The Family

There was a block party last Saturday.  S found a flyer and it sounded fun, so we went.  It did not disappoint. They had games, dancing, singing, a little food, and other stuff.  It was super fun.

 I had to take a picture of theses Harry Potter books.  I am not a Harry Potter fan, but I might collect the books if I get to have those cool colors on my bookshelf!  This whole fair was filled with super cool book displays!!  I might become a book collector just to have cool book displays around my house.


 My Girls love Roald Dahl.  But they weren't willing to read them in Spanish.  Wimps!!


 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had a booth at this fair.  I heard that a local stake was running the booth the booth.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  Would it be small, I didn't know.  When we found it, I was amazed at the beauty and grandeur of it.  I don't know why I was so surprised at how large the booth was.  The church never disappoints!  We had to go so Helaman could visit with his friend Captain Moroni!



The picture behind C and Z is a puzzle.  If you look closely at the top left you will see how many pieces there are.  Way too many for me, but I am sure there are a few of my family members that would love to try a puzzle like that!

 This is an example of the types of cool books at this place.  There was everything.  Unfortunately, for the kids, the only books we bought were English grammar books for the kid's homeschool.  They were not happy about that.  Luckily for me all the books were in Spanish or otherwise I am sure the kids might have asked for a lot more books and we might not have been able to afford a flight back home. :)

We ended up ending the day with a perfect dinner of tacos.  I am sure you all were surprised to see soda.  We usually don't order anything to drink.  We always have our water.  Everyone is so confused when we don't order any drinks.  It is pretty funny.  But in this situation the soda came with the meal.

Okay here is a funny story!

We have not been having a lot of sugar or treats lately.  So, apparently, we having been having sugar withdrawals.  I finally decided to make some cookies.  I splurged!  Butter here is kind of expensive, but we were desperate! :-)

X and I got together and started baking.  We had a few bumps as we started, (butter here is only sold in kilos) and the measuring system is different. This wouldn't have mattered anyway, as there where no measuring cups of any sort to be found in our apartment.  We were not going to let that stop us though.   X found a cup that looked roughly similar to the measuring system that I was used to.  I guessed with the amount of butter, and luckily, I didn't have to refigure 2 eggs. That one was easy!

Once everything was mixed, I realized that this apartment does not carry a baking sheet.  So I told X to look around and see if there was anything I could bake on.  She opened the cupboards and found a round metal sheet.  Well it would work.  Who knows, maybe here, baking sheets are round?  So we washed it and used it.  It worked like a charm.

After we all enjoyed our cookies, S asked what we baked the cookies on.  I said I don't know we just found a round sheet and used it.  S then said, "You didn't use the garbage can lid to bake the cookies on, did you?!!?"  When I looked at our round baking sheet, I realized he was right! Hahaha
 Oh well! At least we washed it first, and isn't that what cooking is for anyway, to kill all the germs?  In my defense, the lid looks nice.  I mean it is not like Oscar the Grouch's trash can lid!

our trash lid cookie sheet

We were lucky enough to have an early, with as many family members as could come, thanksgiving dinner before we left.  It was so fun to see everyone.  I didn't feel a need to have another thanksgiving dinner, but thought I would pose it to my little family anyway.  Hands down no one wanted turkey, (like I would have made a turkey dinner anyway!) but we thought we would have a nice dinner together.  C. was the first one with an idea, so that is what we went with, Spaghetti! (The kids were so happy not to have any beans and rice for a day.)

Walking around in the garden across from the apt the kids immediately were drawn to the monarch butterflies.  They were so cute chasing those butterflies.  It was our science for the day.  We learned the flight pattern on monarchs.  These were the same butterflies that we were trying to catch up north.  Okay not the exact same, but you know what I mean.

On Sunday was another adventure.  We went to church and had our first day not eating out.

 It was our first time taking a bus.  In the neighborhood we have everything we need, so we haven't needed to use the bus yet.  But I am pretty sure that kids didn't want to walk to three miles to get to church so S figured out how to get there.  It was pretty uneventful.  We walked 4 blocks rode the bus for 20 minutes than walked about 4 more block.  We were even early!

The people there were really friendly.  We were the people from the United States.  Zion was the one that talked the most about being worried because he wouldn't be able to understand.  The kids never complained going to their classes knowing they couldn't understand.  I did stay with Zion during primary but actually he did quite well.  He even was trying to sing in Spanish.

Then we rode the bus home.  I do have to say that those bus drivers are probably some of the most talented drivers ever!!!!  I also have to say that if I always stand while riding the bus I will have some stronger abs. :)

Now that we know how to use the bus we are going to need to find some places around the city that we can go.  Although it will take some studying from S.  He has been doing amazing figuring out where we need to go and finding really cool places in our neighborhood.


I have made vegetables once since we have been here.  On Sunday I was prepared to make a dish. I made fideo and egg sandwiches.  C. saved the day and found salt.  I do miss my knife, and pan to cook in.  One ingredient that I really miss is my broth.  Oh well. The first day not eating out wasn't so bad.  We may need to try it again, although I don't know how much money it will save us.

After spending our first day in about 800 sq feet we decided that we would venture out the next day.  We got into our assigned line and started.  Dad leads, mom pulls up the end.  There is a lot of hand holding to keep everyone in check. So far it has been working for us.  Dad has his gps and starts walking. I will have to say that H and I are going to be much faster walkers after this trip.  We spend half our walking time jogging trying to keep up. :)

We have walked everywhere so far.  The second day we walked to the market.  I bought my first vegetables in Spanish.  I even asked what a particular fruit was.  S. walked to and from Walmart after he bought a vacuum. Then he walked all the way back to return it! I felt terrible.  I am not picky about a lot of things but apparently I am picky about my vacuums.  The last few days we have spent 2-3 hours walking.  On Saturday we went to a very large park and museum.  We spent 5+ hours walking then went out again for dinner.  Then poor S. went out again to get us water.  Luckily he only had to walk a block but a block is a long time with 5 gallons of water.
Walking the vacuum back to return it.

Stumbled across a really cool market.  I got my first real pair of chanclas.


I also ate a cricket with chili y limon.  It was crunchy.  I ate crickets before in Taiwan, no big deal. :)

At the park.  It was very warm and beautiful. We will have to go back again when we can go into see the parrots and butterflies.

 My kids are out of this world, or at least they feel like it.


I might not go into the wilderness if this is going to be what we encounter.



Hamburgers.  The kids were kind of tired of beans and rice.  I would have enjoyed this place more, but the rated r movie playing for the kids to watch kind of turned me off.

There was a wedding going on so we just looked on the outside of this church.  It was beautiful.  I would have loved to go and and observe but I decided to refrain myself. :). It probably helped that C. kept pulling my arm and pulling me away so I wouldn't embarrass her!



One night there was music playing in the garden across from the apt.  The kids were too embarrassed to go out so we had our little dance party inside.  It looks like I am going to have to teach them.  Not really on beat. :-)




So far we have had lots of fun.  Well I have, but I do have a certain 14 yr old that is so bored she even did a sudoku.

We got here about two to three hours later than expected.  The two hour delay and a lost piece of luggage put us behind.  But I suppose there was a silver lining.  Because of the lost luggage we ended up being last from our flight and there was another flight about ready to come in.  I think customs kind of freaked out with such a large family and all our luggage, they just hurried us through.  Then we found the taxi booth and for $35 they would take us.  Done deal!  They loaded our luggage and us into a very large van and before we knew it we were off.

One of our thoughts was renting a car, but I am so glad we didn't.  There is no way I couldn't have navigated the skinny streets with a van.  It would have been a nightmare for our safety and our marriage if either one of us drove. :)

Once we got here, we moved all our luggage upstairs and the kids picked their bedrooms.  I was a little disappointed with the apt, but oh well.  We all felt disgusting from the snacks, sandwiches, the flight, and sitting so much.  We all crashed then a couple of hours later both girls woke up super sick.  We didn't have enough drains, if you know what I mean. Poor girls.  They were so sick.  Luckily I had my homeopathy!!!!  It took up a third of our luggage room, but I was so grateful to have it. It definitely helped and gave the girls some relief to sleep between episodes of puking.  C. felt a little better in the morning but poor X. was still not feeling it.  (It took me awhile to find the right remedy for X but once I did she started feeling better and that night she was able to take a couple of bites of our first dinner here.) While S. and H. explored.  C, X, Z and I stayed home.  I worked for us.  Sam is so much more ready to go while I like to slowly immerse myself.  With having the kids sick, he didn't give me a hard time wanting to take it easy the first day and I appreciated it.

S and H really did explore.  They were gone for several hours walking around.


The best part of the first day was our dinner.  Again S and H went out and bought chili rellenos and carnitas.  It was soooooo good.  Even C who struggled to eat an egg and tortilla all day gobbled down her dinner. X was even able to take a few bites.

By the end of the night poor H's was so ready for bed.  His legs were so tired!

All our luggage before we left minus our personal items. Notice our scale that weighed all our luggage. BTW that scale was spot on. Thank goodness! I was worried that our 48.5 lbs would be more at the airport.

Ready to head off to the airport.  One more day in the US.

Saying our sad good-byes at the airport. Thank you for your help mom and dad for more than you know!!

Boise airport.  It was pretty boring with minimal waiting.

At the LA airport.  Here are the girls talking to a senior missionary couple.  It would be so awesome to work at the LAX airport.  It was like all the countries in  one location.  We had a two hour delay.  I ended up buying some playing cards with information about the 50 states.  Everyone around us joined in to see if they knew the state facts.  It turns out no one one really knew their state bird, flower, or land area.  I should have bought those cards earlier.  It ended up being really fun visiting with the others around us.