I Met My Neighbor

 

We had a power outage over the weekend.

(Power outages in general always make for interesting stories, right?)

We live on the 2nd floor of a 15-story apartment building.  The day after our water heater got fixed, (hooray for hot water!)…our power shut down, and since it was a holiday weekend (Columbus Day is big around here, who knew?) we knew we’d be very lucky to find any help. 

Well, to make a long story short, we did find help, & in the process, Jared met our neighbor, Walter Hermann, former NBA player.  So cool!  I ran into him the week before a few times which is bizarre in & of itself.  We knew he lived in our building, but we didn’t realize that he lived directly below us.  That’s right, he hears everything we do…everything.  (He told Jared that he knew we lived above him.  I’m not sure how to interpret that.  Are we Americans a novelty, too?!  Wait, we’re probably just really loud & annoying.  Carlie has a scream that’ll knock your socks off – or make you go deaf, one of the two).  Him & his wife have two little girls the same ages as ours, so is a play-date in order?  I’m trying to figure out how to initiate something like that without coming across like I’m stalking him.  The fact that I posted his picture on my blog might be stalking already though…

He is a huge celebrity here in Argentina which makes things a little interesting every now & then.  Our reserved parking spot (where lies our light blue minivan), is right next to his smoking black jaguar.  My only hope is that I won’t dent it.  Oh, that would be very very bad.  (Good thing we have sliding doors).

Our power is not completely fixed.  In fact, it’s gone out 3 times in the course of doing this post.  So be it.  I just hope to experience another hot shower soon.  I’ll trade our dining room light, bedroom light, & freezer for hot water, I think.  Candle light dinner anyone?

A Change In View

I use to think I did a lot of dishes, but now, I definitely do A LOT of dishes.  The view outside my kitchen window is much different than it use to be.

No worries.

You may think that not having a dishwasher would be a bad thing, BUT it’s not I tell you!  Yes, it kind of stinks having to wash…& rinse…& dry every single dish by hand, but lots of dishwashing makes for lots of thinking.

Living in South America certainly has it’s challenges, but so does living in North America, or living anywhere in the world for that matter.  I’ve come to realize that no matter where one might live, for a self-directed individual, life changes constantly.  People change, circumstances change, needs, options, stressors – they all change.  Our view outside the kitchen window may change.  But the wonderful thing is, we can make all these changes work for us, not against us.  We choose how we will react to change.  Yep, we choose for ourselves.  Will I gripe or will I grin?  Hmmm…I think the latter is much more pleasant for myself & more importantly, for others.

So…in the meantime, I guess I’ll just get up and dance for a group of 40 Argentines.

AnnMarie’s school had an EXPO last Friday.  All family members of students were invited to attend school for the day.  During music time, AnnMarie volunteered herself & I to show everyone how to dance.  I could have died, seriously, but instead, I grinned & just laughed right along with everyone else.

A Park To Ourselves

Last weekend, we drove about 40 miles to Camp Kilgrumen which is roughly a 20-acre site for all church youth camps (including treks) this side of Argentina.  It was beautiful, very interesting, & a little spooky being out there all by ourselves, but we did see a diverse species of trees & birds which was fascinating.  Jared encouraged me to become a Dendrochronologist  (A what?  Sorry honey, but after looking it up, I decided that being a mother is definitely a better fit). 

In the summertime (which is coming up), full-time senior missionaries live in this house with purple trees.  (AnnMarie’s favorite color is purple, so she was loving this).

  

Where did my children go?

Found them.

Are feather bouquets safe?  I’m scared.

The girls asked if we could please please stop at McDonald’s on the way back home.  Now THAT gave us a good laugh.