Reception: Chilean Style

On Christmas Day my parents, Pablo and I, and some of our AMAZING friends all met up at Pablo's church to set up for my reception. Pablo being the amazing groom that he was had set up help and had rented and gathered all of the materials. Now, just to let you know, Chileans stay up until midnight Christmas Eve and open all their presents. We had gotten home from our Christmas Eve festivities around 2 am. So we were all pretty tired! Some of my friends washed all of the rented dishes, others washed the chairs, we set up tables and decorated and dried dishes and did it all. We would not have made it without my parents and our amazing friends Jennifer, Mauricio, Elias and Betsabe who did so much work.

There is your preface to the acutal reception. Pablo's church is a two-story building. On the first floor are the classrooms, offices, bathrooms, etc. The whole second floor is the chapel and the cultural hall (seen above) It ended up looking very nice--even with Pablo's uncle's hideous and dead flower arrangements...but that's another story in itself.

Pablo and I arrived at our reception just in time for the cocktail that was being served. His dad did all of the food and had chicken wings with special seasonings and canapé. After the cocktail and visiting we sat down to a meal of salads, meat and vegetables and fruit for desert. And then the dancing began!
I think my MIL is trying to do the peace sign or something...but doesn't the groom look oh-so-handsome! I love that guy!Our good friend Elias. It gets pretty crazy at those Mormon parties you know...The cutting of the cake--my cake was a non-traditional Mil Hojas cake. It is my FAVORITE in Chile. Basically it is a cake made of crackery-thin stuff and manjar (it's like dulce de leche--not the Mexican kind, the Argentine kind) Anyways, it was yummy! Pablo's dad also made the cake which saved us tons of money!

It was a great evening and a lot of fun! The most important people from my mission and my time living in Chile, were there and I'm so glad I was able to spend that time with them. It was a really hard decision for me to give up having my "dream" wedding with all of my family and friends but to be sealed to Pablo was worth the sacrifice. So hopefully soon Pablo will be here and we can show him what an American reception is like!

Scary Quake

What an awful day yesterday! I woke up and turned my iMac on to see if Pablo was up yet. He usually likes to sleep in but it about 10:30 his time and I thought he might be up. I opened up my internet and the first thing I see is EARTHQUAKE. SANTIAGO. 8.8 I panicked. Big time! But at that very second Pablo popped up and I knew that if he was online that he was safe. He told me that the quake had woken him up, shook his house, knocked down a few glasses and after he saw sparks in the street, the power went out. I know that he was very protected because not all people have that mild of a story to tell. His neighbors had a lot of damage done to their home and many others.

Yesterday morning after I calmed down and knew that my husband was okay I went to a stake Relief Society Conference. The first counselor in the IF Temple Presidency and his wife spoke to us about the blessings of the temple. I have really tried to increase my temple attendance since being separated from Pablo and it was really helped. The one thing that really stood out in my mind that President Mead said was about sealings. He said that there are a lot of things that are uncertain in this life. Will you make it to the Celestial Kingdom? You can try and do your best but it is uncertain. But if you ask, will I be with my husband and family forever? You know the answer is yes if you have been sealed.

I am so grateful that even though my husband is far away from me right now, we will be together forever. And I know that I can say YES when asked if I will be with him forever. I am so grateful that he is safe and sound and that my Heavenly Father is watching over him while we are apart.

Love, Luv, LOOOOVE!

Happy Valentine's Day! Keeping up with my tradition, I'm going to post 100 things that I love! Try this for yourself and post it on your blog too!

1.) Pablo (that's a given!)
2.) Chocolate
3.) Sunny days
4.) Good books
5.) Plaza de Armas in Santiago
6.) My nephews
7.) Free samples
8.) Ward Choir practice
9.) Tulips
10.) Popcorn
11.) Alfajores
12.) Running into someone you haven't seen in a long time
13.) Pablo Neruda
14.) amazon.com
15.) Dashboard Confessional
16.) Friends
17.) Teaching primary
18.) Traveling
19.) P & P (book and movie)
20.) Photoshop
21.) Gilmore Girls
22.) Scentsy
23.) Milky Way
24.) Hanging out with my sister
25.) Text messages
26.) Clearance clothes
27.) the Temple
28.) Pedicures
29.) Old Navy socks
30.) my iMac
31.) Birthdays (mine or yours)
32.) my cute little Passat
33.) Talks with my Mom
34.) Centennial Grain LLC
35.) Mowing the lawn
36.) Summer nights
37.) gmail chat
38.) Completos
39.) Skype
40.) The Farming Game
41.) My siblings (and their spouses!)
42.) Lomito al pobre
43.) Being married
44.) The 4th of July
45.) All of you who are reading this!
46.) Weddings ( I always cry.)
47.) Cards in the mail
48.) Dove Promises
49.) Family Home Evening
50.) Pablo's artwork
51.) Flip flops
52.) West Yellowstone
53.) Dutch Oven cooking
54.) Batter fried Zucchini
55.) Being in Kindergarten
56.) BOM
57.) Speaking Spanish
58.) My wedding dress
59.) Cumbia
60.) Root beer
61.) Juanes
62.) books by Jerry Spinelli
63.) SkippyJon Jones
64.) Nicole Miller lip gloss
65.) Purses
66.) Pablo's eyes
67.) Pearls
68.) Visiting Lancaster, PA
69.) GAP outlets
70.) Apple cider
71.) Cardigans
72.) Jack Black
73.) fonts San Serif
74.) The Office
75.) Movies that make you cry
76.) Sleeping in
77.) Buffalo wings
78.) Arrested Development
79.) Catching snow flakes
80.) Reading blogs
81.) Making lists (ha ha!)
82.) Passing tests
83.) New toothbrushes
84.) Date night with Pablo
85.) Facebook
86.) Rocketdog shoes
87.) Coke Zero Vanilla
88.) Melaleuca chapstick
89.) Ellen Degeneres
90.) Casate Conmigo
91.) Baked potatoes
92.) Going to the movies
93.) Camping
94.) Cooking new recipes
95.) Ratatouille
96.) Christmas
97.) Cafe Motion
98.) gusanito.com
99.) Earrings
100.) Little Women

Soups on!

My friend Drew so nicely reminded me that my blog has been LAME lately...thanks Drew! So, for lack of better posting material, try a new recipe! I actually got this out of American Profile and it was YUM! Try it and let me know what you think!

Cheesy Chicken Chowder

2 (14 oz) cans reduced sodium chicken broth
2 cups diced, peeled potatoes
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup diced celery
1/2 cup diced onion
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup flour
2 cups milk
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese (I used sharp!)
2 cups diced or shredded cooked chicken

Bring the chicken broth to a boil in a large saucepan and reduce heat. Add potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, salt and pepper (and other seasonings as you wish). Cover and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan. Add flour and mix well. Gradually stir in milk and cook on low heat until slightly thickened. Stir in cheese and cook until melted (just a few minutes) Add cheese mixture to broth and add chicken. Cook and stir over low heat until heat and enjoy!

A little late but still great!

Here are a few pictures from the BIG DAY! That morning my mom and I ran all over Santiago trying to find some roses for my bouquet and then spent the rest of the morning getting ready. We got to the temple around 1 pm and all the crazy Chilean temple workers were so excited to get me ready! The sealing was beautiful and everyone that was there was special to Pablo and I. These are all pictures of us after the temple. Notice there are no pictures posted of Pablo's parents--they are kind of on my bad list right now... So enjoy these ones and I will get some up from the reception soon too!




This last picture is on the top of San Cristobal. It's this big hill in the middle of Santiago where you can see all of the city. After the temple our friend Elias took us on a little "paseo" and after getting a coke, we headed up this hill. It was so fun because everyone was calling out stuff to us--one girl even said, "I want to get married too!" It was a beautiful spot to go to right after being sealed because we were feeling on top of the world!

Civil Wedding

Here are a few pictures from the civil wedding yesterday--not very exciting for me but the Chileans were all like, "How does it feel to be married but not married?" The actual "ceremony" if you will was 5 minutes long and we were "married" by a woman judge so that was kind of weird. Basically she just read a statement from the government and then made sure all of our information was correct. We signed a paper and that was it! We had a toast with ginger ale, ate some cake and then went to Pablo's house to have a small barbeque with a few friends. Now we are both more excited then ever for Saturday to get here!!

UPDATE!

I was reminded today by my dear friend Katy (who attacked me at the mall) that I haven't updated my blog...so this is for you! I just got my bridals done today by my friend Tiniel who did an AWESOME job! Seriously I am so pleased and love what she did but I'm not posting them because I don't want to give it all away. Thanks Tiniel for giving up your Saturday for me and for being an amazing friend through these last 10 months!
So here is the plan: My parents and I are leaving on Thursday to go to SLC and flying out for Santiago Friday morning. That puts us arriving in Santiago around 7:30 am where Pablo will be waiting. On December 23 we will be civilly married which is the law in Chile. It is a small, basically family only event but it fulfills the requirements. Then after Christmas at my good friend Andres' house, December 26 we will show up at the temple in Santiago to be sealed! I seriously can not wait for that moment!! I'm so glad that my parents and good friends will be there with me but also that Pablo will be mine--FOREVER! We will have a Chilean reception complete with fancy dinner and dance and then off we will go on the honeymoon.
I come home on January 3rd and Pablo will follow as soon as his Visa gets approved. Depending on how fast we can get it taken care of and they submit and approve it all--it could be anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months. At this point I am trying to just think about the time we will have to be together and that it will all be worth the wait. What's a few months when we will be together for eternity, right?
I just wanted to thank all of you for being my support system and cheering me on when I was down. I have such amazing family and friends and I love you all so much!! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and be waiting for more pictures to come soon!