Drug trafficker or cookie maker?

Yay! We made it to Chile. We left on New Year's day, flew from Denver to Dallas, then Dallas to Santiago. O.K. That was a long flight with two kiddos. We arrived in Santiago in the morning and while we were getting our luggage, there were all sorts of dogs sniffing everyone's luggage. Naturally I thought they were looking for drugs. But, then we had to pass all of our luggage through the machine and they decided to open up the big box of goodies we brought out here. It was full of chocolate chips, brown sugar and other such items. Hey, they don't have that stuff here and I thought I'd show my friend how to make real chocolate chip cookies. Anyway, I also had craisins in the box, thinking I could make some really yummy white chocolate chip, craisin, oatmeal cookies. Imagine my surprise when the worker pulled the craisins out of the box and set them aside. Uh, oh...what's going on here? Then they asked who was responsible for bringing the craisins..., "Yo", I said. Then they took me and my craisins to a corner where they weighed them and wrote down their weight in kilograms and told me that I have brought an illegal item into the country and why hadn't I declared it? WHAT??? Now, I had to appear before a judge to explain my actions. Seriously, craisins??? So, I go and wait to see a "judge", really just a young girl who wasn't judging anything, only took an hour of my time and charged me $200, yes, you read that right, TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in CASH for my illegal actions. I now have a record in Chile and if I bring any other prohibited items into the country, they will charge me a minimum of $600. During my one hour dealing with this mess, I counted 7 people, all charged $200 each, most for just one apple or one banana or trail mix. What a set up! Welcome to Chile...now, let's see how we can rip you off...

Here is my Chilean criminal record...

After the big scandal, we went to a hotel where my parents had stayed in Santiago. We spent the day there while we waited to board our plane that would take us to southern Chile that night. The kids swam at the pool and my good friend, Pati, came to the hotel to hang out. That was so fun to see her...it had been about 9 years! We had fun catching up together.



That night, we went back to the airport and also met up with Sonia and her son, Andrecito, who flew down south with us to spend the month at my parents home. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to download my pictures yet down here. I only have these few pics. because Pati sent them to me on facebook. I hope to figure the picture thing out soon and update with other pictures.

Anyway, we arrived in Puerto Montt, Chile around midnight. When we got off the flight, we were totally surprised to see Blaine's parents waiting for us! We didn't think we'd see them for a few days but they surprised us and drove us to my parent's house where they also spent the night. It was so awesome to spend time with them and my parents. Aside from the craisin incident, we are having an AWESOME time! The weather is beautiful out here and southern Chile is lots of green pasture land with beautiful lakes. It is incredible. I have to go to an internet cafe to use the internet, so I don't have much access, but I hope to get some pics up on the blog within a few days.
Today we took a bus to Osorno. The kids LOVED the bus ride...no seatbelts or carseats! We are staying the night with Blaine's parents, Elder and Hermana Allen. It is so great to be here.