jake to go to a conference that is being held here for all the archaeologist in Chile. He has to go and make nice with all the Chilean Archaeologists because they don't like Gringos very much. The hotel we are staying in is nice, meaning clean and has wifi. With the wifi we will be able to talk more easily this week.

While we were in Santiago we stayed in the Hotel Los Arcos, which is they one we stayed in the last two times we were there. While we were in Santiago Jake was able to find a Chilean book he really needed for his dissertation that he had been unable to find the last few times he had been here. We also bought a cheap pay as you go phone for me so that we can call each other while we are here if we need to. If you need to get a hold of us quickly you can call me on this number

First you have to dial 01156

followed by the number

7964 9964

There is also a voice mail set up so if I don't answer you can leave a message. I don't know if you will be able to get through but you can try if you need to.

Yesterday after we had been walking around...ALL....DAY....LONG we had to wait a few minutes when we got back to the hotel for the cleaning lady to be done with our room. We sat in some chairs by a little table down the hallway. Jake was playing with the new phone and I was looking at the magazines and books that were on the table. There was an English copy of the "The Road". I picked it up and read the whole thing last night. If you have never read that book, you need to. Tracie has been telling both Jake and I to read it for months. Oh it was great, disturbing, and will mess you up at first. I have never been so creeped out and enthralled at the same time.

We hope that everyone is doing well at home. We have been praying for Autumn and are glad to hear that she is doing better. We will email more updates later.

Mandy & Jake

Marvel I say

Jake and I enjoyed the day together on Memorial Day. Jake didn't have to work which was a plus! This was the first Memorial Day I haven't had to work in years. We spent most of the day building an exposure unit for me to use in working with silk screens. After a few trips to Home Depot and a few calls to Jake's Dad we were able to get it finished in one day.

We had a grill out at Philip and Tracie's. Jennifer grilled some shiskabobs and hot dogs, I made sweet corn tamale cakes, and Tracie made a yummy jello cake. It was a good meal and pleasant enough weather. It wasn't raining but it was muggy. Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday. Below are some photos of the exposure unit we built. Marvel at our excellence!

I don't want to but I want to

So it is official....Jake and I are looking for another place to live. I was doing laundry and pulled out some of my shoes that are in my closet and they were covered in mold. I then pulled everything out and saw why my shoes were ruined...... We told the complex that there was a little water damage in the closet from the last flooding issue we had last summer. They were supposed to take care of it while we were in Chile....They didn't. They have YET to clean up the carpet or fix the molding and rotting wood. Jake had to take photos to the front office and speak to the manager who simply sighed and said it would be taken care of immediately....that was yesterday morning.....still nothing.....Well, they did come look at the damage, I know this how? Oh because they LEFT OUR DOOR UNLOCKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I came home and it was unlocked and I almost had a heart attach right there. So, as sad as I am to move, I am DONE with these people and this place. We will be looking around hopefully on Saturday and be able to get everything set up so we can move out in August when our lease is up. Below are some photos of the damage.

I had to throw away 6 pairs of shoes, including my tennis shoes :( it hurt me to have to get rid of them. They had been molding for months, no wonder I have been sick for the past two weeks! I hate the idea of actually having to move all these BOOKS, but I hate the idea of having to stay here even more so I guess I will tell my self that as I am lugging boxes of books up and down stairs.

Who's the Colonel?

A lot has happened since my last post. Our furry friend hasn't been back! The maintenance guy for our apartments placed a trap outside where "the raccoon" has been getting in and out at. There has never been anything in the trap so our guess is that he wasn't in the walls when they placed the trap outside and he just couldn't get in. FINE BY ME! It has been great, my sleep hasn't been disturbed! Well, if you don't count when I sat straight up in bed the other night and mumbled something. Jake then claims that I said "I don't understand. I'll have to ask the Colonel." I don't remember this at all, but Jake laughed quit a bit at me. We still don't know who "The Colonel" is, but it has quickly made it's way into our everyday speech. If I don't know the answer to a question I simply say "I'll ask the Colonel".

We woke up a few mornings ago to a wet floor in our bedroom. This happened last Summer as well. Our bedroom is under the ground so when it rains a lot the ground water sometimes gets ahead of the sump pump that is supposed to prevent flooding........it didn't. The last time this happened it ruined our chest of drawers which we just replaced last month. This time it ruined Jake's night stand! The apartment complex of course doesn't cover any of that. It would be something we would have to claim with our renter's insurance. The problem is that the furniture isn't worth the price of our deductible so we are just out of luck! I am so close to wanting to move, but I doubt we will find a place as big as ours for the price of ours. I only worry about what if this happens while we are in Chile and our bed or shelves full of books get ruined? DAH!

Jake had to present his prospectus for his dissertation at Vandy. He passed of course! So now he can get his application for his permits turned in soon and we will be able to reimburse ourselves from the last trip! Hopefully.

One of Jake's friends is leaving the country for 8 months and was getting rid of some stuff and she gave me a bike! I was so excited, I haven't had a bike since I was 10. It is a nice bike too! She gave me a bike lock for it and it is outside next to Jake's. I took it for a spin the day we got it, I have never had a 10 speed bike, so when Jake yelled across the parking lot "down shift" I had no idea what he was talking about and almost hit the parked car next to me! Apparently there are really cool bikes that you can shift up or down to help you peddle. Who knew? It has rained everyday since then so we haven't been able to take them anywhere yet. We might get to this week, fingers crossed.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mother's we know! We are having a grilled lunch at Tracie and Philip's tomorrow after church. Some grilled chicken and fixens if it doesn't rain. We will also have a Publix cake, they are so good! It has been raining so much this past week that we will be lucky if we don't spend the afternoon swimming around in the yard. Hope everyone has a good Mother's Day and is appreciated by their families!

Living with nature

I have enjoyed living here in these apartments.......until now. We have a furry little friend who has decided to spend his nights crawling around in our walls. Such a fun experience when you are awakened by the sound of little clawed feet digging into the ceiling above your head. We have brought this problem to the front office several times and still have had no results.

I am very close to taking my hammer and busting a whole in the wall and snatching that thing out of there and placing it on the desk of the slow moving office worker. We think it is a raccoon. We saw one last year on our roof and heard it in the wall in the living room. It was gone after we told the front office about it, so we figured it would be quickly taken care of this time too. We have heard it a few times ....talking....then a few nights ago it was dragging something around in the ceiling in our bedroom. (Dragging what?!?!?!?!) It seems to like it in there, for every night this past week it has been up there....keeping me awake. Jake can sleep through most of it. Last night I had had enough and Jake got out of bed and started tapping the ceiling, which just made it scramble into the vent and wait it out.

Jake is going to go back to the front office today and talk to a manager. We have brought this problem up several times in the last two weeks to the same girl. She just takes down the apartment number and we still have our friend burning the midnight oil and I am sick of it. If it isn't gone by the weekend I am getting my hammer!

My ears!!!!!

This past Sunday was our first Easter as a married couple. Jake has actually been to the last 3 Shafer Easter get-to-gethers. Easter was the first time Jake was thrown to the wolves so to speak with my family, so Easter is always special to me. Jake and I made each other Easter baskets, I had planned on getting up early Easter morning to hide jelly beans in the house for Jake to find. That is was they did when he was a kid, but the warmth of the bed overpowered me and I stayed there for another hour.

We went to church with the whole family taking up 1 and a half rows while Jake sat up front to translate the meeting for the Spanish speakers in our ward. He was also right behind the two musical numbers we were "blessed" to hear that morning. He had to keep a straight face while one woman was belting out "HIS HANDS!!!!!!!!!!!" into the microphone for nearly a ten minutes. Jake sent me a text that read "DAMN! My ears!" It was hard to keep a straight face. I don't understand why musical numbers in the church have to be a night at the Rhyman and can't just be a hymn. I guess that is a curse of living in Music City.