It was a jam packed week and we apologize if we don't mention everything. Seriously so much happened. Some quick bullet points:
- Time change! We sprang forward on October 1 so we are now one hour ahead of Washington DC. Come November when y'all 'fall back' we will be two hours ahead.
- Lots of new Mackenzie updates including more distinguishable jabbering, mimicking movements and her first scrapped knee.
- Our smoke alarm works! It went off twice this week.
- The power went out for the second time since we arrived. That averages once a month...
So let's jump in shall we?
Tuesday was the usual. Kiersten went to the temple in the morning then went to the Embassy for an asado lunch with Scott. It was really good this time. Later that day Kiersten received an email about the job she applied for. Here is the email,
"Several weeks ago the Embassy received guidance from DC that we were able to advertise for a contracted newsletter editor, which we saw as a great opportunity for the community. Unfortunately, we recently received updated guidance that this interpretation has been narrowed to a point where post can only contract this service out if it was previously contracted out, which hasn’t been the case in Asuncion."
Oh well. Honestly, she's already pretty busy with everyday life so no harm done.
After Annie left that afternoon, the girls went swimming! Kiersten's first time getting in and it was still a little chilly but bearable. Pretty soon it will be swimming weather all the time.
Wednesday the weather was nice again and in the afternoon the girls went on a walk around the block. Mackenzie is getting faster and more confident in her walking so it only took 15 minutes to go around the block instead of the usual 25. They then walked up the street to meet Scott on his way home. Mackenzie sure does love her daddy. From a little way off she could see him and started getting very excited. Kiersten also had her Spanish lesson that morning and can already see improvements. That night we had steak which was incredibly cooked by Scott. The meat here. So good!
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| We found some pretty Spring flowers on our walk! |
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| Steak, peas, chipa and maple carrots. Delicious meal! |
Thursday Mackenzie and Kiersten drove 25 minutes away from home (3 miles) to meet a new LDS expat family that moved in last week. They have a 19 month old son, a 5 month old daughter and custody of their 14 year old niece. Not sure the situation there but whatever. It's family. We met the wife and babies and chatted for about an hour. They will only be here a year since the husband is military and doing some kind of training in South America. Then they went to the grocery store to buy fixings for their chicken Cesar salads for dinner including lettuce and croutons. We haven't really seen croutons here so Kiersten bought little, mini chipa type bread things. It worked. And it's blueberry season! It was the first time we've seen blueberries in the produce section. Note: strawberry season is over but we were warned and stocked up. We plan to so the same with blueberries.
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| No translation for 'coquitin' but it tasted like chipa. |
While cooking the chicken for the meal, we set off the smoke alarm. Took us a while to figure out how to get it to stop which includes doing something with our security alarm. Our roving security guards came to check on us soon there after and Scott explained we were cooking and the smoke set it off. He might have actually said we were cooking and smoking... like a cigarette. But they understood! Ironically there was more smoke the night before with the steak but that didn't trigger the alarm. Go figure.
Friday was a very eventful day. Mackenzie took a short nap the last two days (an hour) so she was up and ready to do things when Scott got home. We had decided to finally go out to eat at a place that wasn't found in America (i.e. Burger King, McDonalds, Johnny Rockets). From the time we got outside, locked the door, and all got in the car, the power went out. We aren't sure when it happened but we couldn't open our garage gate. At first we figured it was the clicker because it's a little temperamental to begin with. We tried our second clicker and that didn't work. We then noticed someone up the street was manually opening their garage gate and deduced the power must have gone out. So we were stuck and decided to just stay home to eat. We had plenty of food anyway. (Note: we could have also manually opened the gate like our neighbor but decided not to in case we couldn't close it again.)
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| Kiersten made some mac n cheese because, why not. |
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| She will now keep her hat AND sunglasses on! |
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| Pie recipe came from this book... We typically don't like cookbooks without pictures and this was no exception. This might be the only recipe we take from it. |
Despite being woken up late, Mackenzie slept in until 8! She hasn't done that since we moved here and we are not complaining. We had a lazy morning of chores and exercise like most Saturdays but the difference was this Saturday was the first day of the 187th Semiannual General Conference. The Saturday morning session was about the only one we really got to hear although we watched all the sessions because Mackenzie was napping during it. Thank goodness for modern technology which allows us to go back even the next day to listen to the talks we missed or loved to hear again.
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| The only time Mackenzie seemed interested in Conference was during the singing. |
That night for dinner we made pizza for the first time in Paraguay. It was a success! We also started making our first batch of Conference cinnamon rolls. Good thing too because they turned out a little doughy. This oven....
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| She is so helpful in the kitchen. She put these on by herself. |
Sunday morning was a whirlwind of cooking, baking and cleaning in anticipation for the two families which were coming over for brunch and then Conference. We had make your own omelets and waffles (not together) with various toppings for each and yogurt, granola, fruit and juice. Several weeks back we had found genuine maple syrup from Canada which we purchased from Casa Rica at 70.000 PYG which is roughly $12. It was almost all gone after all the waffles. After the main food was eaten we brought out the cinnamon rolls from last night and then the fresh ones from the morning. In total we made 28 cinnamon rolls and almost all were consumed on the premises. We sent 2 with one family because Mom was feeling sick and couldn't make it and then gave 4 to our neighbor who lent us their 9x13 leaving 3 for us. Good thing we only make them 1-2 times a year.
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| Mmmm!! |
Conference was wonderful as always but it was tough to hear the morning session with 3 babies and 5 kids present. It was also tough because at midnight that morning, we sprang forward in time and the session began at 1pm. However what we got out of Conference was we really need to read the Book of Mormon daily individually and as a family. We are already getting started! We might not read a chapter every day but at least one verse every day. The only other choice is, in English or Spanish? It was also interesting that the prophet wasn't in attendance. We understand why but it was the first time we can remember the prophet not speaking during Conference. And then the news about Elder Hales! That is just incredible. Who will be the next Apostle? Who knows.
And now to Monday. It's a holiday here in Paraguay so Scott is at home with us! Yay! And next Monday is an American holiday, Columbus Day, so Scott will be home again! Ha ha two long weekends in a row! Today's holiday is celebrating the Battle of Boqueron when the Paraguayans defeated the Bolivian army in 1932. It's recognized on September 29 but it was celebrated today. And as previously stated, the weather is spectacular. We have almost all the windows open and are enjoying the nice cross breezes.
This afternoon we enjoyed the weather further by sitting in the sun in our back yard and letting Mackenzie play in the pool in her birthday suit. It was unplanned. Then we went out to eat at Monte Libano across the street from the church. They serve very tasty Paraguayan and Arabic food. We were the only customers which was nice and quiet. After dinner we had choir practice and then ate tapioca provided by the senior missionaries. Yum!
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| Scott's meal: Lomito. Very traditional Paraguayan sandwich. Flattened beef with lettuce, tomato, fried egg and mayo. |
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| Kiersten's meal: Lomito Arabe (Gyro). |
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| This was Mackenzie's "high chair". We sat at the table next to this little machine. We paid for the ride at the end of the meal. She loved it. |
Right before we put Mackenzie to bed we read one verse of the Book of Mormon in Spanish. 2 Nefi 3:1. We read scriptures as a family! Yes!
Let's wrap up our week with our featured segments.
The Craft Corner:
- It's done! Kiersten finished Scott's stocking! Sadly he won't be able to use it properly until next Christmas when Kiersten's mom will form it into a stocking. (She doesn't want to risk mailing it home and having it get lost. All that work! So she'll bring it home next summer for her to do.) Now she can begin on Mackenzie's!
The boots and beard were basically the last things. Digging his two-toned beard!
Misadventures in Baking:
- Chocolate Chip Cookies, fourth attempt. On Monday night, Kiersten made her fourth batch of chocolate chip cookies since arriving in Asuncion. SUCCESS! We finally did it! They tasted just like they do back home.
One of the casualties of shipping chocolate from hot Miami to hotter Paraguay.
Some chips just melt together and don't make the batch. - Ever tried to make homemade yogurt? We hadn't either until this week. Kiersten really misses the thickness of Greek yogurt so she took a stab at making her own. The recipe she found called for 8 cups of milk (almost 2 liters), 1 TBSP of plain yogurt and 12-14 hours of incubation time. She did it during the day to keep an eye on the oven temperature (which was off) to ensure it maintained temperature. That night, after 12 hours of sitting, she took the lid off and! Had plain yogurt, slightly thicker than what you can buy here. Don't worry, she'll try again!
Homemade yogurt with homemade granola and blueberries! - Cinnamon buns as you already know are a favorite General Conference tradition amongst many Latter-day Saints. Kiersten got the CINNABON copy cat recipe from her mom with the sinfully delicious cream cheese frosting. So glad she make a trial batch because the cook time in our oven didn't fully cook the first batch of buns. They were still totally edible, just a little doughy. The second batch was much better.
First batch. Look at all that dough!
First batch out of the oven. Mmmm!
First batch now with frosting!
Second batch pre oven treatment.
And second batch more fully cooked out of the oven. Is your mouth watering yet? - PIZZA! We succeeded in making pizza in our little oven this week. Since it is so small and we don't have our pizza stone, which probably won't fit anyway, we decided to make smaller pizzas, about 10 inch in diameter. This allowed us to make 4 pizzas instead of our usual 2 and have more topping options. Brilliant! We have some BBQ that came with our air shipment so we made a delicious BBQ chicken and bacon pizza, the best of the bunch. We made the pizzas on our littler Silpats and then put those right on the oven rack at 500 degrees. Worked perfectly.
Small ovens but huge cutting boards. Go figure.
Quirks of Paraguay:
This week we are going to stick to home by sharing with you some of the quirks of our house.
- Bathrooms. All the bathrooms in our home have a bidet which Scott has fully embraced and Mackenzie finds fascinating. We are also encouraged not to flush paper down the toilet so we throw it in the trash. Getting very used to that.
She loves to play in the bathrooms. No idea why. - Water pressure. Turn the knobs a little, you get a little water. Turn it a lot and you get a gushing waterfall. Our kitchen sink faucet is ridiculously short and if you are washing something with too much water coming out, you create a flood on our counter. It's a delicate balance. Showering is another balance of finding the right water pressure because too much could seriously hurt your body, like being pierced with 10,000 little needles. Luckily there is a third knob in the middle which allows some of the water to flow out of a faucet and reduce the direct pressure to your body. Mackenzie loves taking showers with this feature.
Our shower with what looks like a sink faucet. 
Our kitchen sink with it's short faucet. Oh the messes we make here! - Our laundry area is outside our kitchen door literally outside. It's mostly covered and looks enclosed but it isn't. It's hard to explain.
Directly looking out our kitchen this is what you see. 
To the right of the previous picture is this open area above.
The Mackenzie Update:
- During a family walk to the market up the road, Mackenzie tripped a little and scrapped her knee. This happens sometimes even when we are holding her hand (which Scott was this time too). She just looses her footing and down she goes. This was the first time she got a wound from it though. The day of it was red but then next morning there were scrap marks. Her first!
Little red knee. She cried initially but it hasn't slowed her down. - She is making more recognizable sounds and words. She has copied and repeated some of the things we are saying like, "belly" and "blueberry". And today she FINALLY said "Dada" when Kiersten said it to her for about the millionth time. To which she quickly resorted back to "mama". We are both "mama".
- She can shrug her shoulders. She just does it.
- She will lift her hands in an "I don't know" gesture which she is definitely copying from us.
"Where'd it go?" "I don't know."
This is usually how we get her to perform this one. - She can fold her arms! If you ask her to fold her arms, she'll do it. She learned how on Sunday. How appropriate.
She was very proud of herself when she figured this out.
Thanks for reading! We'll see you next week!
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