Marshmallow Cream

This is a personal invitation for Malia and Josie from Ethan and Elli. Come and visit us! We found the greatest thing at the bazaar . . . Marshmallow Cream!

A man sells it in a huge pot. You can even buy it by the 10 kg bucket full if you want. They say it comes from the mountains surrounding our town. Who knew Kraft was taking jars of Marshmallow Cream from the mountains of Aobistan and selling it in WalMarts across America. And here kids are fed all things sweet and sugary from the earliest of age! We just know you would love it.

As you can tell . . . we love it!

Come soon. We'll save some for you!

Elli going ethnic!

The sun is out these days and we are out in it! I can never keep track of Elli's hat, so today at the bazaar we bought her a local head scarf. These are what all the little girls wear. I think she pulls it off well and she's already reaping the benifts; free candy, cheeries and cookies from random salesmen who think she's cute!

Some of the process

We are moving forward on some of the repairs and set up of our home. It's never as fast or as smooth as one would hope, but we are moving along.


We have the veranda almost all ready. I figure I need a place to host people, as one never knows when a neighbor will come by for tea. The kids play area is at the end and we have red carpet and our little dining room table on the other side, near the kitchen.

This is the man who laid it using his Swiss army knife. And has earned the right to rest on it!

The kitchen is a work in progress! We have removed the massive heater that was taking up a large amount of our kitchen space.

the beast

Austin giving it his all to remove "the beast"

In the end it took a disc grinder to cut the thing out and four grown men to carry it out. Two of those men repaired the mud walling, where it had previously gotten wet. It was a quick and very messy process that now has me cooking out in the entry way. I'll keep cooking in the entry way until the plumbing is finished, possibly another week or week and a half away. Though notice I did find another work table down in our cellar. After some good scrubbing and then staple gunning (sorry Dan, probably not the exact terminology) cute plastic table cloths to the top, I really love my counters.

The very disheartening part though, is that the night they patched up the wall with a mix of cement and mud, Austin and I laid awake listening to a large mouse chew through our newly repaired walls. He had been sealed in and didn't like it. I HATE mice/rats. They are disgusting. So now our mission is to get the mouse. Last night's trap attempt failed, so we'll try again tonight.

We are making slow headway on the bathroom too. Austin, also my plumber, has removed the rusted through tub and gas water heater. I've used comet (or our equivalent) and a scrub brush on the floor and it's starting to feel a little cleaner. The sewer smell that backs up through the pipes is one thing we are eager to get ride of. Until we get those sealed off, Austin has wrapped them with plastic bags, and last night was the first night we slept without being awoken by the awful stink. Though one night I did sleep with Viks under my nose and that helped.

So there is our progress. Slow and steady but at least it's starting to feel a little "homeier," minus the mouse of course!

In the meantime

Moving into our house, before things have been repaired, means we are constantly trying to figure out how to make life work with what is currently working. I thought you'd enjoy some pictures of life in our new home "in the meantime," that being before we have everything up and repaired.

This is my kitchen. We have one outlet for the kitchen, so we are using an extension cord to plug in what we need to. My electric kettle serves as my hot water heater. We haven't decided if we'll buy the pre-made cabinets or have cabinets made. Until then, I'm using a work table the landlord left in the house. The red buckets are my water; the white bucket (which was once upon a time our "bathroom" bucket during our home stay) is used to haul old dishwater to the bathroom to flush the toilet; and the blue bucket is for food scraps to give to the little boy that comes by each morning at 6:30.

This is our bathroom set up. The tub is rusted out and currently drains all over the floor. So we inherited this large basin and are using it both as a tub/shower and as my washing machine! The bucket . . . the water necessary for bathing. Preheated on the stove, of course.

We are looking to buy a water storage tank when we go to the capitol the first part of July. I can't wait. I can't imagine what kind of time it will free up to not have to lug all my necessary water. But until then, my biceps/triceps are getting toned.

We're in!!

We actually have been in our new house for 1 week now. It was an executive decision and a push to get us in, but we moved in last Wednesday. It has been much like camping, as we moved in before any of the electrical or plumbing had been worked on. It feels like there is so much to do to make it liveable and then living on top of that is super tiring (washing clothes by hand and lugging a minimum of 15 2-gallon buckets from our water cistern to our house). We fall in bed every night, exhausted. But we are glad to get in. Blogs with lots of pictures are to come. When we are a little more settled.

Big Brother to the rescue

Yesterday I was sent on an errand for our host family; to take the oldest daughter (40 yrs.) and lifelong resident of our town, to the tailor. The errand in itself is quite funny, but not what this blog is about. We are frantically working to get our house ready to move into, so I tried to squeeze the errand in before Elli's nap. I asked the family to watch my kids while I was gone; seeing as I was helping them out by going. Austin left to work on house stuff soon after I did. He convinced them to lock the gate, so Elli wouldn't escape down the street.

I came home (after a very defeated errand) to find no adults around, a very scared Elli and overwhelmed Ethan. Apparently while I was gone, Elli fell into the full rushing juey (ditch).

Our family usually has the ditch covered, but for some reason the cover was off. Ethan tells the story that Elli fell into the juey and he saw her. He and Baktavar (his 8 year old buddy of almost equal weight and size) grabbed her hands and pulled her out. By the time I got home, her clothes that had been covered in black sludge, where changed and she was sitting hugging her puppy. She wouldn't let me put her down for her nap, I had to rock her to sleep before I could lay her in her crib.

There is no way to explain her safety other than the watch care of God. The juey was really full yesterday, well over her head. The current was quite strong and easily could have pulled her downstream, under the driveway into someone else's yard. I hugged this little girl so tight this morning when she woke up and praised God for her life. She came out of the event with only a scratched nose and eyebrow and it is all to His glory.

I have also resolved that I won't be leaving my kiddos alone again.

A house update

We are slowly chipping away at the layers of dust and yuck that have covered our house. Ethan has loved to jump right in there and help, whereas Elli spends much of her time playing with the spicket that is constantly running to fill up our little cistern. So I now have diapers and a dry outfit at the new house, so I can change her as needed. The house is mostly clean, we are now waiting on the electrician, plumber and the man who will repair the walls that need re-mudding (I couldn't think of a concise English title, as we don't really mud our houses.) Oh for the patience to wait!

Ethan has loved helping wash the floors, windows and sweep the sidewalk.

The last 2 days Elli has taken her morning nap in her stroller. It's a great system that frees me to stay until lunch.

Today I got the floors clean enough (after washing them 3 times) that the kids could play on them. Eventually we'll have carpet to cover them. Right now we are waiting on a bank transfer to come through. We brought over some of our newly inherited toys and they had so much fun building and making it home.