Our Roadside Adventure

Well, after much waiting and tribulation, our new little guy has arrived. We had quite an adventure getting him here, and though childbirth is always kind of an adventure no matter what, I thought I'd better chronicle the whole thing, so he someday can know the whole story if he wants to. We have my in laws here for the last week, so I'd been trying not to lose patience waiting for our baby to arrive since that's what they came half way across the world to see. His due date wasn't till the 28th of October, but we really expected to see him much sooner since I was consistently measuring big. Plus, I'd been having pretty consistent Braxton-Hicks that sometimes got pretty strong for the last month or so. So on the 26th, I started to feel contractions (or birth-waves as my hypnobabies training would have me call them) that were strong enough I had to close my eyes through them. They were still six or seven minutes apart, but we decided that once I was sure they were actual labor pains, no matter how far apart, we would just make our way to the hospital  mostly because I tend to have a harder time focusing in the car and would rather be able to settle in at the hospital for the hardest part of birthing time rather than be driving through it. And we live about 35 minutes away from the hospital, so we just didn't want to take any chances. So, we packed up our mountain of stuff and started the trip. About five minutes into driveing, my contraction started getting further apart and lightening up quite a bit. We almost turned around and went home, but decided to just go there and see. When we called, the midwife wasn't super optimistic that we would be ready to admit yet, so she said to go and get checked and the hospital would let her know. When we got there, they checked me and I was about a 3. Since they couldn't admit me until I was at least a 4, they told me to stay an hour and they would recheck me. During that hour however, my birth waves had really slowed down. They only came about 1 ever 12 minutes. So after the hour passed I hadn't made any progress at all. They told me to go home and not come back until the contractions were 2-4 minutes apart, or were significantly stronger.

So we made the walk of shame back to the car, and let everyone at home know they were releasing us. But I was still pretty sure I was in the first stages of actual labor, so we decided to stay in the area and go see a movie and stay at a hotel so that we wouldn't have to go home and immediately come back. During the night my birth waves almost completely died off though, so in the morning we just went home. Charlie was very patient with me and very sweet about the whole thing. At home I lay down to rest and watch some Alias, and the waves sped up and strengthened quite a bit, but stayed put at around 7 minutes apart. Although they were consistently pretty strong, we kept waiting for them to get a little closer together so that we wouldn't end up going to the hospital and coming right back home again. After several hours of this I wanted to change tactics so I got up to start a bath. The walk over to the bath tub, and waiting for it to fill up, I had a few waves that were about a minute apart, but as soon as I sat down on the edge of the tub, they spaced out again. After getting in the tub, I had one wave that was seven apart and the next one was a two. Then I started to feel some pressure, so I got out and went to the toilet and the next contraction (one minute later) broke my water. We grabbed some clothes and ran to the car, but the waves stayed at about 1 minute apart and before we even left Spanish Fork, I was feeling the urge to push. We stopped at the Spanish Fork Clinic and Charlie ran in to see if they could possibly deliver a baby. As you can expect, he said the women looked quite shocked at the question, so he just said never mind and we started out of town. We pulled off the freeway again Provo, but then got back on again since getting to American Fork Hospital at that point seemed about as likely as getting to Provo Hospital considering the long drive through town. At this point I was sort of crying/yelling. Charlie tried to calm me but he was quite freaked out himself. On my part, it was less fear than it was my only way to deal the sudden onset of such strong and close birthing waves. It just felt better to yell. But at about 1/2 mile from the Pleasant Grove exit I told Charlie I was pushing and so he stopped and he had the presence of mind (through the scary situation of having a screaming wife and knowing he was going to have to deliver his baby) to call 911 and calmly let them know the situation. They connected him with a closeby emergency vehicle and talked him through what he should do. By the time the ambulance arrived, the head was all the way out. The EMT sort of pushed Charlie out of the way and then got me to push the baby the rest of the way out. Then he smoothly cleaned up the baby a little and suctioned out the baby's mouth and nose and cut the cord. He tried to deliver the placenta as well, but Charlie told him it usually took a while before my placenta came out, so they thankfully just left it and lifted me up onto the stretcher and into the ambulance where I got to hold and feed the baby while Charlie followed a long behind in our car. When we got to the hospital Fae and Mom were there waiting already. We went into Labor and Delivery and the midwife came and delivered the placenta and sewed me up and stuff. Our beautiful smart little dude took right to breastfeeding. And the EMTs stuck around for a minute for pictures and congratulations. They were (rightly so) quite proud thier part in the birth. One EMT said he got a little teary eyed.

Charlie's sister, Meli, recently had her baby in the backseat of her car as well, in the parking lot of the hospital. Afterwards, she seemed like the only one who was calm about it. Her mom who was there, and her husband both seemed a little traumatized. I always wondered about that, but now I understand a little better. As far as my part of bringing the baby into the world, it wasn't much different than it would have been in the hospital. The Birth waves in the car weren't very pleasant I can tell you, so there probably would have been less screaming in a place where I would have been able to focus, but other than that, everything I did would have been about the same no matter where I was. Charlie's part was drastically different however. He was wise and level headed about the whole thing, but he was also traumatized by having his wife screaming and having all the weight of the decisions rest on him. Our other two kids Charlie caught when they were coming as well, but they were in a very controlled and germ free environment, with a midwife over his shoulder talking him through it. He admitted that he came away from this birth emotionally exhausted  I'm very proud of him and what he did. He made it possible for me to feel safe and confident in a situation which otherwise might have been very scary for me, or made the labor even harder. He also helped me not to tear very badly either. Great job hubby! The EMTs were great too. I was worried about giving everyone on the freeway a show, but they were very careful to keep me modest, and they were quite efficient and charming. So, not exactly like I had hoped for and my birth plan went out the window, but we feel great and the baby is doing great and Charlie will hopefully recover soon. :) I feel very blessed to be married to such a man. And blessed that the baby seems to be fine despite the unsanitary conditions. Heavenly father was certainly watching out for us.

Sometimes I think being pregnant is a little like shaving your head. If I decided to pull a Natalie Portman and go bald, I think I would be revealing a very lopsided, bumpy head. But I've heard that you never know until you try it. Some people thought theirs would be bumpy and it turned out not too bad, and others thought it would be smooth and it ended up really bumpy, apparently. I would never shave mine anyway, I just don't have the face for it, let alone the head for it.

Well for some reason, when I'm pregnant, my stomach looks like I have a very lopsided, bumpy volleyball under my shirt. Some people wear their baby bump kind of hidden, which must have its own set of problems.  Then there are those of us that keep it way out front and I can tell you it gets incredibly awkward and uncomfortable. And of course there are lots of in-betweens.


Before I got pregnant, I guess I thought I would look something like this, 

Instead, I always look more like this.

Anyway you just never know. It doesn't seem to have very much to do with body type, as far as I can tell. People stop me on the street to ask me if I'm having a boy or girl because apparently carrying way out front is indicative of having a boy. (Course, I was carrying way out front with Lydia too, but why spoil their delusions?) But I've never met anyone else who carried a baby out as far as I do. It often makes me the target of some speculation in public, especially toward the end of my pregnancy. I'm not really a fan of cavorting with strangers, cuz I'm awkward and somewhat antisocial. And its still my stomach, you know? Every little bump is still me, and its not like I poke it out for display on purpose.

What does that really have to do with shaving my head? Well....not much, I guess. I only said it was a little like it, ok? So um, there ya go. Here is a picture of the actual baby bump, just to make up for this lame post. 23 weeks and counting! Can't wait to meet you baby boy!

Our new baby

Yes, she looks peaceful, but don't be fooled...Zoe has as much energy as one of our kids!

Snow where did you go.?

I love snow. I really do. I know that's not very popular nowadays, at least among adults. I think the general distaste for it has something to do with driving in the snow, which of course must be miserable. And honestly, I don't drive that much, so that may have something to do with it. Except I have to say I like driving in the snow. Its kind of exciting. And, especially at night, the snowflakes in the headlights make me feel like I'm flying the Starship Enterprise. Awesome. Of course, I also like it when there's a power-out (yippee! Hide-and-go-seek in the dark!), so maybe I've just forgotten I'm supposed to be an adult now.

Anyway it hasn't been the snowiest of seasons this year. We've had some snowfalls, but nothing that has stuck for more than a few days (usually not more than a few hours). So last week when the radio told me there was going to be a big storm all weekend, I was super ready for that to happen. I mean, come on already! And true to their word, it did snow: a little. And the next morning it melted. And though there has been one other day of snow, it already mostly melted as well. The thing that really steamed my britches though is the complete lack of apology from the weather service. Logically, I know that it isn't their fault the snow fizzled, and I also know that the weather is like a living thing so it would be pretty impossible to predict. But still, couldn't they at least have had a repentant tone, or a "so its taking a slightly different turn than we thought", or at the very least a formal, notarized, written apology to me. But no, I've continued to listen to the weather every day, and even when there are changes from a prediction made a half hour before, they still give the each weather report like that is what they've been saying all along. I never thought I would be one of those people who was so bitter that they blamed defenseless weathermen for the weather. But man, I get so miffed with their smug assurances lately that I want to turn off the radio with a satisfying click every time they come on. But I don't. Cuz that would be rude. Also because I'm lazy. And forgetful. What was I talking about?

Sometimes I'm Awesome

I do a lot of DIY projects, not necessarily because I always like it, but because I'm kind of a cheapskate  Most of the time, my plans don't work out the way I hoped. But I still try. And my latest project actually worked out. I was so happy after I realized it was going to work that I took pictures so I could show you all. I call it, Wrought Iron Curtain Rods for a dollar. Yes, I italicize and capitalize in my mind too, it's that awesome. Yep. Here's the list of needed items.

Black craft foam sheet
PVC pipe (at desired length and width)
Christmas ornaments
Hot glue
Flat black spray paint
L bracket

Most of those items I already had. I was making rods for 3 windows, so I bought like 3 10 foot lengths of PVC at Home Depot for something like 39 cents each. Then I got the Christmas ornaments for 7 for a dollar at the dollar store, and the dollar spray paint at Walmart. The L brackets I bought 4 for 2 dollars. They're just the cheap brass looking kind, two inches long on each side. I had everything else, but I think you can get a paper sized sheet of the craft foam for really cheap (you don't need much of it.)

Cut your PVC to the desired size. You'll probably want it to extend beyond your window a few inches on each side. We used charlie's Leatherman saw blade to do it. No need for one of those fancy pipe cutters, unless you already have one, and then, you know, might as well use it. Then get your L brackets, ornaments, and pipe and get painting. This is obviously the most time consuming part. You may want to give them a couple coats. We painted them first with primer because we had some, but it didn't seem to make much difference. The paint still scratched off kinda easy. I figured it didn't really matter if I was careful, since once they were up, they would be hard to scratch. But if you plan to have those metal ring on it to hold your curtain, you may have to rethink the quality of paint used. There may be more steps in this case. You just have to decide whether it's worth it the extra few bucks. It wasn't for me. I did do three coats of paint though. I ended up using less than 3 cans for everything, but you could do with even less if you're less picky.

Then you measure the circumference of the pipe, and out of the foam cut little 1.5 inch strips the length of the pipe circumference.

Then put a line of hot glue along the short edge and quickly bring the two short ends together, making a circle.

After its dry, reshape it into a the best circle you can, and then put a line of glue along the side.

Stick it onto the end of the ornament, covering the loop end. Hold it on tight until it dries.

Then simply slip on the curtain, and slip on the little end you just made.

Then you just have to attach your brackets to the wall and the rod to the brackets via screws.

The end.













Awesome.

Bloggy stuff

I lose stuff a lot. And forget stuff. You know, like forgetting to turn the car off before I get out, or forgeting where I parked or which car I was driving or what my car even looks like; the kind of stuff that makes people say, "Faralee, there is something seriously wrong with your head." That hurts my feelbads, but they are right. There is. I believe its called absent minded. It sure sounds serious. Like, "Oh, she does have a brain and everything, just the mind is gone. So sad."

I lost my purse the other day at school. I do that a lot. And I don't always find it again, since it takes a while for me to even notice it is gone, and I don't even know where I had it last. This particular time I would have been stranded had I not found it, since it contained my phone and keys and money and everything. After lots of searching and frustration and bugging random strangers, I luckily (luck didn't really have anything to do with it) encountered some janitorial staff moving some rolling chairs with my purse draped over the top. I screamed and swiped it and muttered something about thanks that's mine and they got away from me as fast as they could. Phew, disaster averted. Luckily I remembered where I was parked, and found my car (I recognized it by the puke stain on the dashboard), and made it out there only an hour late. Maybe I need a different purse. Like one that can be surgically attached to me.

Wahoo!!

Well, we found a house, made an offer and the offer has been accepted!! Sorry we didn't update our progress along the way, we were just trying not to get too excited prematurely. Someone else did make another offer on it at the same time as us. We were worried we would end up in the same boat as with the other house, since we didn't have a lot of leeway on the price we'd already offered. But in the end, we did get it. Phew, super stressful for me! There is still more paperwork to be signed before things can even get started, but that should happen today. Of course, nothing is ever for sure until they are giving you the keys, but we have decided to allow ourselves a little excitement now. Yippee, we found a house! It is bank owned, in Spanish Fork, and built in 2006. We saw it on the market a while ago, but never went to see it because the price seemed a little steep for the square feet. But it turns out almost all the information on the listing was wrong. The house actually has a thousand more square feet than listed, one more bedroom and bathroom than listed. They had it listed with the wrong year, the wrong acreage, even the pictures misrepresented it. And there are lots of cool features in the house that the listing never mentioned, like custom doors and brushed nickel finishes and a huge master suite. Its not super fancy, but it has a good layout its big and open. It's really kinda sad for the bank that their Realtor didn't try very hard (or at all), but happy for us to have found it in our price range.We got a new couch to celebrate the occasion. 'New' being a term which here means saggy, threadbare, smelly, but free. Anyway, here are some pictures! Elesa was nice enough to come take these for us.

The front

Lydia in the backyard.

Front entry/living room - into family room

Scroungy Faralee wondering how she is

going to keep her house clean.

Kitchen

Landing/bonus area

Master bedroom

Master Bathroom

Owen hiding from Colin (not becuase they

were playing, but because Owen is scared of him).

Well, Thanks Elesa and Richard for coming to take pictures.

We hope all goes well, but we'll let y'all know. Our closing date is the end of September, so we still got a while. Luckily there is lots to do in the meantime. Hurray!

House Hunters, Utah Valley

So we are house hunting, and I hate it. And also love it. For pretty much the same reasons. It's always fun looking at pictures of houses and imagining the possibilities. But then I always feel disappointed when we go see the house if it didn't live up to its pictures or maybe just didn't feel right. It makes it kinda hard to get excited about a house unless I have actually seen it. But going to see too many houses is exhausting too. The other thing is, it is almost impossible to predict what Charlie will like (but he says the same about me). We do have an agent and he is great, but I guess it takes a lot to please us. The right house not only has to be the right size. right layout, right price, be in relatively good condition, and have a good lot size, but also it just has to feel like us. We are nerdy, eccentric, hip, Latin, boring people. And we want our house to reflect that. Hah. I'm not sure that is ever going to happen. Luckily, we are adaptable. If we could just find a house that felt homey for both of us, we would get it. A while ago, we found a house both Charlie and I liked (crazy), But we low-balled our offer too much I guess, because they took another offer. We knew there was another offer, but we weren't really sure how high to counteroffer, and anyway now its too late. So here we are looking again. There seems to be a lot of people looking right now, which is kind of a surprise. Great priced houses are going really fast. But there aren't really a ton of great priced houses out there, so that may be why. At least in this area. Unless you want to get a short sale, and we kinda don't. There are a few bank-owned on the market. But I know there are more foreclosures than are listed, and I don't know why they don't list them. What is the plan here, does anyone know? Why do I have to sign up and pay for a service to tell me the foreclosures? Why don't they just list them so the consumers can find them? Don't they want to sell them?? Ok, that is the end of my tirade. Get back to you when we have any news.

Technology is awesome

Charlie's brother Jason has been staying in Provo for the past couple weeks. He has been helping his sister Nicole fix up their house here. But mostly he's here to just get some new experiences before he goes on his mission. He put his papers in just before he came. Well, a few days ago, Nicole's fiancée messaged me on Facebook to say that his call had arrived. So we planned to gather at my house during lunch time so Charlie could come too. As soon as everyone arrived we set up two computers with Skype, one for Charlie's other sister Melissa in New Mexico, and one for Charlie's parents in Bolivia. At the house in Bolivia they set up a projector and invited grandparents and the Bishop. We got them on the phone too, just to be sure we wouldn't lose them halfway through (their internet there isn't the fastest or the most reliable.) We had a full devotional with the whole family including prayers and songs. The singing was funny, since we were all singing in different languages at my house (we had one Spanish hymn book, one English, one Portuguese and one Chinese) and also the timing was different for every location, but it was a blast.

He got his call to the Canada Calgary mission. Wow, I did not see that coming. Thats where my dad went too (back when it was called Western Canada) and my future brother in law went there so he immediately started crying when the call was read. For me, besides the joy of knowing what my brother in law had to look forward to, and being excited for him, I also felt such gratitude for the technology that allowed all that to happen. We were able to share a spiritual family gathering together, even though were half the world apart. 100 years ago, we wouldn't even have been able to contact each other without it taking a couple days. Now we can instant message and video chat for free. So cool. Technology has its ills, no doubt about it. There is a lot of distraction and even evil to be found there. But I truly believe that technology can be a blessing as well.

I'm bad at this...

Its really really hard for me to post sometimes. Its like writing in my journal. I feel like I can't write unless something really extraordinarily happens. Only problem is, if something big every happens (which, lets face it, my days are pretty consistently predictable) I am way to busy to think of writing about it. Oh well, always good to have an area in which I need to improve. Or two. Or infinity.

So here's a basic update. Lydia starts kindergarten in the fall. I don't know how that happened. Owen talks a ton, and is always finding ways of asserting his independence. The other day, he was playing with his sister and cousin. The two girls were playing something which involved princesses, and riding ponies around. they starting galloping around saying neigh! neigh! As Owen galloped by, I heard that he had changed his neigh, neigh to a moo moo. The road less traveled, I suppose.

I just got done reading two awesome books, 123 Magic and Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. Life changing on both accounts. 123 Magic is a parenting book. Its simple to follow, and has made my home and my heart 20 times more peaceful. Course, we were starting from total chaos, so its still a bit hectic every day, but thus is the nature of parenthood I guess. Total Money Makeover was a gift from my sister, and is basically a simple guide to staying within your means. Whether or not it leads us to wealth, it definitely could keep them us of debt and prepared for life's unforeseen emergencies. Very good book. I would highly recommend them both to anyone and everyone.

The End.

This is really important stuff here

Ok, so in my mind, clothes can be in one of two categories. They are either dirty or clean. Seems clear enough, maybe even goes without saying. But for Charlie (and many others of you I am sure) clothes can also be in a third category: the "not quite dirty enough to be washed yet but too dirty to be put back in the drawer" category. He is unwilling to put them in the dirty clothes basket, because then, you know, even if he could fish them out later, it would be too late, they would already have become contaminated by all those other dirty clothes. Unwearable. But he also can't put them away in his drawer, because then the partial dirtiness would contaminate all those other clean clothes. Or maybe its just that he wants to know before he chooses to wear them again that they are on their second run, so he must have a third area to keep everything strait: a filing system for his clothes, of sorts. Charlie is a very clean person, cleaner than me for sure. And so he is always consistent in where he chooses to file his not-quite-dirty clothes. And I, being a not-quite-dirty person, promptly remove them from said area and put them where I believe they belong: in the dirty clothes basket or back in the drawer. It can, occasionally become a source of frustration for both of us.

On a side note that may seem unrelated, one time I went to an education week lesson where the speaker talked about doing more of what works, and less of what doesn't. He gave an example of a wife who was tired of cleaning up her husband's socks from the foot of the bed, and nagging didn't do anything but increase tension. She finally made a special dirty clothes bin at the foot of the bed for him, and they never had any problems with it again. Sounds applicable to my situation, doesn't it? Well, ever since i heard this lesson, I have really tried to find a solution that works for us both. I can't use a special bin for him, because he feels too much like it is a dirty clothes bin and so he won't use it. I've also tried a special hanger, but then its too close to his other clean clothes. Its quite a delema. And, obviously extremely important to our future, perhaps to the future of humanity. I still don't have the perfect answer. Anyone out there found something that works for them? Fess up, I know there are some of you with a not-quite-dirty clothes category out there. Have you found a solution that might be universally applicable?

Other side note, in case there is some worry, this is not really a source of contention for Charlie and I. Sometimes, it means some intense under-the-breath grumbling. Mostly, its just silliness.

All fine here...

Nothing super interesting to say. Just changed the name of the blog from Bolivian Chronicals to Pozo Chronicles. Happy to be back. Still adjusting and there are lots of people to miss. But we are having fun living in Fae and Lances Basement. Finally getting things settled in. So from now on this blog will be just a family news type blog. Sounds kind of dreary when I put it that way doesn't it?But I will be sure to post lots of pictures of my kids, so that should be fun. And we'll probably have some Spanish readers, so we may post some things in Spanish, if we remember to do so. Anyway, thanks ya'll for keeping up with us in our adventures. Your support has meant a lot.

reflections

Well, I'm back in the states. We're in Orlando for a week before we head back to Utah. We're spending some time in Disney world and Universal, just enjoying a vacation before we get back to real life. Its been a blast so far. Charlie's family is here with us too, and its been really fun so far.

As I reflect on our experience in Bolivia, I've come up with some lists. What an exciting way to sum up my trip, huh?

Things I'm kinda looking forward to getting back to:

dishwasher
garbage disposal
clean water from the tap that doesn't have to be boiled and filtered
flushing the toilet paper
Walmart
dollar hamburgers
being able to drive
snow


Things I'm REALLY looking forward to:

My family


Things I'm sad about leaving behind

My other family
My primary kids
Greeting with a kiss
My cute apartment and the view out the window
The constant language immersion


Things I gained that I'll have forever...I hope

A better understanding of my husband through his culture
Better Spanish
My kids becoming Bolivian
A close relationship with and love for my in-laws
A love for the culture

We have really really enjoyed our time in Bolivia, and its hard to get back, even though we are excited to see my family and friends. We know it was the right place to be because we were so so blessed for it. See you all soon! After a quick trip to Walmart of course.

Faralee's Awesomeness

My wife is just awesome...she made this paper tree and all our house Christmas decorations:

Thanksgiving me all your money

The title doesn't actually have very much to do with this post, its just a silly quote from the Office.

We had a huge party for thanksgiving. We had upwards of 50 people there. Weren't sure we would have enough food for everyone, but it turned out fine. My mother in law Maria and I put a lot of thought and work in to the food and the guest list. We cooked turkey and ham (my own personal thanksgiving tradition since I don't really like turkey). And we had candied yams, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, and many different choices of pie. Plus a few extras to such as rice. Overall, a very thanksgivingy kind of meal. It was yummy, and people ate or tried almost everything. So I felt it was a success.

During the planning process and during the festivities, there were a lot of discussions about the meaning behind thanksgiving and the traditions. With a name like thanksgiving, many people supposed it was a religious holiday and some even thought it was of LDS origin. I explained the basic history / myths behind it. But most people were unsatisfied with my insistence that it was all about the food. My family doesn't have a lot of traditions for thanksgiving outside of the meal, and spending time together. And this was very frustrating for my in laws I think. In the end, they just decided to derive their own meaning and traditions from the holiday. On some level, I felt a little offended at this, since its kind of my holiday. But I have decided that if they decide to take the holiday and make it their own, at least they took the important part of it, the gratitude part. I think they aren't really able to appreciate the food part for a few reasons: One, they don't really like the traditional food; Two, the whole idea behind a harvest festival doesn't really apply here. In Bolivia, you can harvest food almost all year round. That isn't true in many other parts of the world, including the States. So at the one harvest time a year, we have festivals and parties. We have songs about the harvest, harvest oriented games and most importantly, huge banquets in celebration of the harvest. That way we can use up a little of the excess food while it is fresh, and also we can give thanks. Now-a-days, we can eat fresh food at almost any time of year, so perhaps the concept of the harvest festival doesn't really apply to us anymore either. And I do want to make it a holiday more and more about the gratitude. But I also intend on letting it be about the food too. It's a part of my heritage. The food is a gift. I'm grateful for it. And I believe that eating it can be a celebration.

And I'm grateful for my in laws who indulged in me and my wishes for a traditional thanksgiving dinner, if not because they understood it, because they love me. And also cuz, you know, they love a good party.

Its already November??

Ok, I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while, so this is a very long post. And it's actually about Halloween. I didn't post a few weeks ago because I was waiting for pictures. Truthfully, I'm ashamed to admit that despite how hard we worked on our costumes, we didn't get any pictures of Charlie or I. We did get some of the kids, so you can see bits and pieces of us on the sidelines sometimes. Oh wait, I just remembered we did get one picture each, here they are. Aren't they nice?

We look pretty authentic, right? Silly for us to choose costumes that nobody understands but us. But the only way I can get Charlie to dress up is if I appeal to his inner nerd (I know, its kind of outer too). Our first year of marriage he dressed as a Borg, the second year he was a Jedi and the third year he was a star trek commander. Several of those costumes he still tries to convince me that he should be able to wear them to other things too like Church. I never let him though. What a mean wife.

Anyway, with this latest installment in a long line of nerdy costumes; nobody got it, which we knew would be the case. But Charlie got lots of funny suggestions about what he might be, things like Rambo and an Indian terrorist. And no matter what the suggestion was, Charlie always told the people they were right. They would go away like, "Yes! I knew he was a homeless arms dealer, I just knew it." People didn't ask me what I was, but I'm pretty sure everyone thought I was a Gypsy since that is what I would have thought if I didn't know.

We had a surprising amount of activities planned for the Halloween weekend, and we went to most of them. We had a dance, and a party at Lydia's school, and a party with some friends, all on Friday. I didn't think they did Halloween very much here, but apparently its gotten very big in the last few years. Though they don't have a lot of costume variety. There are basically like five different costumes to choose from at the stores. So people try to get creative. We entered Lydia in a costume contest at a school party (before you ask, she didn't win) Lydia was dressed as Cinderella and she was one of two princesses out of at least a hundred other little girls. That never happens in the states, you usually have 30 percent princesses and 30 percent fairies and the other 40 percent fairy princesses. I've never seen so many little girls dressed up as witches and zombies in my whole life. Lydia was like that girl from Labyrinth in the ballroom scene. But I guess a zombie is an easy do-it-yourself costume, since all you have to do apparently is dress in black raggedy clothes and paint your face white.

The next day, all the stakes in La Paz hosted a big Cultural Dance show, with each stake in charge of different dances. It was great, but we didn't stay for the whole thing, since it promised to be upwards of three hours. Then we went home and ate pizza and watched a "scary" movie with Charlie's family: Casper. I know, you are shaking in your boots. But those are the kind of Halloween movies I like.

On Sunday I had my primary sacrament meeting presentation. It went very well, I thought. The kids sang great. We had to skip a few of my favorite songs because our transitions were painfully long, but I felt pretty good about it when it was over. After church, we went over to the in-laws as usual, we carved our "pumpkins" which were actually yellow peppers, and ate pumpkin soup out of a green pumpkin that the girls had painted (they don't have orange pumpkins here). Even the two pickiest eaters Michelle and Jason actually liked the soup, plus everyone loved the carving activity, so I felt like the day was definitely a success. I stressed a lot over the weekend Because of getting costumes done and activities planned getting ready for my presentation, but all in all, everything worked out great and we had fun.

I'll catch up on other more recent stuff later, but now its Charlie's turn to post some pictures. Right baby?

So there.

General update here...

Well, I decided it was time for an update so here it is.

We've now been here for 7 and a half months. Only three more to go. We have loved out time here, and if there weren't so many issues with immigration (both here and in the US) We would probably stay longer. Lydia speaks Spanish better than I do of course now. She is still going to school, and loves it. Owen mostly speaks English, but he has says a few Spanish phrases now and then. Still spends most of his time walking around as someone else, Yoda or Spiderman or Ironman usually. When I ask him to do something like get his shoes or even lay down, he says, "I'm too tired". Me? Well my spanish is nowhere near up to par with the kids, but I'm much more comfortable in everyday conversation and in church than I was. I am now able to go grocery shopping alone and even take taxis without Charlie. Those may sound small, but they were huge milestones for me. Golly, only took me seven months. As for Charlie, he works a lot. Its good to be busy I suppose. He just got a new contract for a building that he will be overseeing alone. Trying to move things along quickly (which is not really the regular pace here in Bolivia) But even if he gets things done faster than usual, he'll still have to stay here until march. But we already have our tickets home so he'll come and help me move in and then go back. I'm not very good at being without my Charlie, but we make things work the best we can. It'll be no fun without him, even if it is only for 8 weeks.

Anyway, thats all I can think of right now.

Darth Vader is a big scary guy

I often sing my kids to sleep. And being the great rock star that I am, I usually take requests. Owen's two most requested songs are Star Wars and Spiderman. I went on YouTube and learned the Spiderman theme song from the early cartoon, so no problem there. Star Wars was a bit trickier. I tried just humming the music, but no, he wants words. So I made up words as I went along to the Imperial March, making sure to add lots of stuff about droids, Darth Vader, and light sabers. It made him happy. But I wasn't really happy, cuz my words were stupid. So heres the words I painstakingly wrote, to the tune of the imperial march, uh. . . much less stupid. The first two lines I borrowed from someone else, You know who you are. I don't.

Darth vader is a big scary guy

He flies around in a ship in the sky

And he talks with a deap voice

He breathes with a loud noise

Don’t mess with him unless you want to die

Darth Vader was Anikin Skywalker

Who was conceived by miticlorean power.

You know at first he was a good guy

He trained as a Jedi

Raced pods, saved lives and went very far.

So though Ani was as strong as they get

The council said he couldn’t be a master yet

He was confused, and so Palpatine

Took Ani under his wing

Manipulating him ever since they met.

We all know Senator Palpatine is the one

Who can shoot lightning from his fingers like a gun

Palpatine is the sith Lord,

Who becomes the evil emperor

And kills people off just for fun

There are a few other verses. But I think you get the idea of my pure genius.

This is the one Owen wrote:

Dark Vader is a guy. . .walker.

Yeah, I know. His is better than mine.

And...

Ok so heres the thing about the death road tour. It's this teeny tiny little dirt road with a wall of mountain on one side and a cliff on the other. Back when cars regularly used the road there were a lot of accidents. Not just crashes, cars falling down the mountain. The road has barely enough room for one car in most parts, and passing other cars is insanely scary. Many times one of the cars has to back up aways in order to get to a place wide enough for passing. The locals still drive it at an insane pace, though. They don't seem to notice the danger. Or they just don't care because they're in a hurry. There used to be drag racing on the road too, which might account for some of the death toll. Crazy.

Luckily they have a new road on the other side of the valley that goes to the Yungas now, and though it isn't much wider, at least its paved. There do seem to be fewer deaths now, so thats good. So now the original road is used mostly for bike tours. There are very few cars, not counting the mini tour buses that follow the bikers. People come from all over to do the death road tour. It is about six hours one way, mostly steep downhill, only about a forth of it level or uphill. Its mostly rainforesty jungle so its incredibly beautiful but it gets very hot. Luckily there are lots of areas where you ride right through the mini waterfalls.

There were three other dudes in our tour group, two from Spain and one from Germany. All three were pretty clearly extreme sport, adrenalin junkies. Really nice guys, though slightly intimidating to ride with. The German Dude went at a breakneck speed the entire time and popped his tire twice doing it. One of the other guys was about the same speed as Charlie and I (that is to say slow) and the other guy just slightly faster than us. The guide kept us mostly together by stopping every fifteen or twenty minutes for picture taking, snacks or water. He took pictures and video as he biked along side us. Now that's a job I could never do. At the end of the tour we stopped at a hotel to shower, swim if we wished, and eat at a buffet.

The only thing I really could have done without was the bumpiness of the road. The view was breathtaking, but I couldn't really see it because I was too busy navigating the bumpiness of the road as to avoid getting my brains jiggled right out of my head. It was so bumpy it made my hands cramp up and my bum bruise. Is mountain biking always like that? The heat was slightly annoying too, especially at the end when we were actually building up our own heat as well from the exertion. But its always incredibly rewarding to complete something like that. I'm still sore even though its been more than a week since then. But its a good sore.

Anyway, bla bla bla, the pictures were probably enough. And as soon as we get the video and pictures from the guide we will post them too.