This is your birthday song... it isn't very long.

(That's a Hannifan family birthday song, just to give credit where credit's due.)

Abby's on a trip to Osorno (in the South) with her host family for 6 days! She'll be excited to fill you in all about that once she gets home. But first...

We've had several joyous opportunities to celebrate some births around here lately! I think there were 5 or 6 October birthdays within our program of 30ish people.

First, on October 26th, our own Abby turned the big 2-1!! On the night of the 26th, her sweet host family invited a few of us over to celebrate with completos and torta. The guest list included a few of our friends, Abby's host mom and dad, my mom and dad (more to come about that!!), and even Abby's real mama, via Skype, of course.

Abby's host mama got her a present!

Abby and her real mom having tea

Abby's host dad was in charge of decorations.

The next night, on Ab's actual day of birth, we had the treat of going out to dinner (we never eat out here) with my parents, since they had to head back home the next day.

A few days later, we were off to San Pedro de Atacama to continue the fiesta. And luckily, we had another great reason to celebrate, as Allison's 21st came on October 31st!

The night before Allison's birthday, we got to go to a nice dinner (described by Abby earlier...) in a really cool open-air restaurant, and Abby was bold enough to ask the band to play "Happy Birthday" for our friend. They were awesome and enthusiastically complied, getting the whole restaurant, staff and diners, involved. 

Little did Allison know, but that was just the beginning. Thanks to some sneaky earlier planning between the three of us (mostly thanks to Abby's thinking-ahead skills), we had managed to create a birthday surprise without Allison's knowledge. When we got back to the hostel from dinner, this is what we found:

Yes that's a cake made of alfajores. Yes it looked more beautiful before the candles melted all over it.

Then, as Abby's already told you, we spent Allison's actual day of birth hanging out with flamingos, high-altitude lakes, and little Andean villages. There was a surprise singing attack, which involved Abby stealthily informing our whole tour bus that it was Allison's birthday.

Then, when we returned to Santiago on Monday, we headed over to Allison's house, where her host family was having an asado (basically a cookout) for her! 

So that's the end of 21st birthday time in Santiago. It was so great!

PS- All of these pictures are Abby's. That's why they're so pretty.

PPS- Only 20 days until we're done with all of our school work. And only 39 days until we're back in North America!! Aaahh!