Don't Grocery Shop While Hungry, Don't Blog While Grouchy

We had a great weekend. When you live somewhere in the circle of this photo:

It's nice to get away where there's a little bit of space around you.

I was so worried about the house being creepy, but it was fine. Old, but at least not haunted. The only problems were: 1) several of the mattresses were non-existent, there was only a box spring where their should have been a complete bed. Interesting. And very hard. We took a couple of the free single mattresses and put them on our bed. Problem solved.

The second was a lack of hot water. We had (barely) lukewarm water, but that's not really good enough for my showering needs. I came home greasy-headed and in much need of a shower (see below).

Besides that, we had a great time-the kids ran around and got to be "normal" kids instead of apartment dwellers. Margarita's best friend's family joined us for a couple of nights so we had 7 kids total-2 girls and 5 rambunctious boys.

The grounds were huge.

We had our own soccer field:



Here's the fishing pond where the boys caught lots of little fish using homemade fishing poles and worms they dug up themselves (ewwww):



we had lots of trails to explore:



and even a place to have a fire outside where we roasted hot dogs:


(what is it with boys and fire?)

And, since we were up in the mountains it was much cooler. We were able to have a fire in the house each night. One night we even roasted smuggled-in marshmallows. Mine was per-fect:



Pedro's new thing is praying before he puts anything in his mouth-even if it's a second serving of something we've already blessed. So, before he ate his marshmallow:

He had to say a prayer:

Too cute!

So, why am I grouchy? I'm just having one of those month long phases days where I just want to go home. Wednesday night before we left, the water stopped working on the second floor of our apartment (where our bedroom is and three of our bathrooms) after the building had cleaned out their water tanks. So, we left Thursday and the building manager told us he would have it fixed by the time we got back on Sunday.

I returned ready for a hot shower yesterday afternoon and it was still broken. No matter how many times I reminded the kids NOT to use the toilets, it seems they all had impaired memories and very active bowels. Grrrr. Someone came today to fix it and it turns out we needed a new water pump. So, $200 later, we've got a new, installed pump. I'm entering the shower (finally), when I realize that although there is now water, there's no HOT WATER. I get my towel on and call him back; it finally it gets fixed right, but ugh! Why is everything so hard here sometimes?

Besides that:

1) I'm almost out of my smuggled-in Tide detergent (I don't know why but having American-scented clothes really cheers me up)

2) I'm almost out of Pedro's contraband huggies

3) I'm completely out of my stash of American candy

4) Pedro is 1/3 angel, 2/3 tyrant right now (ok, so being in the States probably won't alleviate this problem, but he is playing a large part in my grouchiness)

I want to go home and eat cheese and chocolate chips without worrying about how much longer until they run out. I want to drink cold, fresh milk from the container and water from the tap! I want good ice-cream that doesn't cost a small fortune. I want one-stop shopping instead of going to 6 different stores to get what I need.

I want Target. Now.

The good news is that my brother- and sister-in-law are coming on Saturday and they've agreed to be my mules (suckas!). So, at least I'll get a few things to hang me over for the next 53 days (no, I'm not counting or anything) until I go home.

Thanks for letting me vent. (Don't get me wrong-Brazil's a great place. I'm just missing the conveniences of home. I'll be better tomorrow. Or at the latest, Saturday, when my stuff gets here.)