Water We Gonna Do About It?

Well folks, it’s that time of the year again, when our water gets so bad it’s truly hard to handle it sometimes. It’s a time when our toenails turn orange, we get out of the shower dirtier than when we went in, we gag when we brush our teeth, and the old adage “don’t throw the baby out with the bath water” has become more true to life than I would like.



Echo taking a bath. This is freshly drawn water.

We don’t drink the water straight from our faucet. After a period of not being used, when I turn the sink water on, it sprays out a rusty stream for a few seconds before it starts to clear up. Last year, we bought a filter for the sink, and a Brita pitcher to filter it again, and even then we only use the water for cooking, and buy bottled water to drink. That’s three times filtered and I still don’t drink it. Even the native Russians don't drink the water on our farm.

(This video doesn't do it justice, but you can see when you first turn it on, it is reddish and then clears up a bit).

Our water in the winter was not so bad, and I’m not sure what the difference was. Maybe our water source is different in the winter time than in the spring and summer, but I had thought I was getting used to the water, until a couple weeks ago when the bad water came springing back.

When we first arrived here last year, I was pretty disgusted by the water. You could ruin a pot of uncooked ramen noodles just by adding the water. Day after day, it wasn't getting better, so I had to get creative. While Shane was working here alone last year, he ate at a restaurant that had no running water. It operated on what it collected as rainwater. It didn't sound too appetizing to me, but it did give me an idea. I may not want to drink the rain water, or even cook with it, but I figured I could probably wash with it. So, on one of the trips to town I bought a large bucket. Since it was raining just about every other day or so, I just put it under my rain spout outside and started collecting rainwater. Then I would boil a large pot of rainwater every day in which to wash my dishes. This went on for quite awhile until we found an individual filter for our kitchen sink. It helped immensely with the fumes as well as some of the dirt in the water. It also was nice to not have to boil my dish water every time I had to do dishes.


My solution to the water last year



My rainwater is cleaner than my house water supply.

 
On one of our trips back from the States, we brought a Brita pitcher. Now I filter my water from my sink filter a second time. I mainly use this water for cooking. Even twice filtered is not very clean.



The bottom of our Brita pitcher. You can see my fingerswipe across the bottom. The residue in the water is very hard to escape.

 
I know I don’t drink enough water because we buy every bit of our drinking water in a bottle. I guess subconsiously it just happens. Shopping trips get that much more crowded when you are hauling 5-6 huge bottles of water out to the truck along with the other groceries every week. On a side note, Shane is becoming quite the connessieur of bottled water. We have tried probably 10 different varieties so far.



I get over run with these water bottles. I've been very creative with them and use them for just about everything, but even then they kinda haunt me.

The girls and I long for the days when you can walk up to the fridge, and fill up a glass with water. Such a novelty. For me, I can’t wait until the day when it doesn’t matter whether I’m washing dishes, cooking, or drinking, I can go to one source for water instead of choosing which of the 3 I should use: Sink, filtered pitcher, or bottled water.
 


Getting ready to boil some water for dinner. This is what it looks like out of our sink filter before we had the Brita.



After it boiled for awhile, I decided I couldn't stand it and I dumped the water out. This is what was left in the pot.



When the residue dries, it's almost chalky. I brushed the inside of the pot and then dumped out that pile of "dirt". If I remember right, I used bottled water to cook dinner that night. Don't tell Shane--sometimes he growls about using up the bottled water too quickly. =)

 
Washing dishes is always fun. I turn it as scalding as I can get it because it leaves a greasy, grimy residue if I don’t wash and rinse in VERY hot water. It’s often so hot that my Russian rubber gloves disintegrate as I wash. The other day I even melted the sacrament cups in the water when I rinsed them. (Yes, we wash and reuse).



I lifted this pot out of the soapy water to wash it, and that's what my dishwater looked like.




My rinse water is not much better. That is a "white" bowl.


The bathroom water is even worse than the kitchen water because it is only filtered once from the house filter. It's pretty much horrible. When using the shower, the fumes from the water gag me. I often use the kitchen filtered water to brush my teeth with because the bathroom sink water makes me want to vomit when I rinse my toothbrush and mouth. Sometimes I find myself holding my breath when I shower. 
 
Laundry is always a treat, too. My whites are a nice dull orange cream color and smell horrible when they are drying on the line in our laundry room.


Inserts for Echo's cloth diapers. The one on top is brand new. The two underneath just had their first wash. I'd say they came out pretty clean, don't you?



I sent Rain in to shower the other day and she came out with orange rust streaks stained onto her legs where the water ran down in rivulets. Same thing happened to me. I would count my blessings and say it’s a good way to get a tan, but it looks like a wipe-on tanning lotion that has gone horribly wrong.

The girls love to use the soap at the bathroom sink to "wash" their hands and then run to me for me to smell how “clean” their hands smell. Mostly I smile and hold my breath as I “smell” their hands, and then nod about what a great job they did washing their hands.
 
The shower never stays sparkly because within a day or so, the rust stain has crept back over every surface the water touches. But I must say the shower is quite clean from about the neck height and up.


Our lovely shower. I'm embarrassed to say it has been even rustier than this picture.



Sometimes I can't stand it anymore and give it a good bleaching. It lasts about 3 showers before it is stained again. But it's beautiful while it lasts.

 
The water also has other lasting effects. When I was home for Christmas my mother commented on how dark my hair had gotten, and not even just dark, but it had almost a rust tint to it. So there you have it, a cheap way to color your hair. If anyone is ready for a new color, I can bring a bottle back on our next trip.
 
Soooo, "water" we gonna do about it? Be thankful we have water plumbed to our house, of course. After all, we could be dependent upon a community well...Counting my blessings!


Community pump in a small village we drove through looking for cows.


 
 
 
 
 

 

10 Things I Have Learned Living in Russia

June 1, 2013, marked our one-year mark in Russia for me and the girls. (Shane is closer to a year and a half). If you recall our first trip over here, we actually left on May 29th, but due to missing our flight and being stuck in LA for 2 days, we didn't actually ARRIVE in Russia until June 1st. We've made the trip back and forth at least 3 times now, so I guess technically we didn't spend 365 days IN Russia, but for the sake of the pat on the back, I'm calling it a year. So there you have it, one year in Russia. And in commemoration of this, I am posting (Finally!) a SHORT (Wow!) post that lists 10 things that I have learned over the course of this past year.

Here they are, in no particular order:

1. It doesn’t matter where in the world I go, or how many times I have reset my sleep schedule, I am forever and eternally, a night owl.
2. You can live, and be happy, with only a hundredth of your current worldly possessions. You only need a smidgeon of items to make a comfortable, happy life for you and your family. Read: I have TOO much STUFF, even in Russia—even after I left most ALL my belongings in storage.
3. We did not use the library enough when we lived in the States. I have read our 2 dozen books, and the 4 issues of the Friend magazine more times than I would care to count. 
4. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the same, no matter where you go, or how small of a congregation you are. Some of my favorite Relief Society classes had 2 other sisters. It was wonderful.
5. I am not a preschool teacher. As much as I would like to do artsy, crafty, educational projects, I am juggling too many other things in order to plan it well enough and to execute it patiently. We just do our best and it is enough. 
6. I have learned to cook from scratch, even more than I had before. Tortillas, cream of chicken soup, chicken stock, alfredo sauce, gravy, biscuits, rolls, bread, cake, pizza, applesauce, jam, etc—I’m starting to get it down! I baked from scratch a lot in the US, but not EVERY. SINGLE. MEAL. This also includes changing all my recipes from cups, tsp, and Tbsps, to grams, and kilograms, and Fahrenheit to Celsius.
7. I can go an entire year without a blow dryer or curling iron—no sweat.
8. I can run a household with no AC, no dryer, no dishwasher, and somehow we all still survive. (That being said, we do get tired of cardboard towels, and shirts that have lost all shape and form, have stretched out necks and have clothes line creases across the middles).
9. It is more acceptable, and often the preferred method, to relieve yourself or your children OUTSIDE the store, than to ask the associates to use a restroom INSIDE the store.
10. Whenever you sit in a vehicle and choose to drive/ride to another destination, you will either develop nerves of steel or become a nail-biting, scream-suppressing, fist-clenching pile of nerves held in place by a seat belt. I won't tell you which one I am.
11. It doesn’t matter if you start putting your children to bed at 7:00PM or 10:00PM, they will NOT fall asleep before 10:30 PM because that is when it finally gets “dark” enough to convince the girls it is BEDTIME.
12. Yes, there are 12 things in my list of 10 Things I Have Learned Living in Russia. I have also learned you have to be flexible like that.

 

 

 

 

 

A Taste of Russian Driving

Like I have said before, Russians are crazy drivers. I'm not sure I can even articulate how nerve-racking it is to drive sometimes. Shane's wreck was as close as I want to get to experiencing the negative side of sharing the road here. In fact, just yesterday, there was a wreck by our house, almost exactly where Shane's was. Unfortunately, this one ended badly. From what information I gathered, it sounded like a guy on a motorbike was squished between two vehicles and did not survive. It was just on the other side of the trees from me, and I didn't hear a thing. I only saw all the officials on the road and in the trees by my house for hours after it occurred. Very sad.

So, on a more positive note, I want to share some of my favorite "Russian driving" videos I have been collecting that illustrate my point. Especially since the still-photo pictures I've been taking of our close calls, just don't do it justice.

**Disclaimer: For any of you that speak Russian, please do not hold me responsible if there is any foul language in any of the clips. I wouldn't know to censor it. =) **

Source


Here is another one.

Source


And I just can't wait for winter driving and then we can try and survive this:

Our awesome interpreter shared a couple more links to Russian driving, so I had to add another one.

I have my "Russian Driver's License" but I just don't know if I'm quite up to driving yet.

A Lesson in Honesty, But So Much More

The other day on the way back from the barn where we were visiting Dad, the girls and I stopped to pick some wild flowers, since most of the ones by our house have since been mowed. In the midst of the plants, I found a 100 Ruble bill, which roughly equates to $3.21USD. No, it isn't very much money by some standards, but I thought it was probably one of the worker's lunch money and it would be a good opportunity to teach the girls about honesty. I showed the girls the bill, and helped them reason through the situation. "Look what I found, girls. I wonder whose money this is. Someone is probably feeling sad because they lost their money. This isn't our money. We should try to find out whose money this is." And so on.

We decided to turn it into the farm office which was close by. Shane happened to meet back up with us and we all walked to the office. We turned it into the secretary, Tatiana, who looked at it a little confused, and promptly called our interpreter. After some discussion back and forth on the phone, she and the other office personnel started laughing. Now I was a little confused. At the end of the conversation we came to the conclusion that it was fake Russian money--play money like Monopoly or something. We all had a good laugh and left. Rain was ecstatic because now she could keep the money.

As I was thinking about the incident later, I thought how much better it was to be honest and try to return it, only to look a little foolish, rather than to have thought it was too trivial of an amount to trifle with returning, put in my wallet, and then use it at the grocery store. The legal repurcussions from that scenario might not have been as laughable. An American trying to use counterfeit money at a Russian grocery store--probably would have ended with more serious consequences. At the very least, I would have had very hard time explaining to the cashier that I had no idea it was fake money. I probably would have been too mortified to shop at that particular store again. So, bottom line, honesty saved me from a very bad situation.

Anyone care to venture a guess on which is the real bill?


Exhibit A

 

Exhibit B

 Here are some front and back shots of the real and fake bills next to each other. The differences become more apparent. For example, the size of the fake bill is slightly smaller. Obviously you can't feel the difference on the screen, but the fake bill was also more paper-y, rather than having that cloth/fabric feel of real money. Also the fake bill has little red letters on the bottom of one side of the bill. The little shiny security strip that runs vertically was only black ink on the fake bill. Also the words are slightly different at the bottom. The real one, the bottom one in this picture says: сто рублей, which means 100 rubles. The fake one, the top one, I think says сто дублей. So, one character difference on that line. The top right line says: БИЛЕТ БАНКА ПРИКОЛОВ, which Google tells me translates to "Bank Account fun" while the correct bill reads: БИЛЕТ БАНКА РОССИИ, which Google translates as "Russia Bank Account". Other than that, there aren't many more differences and it definitely fooled us.

Counterfeit bill is on the bottom

Counterfeit bill is on the top

Answer: Exhibit B is the real deal.

I'm thankful I was trying to teach my girls to be honest.

Russian Charades: Or In Other Words, How Well I Understand Russian

How well Shane understands Russian and vice versa.
Scenario: The tire on the truck was low. We stopped at an auto store on the way to do our shopping in Pochep. Shane gets out and goes in the door.
Shane: My tire is low. I need some air in it.
Attendant: Garble, garble, garble, garble. (Runs out, grabs the air hose, runs to our tire, and airs it up).
We leave and go to our next stop. End of story.

How well Star understands Russian and vice versa.
Scenario: The light switch in the girls' bedroom hasn't worked since the first week we arrived in Russia, the first time. We assumed it was just a burnt out bulb and we kept forgetting to request a new one at the farm office. Our bedroom light is also a little finicky. Sometimes it turns on, others times it doesn't. But after a quick little punch on the switch, and voila, it works.

We spotted some new bulbs in a store one day, so we picked up a couple. We replaced the bulb in the entry, which was also burnt out, and now it works great. We replaced the bulb in the girls' room... and still nothing. We deduced it was a faulty connection because if you pound on their wall, the ceiling light flickers.

So, a quick call to maintenance and soon two Russians came to work on my lights and our leaky toilet. (By the way, they are getting very good at knocking and WAITING until I come answer the door). I showed them that the girls' switch won't turn on at all, but with a little force, ours will come on. One of the workers smiled knowingly, and laughingly said, "something something Rusky something." I smiled, nodded, and went back to the kitchen.

A little while later Mesa came running up the hall, crying hysterically, "Mommy, I don't like them tearing our wall down." I told her they were just fixing her light, which she accepted more calmly.

Soon, the two workers motioned me back to the girls' room where I could see a newly-installed switch, which now appeared to be working. This is how our next conversation played out:

Russian 1: "Garble, garble, garble, garble." (Pointing at the new switch on the wall and waving the broken one in his hand) 
Me: "Ah, you fixed it. Thank you very much."
Both Russians: (Shaking their heads) "(No), нет, garble, garble, garble."
Me: "Oh, it's still broken?"
Russian 2: (Reaching in his pocket, pulling out some money, and waving it at me) "Garble, garble, garble, garble."
Me: "Oh, you need some money. Okay, let me just grab my wallet" (Thinking to myself: Wait, duh, what am I thinking? I don't pay maintenance. Really, Star, are you that gullible?!)
Both Russians: (Shaking heads, talking very animatedly): "Garble, garble, garble, garble, garble, garble!"
Me: " OHHHHH, you need to go to town to buy a new light switch. Ahhhh, yes, okay. Sounds like a good plan. Thank you. (Thinking: if you had just taken me to the other room where there was still a hole in the wall where a light switch was missing, instead of standing me in front of the switch you had just fixed, I might have been able to cut our conversation in half, and not look like I'm a few fries short of a Happy Meal).

There and Back Again

Sorry this blog has been radio silent for awhile. Our temporary visas were expiring so we packed our bags, hopped in a company van at about 10 PM Saturday night, July 28th and headed out.

 



Visiting the horses while we waited for the van to pick us up



The girls love feeding the horses wheat



Rain's turn





Mesa's turn for a ride

 

Echo had two turns, of course





We drove all night, dozing whenever we could, being slammed out of our seats, or into our seat belts for those who had them, periodically throughout the drive as we navigated normal Russian traffic.



Mesa all curled up and ready for the van ride to Moscow



We actually made great time driving at night and arrived at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow only 7 hours later. We checked our bags, went through security, grabbed some breakfast, and boarded our Aeroflot flight to New York. We sat on the tarmac for about an hour, apparently waiting on the food? Echo slept for the delay, but awoke right in time for takeoff. Joy.



Luckily Echo was right on the borderline weight acceptance for the stowaway cribs the airplane provides, and I was thankfully positioned on the coveted row 11, which allowed for crib use. This provided amazing relief to my arms and sit-bones by having a couple hours break from holding her for the almost-9-hour-flight.



Echo in her airplane crib. Yay for a break!



We only had about a 3.5 hour layover in NY before we boarded our next flight to SLC. And after the hour delay from the last flight we were cutting it close. Aeroflot notified the airport of our delay and those with immediate connecting flights were allowed off the plane first and sped through Customs, Check-in, Security, and on to our next flight gate. We arrived at our gate just in time for them to start boarding our next plane.









All the girls at the window



Rain in SVO airport waiting for our plane to get to the gate



Whenever we have a luggage cart, this is Echo's preferred seat. The times we don't have a luggage cart, and she sees one, she still tries to go sit on it and get a ride.



Even though we were rushing to catch our connecting flight from JFK to SLC, I still did not miss the incredible feeling I had from the time New York harbor came into view until we were processed through Customs. I had an overwhelming feeling that I belonged here, and that I am so blessed to live in such a special country. I am even more stirred to protect our freedoms which are in such jeopardy. God Bless America!



We boarded our flight and also had another delay at the gate for at least another 45 minutes. But then we were airborne, and 5 hours later, we landed in Salt Lake City at about 10 PM. It is always quite an experience to travel for so many hours, and still arrive the same day that we left. 

Rain's face just about sums up our energy level after landing in Salt Lake



We were going to head out that evening in a rental car to stay with family in Dayton, ID, but 2 pieces of our luggage had been sent out on the next flight and wouldn't be arriving for a couple of hours.  Delta said they would deliver them to Dayton for us, which astounded me, but we thought it was a good excuse to stay the night and get a good night's sleep before driving again. It was by far a smarter decision. We were beat and I don't think the kiddos would have appreciated being confined for even 10 more minutes, let alone a couple hours.



The next morning we were well-rested, had a good meal in our tummies, and were ready to head out. It was fun to visit family and enjoy some good American food--namely hamburgers. After going 2 months without beef, I was really craving a good, juicy hamburger with all the fixins'. Unfortunately, my body rebelled and was so bloated after eating a couple hamburgers throughout the next couple days, that I switched back to chicken sandwiches, salads, and such. I think there might be something to eating meat sparingly.



The girls and I hitched a ride home with my younger brother on Thursday night, while Shane stuck around with the rental car and for another ride home since he didn't fit in the car with us. He also took our Birth Certificates and Marriage Certificate to the State Capitol so they could get some special notary seal called an Apostille. Not sure how it's critical, but Miratorg needed it, "so let it be written, so let it be done."



Shane had his invitation letter in hand for his work visa which will last for the remainder of our time here. But the girls and I still needed to apply for temporary visas again. We had a lot of delays in our visas this time around, not any of which was our fault. The company has a policy that if you unnecessarily extend your stay in the US while renewing visas, they will stop paying you until you return. Well, this happened to us, even though the visa company was mostly to blame. Not to mention the fact that the invitation letter that was sent with Shane is written entirely in Russian, without any instructions about which line to copy to which line in the visa application. But I wrote up a nice timeline showing the delays, the promptness in which we responded to each delay, and how we had done all we could to speed up the process. They acknowledged it was not our fault and paid us. Sigh of relief, because outfitting the entire family in winter apparel, and traveling in general is expensive. We received our paycheck (Thank you Julia!), only 2 days before flying back to Russia.

 

There are lots of adventures (and pictures) to post of our 6 weeks in the States which will have to wait until a later post. It was so good to be home among family and friends.



On the reverse, it is strange to lose a day in traveling. We flew out late Sunday night, September 16th, caught our connecting flight in NY, arrived in Moscow, waited an hour for our company drivers, and then had an extra long 9 hour drive back to the farms. We went to bed and woke up to Wednesday, September 19th. So strange. 



Echo entertaining herself while we waited for airport food on our trip back to Russia



The Kid Playground at Las Vegas Airport



Love this little face!



 

The girls playing on Dad during our 8-hour layover at JFK

 

Dad-Approved Entertainment

Waiting some more at JFK



Landing in Moscow at Sheremetyevo Airport



The two things that greeted us when we first walked back into our house was the smell and the flies. We had forgotten some dirty dishes in the sink when we left 6 weeks ago that we knew were going to be bad, but even after scrubbing those, the smell was inextinguishable. After a little sleuthing, we found the real culprits to be the pea trap and other such plastic drain tubes and pipes under the sink. The smell is slowly improving with each load of dishes I wash.



The second item was the flies. They were everywhere. Hoards of them were along the ceiling corners and doorways, but even more of them were dead - EVERYWHERE. All the floors were littered with their little black carcasses. And the remaining population must have mutated in our absence, because now they have become a horrid little biting army. Normal little house flies that bite! Hard. They leave bite marks that swell and itch. Even Shane, who is typically unbothered by mosquitoes, horse flies, and other large pests, has been plagued with fly bites.

Flies camped out all over the house

 

Notice all the black spots on the floor.

 

A quick sweep of the floor in one room

Mesa and Echo must have both picked up a bug before we left because they both started to get sick on Thursday. I think it might be croup. Mesa has a more severe case. Between hot shower/sauna treatments and what medicine we have on hand, we will see if we can beat this, because basically we are on our own medically. It really is a blessing how much confidence the Gospel gives us. There is no way I would have attempted this adventure without having the Priesthood with us. I'm so thankful that Shane is a worthy holder of the Priesthood and that the Lord blesses us so much with its power.



Now we are finishing unpacking and settling back into the routine here. Shane has jumped right back in and has been busy every day with preg-checking and moving cows in and out to pasture. The girls and I have been fighting jet lag and illness, as well as jumping right in to our next challenge: Homeschooling.



But that's enough for now. We are alive and well. 

The Adventure Continues

The first few days were pretty much a ram-shackled mess of trying to change our day for night, unpacking, and finding things to eat because Shane’s truck had been moved to a company office while he was in the States and we couldn’t get to any grocery stores.

Luckily one of the other American families was just headed out to renew their visas back home in Idaho, so they dropped off their extra food and took Shane on a late grocery run where he bought the last box of milk and the last loaf of bread there. But it was something, and we were grateful.

Unpacking was moving along. The girls were happily reunited with their meager toy collection. I’m happy to report my casserole dish made the trip safely. Along with my sewing machine. Yes, I brought it with me.  As I was starting to get to the bottom of our luggage pile, I soon realized that we were still missing a piece of luggage. It was one of the most important ones, too: The FOOD bag. Oh, yes, somehow we had left Moscow without the bag containing all my spices, baking powder, peanut butter, Shane’s beloved Ranch mix—everything. It might not seem so bad, but the grocery stores don’t even carry VANILLA here. One of the Americans found powdered vanilla in one of the bigger cities, which technically, the Company won’t even let us drive to. So, no vanilla, no cinnamon, no Italian seasoning, chilli powder, seasoned salt, zilch, nada—A deathly blow to my amateur cooker’s heart.

One of the Russian interpreters (and HR personnel), who also helps with all our travel plans, tried to get the airport to just deliver the suitcase to the company office in Moscow, but it was a no-go. Shane would have to appear, in person, to claim it. That meant another trip back to Moscow. There just happened to be a new couple flying in to Moscow a couple of days later, so it was determined that Shane would take that van shuttle to Moscow when it went to pick them up. We had a couple of days to settle in a little more before he left, and Shane was able to pick up some groceries so I could feed the girls until he got back.

About 5 PM the night Shane was supposed to leave, the power went out. Shane told me it was typical for the power to flicker, or occasionally go off for an hour or two. No worries, he said, it will probably be on by morning. The van driver pounded on our door that night at midnight (June 7^th). After a quick goodbye kiss, Shane walked out into the night, and then I was alone.

I went back to bed, determined to be prepared to tackle the next day. When I awoke, I went to the kitchen to cook some eggs—one meal I was confident I could cook, and confident that the girls would eat. But lo and behold—still no power. Of all days for the power to be out, it would be the one where I was completely alone with very few meals I could cook without power. For breakfast, we ate some Russian cold cereal with boxed milk.

I spent the morning pouring through my Russian phrase book trying to piece together some fragment of a sentence to find out about the power. I noticed a group of people by the office and the girls were momentarily distracted, so I slipped out to go ask. Tatiana, the farm administrator, didn’t even bother to try to understand my butchered Russian. She called an interpreter. You almost need another interpreter to understand the interpreter’s heavily-accented English. I think he said something about them working on it, and it would be fixed in about an hour. I breathed a sigh of relief—maybe it would be on in time to cook something for lunch.

About an hour later, 3 Russians came and started banging and drilling in the attic. Slightly confused about how this would fix my power, I just went about trying to entertain the girls. Soon they left and still nothing. Our growling stomachs told us that it was past lunchtime. No peanut butter and jam sandwiches since the peanut butter was in the LOST bag. No stove top meals, no microwave rescues. I wasn’t even sure when the power would resume, so I had restricted the girls and myself from opening the fridge or freezer doors unless it was dire. Even then, it was only cracked a little, and then quickly closed. I didn’t want the food that Shane had just bought to spoil, so I tried to conserve as much of the coolness of the fridge. That cut even further into our meal options. The bread, milk, juice, jam – all in the fridge. I think we ate some crackers from the cupboard for lunch.

I had no internet, so I couldn’t Skype Shane for help, or anyone else. The girls were getting restless, even after a walk outside to explore. So I chanced using some of the battery of my computer so the girls could watch a movie. It provided some diversion to our hunger. Soon I had to get a new bottle for Echo. I opened the fridge door, and groaned when I could feel that the temperature in the fridge matched the temperature of the room. I didn’t want to check the freezer and lose what coolness I had in there either. I grabbed a loaf of bread and some juice, and shut the door to my now-warm fridge.

Dinnertime was looming and still no power. I gave the girls more juice and crackers, and we started another movie. A little after 5, the lights flickered and turned on. I breathed a sigh of relief, and quickly put a pan on the stove to boil some water before it went out again.

Then the girls and I had dinner, and went to bed. Shane got home around Midnight that night with our last piece of luggage. A 24-hour trip, with about 18 hours of it sitting in a van, all for one suitcase. But we were excited to get it, and even more happy for the power to be on and our Dad to be back.

Some pictures of the first few days:

The Unpacking - YAY!



Helping Dad build their bunk bed



Helping Mom unpack.

Echo has mastered the art of putting herself in the center of activity

Another entertaining use of the empty suitcases

Baby Bananas!

The girls were ecstatic and ate them all in one day

Echo was being creative and using the dust brush to comb the doll's hair



I wonder who's hiding in there...




PEEK-A-BOO!




Having lots of fun with Shado's clever play boards



Thanks Aunt Shado - we've had hours of fun already!

Picking flowers

Reminiscent of a Renaissance moment



Echo's dramatic Shakespearean pose: "Romeo, oh Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?"



Picking flowers has become a favorite pasttime

Mesa was lucky enough to get a quick ride when Daddy stopped by the house.