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Our Little Helper

November 23, 2009 by Brian

Zoë has really become quite a little helper. No matter what it is we’re doing, she finds some way to help out.

She loves helping Daddy sweep the floor:

And she’s always excited to clean up water she spilled:

She’s also constantly picking up trash and throwing it away and she loves bringing dishes to us in the kitchen while we’re doing the dishes (which does mean a broken glass here and there).

Over the past couple of months, Zoë has definitely become our little helper. Hopefully she’s just as excited to help us with her little sister when she joins our family in just over two months!

Recipe of the Week: Peanut Butter and Honey
Granola Bars

November 20, 2009 by Brian

Special Note: Seasons Greetings Everyone… We wish you all a happy and safe holiday season…

From now until the end of 2009, we would like to offer you The Expat Cookbook with a 50% price reduction.

This week's recipe for Peanut Butter and Honey Granola Bars is for one of our readers. Thanks for the suggestion Inga!

Ingredients:

2 cups oats
3 tablespoons flax seed
½ cup smooth peanut butter
½ cup honey
½ cup nuts or dried fruit
¼ cup of protein powder (optional)
1 teaspoon salt (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 200° C (400° F)
Line a 9×9 square baking dish with parchment paper and set out a cooling rack
Place the oats and flax seed in a baking pan and place in oven
Watch the oats carefully; if they burn you’ll have to start over
Take oats out of oven when they are a golden brown (5-10 minutes)
While the oats and flax seed are toasting, add honey and peanut butter to a small saucepan
Turn the saucepan on low to med-low heat until the mixture is warm and smooth (be careful not to burn or simmer)
Place the nuts or dried fruits in a medium sized mixing bowl
Coat the nuts or dried fruit with protein powder if using
Carefully add oats to the bowl of nuts or dried fruit
Add the peanut honey mixture to the blow
Mix well with a wooden spoon
Place the mixture into the baking dish and spread evenly
The bars will be about ¼” in depth when spread correctly
Carefully lift out parchment paper from baking dish and let cool on rack
After about 30 minutes flip the block over to cool more evenly
After they are cool down, place the bar on a hard surface and cut

Tips and Modifications:

Do not use salt if you are using salted peanut butter or salted nuts
Should take about 20 minutes to prepare
Makes about 10 granola bars
If you don’t have parchment paper, you can oil the baking dish with grapeseed oil, but you’ll need to be careful when removing the block from the dish to cool
Can substitute millet, flax seed meal, wheat germ, etc. for flax seed
Ideas for nuts or dried fruit: peanuts, almonds, pecans, sunflower seeds, raisins, cranberries, dried blueberries, etc.

Notes: You can find a recipe for Peanut Butter in The Expat Cookbook, on sale now for 50% off.

I was able to find flax seeds at the Disco at Punta Carretas Shopping in Montevideo. They are in the section with the dried beans.

Thanksgiving for Expats in Uruguay

November 19, 2009 by Brian

If you’re currently an expat living in Uruguay, or will be visiting for the holidays, you may be thinking about where to celebrate Thanksgiving this year.

The 4th Annual Thanksgiving Feast, hosted by Southron, will be held on November 26 at Club 27 de Diciembre de 1911. Turkey, meat and beverages will be provided. You’ll need to bring a side dish with you (coordinate that with Clara, who can be found on either of the pages below).

Visit the event page on Facebook for more information. Or you can read more on the Southron Forum. You must confirm your attendance this weekend.

Hope to see you there.

Getting Your Uruguay Visitors Permit Renewed Without Leaving the Country

November 18, 2009 by Brian

We wrote a blog a few months back about our trip to Buenos Aires to renew our 90-day visitor’s permit for Uruguay. The last three months have flown by! We were surprised when we looked at the calendar and realized it was already time to renew our visitors’ permits again.

Instead of taking another trip to Buenos Aires, we wanted to spend that time visiting Punta del Diablo, Uruguay. We had heard from other expats that you can have your visitors’ permits renewed at the Uruguay Immigrations office in Montevideo, so we decided to do that this time around.

We took a cab from Pocitos to the Uruguay Immigration office in Ciudad Vieja, which cost us about UY$ 100 (U$S 5) each way. Much less expensive than paying for the Buquebus!

The process was very simple and straightforward. It reminded us a lot of going to the California DMV, only the Uruguay Immigration office is much more efficient. All in all, I’d say we spent 20-30 minutes there.

We had a little mix-up with the new girl at the front desk (she wrote down the wrong service), but other than that, we were pleasantly surprised with the efficiency of getting our visitors permits renewed at the Uruguay Immigration office.

Full instructions on getting your visitor’s permit renewed at the Uruguay Immigration office can be found on the Exploring Uruguay website.

Zoë Likes to Scream

November 16, 2009 by Brian

We’ll be doing our weekly update on Zoë every Monday, which means that we’ll be moving our recipe of the week to Fridays.

Last week we mentioned that Zoë is very into dressing up these days. We wanted to share a few pictures.

This is Zoë’s beach attire. She loves to wear her hat and sunglasses everywhere. Of course when we get to the beach they have to come off so she’s free to play.

Lately Zoë has started walking around the house with one of her hooded towels on her head. Our little super hero.

And best of all, she loves to dress up in our clothes whenever she gets a chance. Pretty cute, huh?

But she is still your normal toddler testing her limits. Brian had some errands to run on Friday, so Zoë and I went to the grocery store. Normally she is very well behaved… not this time!

She decided it was funny to scream at the top of her lungs (she has a very loud, high-pitched scream) and run away from me. She didn’t want to be in her stroller and she didn’t want to be held. She wanted to be able to run all over and take things off the shelf.

I thought we were going to have to leave, but she finally sat still in the stroller after being bribed with a small stuffed dog (or “woof woof” as she would call it) so I could grab a few final things. I know this is just a phase that Zoë is going through, so I’m trying to appreciate every minute of it.

Zoë had a very fun weekend. Saturday we met up with a very nice family from New Zealand at Parque Rodo to play.

And, Sunday we met another family from Norway at the beach and enjoyed the nice weather.

Weekend Trip to Punta Del Diablo, Uruguay

November 13, 2009 by Brian

Some Uruguayan friends invited us out to Punta Del Diablo for the weekend. They rented a house a few miles outside of town and knew it was an area of Uruguay we really wanted to explore.

We took the bus from Tres Cruces bus station in Montevideo to Punta Del Diablo rather than renting a car. The bus cost us UY $289 (U$S 14.13) each for one-way tickets. Zoë sat on our laps, which was no problem because the seats were large, very comfortable and reclined. We even had plenty of legroom. Definitely better than airline seats.

The ride was 4 ½ hours, but it was a very nice, scenic drive. Unfortunately we realized on the trip to Punta Del Diablo that Zoë does, in fact, get carsick. Poor baby.

When we arrived at our destination, we got settled into the house and then shared some asado with our friends. It was a peaceful, relaxing evening.

The next morning, we got a ride into Punta Del Diablo so we could explore the town for the day. The beaches in Punta Del Diablo are clean and beautiful.

We spent some time relaxing out on the point, watching the waves.

The town is small, but it’s exactly what you would imagine for a rustic beach community.

We had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the ocean. Corvina cooked on the parrilla is their specialty, so we all had that. It was delicious, but I was surprised at the cost given it isn’t high season yet – UY $440 (U$S 21.52) for a two-person serving of corvina and a salad. I guess that’s not expensive by US standards though…

Overall, Punta Del Diablo is a beautiful little beach town that would be great for a relaxing vacation. I don’t think it’s somewhere we would want to live full time (too many buildings too close together). But, if you haven’t been to Punta Del Diablo, Uruguay yet, we definitely recommend checking it out.

Zoë Update

November 11, 2009 by Brian

This blog post is mainly for our family and friends. We are going to start doing a weekly update on Zoë. Please feel free to comment…

Zoë is turning into a little chatter box. Some of her favorite words include: kiss, si (yes), no (it either comes out of her mouth very sharply once or 4 times in a row), fish, eggs, taste, more, ball, help, I do, no way, dee (for candy), llaves (keys), silla (chair), potty, pee, poop, (potty training is going very well), chau chau (goodbye), bye bye, food, bite, mmmm, yum yum, boom (for when she falls down), juice, agua (water), oh my my (from “oh my my shushybye,” which she runs around the house singing), kiss, sing, cup, banana, shower, mooee (for movie), peapea (for computer??), Tink (for Tinkerbell), bee (for binky), hot, eyes, nose, eees (for ears), shoes, toes, baby, Mama, Daee (for Daddy), two, done, off, tick tick (for tickle), yeah, run run run run and go go go go… woof woof (for dogs), meow (for cats), moo (for cows)… baaa ( for sheep)… she loves the horses at the park, but tends to call them “woof woofs…” She really loves animals.

She’s picking up new words every day, and over the past couple of weeks she’s been putting them together. It won’t be long before she starts making full sentences.

She loves running around the house singing.She really loves it when Daddy plays the guitar and sings. As you can see, she loves singing while Daddy plays the guitar too.

Another thing Zoë has been doing is playing pretend. She loves to play pretend eating and drinking. She has little saucers and cups and loves to pretend that she’s feeding us and her babies. Speaking of babies, she has 3 baby dolls that act as her crew… where she goes they go too. She has 1 teddy bear and 1 giant pink bunny that are down for her too.

Zoë loves to play… she loves it when we read books to her as well. Playing dress up is her new thing. She’ll get into our dirty clothes-basket and try to put on all of our clothes. Then she’ll get into her clothes and try to put everything on. Sometime shirts make it over the head, and sometimes they act as a third pair of pants.

Zoë loves wearing hats… Anything can be a hat…

She loves going to the park and beach…

Sometimes she’s silly…

But she’s always precious…

Recipe of the Week: Crustless Chicken Quiche

November 9, 2009 by Brian

Making a crustless chicken quiche is a quick and easy way to use up any extra meat or veggies you have in the fridge. It makes a good breakfast, or goes well with a nice salad for lunch.

Ingredients:

8 eggs
1 cup shredded chicken breast
½ red bell pepper, diced
½ small onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon jalapeño, minced
¼ teaspoon sea salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon basil
¼ teaspoon rosemary
1 teaspoon grapeseed oil

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 180° C (350° F)
Beat eggs in a bowl and set aside
Heat oil in a medium oven-safe frying pan until hot
Add bell pepper, onion, jalapeño and garlic and sauté 3-5 minutes
Add chicken, sea salt, black pepper and rosemary, and sauté an additional 2-3 minutes
Pour eggs into the pan and transfer to the oven
Cook 15-20 minutes or until egg is set

Tips and Modifications:

You can add ½ cup of shredded cheese with the egg before placing in the oven
You can substitute butter or other types of oil for grapeseed oil
If you don’t have an oven-safe frying pan, you can transfer the chicken and vegetables to a casserole dish before adding eggs

The Trendiest Neighborhoods of Montevideo

November 6, 2009 by Brian

Our good friend Suki Davis does some writing about living in Uruguay. She recently wrote an article for Ola Uruguay titled, “The Trendiest Neighborhoods of Montevideo.”

In this article, she discusses her family’s search for a home in Montevideo. She covers most of the major neighborhoods in Montevideo:

Buceo
Pocitos
Punta Carretas
Carrasco
Ciudad Vieja
Palermo
Paque Rodo
Cordon (where they bought their home)

If you’re trying to decide which neighborhood in Montevideo is right for you, we definitely recommend reading her article.

Amazon Ships to Uruguay!

November 4, 2009 by Brian

Zoë received several Amazon.com gift cards for her birthday last year. We had asked for them as one option for gifts for her since we didn’t want to haul any more “stuff” with us on our move to Uruguay (her birthday was the day before we left for Uruguay).

We got an excellent tip from a member of the Exploring Uruguay Forum that books and DVDs are exempt from duties and taxes so we decided it was time to place an order with Amazon. So, we ordered Zoë some new books and a DVD of her favorite show Shushybye Baby(we lost her copy on the trip down to Uruguay).

We weren’t sure how the delivery would work, but it went very smooth! I placed the order on October 14 and received two packages on October 29. They delivered the boxes directly to our apartment. It didn’t even look like they had been opened and one of the boxes was quite large (we spent around $100 on books and the DVD).

You can see Amazon’s shipping rates and transit times to Uruguay here.

If you’ve been wanting to get some new English books or DVDs, we highly recommend ordering from Amazon.com.