Feliz Cumpleaños Anna!

Hola Todos!

How are you guys? Well, here are some pictures from Anna´s "Birthday Weekend!" I must admit, I was a little jelous that she got a whole weekend of activities for her birthday but then she is pretty special. Enjoy!

Anna´s b-day fell on a Wednesday so the night before I decorated the house (streamers, etc.). I made her a "birthday girl placemat" and a little "happy b-day sign." Just a friendly reminder that she now is OLD!!

Saturday we had Anna´s b-day party with the 8-month volunteers, a couple of the new 4-month volunteers, and some chilean friends.

Anna cooked a ton on Friday and all day Saturday and the food turned out amazing! She made Mexican food or as close as she could get to Mexican food (don´t worry I helped too! I cleaned the house FOREVER and decorated).

Here Anna is opening some of her gifts.

Anna´s "Carrot cake." Everyone liked it, but for some reason it lost it´s "carrot taste" somewhere during the baking process. I was impressed she was even able to make it using just a pie pan to bake the cake layers.

BIRTHDAY SURPRISE!!!! It was either Wed. on Anna´s birthday or right after it that a mommy cat and her little kitty baby showed up at our house! Chile is FULL of street dogs and cats and it was obvious that this one hadn´t eaten anything in a long time.

So, we fed the mom and her tabby baby and the next day there was another baby! This time the kitty looked more like the mom who is a Siamese. They were SO hungry we just had to help them out.

Well, the third day after the first two showed up another (the 3rd) kitten appeared! This one was the runt of the litter and pretty sick. With Anna feeding the other three (mom plus two kittens) I fed the little one to help her get better.

And of course Anna named them all! The mom is "Mamá Cat", the tabby "Tolby", the more brave-aggressive kitty I named "Rocky", and the little timid kitty Anna named "Lucy". Anna has a soft spot in her heart for Lucy because she likes to sit in the sun and is a bit clumsy (like Anna :).

I´m not sure how we are going to afford feeding these cats, but we just couldn´t let them die (in the beginning Lucy looked like she wasn´t going to make it). We have seen several dead dogs from being hit by cars and a couple bags full of a dead dog or cat that someone dumped. So, we have decided to help these cats as much as we can. We made them a soft bed in the back yard, a food and water bowl, and even a scratch post and play toy!

On Sunday we were invited to go to an Asado or BBQ. It wasn´t really for Anna´s b-day per say, but they did buy a cake for her and we sang happy birthday. Here some of the people there are making "pan amasado" which is AMAZINGLY good.

A close up of the pan amasado. It is usually cooked on the BBQ, but they had an outdoor clay oven that they baked them in.

We ate way too much! We had chicken and steak (which they only season with salt here in Chile), potatoes, salad, bread, etc.

Here is Ema and Sergio´s outdoor oven.

(They are the couple who own the company that manages rental property - we rent one of the houses they manage).

Another pic of the pan amasado. This time a close up of it cooked and warm. YUM!

Here everyone is enjoying the feast.

Ema and Sergio´s Asado was at their country property. They don´t have a house built there yet, but they have a sweet weekend set up with a cabaña, tables, bbq, fire pit, etc. In the background you can see the sand dunes and mountains that surround Copiapó.

Here I am with the "weekend" birthday girl.

At the end of the Asado (which went from 2-7pm) it got cold so they lit a warm fire. It made me miss camping.

At the end of our time at the Asado Ema pulled out a cake, stuck a candle in it, and we all sang happy birthday (in a mix of Spanish and English) to Anna.

Well, that was a peek into our weekend. It was a lot of fun but I think that we are still full from all of the food that we ate! I hope you enjoyed the pics!