Let Me Explain. No, There Is Too Much. Let Me Sum Up.

It's been a long while since I have posted, unless you count my last post about something that happened a year ago. We've actually done a lot since the Piece of Cake incident.

First, we returned to live in the United States. It's been an interesting six months full of football, school, driving all over town, family, holidays, vacations, and adjustments. If someone would have told me that I would be just as culture shocked moving back to the country of my birth as I had been when I arrived in Paraguay, I would have said, "Cra-zy!" But it's been an adjustment. The sheer volume of ready to eat breakfast cereal in the grocery store is ASTOUNDING! Seriously, a whole aisle devoted to sugary goodness. And that's just cereal. The driving here is generally more polite and restrained, but I am doing tons more of it, we lived in a hotel for three months, and I have two kids attending high school (which makes me feel old, which is an adjustment, but not necessarily because I am living back in the United States; it might just be that I am old). We did make a detour in Florida to visit Mickey and friends, and had a fantastic time.

Second, we have played and watched a lot of football. Chris, Sam, and Marcus all played last fall, we had approximately ten practices and three games each week. I love football!

Chris's football injury.

Sam is out there, I promise.

At the championship game.

Third, school. I mentioned the two kids in high school; my other two are in elementary school at the Open Classroom: ocslc.org. We love school (right boys?) and especially love that we are back to attending with cousins and friends. I get to spend two mornings a week with the younger two boys, and we stay busy driving from school to school to school to home. Noah is going to the McKee Language School, http://www.mckeeschool.com/, to keep up with his Spanish skills. It's been a challenging year for me because kindergarten is half-day in the morning, and then Spanish in the afternoon. I get to eat school lunch with him, then drive him to Spanish. I love kindergarten, but I am looking forward to having all the kids at school, all day long.

Reading.

Finally, the house. I'm not happy about the house right now. I think I'm going to live out of the moving boxes forever and ever. I don't want to unpack, I have put it off since the end of October, and now I am used to the chaos. I'm not used to the chaos; I don't want to deal with the chaos. My one New Year's resolution is to get the house in some sort of order. Fortunately, I have 10-plus, months to worry about it.

There's more, but it's all details: field trips, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, birthdays, I ran a marathon, my sister had her first baby, and vacation. Oh, and Kevin working (living) in Mexico City since October. But details, right?

At Great Salt Lake. Salt is bad!

Corn maze!

Charizard.

Baby Oliver.

Christmas morning.

On the road to Hana, Hawaii.

Rain, Rain Go Away (or Not)

I find it interesting that on rainy days there are very few kids in school. Today at Noah’s preschool there were only five kids in his class. My boys and I try to figure out the reasons for this. We have come up with these:

1. Paraguay, being hot and humid much of the year, makes other people feel cold when we (who are originally from Salt Lake City, Utah) are comfortable and happy. For example, today my boys went to school in shorts. They wore sweatshirts over their t-shirts, just in case they got cold. When I went to pick up my youngest from pre-school there were kids in gloves, hats, scarves, and what I would consider a winter coat. May I add that it is 19 degrees Celsius (that's 67 degrees Fahrenheit) today? Maybe it’s just too cold to leave the house?

2. The streets are full of water and they don’t have a car/boat to get to school. I wish that my internet speed allowed for photo uploads, because I have a great picture of Rio (or Avenida) España during a rainstorm.

3. It’s too dark in the morning to wake up. We didn’t wake up this morning, because my boys were convinced it was way too early to get up, when in fact, it was 7 AM. However, being the mean mom that I am, I made them all hurry up and get ready, and go to school.

4. They are afraid of the falling power lines, trees, etc. I can really see where this is coming from. On our way to school, Noah and I had a nice discussion on why you should NEVER (really, never, ever, EVER!) touch the wires that are hanging from the poles into the middle of the street (because you will die! And also, I said so). Plus, my empleada tells me that I should watch out for trees falling because they fall and kill people during rainstorms.

5. Like Chris says, “The sign says school, but my heart says jail.” And they (or we) are looking for any excuse to miss a day of “jail.”

So, these are our top five reasons. Do you have any others?

Week One: Already Civil Unrest

It is Tuesday, and one full week since we arrived in Paraguay. The boys have started school, we have met some very nice people, and we have explored our little part of the city. Not too bad for only seven days.

I'm still without a way to upload photos to the blog, because I am not smart enough to pack the cord that came with the camera. While we were packing I couldn't imagine why I would need it, because out printer has a built in compact flash reader. However, the printer is in the surface shipment. I wasn't thinking of the three months or more that our surface shipment will take to arrive. Silly me. In the meantime, I am looking for one, and I hope that soon I will be able to share photos of our new home.

Last week was eventful in more ways than one. We explored a little bit of our new city. We found that there are very few traffic signs. And many one way streets. And most of them lack traffic signage. I have seen only one stop sign, but everyone seems to know who has the stop and who has the right of way. I can't tell that there is a system, but I hope to crack the code before I start driving. We're lucky not to have our car here yet. We would definitely get in a wreck if we did.

Monday was the boys first day of school. The first difference that we felt is that everything in this country starts early. The school bus comes to get the boys at 7 AM. Seven o'clock. One more time, seven. Seven. We have to get up and get dressed and get down to breakfast by 6:30. In the morning. We are used to leaving our house by 8:20, nearly two hours later. School starts at 8 AM, and goes until 3:30 PM. After school the kids can play basketball, volleyball, soccer, chess, get homework help, or learn about the surrounding countries. It is a fun program, with many travel opportunities for the kids 5th grade and older.

Chris seems fine. In middle school all of the classes are taught in English, except for Spanish class. He also goes to a special social studies class where he learns a little about Paraguayan history and culture.

Sam goes to SSL, Spanish as a second language. He is in a grade without many foreign students. While they speak English during instruction time, the playground language is Spanish. He misses the OC, he wants to go to the OC, and he wants to be home. I hope, for his sake, that he can have an attitude adjustment, or this is going to be a very long year for him.

Marcus got put into immersion Spanish. In first grade the language of instruction is Spanish because most of the kids are local Paraguayans, with only one year of English. Marcus is feeling frustrated because he wants to follow instructions and do what he is supposed to, but he doesn't understand what those instrutions are. Other than that, he likes school.

Each of the boys is assigned an "ambassador" who will show them the ropes, how to get lunch, how to get on the bus, and to hang out with them at recess and breaks. We hear that many of the ambassadors become the new students best friends.

Noah and I have been walking to the grocery store every day. We buy new treats to try, and stock up on bottled water. The store has Pantene, Colgate, Johnson & Johnson's, Huggies, a lot of Nestle products, Dove soap, and Coca-cola products. But everything smells different, or is different that what we buy in the USA. The chocolate tastes weird, the diapers are different, the soap is smelly. They only thing that is the same is Coke. And Coke light (diet Coke). Noah and I also explored the mall, it's pretty, it's kind of expensive for Paraguay, but we did find a suit for 340,000 guaranis. At the exchange rate of 5000 guaranis to 1 dollar, that's a good price.

We also experienced our first bit of authentic South American civil unrest. I don't know what is going on here politically, but there were about two thousand protesters outside the embassy today. They weren't protesting at the embassy, but at a building nearby, and there were riot police, and rubber bullets, and people being pushed away with water cannons. It's kind of scary and kind of interesting.

Here is a picture of the police outside the embassy.



I'm sure many of you know that we lost my grandpa last week. We really miss being home, especially because we are so isolated here. The boys have been very sad. Sam already wanted to go home, and this just cemented his desire. We are learning that life goes on without us, it is hard to learn, and harder to accept. We miss our family very much.