Tuesday morning was kind of a blur with house work and errands but since it was K's birthday week, she treated herself to lunch with Scott at the Embassy. Remember, Tuesdays are asado at the Embassy and it was some of the best asado they've had in a while. When anyone decides to come visit, we will take you to the Embassy for Tuesday's lunch because it is delicious and an extremely good price. After lunch, a jaunt to the grocery store and home to play with Mackenzie.
For dinner that night we attempted the Basics with Babish mac and cheese from his sauces episode and sad to say it didn't turn out very good. We blame the whole wheat pasta and the fact that there was too much of it which sucked out the moisture from the cheese sauce. Live and learn I guess. It was the first time Kiersten has ever thrown out mac and cheese (that she can remember) because it was just that bad. But we still love Babish! We'll definitely try again.
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| Too much pasta, not enough cheese. Good learning experience. |
On Wednesday Kiersten went to lunch with the head of the Wellness Committee at the Embassy to chat and learn more about how it runs. They went to a terrific Middle Eastern restaurant across the street from the Temple called Damasco. Oh my yes. That afternoon Kiersten got an itch to make some Hungarian food. Imagine it, cooking Hungarian food in Paraguay with ingredients she already can't read correctly. We can barely find the right ingredients in America but she was determined. She made a classic fruit soup which turned out to be pretty tasty. This fruit soup is best served cold so that is actually a perfect Paraguayan soup since it gets so hot here! We'll probably make it again.
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| This is the recipe for Sour Cherry Fruit Soup (meggyleves). |
Also on Wednesday some heavy lifters from the Embassy came to take away our extra furniture and bring in some other furniture we requested such as a Queen bed for the guest room, a love seat and recliner for the office and two smaller area rugs (9x12). Our house is looking more and more like a home each week. The office is still packed with miscellaneous items but we are slowly going through everything.
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| She's liking this recliner. |
Thursday! Kiersten's birthday! Oh boy birthdays are just the best. She received many birthday wishes from family and friends around the globe. In the morning at the Embassy there was an artisan's fair where local artisans came selling different items like leather bags, wallets, belts, wooden figurines, nativity sets, jewelry, ñanduti (traditional Paraguayan lace) and food. It was awesome and we got a lot of Christmas shopping done for people back home. (Warning: it probably won't make it to you in time but just know it will be coming!)
After shopping, Kiersten went to Yoga. It was a beautiful day outside with lower humidity so we did it outside and it was wonderful. For those that have never practiced Yoga, y'all are missing out! Take it from me, go out and take a class. Your life will be better for it. Ok, getting of my soapbox.
After Annie left that afternoon Kiersten and Mackenzie played and had a birthday dance party until they went to the Embassy to pick up Scott early from work. He quickly did a Jackson family wrapping job of her presents and finished making homemade vanilla ice cream with Reece's cups, the very same ones we spent an evening unwrapping last week. Right before we left for dinner, K opened her presents and she has an amazing husband and family. Her presents centered around three of her loves: fitness, food and Harry Potter. Presents received included a beautiful and completely unexpected ñanduti from Annie, two Harry Potter books (one in Spanish and the illustrated book 3), a Harry Potter board game which is AWESOME, The Art of Pie cook book, Strong is the New Pretty book, exercise capris with pockets, and a bike trainer for her road bike! Every thing has already received some use.
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| The sister missionaries came by around lunch time to deliver these tasty S'mores cupcakes! 3 decades! |
For dinner we went to T.G.I. Fridays just like for Scott's birthday. There is actually one closer to our house and not downtown so we went to that one. We felt very American. When we got home, we got M ready for her bath and bed then prepared for our guests. Two couples came over to help us eat Kiersten's birthday cheesecake and play games. It was such a fun night!
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| People love giving our girl balloons. |
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| Yes, they sang to me. I felt like a kid again. |
Friday Scott had the day off work in honor of Veteran's Day. It was a pretty relaxing day all in all. Ran a few errands, completed some chores, tried out the new bike trainer, things like that. It was also Mackenzie's 17 month birthday! More on that in The Mackenzie Update later in the blog. In the afternoon, Kiersten joined a friend at a salon to get her hair and makeup done for the Ball that night. Her hair was gorgeous and the makeup... it was a lot but apparently it was tame by Paraguayan standards. Yikes!
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| Bike trainer set up with a show on the iPad on that music stand. It was excellent! |
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| All angles of the hair |
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| Loved this braid! Didn't even ask for it. |
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| Yikes! Yes that is Kiersten under all that paint. |
Our baby sitter got there right on time then we took off to taxi pool with some friends. The first hour was cocktail hour and mingling. It was so fun to see everyone dressed to the nines. We took pictures, drank various sodas and juices and had some hour'derves then made our way to the dining room in the back of the venue. Before the dinner came there was a ceremony because this was after all a birthday party for the Marines. 242nd birthday. They presented the colors, showed a video from the Commandant, introduced the guest of honor who gave a terrific speech then brought out the birthday cake which they cut with a sword! It is customary to slice the cake and serve the first piece to the guest of honor, the second slice to the oldest Marine in attendance and the third slice to the youngest Marine in attendance. It was very beautiful in its symbolism. Only after all that did we finally get to eat! The first course was Sopa Paraguaya wrapped in a crepe tied off with a green onion. The main course for Kiersten was vegetable stuffed chicken and for Scott a deliciously tender steak. Then it was time to mingle again, eat cake and DANCE! It was a crazy good time to see everyone cutting loose and letting their hair down. We are already looking forward to next year's Ball.
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| It was totally an adult prom. |
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| Check out the carb laced center piece! Welcome to Paraguay! |
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| Lots of glasses and utensils and name place cards! |
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| Before dinner |
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| Wanted to show off the pockets. No purse needed! |
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| I wanted a fun, non-alcoholic beverage. The bar whipped up this smoothie for me. And our Marine coin was actually our ticket! |
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| Out on the dance floor. Despite the face, Scott was having a great time. |
We got home just around midnight and let our babysitter go home. She is wonderful. We watched the first quarter of the BYU football game and went to bed about 1am.
Saturday morning came much too quickly for a groggy set of tired parents when Mackenzie woke up at 6:30 but we ignored her until about 7:15 when we finally got up to start our day. Saturday was a whirlwind of activity once we got going. We'd invited the new American family in our Ward over for pizza that afternoon so we spent the morning prepping and cleaning. They came over in their swim gear at 3:30 and our pool finally got it's first good use since we got here. The kids had a blast and the babies played inside with the toys. We made 5 pizzas and almost consumed them all. For dessert we'd made a Toll House pie as a back up to Kiersten's birthday cheesecake in case it had failed (it didn't) so we shared the pie with the Homes Family. Everything was yummy.
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| Wasn't too tired to make a family breakfast of pumpkin pancakes with whipped cream. |
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| Pumpkin pancake topped with maple syrup, whipped cream and chopped pecans. |
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| Casa Rica always has bread samples at the bread counter and as soon as we get to the store, M asks for "more". |
That night Scott and Kiersten opened the Harry Potter game and proceeded to complete levels 1-4 and once again went to bed late.
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| It's not as complicated as it looks. The rules are very clear and the cards explain everything. |
Sunday was a little bit more relaxing but not entirely. Church was pretty normal except the Primary President asked Kiersten to teach the lesson next Sunday in Sharing Time! Time for the Spanish level to get heightened. Here goes nothing! Kiersten was also asked to play the piano for the Christmas choir the Stake is putting together and received the music (only doing one song).
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| Saw this giant moth in our car port when we got home. |
We invited Sister Rhoades over for dinner because her husband was out of town and well, we like playing host and we still had way too many sweets for us to eat and wanted to share. We made chicken squares with empanada shells, cooked carrots, gravy and mashed rosemary "sweet" potatoes (batata roja). Such a tasty meal. Then we ate some more of the cheesecake for dessert.
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| Chicken square empanadas because there is no crescent rolls or puff pastry. |
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| All together now. It was a spectacular meal. |
After FaceTiming with Scott's parents in London we headed off to choir practice at 5. Scott was the only man and he was a great soloist! After rehearsal, we made Mackenzie a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner and man did she enjoy it! Totally Kiersten's daughter. She went to bed without a fuss and the parents cleaned the house and dishes again then went back to battle in the Harry Potter world and beat level 5. Seriously, an awesome game.
Now we are back to Monday and it's looking to be a normal week. No birthdays, no major baby milestones and a full five day work week for Scott. The weather was warm but with low humidity so the girls went on a walk this afternoon then cooled off in the pool.
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| We've made chicken pot pie three times here and never use the same recipe. They are always delicious. This was technically a veggie pot pie. Stupid oven... burnt my top crust. |
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| Mackenzie has started to hide the wall outlets so she can "secretly" play with the outlet cover. |
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| Short FHE before bed time. Daddy is reading the scriptures in Spanish. |
We did a lot of baking this week with Kiersten's birthday so hold on to your hats for this weeks installment of Misadventures in Baking:
- As we mentioned above, we ate a cheesecake for Kiersten's birthday cake. Yes it was homemade. Scott asked Kiersten earlier in the week if she could do anything for her birthday what would she do. She immediately answered she'd go to Cheesecake Factory with her mom for lunch. That got her thinking, Cheesecake Factory has a cheesecake called the 30th Anniversary Cheesecake. It is a four layered cake: chocolate fudge cake, cheesecake, chocolate ganache, chocolate fudge cake, cheesecake and topped with chocolate syrup and whipped cream with chocolate ganache and chocolate chunks on the edges. This is not for the faint of heart. 30th Anniversary, 30th birthday. It's too perfect! Tuesday night we set out to make this beast and had to borrow a second springform pan from a friend in order to do it. Cheesecakes are the divas of the baked good world and Kiersten sat in the kitchen babying the oven temperature for about an hour and a half but it was totally worth it! Such a rich, delicious cake that we probably won't be making again any time soon but it was amazing and we still have two slices left.
We opted to just cover the cake in the remaining ganache and nothing on the edges.
A look at the inside layers of this cake. Very surprised it actually worked! - The Toll House pie was made on Kiersten's actual birthday because at that point we still didn't know if the cheesecake had turned out. It had been in the fridge since late Tuesday night. This Toll House pie turned out significantly better than our first attempt several weeks prior.
The last dough was extremely runny. This actually looked like cookie dough.
Mmm. A little more golden brown on top but looks good otherwise.
Still working on better food pictures. But doesn't that look good?! - Homemade ice cream. Scott has been on a quest the last few years to make the best homemade vanilla ice cream and we think we succeeded this time. The dairy products here are just incredible so we think that has something to do with it. We started prepping the ice cream Wednesday night and mixed it up in the ice cream maker before our T.G.I. Fridays dinner on Thursday. It sat in the freezer for about 4 hours before we tried a bite and it tasted like it came from a creamery! Eureka! The Reece's chunks were a brilliant addition.
- Pizza. Yes, we have our stone and the pizzas cook really fast. Yes, the pizza tastes delicious. The only issue is the parchment paper here! It's terrible! We've used three different crust recipes now and all of them stick so its definitely the parchment paper. We needed to do a little surgery to each pizza before we could cut and enjoy them. Don't worry, we've ordered parchment paper from Amazon which should resolve this issue.
We were so busy with Kiersten's birthday this week that we didn't really notice anything quirky for y'all. Sorry. Next week!
The Mackenzie Update:
Since she turned 17 months this week we thought it would be fun to give you a run down of all the fun little things she can do to date and that we can currently remember.
- Words: mama, dada, wow, bye, ba (ball), wawa (aqua/water), moe (more), pez (fish), moo (cow noise), quak (duck noise), and other various animal sounds like a wolf howl.
- Sign language: more, no more/all done, please and thank you.
- Actions: raise her arms, fold her arms, point to various body parts (nose, head, feet, etc.), surprised face (ooh!), blows kisses, "kisses" cheek (air kiss), opens her mouth when we say "brush teeth", hop the bunny/conejito, swim the fish, gorilla arms, squat, DANCE to any music, RUNNING.
- Foods (unusual and/or favorite): cooked carrots, cooked peas, Goldfish crackers and pretzels, BREAD, grilled cheese sandwiches, green smoothies, milk mixed with chocolate milk, pickles, green onions (raw) and whatever we are eating.
- She understands a lot of what we ask her now. She'll nod her head yes or no depending on the situation and usually interprets the questions correctly. She is a smart little girl and we feel incredibly blessed.
It was a long entry so thanks for hanging in there! We love and miss you all. Until next week!
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