Family Life

Well, we finally got the grade cards! We were sweating through the last weeks of the third quarter. After changing to Asuncion Christian Academy one and a half years both Brandon and Gabriel were lower than average in school. Spanish to English and memorization to critical thinking were very high hurdles to cross. They were on academic probation for two quarters. The letters mentioned that if they did not improve they could be dismissed from ACA. We prayed. They studied. We cut out extra activities, made study rules at home, and left them with only one privilege…going to church and church activities. They came home with their grade cards and one could feel their excitement as they commented on their achievements. They are at a C average, but considering the mental transition they went through I think it is a wonderful improvement! This week is spirit week and on Friday it’s field day (school Olympics). They have to dress up as “bad hair day”, “twin day”, “dress up day”, and “Bible character day”. Praise God along with us!
Another chapter in our lives is Edson! He is such a happy, fun baby. Of course, he is spoiled by everyone at home and at church. Someone even said to me that he was cuter than the other baby at church, and of course that made my day! Every mom wants her baby to be the cutest. Edson is very strong. He pushes himself out of his baby seat and moves across the room flipping one way and then another. He is usually extremely active. Well, yesterday he got his 4 month vaccination (yes, one month late) and has turned into a very weepy, weak baby. His leg is sore. He has a fever. He can’t keep the fever-reliever medicine down and just seem miserable. If he is placed in his baby seat he just sits there moaning a little. If he is laid on a blanket, he doesn’t try to move, he just quietly lays there with a toy. Hopefully by tomorrow all this will wear off and he will be our active little Edson again.
Oscar is doing fine. He is enjoying the comments of his “youthful look” since he shaved his beard last week. People say he took 10 years off his “look”. That is something impressive since he’s almost 40…next month. Today he’s off to the prison to take Panorama Cristiana (a free Christian newspaper) to the inmates. This weekend he’ll take the evangelistic team to Ocampos…the banana island.

Lemons, lemons, lemons

I’ll never forget the day my sister excitedly showed me a new kitchen utensil from Pampered Chef. She was so excited about it and continued to explain to me how it works. It was a lemon stopper. It’s kind of like a cork-screw type contraption that screws into the lemon, you squeeze the juice out and then you stop it up again. That way the lemon could be saved in the refrigerator for several weeks. She explained it all to me with her eyes wide in amazement and then even asked me if I wanted one. I flatly said no and I think that hurt her feelings. She asked, “why not?” I said that during lemon season here, in Paraguay, there are so many lemons that we would actually PAY someone to take them off our trees.
Well, it’s lemon season, now. We just cut down one of our 4 lemon trees. It may have had 1000 or more fruits on it. I DID freeze some for rice and potato salad during the winter months. Mom and grandma taught me to do stuff like that. We squeeze them on food and salads and throw the rest away knowing that there are thousands more outside. We drink them in juice and terere. We make lemon squares, lemon meringue pie, lemon cake, lemon bread, etc. We dip Paraguayan tortillas in pure lemon juice and salt. We drink it straight for colds or add it to a cup of tea. We use them to clean off the barbecue grill. Some spray it into their dark hair thinking it’ll become blond. Some people use them for burns and others even dare to use lemons as deodorant.
Now, almost every time I go out to pick lemons, I think of my sister. I wish I could send some of these beautiful lemons to her…anyone want some fresh lemonade?

Ants!!!!

I can usually deal with most bugs, lizards and mosquitoes, but ANTS drive me crazy. They appear out of no where and can completely devour your fresh baked bread literally in minutes. Tiny red ants that can barely be seen can get into your favorite crackers or cookies and ruin the whole batch. Overnight they can raid your trash can and practically eliminate it (a little bit of exaggeration added). One afternoon we took Edson to his bed and almost laid him on thousands of tiny little ants…prepared to feast on him, I think.
Worse of all…they EAT CLOTHES! This is no exaggeration! Sweaty clothes, under clothes, and baby clothes seem to be the tastiest. Brandon left the empty wrappings of saltine crackers in his sock drawer and woke up one morning to find more ants than socks. Well, anyway, I didn’t wash clothes on Sunday because it’s the Sabbath. I was taught not to work on Sunday. Mom always told us that our pastor’s wife sewed up her finger just because she was sewing on a Sunday morning before church. So, I always wanted to please God and not do unnecessary jobs on Sunday…now I regret it! Those annoying little rascals greedily feasted on Brandon’s nicest T-shirt (which was in the laundry basket to be washed) all day Sunday. Monday it was washed and hung out side to dry and I sadly spotted over two hundred tiny little holes all over his favorite shirt, Napoleon Dynamite’s PE shirt. So, unless I start buying disposable t-shirts, I might have to start washing clothes on Sunday.