More Cueca

After the ward party we were invited to go watch Antonio's band play at an after rodeo party to celebrate the Cueca. It was a lot of fun to watch everyone dance the Cueca over and over and over and over and over and over again. Everyone has their own style of dance, so it's really entertaining to see how everyone does it differently and pick out your favorite couple.

Celebrating the Cueca

The building full of Cueca dancers and spectators

Me, Paige, and Jamie outside the party building. Some guy thought it would be so funny to be in our picture, thus the random hand.

Here's how the Cueca is supposed to be done.

Chicken Run... Literally

At the ward party we also had a chicken chase.... funniest thing ever! They had a children's chase, one for the women and one for the men.

These are the chickens in the bag. You buy them and they come in a plastic bag. I thought it was pretty funny.

Hailey in her traditional dress holding one of the chickens before the chase.

Video of the women chasing the chicken... feel free to laugh!

You can call her the Cueca Queen...

We went to the ward party on Saturday to celebrate the 11th and had our first chance to show off our Cueca skills. I uploaded a video of Paige dancing the Cueca in the ward competition. She ended up showing us all up by coming in second in the competition. Way to go Paige!!!

*DISCLAIMER*- Paige just wants everyone to know that the video I posted was more of a practice round and not the real competition.

Aprendemos la Cueca

Friday night we learned the Cueca, Chiles national dance. Antonio came over to teach it to all of us. It's a fairly simple dance, but when you're the one doing it it's harder than it looks. It is a fun dance though, it's very flirty and can be made to be a little bit provocative. Here are pictures of me and Jamie dancing with Antonio. For some reason we didn't get a picture of Paige doing it, but don't worry, there will be plenty of opportunities for that while we're here!

Shopping and I Spy in My Food

Yesterday we went to a tourist place with a bunch of different kind of shops. It was a really fun place. Here is a picture of us shopping.





While we were shopping we ate lunch. It was authentic Chilean food.... still not sure how I feel about it.

Here's what I ordered. That was one huge bowl of food.

Jamie got a little more than she expected - and yes that is a half done egg on top of almost every kind of meat you can imagine

Let's play I Spy in my food. Who can find the corn, chicken, olive, and raisin?

Hola from Santiago!

Bienvenidos a Santiago Chile! We finally got here! Kim (my cousin) was at the airport to pick us up, then we rushed back to her house as fast as we could and only had time to brush our teeth before we headed to her daughter Hailey's traditional Chilean dance performance. It was like a big carnival at the school. There was a live band and singers performing the songs and all of the grades 1-6 did their dances. They also had food and toys for purchase at the school. It was like one big party! I think I could get used to this. :) After the dance performance we went back to Kims for lunch, showers, and naps. It's been a great first day in Santiago!

This was the band and singers performing during the dances.

I just had to get a picture of thi teachers' spurs. They are HUGE!

Hailey's class doing their dance. She's the one in the white shirt with the black shawl.

Hopefully this works, I've never uploaded a video before. If this does work, this is Hailey's class doing their traditional dance.

Airports and Such

Hello!!! This first post about the trip isn't all that exciting. We travelled on three planes before we finally got to Santiago. Todays post will just be about the flights and getting there.

We flew Delta the whole time, so it was easy to travel not having to worry about our luggage.

Me eating at Chili's in the Chicago airport.

Paige and Jamie (my cousins) eating at Chili's too :)

This is us right before we left our moms. They stayed and just watched us go through the line. It was pretty funny, just when we thought they had left we turned around and they were still there just staring at us. Love ya mom!