We want to wish all of our readers a very Merry Christmas. We hope everyone has a fun-filled and safe day.
Brian, Chrystal & Zoë
p.s. We'll resume our Recipe of the Week series in the New Year!
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Looking for an Expat Tax Service?
Tax time is upon us, so we’ve been looking into expat tax services we can recommend to US citizens living abroad. Filing your taxes as an expat can be tricky, so a lot of people prefer to work with a tax professional.
Brian worked in the tax industry for several years and is very familiar with how tax companies operate. After finding an expat tax service that looked like they offered a solid service, he called and spoke with the owner of the company.
The conversation went very well, and he said that they offer a good service that he can recommend. The company is ExPat CFO.
To learn more about the expat tax service offered by ExPat CFO,
click here.
Our Little Chatterbox
Zoë has really started to become a little chatterbox. Not everything she says makes sense, but that doesn’t stop her from talking your ear off. She also loves making up her own little gibberish songs and singing her little heart out.
But not everything she says is gibberish – her vocabulary is still expanding every day. The funniest thing she started saying this week is “Mommy’s” and “Daddy’s.” If she knows it’s something she’s not supposed to touch (like our computers), she points and tells us to whom it belongs – mommy or daddy.
She also said "please" for the first time this week. Instead of her normal demand of, “cuppy!” she said, “cuppy please.” We’ve been working on this one for a while, so this was a happy moment for us.
Her other favorite word of the week is "pretty." She’s been saying "pretty" for quite some time now, but ever since we put up the Christmas tree, she’s been saying "pretty" a lot more.
We’ve mentioned before how much she loves her babies. We set up her beach tent in her room this week and it has given her a chance to spend a lot more quality time with all of her babies:
And, here’s one last picture of Zoë for the week, of Daddy putting Zoë down for a nap. I think she got up and ran out into the living room laughing a few minutes after this picture was taken because she put Daddy down for a nap instead of him putting her down for a nap:
Recipe of the Week: Buttermilk Pie
I know what you're thinking, Buttermilk Pie? Yes, Buttermilk Pie. It's basically like a yummy vanilla custard. And, it's super easy to make. Give it a try!
Ingredients:
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons of flour, plus a little extra for dusting
- ½ cup melted butter
- 1 ½ cups buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 160° C (325° F)
- In a medium mixing bowl, beat eggs slightly
- Add sugar and flour and mix
- Add melted butter and mix
- Add buttermilk and vanilla and mix
- Dust the unbaked pie shell with a little bit of flour
- Pour batter into pie shell
- Sprinkle a little more flour on top of the batter
- Bake for about an hour, or until custard is set
Tips and Modifications:
- You can get a recipe for the pie shell from our recipe of the week post, Blueberry Crumb Pie
- You can get a recipe for buttermilk in The Expat Cookbook, still on sale for 50% off through the end of 2009
Christmas Traditions in Uruguay
We found out recently that the traditional day to decorate your Christmas tree in Uruguay is December 8. We’re a little late for that, but we finally went out and got a Christmas tree today. We picked up a small, artificial one at Devoto – it’s the perfect size for our apartment.
In case you’re wondering, they don’t have “real” Christmas trees in Uruguay. They are all artificial, and apparently it’s also traditional to keep your tree for seven years before replacing it (much thanks to Esteban, one of our wonderful forum members who shares so much great information with us!).
All of our ornaments are in storage back in San Diego, so we also picked up some basic ornaments (at Devoto) and lights (at Disco). We also decided to make a popcorn garland with some microwave popcorn we picked up yesterday at Tienda Inglesa.
Here’s the final product:
You might be wondering why there aren’t any presents under the tree. Well, while Zoë was napping today I wrapped a couple of presents her Nana had sent her and put them under the tree. I was in the kitchen and Brian was out on the balcony when Zoë woke up. She made a beeline for the tree and had one of the presents open before we even knew she was up!
We walked into the living room and she proudly showed us her new clothes:
Then she tried to put the clothes on, even though she still needs to grow into them:
So, we won’t be keeping any presents under the tree this year (or probably for a couple years to come ☺).
Our FTC Disclaimer: Yes, We Make Money
If you are not a blogger or a person who makes money online, you probably don’t know about the ruling the Federal Trade Commission made that affects the entire blogging community worldwide.
The FTC’s panel of 4 people ruled 4-0 that bloggers must completely disclose their relationships with their advertisers. It’s very vague, you can read their press release here or you can click here for the easy to read 81-page ruling.
The ruling goes on to state that the FTC will fine bloggers $11,000 per violation. So to stay in compliance with the 4 people on the FTC panel that made a ruling that affected a multi billion-dollar industry… Here is our disclosure.
We make money from our blog, website and forum. If we didn’t, there would be no reason for us to put so much hard work and energy into creating all of this content.
There you have it… that is our disclaimer. But, we’re going to take it one step further. We are going to be completely transparent with you. We are even listing some advertisers we haven’t promoted yet.
Below you will find a list of every advertiser we use and how much we make if you :
- Purchase or use their services through our website, blog or forum
- Use one of the services we used to build our website, blog or forum
- Click on the link through our website, blog or forum
If you click on one of the banner ads or links in our blog and purchase the product, we get paid as follows:
Website, Blog, Forum and other Marketing Services:
- SiteBuildIt who we use to build and host our website – $75
- TypePad who we use to build and host our blog – $30
- ActiveBoard who we use to build and host our forum – 80% of the 1st payment
- e-Junkie – $1 per month if you sign up to use them to sell your product.
- Ad.ly – (free get paid to Tweet program), 12% of what our referrals make… So if you get $1 per Tweet, we make $0.12 for you Tweeting that Tweet. Tweeting is sending a message through the micro-blog platform Twitter.
- Elance – If you do freelance writing, we recommend signing up with them because you can get hired for freelance writing jobs. We get paid up to $32 for you signing up and 1% of your revenue for 6 months.
- AWeber – Email marketing service, we get 20% of the monthly subscription per referral.
Products:
- Amazon – 4-15% of the purchase price. These are the links for different products we recommend. We don’t recommend anything we don’t own, use and like.
- Best Buy – .25% – 6% of the purchase price. The only thing we promote through Best Buy is MagicJack… We use MagicJack 4-5 hours a day Monday thru Friday talking on to people in the US; it’s the best thing since sliced bread.
- The Expat Cookbook… We created it, so we don’t need to disclose that we make money from it, but because we charge for it, advertise it and make money from it, it’s on the list. We make the sale price and 50% of what our affiliates sell The Expat Cookbook for.
- Ace Texas Holdem Secrets – 50% of sale price. An eBook written by a fellow expat that shares his system of how he makes his living playing poker online.
Expat Services:
- Multi National Underwriters – $10-$30 per Travel Insurance or Major Medical Insurance policy purchased.
- ExPat CFO – $100 for hiring them to do your taxes. I spent several years in the Tax Resolution industry helping people out of IRS trouble. I don’t give tax recommendations lightly. I had a conference call with Nick Hodges, the owner of Expat CFO and NCH Wealth Advisors to make sure he was on the up and up before signing up for his affiliate program. I can without hesitation give my full support to his organization.
- Earth Class Mail – $15.00 per sign up. We found them through International Living and it was hands down the best way to get our mail down here. Unlike it’s main competitor Miami Box, our shipments come directly to our front door.
- Strong VPN – Up to $30.00 per purchase. This is a Virtual Private Network; basically you get to use their IP addresses (along with all of their other users) in their network. So if you want to go to Hulu (which is a US only website) you can log into their network and get on one of their IP addresses in the US (which you’re sharing with other users). It’s great for what it is because it’s cheap, but it’s slow.
- SEO-Proxy – $0.50 per purchase. This gives you your very own exclusive IP address in the US that you don’t share with anyone. It’s super fast and you don’t get blocked from any site in the US. Use this discount code to get 5% off (dsc_0455654)… I use the $10 a month 1-proxy plan and I use it daily. I recommend it over Strong VPN.
Travel Services:
- Orbitz – $3-$30 per package booked through their site.
- Travelocity – 2-6% of the purchase price per package booked through their site.
- Lufthansa Airlines – 2% of the purchase price of an airline ticket through their site.
- Air France – 1% of the purchase price of an airline ticket through their site.
- Taca Airlines – $3 per airline ticket purchased through their site.
- Expedia – 2-5.5% of the purchase price per package booked through their site.
- LAN Airlines – 1.25% of the purchase price of an airline ticket through their site.
- Hotels.com – 5.5% per hotel booked through their site.
- Budget Rental Car – 3% of the purchase price of a car rented through their site.
Planned Future Services for 2010:
- We are going to have a paid area for people to post Real Estate For Sale and For Rent. We will make money from those people for advertising their properties.
- We are going to have a tourist attraction area that advertisers will pay to promote their tourist attractions. We will make money from those people for advertising their attractions.
- An eBook about having a baby in Uruguay from beginning to end of the process.
- An eBook of how exactly, step-by-step, of how to create a profitable web business. Here’s a little secret, Exploring Uruguay isn’t our only online business.
Additionally, when you click on the Google ads or Chitika ads on our website, blog or forum we make a few pennies per click, literally; it could be $0.01 to $0.11, sometimes more sometimes less, it’s all over the place… Per their policies, we can’t tell you to click on every Google and Chitika ad that pops up on the pages (wink wink).
So the great news is, our website, blog and forum are the places to start for your online shopping, expat services or travel needs.
If you have any questions about anything on this page, please ask in the comments below.
Zoe’s New Friend
This weekend, we were invited to a BBQ hosted by a family we’ve gotten to know from New Zealand. They have two young boys and live out in Carrasco, so we knew Zoë was going to have a great time.
First, she got dressed up all pretty, packed her baby and some toys in a bag and was ready to go play:
Her and Billy really hit it off (he’s about 5 months older than her). They climbed up on one of the tables to enjoy some snacks together.
They played together in the tunnel and took turns going down the slide:
They played together in the pop up tents:
And when it was time for us to go home, Zoë gave Billy two giant hugs – if only I’d had the camera ready for that! It was quite sweet.
Recipe of the Week: Peach Strawberry Crumb Pie
Two weeks ago, we posted a recipe for Blueberry Crumb Pie. Since it was such a hit, we decided to experiment with some of our other favorite fruits.
So, we swapped out the blueberries for half strawberries and half peaches. Then, we doubled the recipe for the crumb topping, and this is what we got… As Zoë would say, “Tasty!”
Crust Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups flour
- 2 tablespoons white sugar
- ¼ cup lard
- ¼ cup butter
- 1/3 cup cold water
Filling Ingredients
- 2 cups fresh strawberries, sliced
- 2 cups ripe peaches, peeled and sliced
- 7 tablespoons corn starch
- 2/3 cup granulated white sugar
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 3 tablespoons water
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
Crumb Topping Ingredients
- 1 cup flour
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ cup butter
Directions:
Crust
- Combine the flour, sugar, butter and lard in a mixing bowl until well blended
- Sprinkle in the water a little at a time and mix just enough to make it hold together – don’t over mix
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes
- Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface
- Place the dough into the pie pan (don’t worry if it breaks; you can patch it in the pan)
- Press the dough into a 9-inch deep-dish pie pan
- Seal any broken areas and shape the top edge into a pattern if you like
Filling
- Preheat oven to 190° C (375° F)
- Slice strawberries
- Peel and slice peaches
- In a mixing bowl, combine the sugar, corn starch and cinnamon, and mix well
- Add lemon juice and water and mix well
- Add the peaches and strawberries to the pie crust
- Pour the liquid mix over the peaches and strawberries
Crumb Topping
- Mix the sugar, butter and flour in a bowl
- Sprinkle mixture over the fruit
- Place pie in oven and bake for one hour
- The pie should be bubbling and golden brown; if not cook for 3-4 more minutes and check again
- Serve warm with a heaping scoop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream
Tips and modifications:
- Pie will keep for 1 week in refrigerator
- You can find a recipe for whipped cream in The Expat Cookbook, which is on sale for 50% off through the end of 2009
Montevideo Restaurant Review: Rocco Resto
This restaurant review for Rocco Resto is long overdue. We discovered Rocco Resto our first week in Montevideo (since it’s just a few blocks from Punta Trouville, the apart hotel we stayed at when we first arrived in Uruguay) and we quickly became “regulars.”
Rocco Resto is a great place to eat at or enjoy a bottle of wine, whether you’re just visiting or living in Uruguay. The owners Ali and Gerado and the entire staff are extremely friendly (and most of them speak English).
The prices at Rocco Resto are reasonable, similar to other restaurants in the Pocitos area of Montevideo. The atmosphere is casual and they also have a bar in the restaurant where you can watch the futbol match and have a liter of beer.
They have a little bit of everything on their menu and everything is good. Brian’s favorite is the beef stroganoff and Chrystal’s is the chicken curry (sorry, we don’t have pictures of either of these, but they are great!).
The lomo (similar to filet mignon) dishes are also wonderful:
They typically have a fish of the day, and every time we’ve had it, it has been good:
For you vegetarians and vegetable lovers, their vegetables al wok, which is one of the house specialties, are also delicious:
If you’re looking for a good appetizer, try the mini pollo (chicken) brochettes. You can also order them with lomo (beef) if you prefer:
We were just in Rocco Resto over the weekend and found out that they’re having a deck built this week, just in time for summer. So if you’re in the area, stop by Rocco Resto and enjoy a meal or drink.
Rocco Resto is located on 21 de Setiembre and Francisco Vidal, one block from the Rambla.
Zoe’s Big Week of Firsts
Zoë had a really great week. She started saying a few new words: “mommy” (instead of mama), “grandma,” “happy,” “yummy,” “tasty” and “cheers” (as she knocks her water cup against ours) are the most memorable ones.
She also decided she has her first favorite pair of shoes, which used to belong to her cousin Dayla. Every morning when she wakes up, she brings them out to us to put them on her. It doesn’t matter whether she’s dressed or not, she loves to wear her shoes:
Her weekend was also filled with fun and exciting firsts. Friday night she got her first rose, compliments of Daddy… She only put it down when she went to sleep on the couch and we could take it out of her hands:
Saturday afternoon, she went to her first country music festival. We found out that she likes punk music more than country… again compliments of daddy:
Then Sunday, we finally made it out to another Expat Meeting at Fellini. Zoë had a great time digging into her first taste of chocolate mousse. She sure does love chocolate, taking after her daddy!
By the time we got home, she was so exhausted that she passed out on the couch watching Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure
Zoë is a wonderful joy… We’re excited to see how she acts when Kaylee gets here in 9 weeks. Zoë is VERY jealous when we hug, because it’s her mommy, and daddy is not allowed to hug her mommy. But, on the other hand, she is fascinated with babies (both real babies and baby dolls)… When she’s sees a picture of herself she says “baby” then points to the picture and back to herself repeatedly with a huge grin on her face.
As Zoë would say, “Chau chau!”