Still Stranded

And we wait.  For our car that is.  The next promised deadline is tomorrow noon.  We can only hope.  We have all gone well beyond stir crazy.  I am creating an elaborate life with imaginary friends and talking dolls.  We are somehow still managing to get by on the kindness of friends and still have a full fridge and socialized children.  Didn't mean to go so long between posts.  The last 13 days have been blurring together.

FYI... the medical note in the last post did not work after all.  She had to get one on proper paper.  Guess life is changing around here.

Our power cuts continue to be terrible.  Unpredictably either morning or evening 6 days a week minimum. I am SO glad we invested in the phone connection to supplement our internet and that Uncle Dave brought us a battery for the laptop.  We were also just promised a half-gas stove by the school.  That will make a huge difference... getting up at 6am to cook dinner was NO fun!!

I have been doing loads of work in the garden since the car died.  I think Moses wants our car fixed even more than we do just so he can have a break from me.  I have discovered he has been quite lazy about keeping the garden and feel like I am cleaning a jungle.  Yesterday I emptied out what has been accumulating in a banana patch... all the stuffing and springs from the chairs we refurbished, buckets, paint cans, piles of batteries, more than a dozen alcohol bottles, a pile of wood and tree stumps large enough to make a large bonfire, not to mention the banana vegetation accumulation.  Each day feels like more of the same. 

We do find plenty of interesting wildlife.  This moth was beautiful and since he lost a wing Kaia was more than happy to take care of him.  I also did some major damage to a snail that made his way under my foot.  Kaia moved him out of the work zone and made him a nice shaded house.  Thankfully she forgot to check on him today because I don't think it would have been a pretty site.

When we moved the moth from the wall to get a better look he started peeing!!!  Even Moses had never seen a moth pee before!  And he had a LOT of urine in him!

Sorry Uncle Dave... We tried your granola bar recipe.  A bit 'healthy' for me but after a few I got used to them.  Kids and Carl loved them.  

Until.  Peer.  Pressure.  

We had her friends over for a play date and the boy didn't like them.  Ever since then Kaia won't eat them either.  Live and Learn.

The fridge has been getting pretty packed with Kaia's artwork and she really wanted a venue to display her work.  So she made a book and bound her  various masterpieces of crayon, marker, glitter, and fingerpaint.

So to conserve energy we boil a pot of hot water for baths rather than heating the whole tank.  Sometimes the power goes off unexpectedly as it is heating and the water is only lukewarm.  So I had the shi-shi idea of a sponge bath.  Kaia was thrilled because sponge baths sound totally girly!!  But still couldn't resist jumping in.

On Saturday I went out to work in the garden and left Carl alone with the children.  Enough said. 
We promised each other that we would never photograph such extravaganzas but now that the photo was taken, might as well post in up on the blog.  Grandma, I know you have been dying to see Theo in his purple ballerina dress.

TingaTinga Sandbox

 Poor stranded little me hosted playgroup today and everyone was nice enough to come to me in exchange for tasty nibbles and a cup of the best coffee in town.  Unfortunately our power was out from 7am so it was fresh fruit and sun tea instead.  Bless them.  No one complained.

One mother arrived late complaining that the pharmacy was requiring a prescription for vaccinations.  You see... if you want a vaccination here you generally go to the pharmacy, order them, return to the pharmacy to pick them up, and then bring them to a doctor who will administer them.  A prescription is a new and laborious step to add to the process.  Luckily another mother was a doctor and wrote her out this prescription.  Written in felt tip baby blue marker on a torn page with a coloring picture of a turtle on the back.  I am dying to hear if it worked!!  Doc said it would be no problem.

 

But the biggest news of the month is that the SANDBOX is finally finished!!!!

The problem was that the oil paint just would not dry and we still don't know why.  By the time a layer was dry it was so dirty that it needed to be repainted.  It was quite crushing but I have come to terms with it.  We varnished it yesterday and dug the hole today.  The kids helped fill it up during playgroup... tea cup by tea cup, saucer by saucer.  Kaia and Theo had a very hard time sharing the sandbox this afternoon but were finally all smiles and hugs (poor Theo) by the time Daddy came home.

Oh!  And Tia Leslie... Check out kaia's skirt!!  We have been trying it on every few months and sadly replacing it on the shelf of 'too big' clothes.  But today for the first time ever Kaia's itty bitty waist held up your skirt.  She proceeded to get many compliments on it through out the day.  Most of the compliments were from herself, but many were from other people as well :)

Mommy Time

This is me at the gym.  On Mondays I drive the carpool at 640 and tutor at the school at 820.  For the last few weeks, rather than turning around and driving the long drive back home, I have been hitting the gym.  It is a really nice complex with an outdoor track through the coffee plantations sporting fantastic views of Mt. Meru.  The gym itself is very good and has a beautiful yoga room attached.  They also have a tv with the news, a large and clean pool, kiddie pool, warm showers, cold water, sauna, steam room, and a coffee shop next door.  It is too expensive for us to join but a day pass is quite reasonable if you make use of everything they have to offer... which I do.  And I am thoroughly enjoying the 'me' time as well.  A very good investment in family sanity :)

Parrot Birthday

Well our car isn't fixed yet, in fact we haven't even heard from them yet.  Ah well.  Yesterday I finished loads in the kitchen... homemade applesauce, oatmeal bars, lemonade, chicken soup from homemade broth, 2 loaves of bread, and brownies. And today I finished loads in the garden.

We have wonderful friends though!!  We borrowed a car for the day and were able to get groceries and catch up on other errands.  We were also able to make it to a birthday party in the afternoon.

 Another stunning cake from the designer of the airport cake.  

 It was a 1st birthday so the older siblings found ways of getting into trouble to entertain themselves.  Here everyone is getting a pedi.  Kaia chose to wear the dress I designed and knit for her 1st birthday.  I can't believe it still fits and I was thrilled she chose it.

 Even I couldn't resist.  Fab color!

 Theo was in HEAVEN... they had 100 of these balls!!!  When he first saw them he was so excited he could barely breathe!

He finally retired to the sandbox where he eventually lied down for a quick cat nap.

First Haircut

We called a second mechanic and he picked up the car today.  They are open tomorrow so our new best case scenario is that she will be up and purring by tomorrow evening.  Dare to dream!!

 Kaia's locks have been growing very long and curly and beautiful and snarly and painful to brush.  For months now I have been offering (begging) to take off a few centimeters to make the brushing less painful but Kaia has adamantly refused.  Today for some reason she keenly said ok.

Once on the porch she didn't refuse or scream but she did wiggle a lot.

Afterwords she was very excited and proud.  And this evening, in the tub, hair brushing was a dream!

Sunflower Hats

The mechanic made it to the house today and he agrees with our assessment.  It is the gear box.  But he cannot even tow us to the shop until Monday.  If we are so lucky that he can fix the box then she may be ready to come home as early as Tuesday night.  If we have to buy a new one then the search for a gear box for a 1990 Nissan Mistral begins.  That could take a LONG time.  

Better make the garden even more beautiful since we are going to be spending a lot of time in it.  Poor Moses is going to get really sick of us really fast!  Today I spent all my free time in the garden.  My first ingenious improvement was to our sunflowers.  The birds are eating the seeds and I am ready to fight back!  So all the sunflowers got mosquito net hats.  Take that you greedy birds!

Check in tomorrow for even more innovative gardening solutions. 

Glen Tow

 So do you want to hear the short story or the long story?

Short Story... 

Our car is SO dead!!!

Long Story... 

We brought the car to the shop on Monday to fix a few small problems...   

• Our driver side window doesn't always roll up.  Now it doesn't ever roll down!!
• An air hose had a hole in it.  They patched that up just fine.
• No problem with the rear view mirror but they must have bumped it pretty hard because they left superglue in the car, the mirror is in a different spot on our windshield, and it fell off when we were driving home from school today.  We super glued it back again and hoped for the best.
• Pick up has been slow.  They figured it was the gear box and recommended another mechanic who specializes in automatic cars.  We are in the process of getting his phone number and making an appointment.  They said to be careful but that it should be ok to drive for a week or two.  

Are you surprised they were wrong?  We're not.  On the way home from school it just fell out of drive into neutral.  Carl got it working again for a few km but at a speed bump cross walk we stopped for pedestrians and it refused to go any further.  We were in the middle of downtown during rush hour.  Good Times!!  Thankfully Carl was driving because I would never have been able to be as calm.  Double thankfully Glen, a man that owns a computer store in town and whom Carl knows well, stopped to help and towed us home. 

So there we were.  Getting towed through downtown because our gear box gave out.  Hoping like heck that the rear view mirror wouldn't fall down again.  And unable to signal oncoming traffic on the drivers side because Carl couldn't roll his window down.  Felt like a Seinfeld episode.   And we are very thankful that we made it home safely. 

 Jolly times at the homestead though.

 

Theo is thoroughly enjoying the world as a walker.  3 is his personal best and he couldn't be more pleased.