Saturday, March 29, 2008

Birthday in Patagonia







Yesterday was Toby´s 7th birthday, which was a bit daunting for us as parents because he has definitely been wrestling with homesickness this week and we were worried the birthday would make it worse. His 3 buddies here were all unavailable too for various reasons. The night before his day we asked what he wanted to do and he said
"basically, I just want to get lots of love all day. . . and chocolate"!!! Well, on that we could deliver! We started the day with pancakes (of course) and a chocolate heart lolipop. Opened presents and played in jammies for several hours. He got the Dangerous Book for Boys from his grandpa which got him VERY excited and will be the perfect thing for the ranch. He also picked out a chess game, bow and arrow and transformer in the city with his birthday money from relaties (thanks everyone!!) and got 2 more Harry Potter books from Nana and Pop! He loved the connect the dots and mad libs books from Ty and Stefan too. Not sure where we will fit everything but he is a happy boy. Then we gave him the choice of 3 Cerros (mountains) around here that have gondolas or ski lifts up to them and pastry shops on the top. He choose Cerro Catedral so we took the bus up there, rode the two lifts (the day was crystal clear and we could see lots of volcanoes as far away as Chile. At the top we hiked around and looked at the views then went into the Confiteria (restaraunt). Toby ordered cake and hot chocolate for everyone in spanish and just smiled politely when all the waitresses and many of the other guests sang happy birthday to him in Spanish. There was a major first when he said he couldnt finish his MASSIVE piece of chocolate cake but then after wandering around the restaraunt for awhile he was in fact able to finish it!. After taking the lifts back down, we walked the 3 miles downhill back to our village on the dirt back road to work off some of the sugar. We had ordered a chocolate torte (cake) with dulce de leche (caramel) chocolate frosting and whipped cream from PachiMamas, our next door neighbor take out gourmet restaraunt and we picked it up and headed home. Then we had an Argentinian steak grill in our backyard before eating the delicious cake. Needless to say neither kid was asleep until 10:30. He had a fabulous day. Thanks everyone who sent their happy wishes.

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