The Strangest Request EVER!

Living overseas affords you the opportunity to learn and say things you thought would never come out of your mouth. Things like, "Kids, go play in the street", "99 degrees really isn't that hot", "The traffic was pretty normal today", and "We can live without cable".
But, I NEVER expected life would bring me to this point so brace for a shock: "Please STOP sending Twizzlers until further notice!" After you pick yourself back up off the floor, let me say "Thanks" to all of you who have responded to this need in my life. Almost every package we have received has provided more Twizzlers. I lost count but I think we are close to 20 pounds now! I just received 4 more pounds this week in 2 more packages.
Rest assured, I will continue to look for every opportunity to consume what we have so this request can be rescinded ASAP! Until then, thanks for your generosity. Each bite makes us think of you...and gifts you gave us instead of yourselves. Yes, even a Twizzler can make one humble.

Sparklers

Since Mike brought up the sparklers on the cake, I thought I'd tell the story behind the sparklers. I knew I wanted them on the cake; they looked really great on my neighbor's cake. So, I went to the market to buy them, but before I went I looked up the word "sparkler" in my trusty dictionary. It wasn't in my 2 pocket dicionaries; I had to get out the big daddy dictionary for this word. It was under the word "spark" and somewhere in the definition it had "-ler" and the word for what I thought was sparkler. I wrote down the word, and at the market I looked earnestly on my own so I wouldn't have to ask. After three trips through the store, I knew I'd have to ask the cashier. "Do you have (sparklers)?" Her quizzical look told me I did not have the right word for sparkler. She then asked the cashier next to her, and she shrugged her shoulders. I showed them the word written down, and they just laughed. I asked another worker in the store, and she had no idea what I was asking for. I got on my cell phone and called a friend who asked her national house helper, and we found out the correct word. For a while I thought I may be asking for a sparkplug. I had been asking for a "thing that lights up". I went back to the cashier and told her what I was really looking for. She told me they didn't sell them here. I'd have to go to a BAKERY to buy my sparklers. Who would've thought??? So I went to a bakery around the corner and asked for sparklers. Sure enough, they had them. They also had fresh lemonade and some yummy bread. The owner gave David and me some free lemonade, and I bought the bread and sparklers. And don't they look great on the cake?

OLD - And Getting Older!

This past Tuesday was my 38th birthday (for those who are keeping count). We had David's birthday last month and Abby's will be next month, but we went low-key on mine. What I most wanted was simply to have friends over...and that is of course what Lisa planned perfectly. We had my favorite dessert - banana pudding! She also slaved over a German chocolate cake, making much from scratch. On the cake, though, was more than candles...we had SPARKLERS! Yes, the 4th of July variety where you would write your name before it burned out! The girls saw this at a neighnor's party and Lisa could not resist. We had a blast with over 30 people dropping by and enjoyed an awesome evening!

Being 38, though, I was tired and barely made it to 9:00pm without a nap! I persevered and stayed up - but had to clean up on Wednesday morning!

To make matters worse, I had a second 19-year-old join my language class this morning who realized that I was twice his age! Whatever happened to respecting your elders?!?!?!?

Tie-Dye Twins

The girls created this dance they call "The Shiver". Funny, considering the weather.


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Tie-Dye Trio

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94.5

Today I got 94.5 in my kitchen, and it wasn't 94.5 the mix (Lex radio). It is just blastin' hot in this country in July, and our apartment is no exception. We are living proof the old adage "heat rises" is true ; we live on the next-to-top floor of an apartment building. I was visiting my neighbor on the 2nd floor, and her kitchen was a balmy 87 degrees. She had a digital thermometer, and I asked if I could borrow it for my house. I told her I thought my kitchen was at least 90 degrees. So when I took it to my kitchen, I couldn't believe it kept rising to 94.5 (and this was before I turned on the stove or attempted to cook). Now having a 94.5 kitchen has some advantages; it's a great excuse not to cook. I definitely get more sympathy, and going to the air-conditioned food court in the mall is much easier to justify. In fact, that's exactly what we did tonight.

In the states we kept our thermostat around 72 degrees. My mom's house was always in the 60's (I used to get up at night and adjust it...drove her crazy). It's amazing to think that I'm living in an apartment that averages 20 degrees over that during July and August.

Air-conditioning is a fairly new phenomenon. It's just been in the past 50 years that it was introduced. Today, it is only in certain pockets of the world; the vast majority live without a.c. I know many of you who read this blog lived at one time without air conditioning. This is a first for me. So, any suggestions for beating the heat? The most interesting one I've heard is to spray my sheets with cold water before going to sleep. Hmm...a soggy bed. Any other ideas?

What's New in the Kitchen

There are 2 items I really miss in my pantry, so I'm going to attempt to make them from scratch. The first is miracle whip. I've always been a mayonnaise girl myself, but there are just some recipes that necessitate miracle whip (for example, deviled eggs...or dressed eggs if you prefer). Miracle whip gives it more of a zip. The recipe for miracle whip seems fairly complex, but I'm going to attempt it.

The second item I miss is rotel. I never realized how tex-mex I was. I found a recipe to imitate it. I'm going to attempt it if I can find some jalepeno peppers. I have a good chile verde con pollo recipe from a friend with New Mexio roots (thanks, Gladie), and it's impossible without rotel.

The next big newsflash is I LIKE EGGPLANT. A neighbor recently prepared an eggplant and beef dish, and it was so yummy! My tastebuds surprised me. I've always turned my nose to eggplant, but I never gave it an honest try. I'm going to fix the same eggplant and beef dish for my family. We'll see if it passes the kids' taste test.

Abby's Nose Job

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Start Your Engines!

Thanks to gracious friends here, we have been given access to vehicles before we expected to be able to drive!! Pay no attention to the picture of the street by our house because this is a fluke picture taken early in the morning! As we have mentioned, driving here is unlike anything we have ever seen, heard, or experienced. Even when you are the passenger, it exponentially increases your prayer life!
We have been out twice over the last 2 days - and there are no visible marks on the car...yet! I have been honked at (lost count after about 10 minutes), yelled at, cut off, and glared at by drivers and pedestrians. But, I have also made it through 2 evenings of rush hour traffic, cut off a bus, hit a curb, ran a red light because everyone else was, and exponentially increased the prayer life of my family!

public pool

One thing the kids have missed the most has been swimming during the summer. I knew there were swimming pools in this city, and we took a quest to find one. After asking around for a couple of weeks, we finally got a lead on a pool. This was a public pool, and as we entered the man at the gate tried his best to sell me a swim cap. I told him several times that I didn't want one. He kept pushing, and I asked him if it was required. He said no. So we went into the pool area, and every single person was wearing a swim cap in the pool. It was a really large pool, and there must have been 150 people swimming. I felt as though every eye was on us...that was great because I love for everyone to look at me in a bathing suit. We stood out because we look so foreign and we were not wearing swim caps.

Mike and the kids jumped in first. They were splashing and having fun and then a worker (I never saw a lifeguard) told Mike we all had to have swim caps. So I went back out and asked the man at the entrance for 6 swim caps. He smirked the whole time he got them for me. I went back to the pool and everyone put the caps on. We were laughing because we all looked like pirates, or our eyes were stretched because of the cap, or our ears were poking out because the cap wasn't on right. It was really a hilarious moment. Then, with all our caps on, we jumped in.

I'm not sure why they require the swim caps. I have 3 theories: to help the covered ladies out, sanitary issues, or to keep the head warm so you don't get sick (There are many fears about getting sick. For example, having a crossbreeze in your house could cause sickeness.). I actually liked the swim cap because I didn't have to get my hair out of my face every time I came up out of the water. Have you ever tried to get one of those things off the head, though? Ouch! We are just inexperienced in the swim cap business.

Sorry there's no picture with this post. I was kicking myself for not having a camera.