What we have been up to lately

We've had a fun and busy May. Here's what we have been up to in the Southern Hemisphere...

The primary trainer for Boot Camp BA moved on to Colombia so I was able to pick up all the group classes and some private clients as well. It has been so much fun and such a great learning experience!
A couple of my favorite girls from the group classes stayed after one day to help me take some photos for the Boot Camp website and Facebook page (you should like us if you haven't already!). Hint-hint :)

 Using the TRX suspension straps

 The parks in Puerto Madero are perfect for training. So much cleaner, quieter and organized than the rest of BA. Reminds me of home, sweet home Chicago!

Fer and I recently hired a dishwasher to help us out :) Martin is an excellent dish-washer and laundry folder and gets to make some pocket change to boot!

 Sofi turned 15 at the beginning of May and we hosted some of Fer's family for the week of her party. It was so much fun to have a full apartment with lots of laughing, story-telling, cousin time and... LOTS of Spanish! It was so good for me to practice speaking more.

Martin and Enrique

Augus and Fer at Sofi's party, waiting for the birthday girl to arrive

The beautiful birthday girl!

Please dad, no more pictures!!

Augus and Enrique

 Awww

 Sofi and me

Silly photo of course!

Los Goldenbergs

Raquel, Marisa, Sofi, Martin and Fer

Sofi and her friends

 Cousin sleepover (+ Tia Veronica!)

 Locos :)

 Also in May, My mom came to visit!! Since she had her camera out most of the time, I only had a couple of photos on my camera. Here is one of the two of us before we went to Alevear Palace Hotel for afternoon tea. We had a great time and did lots around the city. Hoping that I can pictures from her and will post more from her visit soon!

March catch-up

One of these days I might actually catch up on this blog... but I am not holding my breath!
Each month our life has been getting busier and busier. Here are highlights from some of the recent happenings:
Fer recently passed his General Medicine Boards AND his Neurocritical Care Boards!! I am incredibly proud of him! Both of the exams came at particularly busy times in his life so he wasn't able to prepare as much as he would have liked for each exam. But he is just that smart and passed with flying colors! :)

A month or so ago I had a group of girls over for "Supper Club"
Fabulous company, fabulous food!

Neither one of us are natural home decorators I am realizing, so we have SLOWLY been taking our time getting our apartment fully adorned. Thankfully Fer's dad came to the rescue with a solution for our TV stand. After seeing how ridiculously TV stands (and furniture in general) were priced, he offered to make one for us! It turns out that Enrique is quite the carpenter. He designed the stand, cut all the pieces, painted it and shipped all of it to us with detailed instructions for assembly (IKEA-style). It even has a cabinet with great rolling drawers!
Here are Fer and Martin putting it together:

 Sofi helped as well ;)

The finished product:

 Thank you so much Enrique!!

Early on in March the kids' cousins from the northern part of Argentina came for a quick visit.
Here are Martin, Pumo, Augus, and Sofi at breakfast:

 Such is life with teenagers these days :)

 Cousin love! It is so much fun when the cousins get together.

I am a lucky girl to have a husband that cooks and cooks well. Although my dad and brothers set the standard pretty high, Fer impresses me regularly with his culinary skills. One night out of the blue, Fer made these adorable veggie creations:

 What a husband! Cute AND healthy!

At the end of March Jennifer, my friend Jessica's sister, paid us a visit. One night she cooked us a delish Mexican meal!

In other news, I recently started covering all the group training sessions for Boot Camp Buenos Aires which has been a fun addition to my work with Buena Onda Yoga (check out my bio that is finally on the webpage!). I am currently working on finishing my personal training certification with ISSA so I am an official trainer. I also wrote another nutrition column on appetite and hunger control for Medios Lentos that should be up soon.
Would love to hear from folks back home- even though life is busy here I get awfully lonely sometimes! Send your love down South :) xo

End of January... OR: "Hello, my name is Carolyn and I am addicted to grocery shopping and cooking"

Well, another month has flown by since I last posted. I will try to catch up on the last bit of January... it seems so far away already!
I'm not sure exactly why but after we came home from Punta de Este, I was OBSESSED with cooking and grocery shopping. I think the yummy vegetarian food at my Yandara Yoga Teacher Training inspired me, as well as traveling for a month+ and missing my own kitchen got me motivated. Most days I would make one (or up to three) trips to get this or that food item. I made several trips to China Town for ingredients that are hard to get at the shops in our neighborhood. Basically, if you need anything besides the Argentine basics (white flour, sugar, eggs, milk, meat and basic veggies and fruits) you have to trek to China Town. I still get giddy when I find ingredients that I first thought were unobtainable here! When you love to cook healthy food it's the little things that excite: such as finding rye flour, pecans, new types of veggies and fruits, peanut butter, whole wheat pastry flour, good curry powder and pastes, spices, bulk quinoa, lentils, nuts and seeds.
And for Fer: delicious fish and seafood!

While Fer's parents were here for a few days we made the fish above for dinner one night. I can't recall the name of the fish but it was yummy!
Below: Raquel and Enrique about to enjoy my chocolate pie with secret ingredients (no sugar, only avocados, cocoa powder, bananas, dried fruit, honey and nuts)

Cute!

Below... my morning routine lately, inspired by breakfast at Yandara (+ decaf coffee w/milk). I love sitting on our balcony to enjoy breakfast while reading or catching up on emails.

Another kitchen adventure that Fer and I had at the end of January was making this delicious Coconut  red lentil soup from Heidi Swanson's 101 cookbook blog. 
The colorful ingredients:

I couldn't find yellow split peas here so I substituted regular brown lentils and it worked great!

We enjoyed our dinner on the balcony with the Easy Little Bread recipe from Heidi as well.

¡Buen provecho!

La visita de Enrique y Raquel

Este blog post es en español para mis suegros :)  (English translation below)
Hace dos semanas nosotros tuvimos el placer de recibir los padres de Fernando: Enrique y Raquel. Ellos viajaron del Chaco, el estado donde Fernando nació y creció. Me encantó que ellos se quedaron por una semana; tuvimos mucho tiempo para conocernos mejor y yo tuve muchas buenas oportunidades para practicar español! Yo aprecié su ayuda con mi español y con las cosas del departamento. Nos divertimos muchos juntos y yo espero que finalmente pueda visitar la gran metrópolis de Villa Angela en Chaco!
Lamentablemente, no tenemos muchas fotos de su visita, pero acá van las pocas que tenemos...

This blog post is in Spanish for my in-laws :) 
Two weeks ago we had the pleasure of hosting Fernando's parents, Enrique and Raquel. They traveled from Chaco, the state where Fernando was born and raised. I loved that they stayed for a week: we had lots of time to get to know each other better and I had lots of good opportunities to practice Spanish! I appreciated their help with my Spanish and with things around the apartment. We had a lot of fun together and I hope that I can finally visit the grand metropolis of Villa Angela in Chaco soon! Unfortunately, we do not have many photos from their visit but here are the few that we have...

Raquel y Martin preparan una ensalada
Raquel and Martin preparing a salad 

"No más fotos, por favor!" ;)
"No more photos, please!"

Durante su visita, Fernando, Sofi, Martin y yo fuimos a Pilar para una gran fiesta de uno de los amigos de Fernando. Fernando pudo reunirse con viejos amigos de su residencia médica.
During their visit, Fernando, Sofi, Martin and I went to Pilar for a big party for one of Fernando's friends. Fernando was able to reunite with old friends from his medical residency.

La fiesta continuó hasta 4 a.m. pero nos fuimos alrededor de 2 a.m. Como puedes ver, estábamos con un poco de sueño :)
The party continued until 4 a.m. but we left around 2 a.m. As you can see, we were a little sleepy! :)

Enrique y Raquel: esperamos que ustedes nos visiten otra vez pronto!
Enrique and Raquel: we hope that you can visit us again soon!

Catching up on October

October was our first full month together in Buenos Aires (BA). It was simultaneously a very good and also a very hard month. Since we were settling into a new apartment, a new job for Fer, a new country and language for me, and new dynamics to our relationship with the kids there was lots of potential for stress and uncertainty. One huge highlight of October was having Alice come visit! There are some photos below from her week long visit. She came at just the right time. It meant so much to me to have someone here who knows me (and Fer!) so well during such a vulnerable time for me/us. And the kids LOVED the goodies she brought! ;) 

Other big highlights from October were starting spanish classes at ECELA where I go for 4 hours each day Mon-Fri and also starting yoga classes regularly at BuenaOnda Yoga. More about that in a future post!

Not surprisingly at all, Fer has done extremely well at his new job. We love that he no longer carries a pager (!) and doesn't get called during the middle of the night. He is still very busy, juggling 2 jobs between the one here at Hospital Italiano and maintaining a part-time position at University of Chicago. Plus he has been helping me acclimate to the new language and culture, which could be a part-time job on it's own sometimes ;)

This first photo is of the BA marathon that I woke up to see on a cool, misty morning early in October. Fer told me that the BA marathon is always on the same weekend as the Chicago marathon, which is a fun coincidence. It felt good to cheer on runners in South America while many of my friends were running back home the same day.

Below are a few pics from an auto show that Fer, Martin, Alice and I went to one weekend in San Isidro, a pretty town just up the river from BA.

Fer and Martin checking out some of the antique sports cars.

My favorite! I love the color.

Alice took this adorable pic of two random kids at the auto show. They were having such a great time and were hilarious! I love the happiness beaming from their faces.

Back at the apartment we had a fun Halloween themed night that evening. Alice brought LOTS of treats from Chicago for us. Here's the table decorated (and Martin is in the background, doing his new favorite thing: playing on the iPad) :)

We even dressed up for the evening. Alice had to coax me a bit. :) Martin was Harry Potter and Sofi was Dr House. Alice and I were being silly and each dressed up as one of the kids: Alice is Martin and I am Sofi.

Alice and I hid halloween candy all over the apartment for the kids to find on a quasi-easter egg hunt of sorts. Halloweaster??
Did I mention that they can be competitive? :)

Alice also brought things to make cupcakes which is one of Sofi's specialties. Here are the lovely ladies with their yummy treats:

Alice: Muchisimas gracias!! We loved having you come visit and appreciated your patience with our almost empty, "gypsy" apartment. We can't wait for you to visit again!!
 

It is common for girls here to have a big party to celebrate their 15th birthday, or "Quince" and Sofi has had a lot of these parties to go to lately. They start ~8 or 9 and last until 3 in the morning or so. True Argentine style. :)
Que hermosa ella esta!

The kids have been helping us cook a lot more recently, which is really fun! Here, Sofi and Martin are helping us make guacamole and tacos for dinner.

Through my spanish school, I have met some wonderful people, many from all over the world. This has been refreshing since I thought that the school would be comprised primarily of people from the states. It's been a great way to learn about more cultures in addition to Argentina's.
In particular I got to know two lovely ladies from Holland: Marlies and Marianne. I am missing them a lot since they left for Brazil to travel for ~1 month before returning to BA in early December.
One night they came over to cook dinner together and we made fajitas. I miss my Dutch girls! :(

 

Sofi has taken a particular interest in baking, which I love! I made challah a couple of weeks ago and she helped me quite a bit. She really does a great job and is especially good with the creative side of baking and decorating.

Martin helped with the kneading as well... :)

Fer's parents are visiting this week but I hope to get another post up before too long!