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A Request for Family and Friends who are Planning to Visit…

December 30, 2009 by Brian

We’ve talked to most of our family and friends over the past week and have a favor to ask all of you who are planning to visit after Kaylee gets here.

Please buy and listen to these CDs before you come:
Michel Thomas Speak Spanish Get Started Kit: 2-CD Starter Program

It’s just two CDs, a couple of hours of Spanish lessons, but it will be immensely helpful if you don’t know Spanish. It will enable you to ask basic questions and have enough comprehension of the language to go to the market on your own, or order some coffee and a snack at the café.

Having the ability to do these things on your own while you’re visiting will be very helpful to not only you, but to us. We love you guys, but we don’t want to have to chaperon you the entire time you are here.

And it will help you with filling out the paperwork on the airplane when you are getting ready to arrive in Uruguay… that we can’t help you with.

So please, if you don’t know Spanish (and very few of you do), please get these CDs and listen to them so you can have the very basics down before your visit.

One other part of the Spanish language you’ll want to have an understanding of is numbers. This won’t be taught in the 2 CDs, so we made this web page for you guys. It’s all numbers.

Listen to the CDs to get an understanding of how the language is pronounced, and then come back to Spanish Numbers Page over and over again until you get these numbers down…

We also made this web page with the days of the week in Spanish, which will also be helpful for you to learn.

A big thanks to everyone in advance to for doing this for us!

Our First Christmas in Uruguay

December 28, 2009 by Brian

We had a wonderful week celebrating our first Christmas in Uruguay.

We started off the week by finally letting Zoë ride a pony at the park. Every time we go, she always wants to look at them, but we weren’t sure if she was big enough to ride them yet. She absolutely loved riding the pony so much that she screamed when it was time to get off. We’ll have to let her ride one again soon. It only costs UY$ 25 (U$S 1.28) if you’re in Montevideo and want to check out the ponies at the Villa Biarritz park.

On Wednesday, we took Zoë to Punta Carretas Shopping hoping that she could sit on Santa’s lap and get her picture taken. We were disappointed that there was no Santa! What we thought was Santa’s house was actually Mickey’s Christmas House. So, we walked around and let her look at it, but no Santa pictures this year. Zoë did thoroughly enjoy Mickey & Minnie’s Christmas area, and that’s what matters.

We had heard that Christmas Eve in Uruguay was a big celebration, but we had no idea the surprise we were in for. At about 5 minutes until midnight, fireworks started going off and didn’t stop until after 1 am. Surprisingly Zoë slept through the entire thing!

It was the most amazing display of fireworks we have ever seen. Everywhere you looked, the sky was lit up. Some of them were public fireworks displays, but the majority of them were fireworks set off from peoples’ homes. Pictures could never do it justice, but here are a few to give you an idea of what it was like. We highly recommend spending Christmas Eve in Montevideo.

Christmas morning we woke up and headed out to the living room. Zoë wanted to eat before opening presents so, as a special Christmas treat, we let her have cookies for breakfast ☺

Then she started opening presents. It took her a little bit to get into it, but once she did, there was no stopping her. She had an absolutely wonderful morning opening presents and spent the rest of the day playing with all of her gifts.

You can’t tell from these pictures, but Santa brought her an entire stocking full of candy. She ate almost all of it on Christmas, so she never took a nap on Christmas. Luckily she fell asleep early and got a good night’s sleep.

We know she still has a lot of Christmas gifts on the way from family in the States, so we’ll be posting pictures of her opening her gifts as they arrive each week.

Merry Christmas from Uruguay

December 25, 2009 by Brian

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!

Looking for an Expat Tax Service?

December 23, 2009 by Brian

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

December 21, 2009 by Brian

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

December 18, 2009 by Brian

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

December 16, 2009 by Brian

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

December 15, 2009 by Brian

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

December 14, 2009 by Brian

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

December 11, 2009 by Brian

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