Beyond Buenos Aires: Lujan

The Cathedral:












The Hollowed-Out Tree:




This is the view from the Cathedral Plaza. It is hard to believe that the cathedral sits along side this town:

Beyond Buenos Aires: LUJAN

The Zoo:

Now some of you, like me, may have dreamt of actually touching a lion or tiger. To wave a baton and watch the fragile grace of these large cats up close and personal, to earn the respect of beasts. So when I learned of a zoo in Lujan, I was interested, but skeptical to learn that I could take the kids to ride elephants and pet wild cats. I was assured that this zoo was legit, as legit as a zoo can be outside of a first world country. We thought that this would be a fun place to take my parents to share the experience with the kids. Having been there, I am not convinced. We will not go back, but we have a great story to tell.

The Ball Popper

There are few toys that have grown with my family as well the Ball Popper.

Sophia loves to sit in her Bumbo and watch the Balls cycle through. Today she was mesmerized with it for a half hour. She would choose a ball and focus on it. It was fun to watch her study it so intently. If the ball popped out onto the floor, she would watch it roll away until I picked it up and put it back.

Peyton enjoys experimenting with the balls to see how many will come out together and what happens if there is only one ball cycling as opposed to four or six. She also loves to reload them for Sophia.

And Abe, he uses the funnel of air blowing out the top to float paper and other items. There is a similar exhibt at the Air and Space Museum in DC.

We have really gotten our $24.99 (plus a small fortune of batteries) out of this toy. It really is pretty cool.

Just Us

Beyond Buenos Aires: Tigre

Tigre is a town on the water about 20 minutes north of us that sits at the mouth of the Rio Parana. You can hop in a launch and head out on the delta. There are larger tour boats for visitors, but we like having a destination. In January, we headed out to El Gato Blanco with my parents. This is a great restaurant with a beautiful garden and play area for children in the back. Then in February, we took the Barlows out to a nice park called Parque Lyfe where we picnicked and enjoyed the passing boats as well as the children' play structures. We stayed for the afternoon, but there were others camping and taking advantage of the grills.

I know that we have posted a lot of movies lately, but the kids love to watch them over and over to remember the places that they have been and we have been doing quite a bit of traveling.

Beyond Buenos Aires: San Antonio de Areco

Today

Just because she's 5 months old and we adore her!

A New Year

With sleepy eyes and a great big smile

in these shoes

Abe started Kindergarten.

From 8-4, Abe will spend time with another group of people outside of our home. This makes me nervous in so many ways, but there is no doubt that he is ready. I relish in hearing about his day, the 'centers' that he choose, lunch and who misplaced their glue. But more than that, I am proud of the boy he has grown into. He is caring, compassionate, inquisitive and full of ideas.

 

With her new PINK backpack from Santa

Peyton will join the Bunnies in a K3 class too.

Peyton is more than thrilled to finally go to the same school as Abe.  When she is not teasing or telling him what to do, she idolizes him.

CREATE

Thank you for sharing, Heather. I love it! For this 1 minute and 53 seconds, I felt like I could conquer the world.

She's Official

SOPHIA JANE BARLOW

Sophia Jane really is God's Gift as her namesake suggests.

Brent and Janet were able to travel the 6000 miles to share this day. They have always promised to be at the blessing of the first grandchild of each family, but in reality, Brent has been able to assist in the blessing of all 12 of his grandchildren. We were also happy that Scott and Robyn could be here with us as well.

As an added blessing, Lidia made the blessing dress, which I was not allowed to see until it was completed. For those of you who have come to visit, you have spent time with her. She works for us, but has also become a small part of our family. When learning about the upcoming blessing of Sophia, she insisted on making the dress herself. I gave her a photo of one that I liked, she created a pattern and spent many late nights working on it. This dress will be cherished for years to come.

Beyond Buenos Aires: San Antonio de Areco

San Antonio de Areco

CHOCOLATES

We couldn't resist stopping at this quaint little Chocolate Shop. We found this shop the first time that we went and were excited to share it with family. I was a bit skeptical about cinnamon chocolate, but it was AWESOME!

Beyond Buenos Aires: San Antonio de Areco

San Antonio de Areco

Peyton happily accepted my photo invitation today, so there 

are quite a few of her.  (Good thing she's so cute.)

A new Parilla (grill) where we enjoyed lunch just off of the 1st floor balcony.

Statue of Vieytes

The town along the park

A bonafide Guacho

Look through the charming window to the courtyard

Yes, as nasty as the water may look, they really swim in it. 

El Puente Viejo

Grandma Barlow and Peyton

Our Cool Dude.

Another cool dude, Grandpa Barlow

And the coolest dude, always capturing video

Sweet Sophia. 

 She really has been with us through all of our recent travels, but is often left out when we take pictures.  

Argentina: Buenos Aires and Beyond

I have been on a long time since I have consistently updated this blog. My many reasons (or excuses) which include: a new baby, adapting to 3 children, 2 toddler birthdays, summer in the southern hemisphere, Christmas, my parents, both of our birthdays, his family, and travel a.k.a. Professional Tour-Guiding. The overwhelming realization of this post is that I have photos I would like to share from each of these events. I do not know where to begin... chronological order seems logical, but I am excited to post about recent events. So, I am going to start a series of posts which I will call "Argentina: Buenos Aires and Beyond". I may interject a few birthday party happenings and current events as I go along in my desperate attempt to keep this blog up to date and interesting. I also use this as a journal, so of course, bare with me as I post things that someone else might not necessarily care about.

No Time to Blog

Here are three good reasons that I have not had time to post much of anything...

Iguazu Falls


Colonia, Uruguay


Estancia Santa Susana

Whoo Hoo!

I have all of the last-minute details to take care of before my in-laws arrive at 7:45am, but I can't help but rejoice in the fact the Blurb.com has finally fixed its software problem and it now compatible with Blogger (and Wordpress)!

I have slurped the blog into a book, but now have to figure out how to change the page layouts. There is way too much white space!

No time for that now... To you, HAPPY SLURPING bloggers!