Apple Crisp Banana Bread

Hazel's favorite past-time.  She knows all the Brazilian hand-clapping games.  She's told me that I need to practice on the wall to keep up with her....

We get water from the street every morning between 6:30 and 9:30.  Those hours are very approximate.  Sometimes it comes as early as 4:30 am and sometimes as late as noon.  That means we have to turn on a pump in this concrete box when the water arrives, which pumps water to a large 12,000 litre reservoir in the ground at the back of the property.  From there we have to turn on another pump to fill up our 1000 litre water tank high above the ground.  If it is a holiday weekend, we try to fill up our large reservoir as much as possible in advance, because we've had up to five days in a row without water coming from the street at all.  We also make sure our holding tank is full, particularly before we go to bed at night, because if the electricity goes out we can't turn up our pump.  We've been losing our electricity one to two times a week for the past month.  This is due to our house being on a power line that never has enough electricity.  I've heard this is called a brown-out.  Our fan spins oh-so slightly, the light on the a.c. will work but nothing else, and some of the lights will have a little dim light coming from them.  This is very frustrating because most of Peroba has power, but our power line doesn't.  Anyways, we had a different problem this past week with the concrete box pictured above, which generally is a dry empty box in the ground except for a pump.  It flooded due to torrential downpours last week, and apparently there are cracks in the concrete.  We were worried it would wreck the pump, as it is not a submersible pump, and Shaun spent many hours bailing the water out, with it being filled up very shortly after.  Finally the last three days it has been low enough to run the pump, but once it is dried out the box needs to be reinforced or else we can add that to our problems with acquiring water.

Items sent to us from family via Mission Board members who are visiting!  So exciting to open up suitcases full of goodies.

Somehow it feels really good to be so full of dropjes that you feel sick.

I'm working on teaching the neighbour girl how to French braid.  I thought I'd take a picture to prove that I do know how :)

Lyla riding Seth's bike.

The tortoise sisters fighting over a piece of tomato.... even though there are four more pieces under one of them and she had to go over top of them to get to this one.

Twelve Month Sleepers and Other "Events"

My little man is growing...

He crawls, and sits, is pulling himself up on things (in bed he climbs halfway up the crib and can't get down!), he is grabbing everything, and growing....  I have no idea how big he is, but he entered the 12-month sleeper phase this past week.

 

Every month our little church has a communal potluck lunch at somebody's house.  Last week was our house for the first time... I counted over 30 people.  Here is Shaun opening by reading the Bible in Portuguese!  

This past week we had Labour Day on May 1st (Thursday).  To allow us to have a long weekend with the Friday off as well, there was school on the previous Saturday!  Plus, on Wednesday was "parent-teacher's"  instead of school.  We were very thankful to hear from the teachers and see on their report cards how well our children are doing.  Although some days are a struggle, most days the kids seem to enjoy their classes and telling us about their day upon arriving home.  This is definitely more than we expected!

  So last Sunday was the communal lunch, and it was very enjoyable.  That night it started to rain, and the next few nights were very rainy.  On Tuesday night we shut our doors and windows early, because there were these weird bugs flying into our house and losing their wings and crawling around.  On Wednesday morning we woke up to a veranda COVERED in these wings.  It was disgusting.  Then our power went out.  I went to the school to talk to the teachers, and by the time I got back and packed up it was 3:00.  That's right, we were going on a trip!  We went up to Aldeia on Wednesday, and there is a simple yet beautiful suite Mission Aid has that we are able to use on property that currently houses a missionary family, five seminary families, and the seminary.  This was the first time we used it.  It took us 3 1/2 hours to get there.... much much longer than usual, as Jonas decided he didn't like driving and we had pee breaks and a little snack/supper/grocery stop before we arrived.  We dumped our stuff at the suite and headed to some friends' house and had a lovely time visiting them.  Played some cards, chatted into the wee hours.  Larger winged insects were flying around us there, with the same problem of the wings falling off.  Gross.  Suddenly it was 1:30 in the morning!  We packed up our kids and headed back to the suite.  Lo and behold, the power was out there too, and the electric gate would not open!  It can be opened manually from the inside, but our contacts inside were not awake when we phoned.  We finally headed back to our friends house as we could not get in.  Well, that was a night of little sleep!  The next day we got into the property and that was Labour Day.  In some ways I'm thankful we didn't get in the night before, because the suite was FULL of these insects and their wings.... a carpet of them.  They had crawled under one of the doors.  Anyways, that was Thursday and one of the reformed churches in the area had booked the property for a family day.  There was a speech, and lunch, and in general a fun time hanging out.  The energy was off all day until 3:00!  On Friday Shaun went to the airport in the morning to exchange rental cars (yes, we are still doing that!), and the afternoon we went to our friends again for tea and supper. That evening we had a couple over for some wine at the Mission Aid suite, a Canadian married to a Brazilian.   He is the caretaker of the property there in Aldeia, and also lives on the property.  On Saturday there was speeches on the property, as the first Saturday of every month is a "Training Day."  We left from there at two in the afternoon, but not before we enjoyed lunch with everyone: white beans and bucho.  I still can't think about it without feeling a little sick in my stomach.  I started eating this delicious looking dish and thought there was chicken involved.  I tried to chew it, but ended up mostly just swallowing it, as it was really chewy and what I thought was really fatty chicken.  Turns out it was cow stomach.  I pushed the rest to the side, and had many people laughing at the shade of red my face turned.  I explained that maybe next time I was served it, I'd be able to eat another piece, and the next time another piece, and maybe after trying it a few times, I might like it.   I think I was being naive.  I don't think I could "stomach" it again  *groan*  Anyways, it was another long journey back.  At one point three of the four children were screaming at the same time.  But we made it home safely, and had a wonderful time away visiting and meeting new people. 

Sorry no pictures to go with the above story.  I brought my camera and did not take a single picture!

Here are a few pictures I took this morning though!  A sweet little tree frog :)

Have a great Sunday everyone!