Caveman Olympics

I get to see my parents and sister TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I see my brother THURSDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I see Julia Thursday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I get to be in a jacuzzi TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I get to use a treadmill TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!

California is totally gonna love me.
and Mexico is gonna miss me.

but it'll be ok.

I have a list
THIS
THIS
THIS
THIS
THIS
THIS
THIS
THIS
long of things I'd like to do in San Diego, but I know it won't all happen.

It's all about priorities.

I went grocery shopping for Johanne today.
groceries for one week for 25 people.
:) :) :)
We did three different trips out to the car
(I think the grocery store really likes us.)
and two roadside stops.
One for oranges, and one for tomatoes.

My girls took two tests today and passed!!! yay!
We just have to keep working.




Have you ever played the Nintendo game "Caveman Olympics" ?

It's like the olympics, except you get points for throwing your spouse the farthest, or by pole valuting over a dinosaur, or by making a fire the fastest (which you can cheat during by hitting your opponent on the head!)

well... there is a race in Caveman Olympics, and if you aren't the fastest one, the wild lion/cheetah/cougar animal eats you! The way to cheat in it is by pushing your opponent in a puddle if you are running next to them. totally wouldn't happen in real life, right?

nope. I SAW THIS HAPPEN ON SATURDAY!

my girls and I were walking home and two were jogging ahead, racing, I suppose.
When one pushed the other into a puddle, and laughed about it.
I wish I would have had a video camera.


ok. gotta get directions, and all kinds of things.

Ooey Gooey!

I made the files smaller. Enjoy!



Puddles on one of the better roads. This is the same road that has the giganto puddle in the post a couple previous.




This is the road outside my house.
The center tire track is the following picture.

Once again, this is the road right outside my house.

Now you understand why I love the rain so much!!! ;)

(and if you visit, better bring a truck. or something that's higher off the ground.)

40 Days...

"I think we will be made clean like the snow
I think we will become new like the snow"


Isn't it glorious to purposefully anticipate...

I would be a horrible detective...

so I come home (to a room that was TOTALLY clean.)
and didn't notice chunks of dirt on my carpet.
or the mud on my bathroom rug.

6 hours later Steve talks to me and tells me that when he was checking out our water problem he went in my bathroom to see if my toilet was leaking (but my faucet was running)...

and then it dawns on me. oh! There's mud in my room!

It turns out there is no city water right now, and our water pump only does like 2 gallons every minute, so while that would be sufficient if it were just auxiliary, it doesn't really work well as a main pump.

anyways, in all the chaos I must have turned on my faucet, but when no water came out I never shut it off.

oops!

I've been in the light bulb box 3 times since I've been here.
I just noticed today that there are air fresheners in it.
I asked my mom for air fresheners like a month ago. SERIOUSLY.

_________________________________

I watched the movie Persuasion with some chicas last night. That was fun!
________________

I'm exhausted today...
My girls had went to a party with our family last night (that I didn't go to)
They came home way after my bed time.
Scurried around upstairs for an hour.
Left my house at 12am to spend the night at the other house.
Came back at 4:30am to get ready to leave for the little family trip.
(They had locked themselves out.
So I obligingly let them back in.)
Totally not 8 hours of sleep.
I bet they are tired to.


__________________________________________

Pictures of the mud and general grossness...

My boots!





A positive consequence of all the rain.


One of the puddles. This is 24 hours AFTER it stopped raining.


I have more photos, but the internet says the files are too big.
Silly internet.

On roading/ Off roading...

...it's all the same when it rains.

I wish I would have counted how many days it's rained here because all this rain is so unusual.

We have clay everywhere, and the water doesn't soak in. It just sits on top of the ground.

We also only have 2 paved roads near by. The main hwy, and the road to the hospital.

So driving is treacherous, even if it's only rained for a couple hours.

It rained last weekend, and driving 4 blocks took like 15 minutes.

slippery and slidey....whew!

Not all the puddles were dried up yet from last weekend and it's raining again now.

The kids don't have school today b/c of some Mexican holiday, but even if it wouldn't have been canceled for the holiday it would have been canceled for the rain.

I have these great black rain boots here that Johanne is letting me use.

Even walking in them my feet still get suctioned into the clay, unable to move.
______________________________________

One of my girls, borrowed my boots last week.

She wore them to walk out to the swing set.

Then when she started swinging, she realized it'd be hard to do with boots on.

So she took them off.

She swung a while, and that included some breaks where she put her bare feet in the wet mud.

I needed to leave, and so I shouted to her to bring my boots back....

...so she sat on the swing and put them back on her

DIRTY, WET, MUDDY feet

to walk back to the house.




I love her.


_______________________________________
Making tortillas went great.

I think I would be able to get them mostly round with more practice.

A lot of mine turned out square. :)

If anything, it was easier to make them too thin, than not thick enough.





In Juana's kitchen.



The bowl of little balls.






Juana showing us the very pvc pipe rolling pin that she uses to defend her tortillas from hungry little mouths.



My first tortilla!



The finished product in a tortilla napkin/challah bread cover.

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Mexico confuses me. Why after it rains is there no hot water??
You'd think the over abundance of water would cause it to come pouring out of the faucets.
I want to take a shower!
(and we need to wash all the muddy towels in our entry way)


*so I just tried our water every ten minutes until some came!
and that's the way to get a shower!

I need the smell of summer...

I can’t wait until it’s warm enough outside at night for me to just lay on the ground and gaze at the stars. (and listen to podcasts, or music. I’ve been listening to “The Trumpet Child” and I’m reminded of lazy summer nights laying on my porch listening to the cicadas over the music)

Did you know peacocks can fly? They are often on the second story of our ministry building b/c the neighbors have peacocks. Everytime I see them up there I don’t have my camera : (

Peacocks are “royal turkeys” in Spanish.

The other day I drank some delicious Pineapple Grapefruit Twinnings tea that I’d added orange juice to while the girls and I did school. The vapor escaping from it seemed fuzzy. Like brand new baby hair fuzzy. The flavors beckoned me into a maze of familiar memories of Columbus, soy beans, and Julia. I think the girls noticed.
“She’s on the moon.”

I finally had my second Spanish dream. At least it’s only the second time I’ve remembered dreaming in Spanish.

The Way of the Heart by Nouwen is a good book.

I totally scored a DDR pad for $5 at the globos last week.
I’m taking it to the Taylor’s since they have DDR and I don’t.
I hope it works!
(globos=centralized garage sell of different items)

We had a mixed berry juice the other day, and it had a picture of cranberries on it, but the girls thought they were tomatoes. hehe.

Instead of watching the superbowl, I'm going to go learn how to make tortillas.
Is the superbowl on the internet even?

I see my parents in 10 days. I see Julia in 12 days. My birthday is in 18 days.

YOU really should come visit.

It's Dead!!!

I'm finally receiving some of the benefits of living in a farming community that values animals and uses them for their God given talents.

The last few weeks, my girls and I had heard some scurrying, some noises, but not very often.

On two or three occasions the girls claimed to see a mouse.
I thought they were trying to wig me out.
Then Monday, I saw the mouse with my own eyes.

It was in MY room.

Apparently, parts of my wall, down at the edge of my carpet are missing.
I had not noticed this before, but it proved to be the escape route and possible entry way for said trespasser.
So I did what any girl would do...

I screamed for Rich, or Julia, or back up, or a broom.

(The whole time I'm standing there, imagining chasing the rodent out of my room with a broom, an idea implanted by all those cartoons I've seen.)

Rich offered a solution, one that seemed more immediate than putting mice poison in the walls.

"Slayer could spend the night with you. He's both affectionate and a killer. He'll sleep right in your arms unless he hears the mouse. He can take care of your problem for you"

I'm not really a fan of cats. but I acquiesced.

All night long I didn't sleep, and it was not because the cat hogged the bed.

On the contrary, I heard the cat pacing back and forth next to the wall, exploring my closet, as well as little scurrying noises and squeaking.

The next morning, Rich came over and asked for a body count. (Very appropriately because he interrupted while we were reading about gallows in Esther.)

There was no body count however because the mouse never left the wall, he knew what would happen to him if he was careless.

I gave the cat back to him, dismayed that our plan hadn't worked.

....

Later when the girls and I were doing school, the mouse showed up again. They stood on the sofa and the bench at the table and screamed like little girls.

I calmly RAN LIKE A CRAZY WOMAN out of the house to find the cat.

The mouse knew the cat was back in the house though, and didn't come out.

...

As we waited for the mouse to take one false step, I got on a cleaning spree.

I decided to move the couch and sweep underneath it.

My girls were all outside playing and so I recruited some help and we moved the couch.

The cat was watching us move the couch, and sure enough the mouse jolted out from it while the cat just pounced.

:) :) :)

I'm so grateful for this little wild cat.