I can’t believe it’s been two months since I’ve posted, I must be the worst blogger ever. The past couple months have flown by, between the holidays and my trip home I’ve been running around like a crazy person since my semester ended. Having officially been back in Laguna and on real vacation for a week, I decided it was time to finally play catch up here on the blog.

For the first time ever, hubs and I exchanged gifts for Christmas. As you can see here holidays haven’t always been easy for us in Chile. This year we decided to start our own Christmas tradition, something totally different from the homesickness-inducing wintry traditions of home – surfing (!) We got up early and went to our favorite ‘surfing beach for people who don’t really know how to surf’ in La Boca, Con Con – it’s perfect for beginners. As always I got burnt to a crisp but we had a blast. Afterwards we headed to a good friend’s place for a BBQ; we both agreed it was the best holiday we had had in a long time.

January marked the end of our highly anticipated deck project – hubs worked long and hard to finish it in time for summer and man, he did a great job. It’s been absolutely perfect for yoga and parties (though generally not at the same time) and adds a ton of livable space to our small house. Dogs and plants like it too.

In January we also had the arrival of a new friend, my best friend’s cousin Clay who was down in Chile for a trip. We were lucky enough to have him stay with us for a few days to  enjoy the beach, a couple of BBQs and even a honey harvest with our French neighbor.

In addition to the deck, we my husband has been trying to spruce the house up a bit. Before I left for the U.S. he dragged me on a hike in Laguna to an old abandoned power plant. Why would you hike there, you ask? Ever the creative carpenter, he found beautiful, intact German porcelain tiles there on a biking excursion once and wanted to see if he could snag them for our kitchen. So we went and a few hours (and a lot of tough prying later) we had a full backpack of tiles. Upon returning to Laguna from my trip to the U.S. I found a totally re-done kitchen, complete with fancy old German tiles.

Speaking of my vacation home, it was amazing and exhausting. I spent time with family and lots of good friends, some of which I hadn’t seen for years. I spent time in dive bars in Philadelphia, on farms in Pennsylvania, with old college friends in New York City and I finally got to hang with my brother who had just gotten back from Kenya – it was just what I miss and needed. It’s always so much fun going back and so difficult to leave. Sometimes I miss it all so much but as one of my favorite people always says, ‘the grass is always greener.’ And she’s right.

So now I’m home (the other one) and trying to focus on what’s right in front of me – a shared garden that just started producing tons of big heirloom tomatoes, a couple of pups who can’t get enough playtime and a new deck that’s perfect for a chair and a beach read. XO.

*For questions about honey production in Chile, surfing in Con Con or where to get the best goat and cow’s milk cheese in South-Eastern P.A., shoot me an email at breemccauley@gmail.com