Turning 25

This past week I celebrated my 25th birthday. December 8th is a Holiday here in Chile. It is the Immaculate Conception, Mary’s, so we had the day off. We drove to Temuco and stopped in at Juanita’s to pick up a package from Jake’s parents. They sent us a jar of Peter Pan peanut butter for Jake and JIF for me. We also got some bite size Snickers, some Simply Sleep, lots of Jerky, and a box of brownie mix. Oh, it was a wonderful! Thank you!

We walked around one of the ferias (market) to finish up our Christmas shopping and then headed to lunch. We enjoyed a very quiet lunch and Ruby Tuesday, very quiet. We were the only people in the entire restaurant. Sadly, there was no salad bar. Jake was a little heartbroken but he enjoyed his trio plate of chicken, ribs, and shrimp. I had a burger, a real burger with cheese and stuff! There was even real honey mustard! Oh and for dessert we had chocolate tall cake, and it was actual chocolate tall cake. Ruby Tuesday used to serve this massive dessert full of chocolaty goodness, moose, ice cream, whipped cream, and crushed cookies. It was awesome! They no longer offer this item so when Jake saw it on the menu he jumped to have it again. Sadly Jake only had it one time before they changed the recipe. There was one alteration to the dessert; it had manjar on top which was an improvement! We ate way too much but it was a nice meal. We then walked back to the mall to catch a movie.

yummy tallcake.....





5 minutes later....







Jake truly loves me to sit through one of the Twilight movies. I told him going in that New Moon was going to be a bad movie, and that I wasn’t going to enjoy it, he defiantly wasn’t going to enjoy it, that he would lose time that he would never get back. He knew this going in and was still a little surprised at how bad it was. He asked beforehand if he was allowed to laugh and I explained that if he didn’t I was going to think something was wrong with him. We giggled our way through enjoying some Skittles.

After the movie we went grocery shopping at the Jumbo and picked up some more Mac & Cheese and found some more Root beers! We headed back to Pucon where I spent the rest of the evening with a killer headache. It might have been one or a combination of the following, the food, the movie, or the weather. It was an enjoyable 25th birthday!

The weather has been better for work but we still haven’t found much. Friday we did find the tip an arrow head and a very specific kind of ceramic. Hopefully we will get a lot of work done this coming week before we head home for a break.
Tomorrow is the Chilean election so everything will be closed tomorrow…..everything….In Chile you have to vote, if you don’t you get fined!

Mandy & Jake

Little trip

After church on Sunday we drove to the base of the volcano. The road, and I use that term loosely, that leads up to the base is very steep and narrow. The truck we are renting as no guts, it barely made it up the road. I couldn’t see how the other little cars made it up there when we finally got to the ski lodge. To my surprise there was a tour bus parked on the side, how they made it up there I will never know. I would have wet my pants had I been on that bus going up that “road”.



Anyway, it was neat up there. The lodge isn’t open right now, but the ski lift just sitting there was kind of cool to see. The volcano was smoking a lot! Turns out it erupted a little last night…..HA! We took a few photos and then headed back down. It was cold up there and we had on shorts and t-shirts. We had no idea what to expect to be up there. After driving back down we headed to Lake Caburga. It is always nice there and we had nothing else to do. The water had not lowered at all but had actually risen a bit. There were a few more people there than the last time we went but still not crowed as it usually is.

Well, the weather forecast claimed that there would be rain in the afternoon today, but the sun was shining when we got up this morning. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky so we thought maybe we would get some work done today! Oh, what a lovely thought. I was on the other side of the site drawing the maps of the first trench. We had been there about an hour when Jake showed me what looked like a few bug bites on his wrist. The first aid kit that we brought contains Benadryl gel. Sadly it was back at the cabin. He came back in a few minutes and showed me that the bites had spread up his arm. Needless to say they weren’t bug bites but Jake was having an allergic reaction to something. There were ugly red bumps all up his arm. We quickly decided that work would have to wait and we would have to get Jake some kind of antihistamine. We were back in the truck within 5 minutes. All the workers were trying to convince Jake he needed to go to the hospital and get a shot. By this time the bumps had spread to his other arm. The woman at the pharmacy had an antihistamine and told Jake that if it didn’t help and he felt like he couldn’t breathe to then go to the hospital in town and get a shot. She made him take the pill at the counter. There were a few of the bumps on his neck now. We got back to the cabin; Jake took a shower, rubbed the Benadryl gel on the bumps. Thankfully they stopped spreading and the itching lessened. The swelling has gone down a lot and he is now knocked out. No throat closing or eyes swelling. He is fine now, just asleep.

So, no, not any work done today. We have not had a full week of work since we got here. Crossing our fingers for next week!

Tomorrow is a National holiday, the day of Immaculate Conception. Mary’s conception. So, the workers have to day off and Jake and I are heading to Temuco to celebrate my birthday. We are going to eat at Ruby Tuesdays! Jake is so excited about the salad bar, I hope he doesn’t eat himself sick. We have about two weeks left with this trip. It is strange, it seems that time hasn’t really gone by that quickly but then at other times is seems to have flown by. We are excited to take a break and enjoy ourselves in our house, and sleep in our bed. The cabin is nice but we miss home. The United States is defiantly a country of convenience and we have greatly missed that.

Mandy & Jake

Learning new words

I learned a new word in Spanish this week, cerrajero, which means lock smith. Friday morning we had just gotten to the site and started working and Jake realized that he needed more ziplock bags. Any artifacts that we dig up have to be in a bag that is labeled where we dug it up. We had meant to get some more the night before when we went to store, but we forgot. So Jake left his workers there and we headed to the store. It is about a 15 minute drive from the site to where our cabin is. The cabin is basically across the street from the grocery store we use. Jake parked the truck, I jumped out and he locked the doors. We headed in and got the bags and some treats for his workers and walked out the door. As we got closer to the truck I said, “Does it sound like the truck is still on?”

Indeed the truck was still on, and indeed when Jake’s hand went into his pocket to retrieve the keys they were not there. Now, in Jake’s defense the truck we are renting doesn’t turn off when you take the key out of the ignition. It’s weird, so when you get out of the truck, even if you have the keys in your hand the engine is still running. The sound of the truck still being on when we went inside wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Where do you even begin? If we were at home we would call AAA and they would be there super fast and we would be on our way. There are no public phone books, as they would be stolen, and there is no such thing as 411. Jake called Sonia, she is the woman we are renting the cabin from, and got her voice mail. Strike one.

Jake headed back inside the store to see if they had the number for a locksmith while I climbed in the back of the truck and laughed. He returned with the number and it turned out that he was really busy and couldn’t come and help us. Strike two.

Jake walked across the street to the fruit stand we go to and asked if they had the number of a lock smith, and bought some avocado while he was there. He came back to the truck with one of the guys from the fruit stand behind him. Apparently they have the card of a lock smith at the fruit stand but no one could seem to find it. Strike three.

Mean while I am sitting in the back of the truck eating a Gansito, which is kind of like a little Debbie cake. It has yellow cake, a cream filling, strawberry jelly filling, and is coated in chocolate with chocolate sprinkles on top. They are quite yummy and a recent discovery for me. After 20 minutes Sonia called Jake back and said that she was on a picnic and for Jake to call her husband. He said he would bring someone to unlock the truck. Jake told him that we were in the parking lot of the store, but we watched his white car turn down the road where the cabin is and Jake started walking. About 10 minutes later the white car pulled up next to the truck with Jake in the back seat, wait, with Jake scrunched in the back seat.
It took the guy about 2 minutes to use a screw driver to wedge the door open enough for him to stick a wire down and unlock the door. Yay! We are in the truck! It only cost about $30 for him to do that! Jake is in the wrong business I’m telling ya. Needless to say we were happy to be back in the truck and on the way back to the site. It only took about 40 minutes longer than it should have and wasted about 1/8th of a tank of gas and $30. Jake was able to laugh about it the next day.
From now on we will always lock the door with the key and not use the button on the inside of the door.

Mandy and Jake

Thanksgiving

We hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. We were thankful that the sun came out and we were able to get a full day’s work in! We went into town for dinner at a pasta place. We ate there last month and I was looking forward to something different for dinner. Jake got a 3 pepper steak and roasted potatoes; I took his word for it that the steak was awesome. I got a ravioli dish that was filled with puree pumpkin, cream cheese, and almonds. The ravioli was covered in a cream, butter, pepper, and nutmeg sauce and it was outstanding!




Even though it wasn’t turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, lots of bread, and pumpkin pie, we enjoyed our dinner and talked about all the things we are thankful for. The list went something like this…….

Central heat/air
Standard transmissions
Speedy internet connections
Milk that doesn’t come in a bag
Bagels
Water pressure
Electric stove
A sink that comes higher than your knees
Our bed
TV on DVD
Skype
Family Blogs/Websites
Facebook
McDonald’s(never thought I would say that!)
Being able to do our own laundry
Electric Blankets
Amazon.com (online Christmas shopping and general all around greatness)
Space heaters
Not to be working Retail on a Black Friday
Family
Friends
The gospel
Being able to be in this beautiful place


After dinner we used Skype to make some phone calls and chat with our family members in their various places. Even though the conversations were short it was nice to be able to talk with all of you. On Sunday the District President spoke and said that the rain is supposed to continue until January  Let’s hope he is wrong. It is raining today but it is supposed to be clear the rest of this week and continue into next. We will be finishing up with the first trench this week, if the rain really does in fact stop this week. We haven’t found much in this one, but we are hopeful we will find more in the next trench! Hope all is well at home!


Mandy & Jake

Thanksgiving

Well,

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all! We hope everyone enjoys themselves today and eats entirely too much good food. Even though we will be missing out on yummy foods and family funs we are thankful to be in a beautiful place. The sun finally came out today after having been hiding for the past week or so. This has been the rainiest “Spring” in a long time. All the workers, the land owner, people at church have said this is the wettest Spring they can remember. Awesome, just had to be THIS year when we are here trying to get this stuff dug up. Urgh.



Good news. Jake might get to teach a few classes this fall. If it works out it would really be good for our family. One other thing to be thankful for! Here’s to crossing our fingers!

Not much else to report since we haven’t been to the site much these past two weeks. On Sunday we had a strange visitor, or should I say unwelcomed guest. A puppy came right up to the side door of the cabin and started whining and scratching on the door. The puppy is a few months old and kept trying to get in the cabin like it was its home. We had no idea where it had come from or why it thought this was its home but we couldn’t listen to the whining all night so we gave it some bread and went to bed. The dog wouldn’t go away and it was small enough to fit right through the gate so we couldn’t even put it out and just wait for it to go on its way. It didn’t seem to be leaving and we couldn’t let it go hungry. The dog would just jump on the side of the house right outside our window in the bedroom in the middle of the night. It did this for a few hours before Jake had to go outside and yell at it to stop. All other dogs I have seen in this country will run away from you if they even think you are going to throw something at it. This puppy would just wag its tale and look up at you. It was awful, the dog didn’t know any better but we can’t take care of it. We will be gone for 3 weeks next month anyway. After a few restless nights we still didn’t know what to do. The thought of driving it somewhere and dropping it off just made us sick to our stomachs. Yesterday, when the rain let up for a bit we walked down the street to get an avocado for our dinner at the veggie and fruit stand nearby. The dog followed us and we decided that maybe it would go on its way if we got far enough away from the cabin. The big grocery store we go to is just across the street from the fruit stand so we decided to go in and walk around a bit. We went in one door and went out the other on the other side of the store. We walked right across the street and got our avocado and went home. We kind of feel guilty about leaving it, but it isn’t our dog. Well, it worked! We have been dog free since yesterday and we slept very well last night.



Tonight we will go into town and have dinner at a pasta place. We ate there last month to see if it was any good. Jake got a stake and he said it was really good. I got some alfredo pasta which wasn’t bad. They had some kind of pumpkin and cream cheese pasta on the menu that I thought would be good to try tonight. So after work we will head out and enjoy a dinner that isn’t turkey and dressing but will be something different.

So Happy Thanksgiving to all and have a slice of pumpkin pie for us!
Mandy & Jake

Short Update

Today there was rain in the forecast but it wasn’t raining when we got up this morning so we went to the site. We got about 5 hours in before it started to rain. Jake and I were digging today and there were only 2 other workers there this morning. Edwin and Christine were there but Aldo was sick and no one could get a hold of Julio. Aldo came to the sick after lunch feeling a bit better. In the trench I was digging in I found a piece of worked bone, this was the first bone we have found that wasn’t burnt. Jake also found a few pieces of ceramic that fit together, pretty cool. Jake also found part of a wall. He thought that the wall would be in the square he was digging in and he was right! This is the first thing we have found that gives Jake a base of reference. I worked on drawing the maps of each trench until is started to rain.

It is supposed to rain more this week, but hopefully not that much. Jake is going to the Colegio Liahona on Wedensday to talk to a class of students. The Branch President works there and asked Jake if he would come and talk for about an hour or so and that is was he wanted to talk to us about. No talks, no callings of any kind, just wanted him to talk to his students. Yay! The Colgio Liahona is a private school that was founded by church members but is not run by the church or anything like that. Jake will be talking to the high school age students about archeology in general and the work he is doing here as well.
Just a quick update today, hope all is well at home!

Mandy & Jake

Laugh or cry

Yesterday Jake and I were able to get into the trench and dig a couple of squares. In my square, a few feet from the surface my trowel hit something. It was a white ring….what could it be? Jake and I quickly worked to uncover this wonderful possibility and what did we find?........... It was a yogurt cup, no an empty yogurt cup, no wait, it was an entire plastic bag. Someone had a lunch of yogurt, a piece of fruit, (I think a peach), and some cherry jam, and they decided that this place was the best spot for it to live. It was too far under the surface to have simply been left and covered over time, someone had to have buried it for it to be that deep. With all the other crappy archeological practices we have been dealing with since the beginning of the project this didn’t surprise us. It made us question if were digging where the previous project had already been and dumped their back dirt. Since we have found a few pieces of artifacts here and there and the dirt isn’t soft everywhere Jake says that it most likely was just a where someone dug a hole to bury their trash. Ugh. A few more feet down I found another empty plastic bag.

On a different note, the guys working for Jake asked him how old I was. He asked them how old they thought I was and they said 18! I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. The only time I wanted to be told I looked 18 was when I was 16! They thought Jake was 25, not that big of a stretch but for them to say I look 18! When Jake told them I would be 25 next month they said I definitely didn’t look my age. Sigh.

Not much else to say……..

Mandy & Jake