Our Little Pineapple

Getting all our stuff moved in and around the house has been a project to say the least. We are still doing laundry and shuffling piles. Hopefully one of those things will end soon but for now that is a regular occurrence in our lives but one that does not consume our entire day thankfully. This week many more new and exciting events happened so let us tell you all about them!

Tuesday was HALLOWEEN! Halloween isn't really celebrated in Paraguay like in America. Some stores decorate and use it as a sales pitch to get customers and we saw the Casa Rica bakery and deli workers wearing costume aprons which was cute but that's about the extent of their celebrating. The Embassy put together an office trick or treating for the kids which was a big hit and apparently bigger this year than last. Scott wasn't able to travel around with us because he had to man a candy hand out post so Mackenzie and Kiersten made the rounds. Mackenzie was dressed as a pineapple (piña) and everyone kept saying how cute she was and staring at her and no one noticed that Kiersten was also wearing a costume. Agreed she did look as though she was wearing regular work clothes but Kiersten does not work at the Embassy! Or wear high heels! Anyway. Only one person was able to correctly identify that we indeed had a family costume. It's all good. We were characters from the hit USA TV show 'Psych' which aired for 8 seasons and we've seen every episode. Their characteristic symbol is a pineapple and there was a pineapple hidden either in plain view or secretly in every episode. Scott was Shawn Spencer, the psychic detective and Kiersten was Juliet O'Hara, the actual police detective while Mackenzie was the ever important pineapple pulling the whole costume together. So without Scott it was difficult to picture it all. It was still a very fun evening. 

Our little pineapple was a little confused by everything.

A family picture. Yeah, we both look pretty normal.

They had some great decorations!
Harry Potter was a common theme.

Mackenzie found this balloon and it because her prized possession.

Trying Starburst candy for the first time.

Our tired little Halloweener with some of the potluck food. Such a spread!

Not too tired to play in the bouncy house though!

Kiersten's homemade Santa Barbara Detective's badge that
people just didn't see. It looks awesome!

After the trick or treating we had a potluck at the Embassy. We brought mac and cheese which turned out to be delicious. Luckily there was some leftover for us to take home! After putting Mackenzie to bed that night, S&K stayed up to watch two episodes of Stranger Things 2 on Netflix and binge eat about half of her candy. She didn't really get that much. Ah the joys of parenting.

Most of this candy is fruit based. Not many offices wanted to risk getting
chocolate because of melting. The top left is all Paraguayan.

Some of our dismal Halloween decorations. Was only up for
two days.

Wednesday Kiersten had an appointment to get her dress in the morning. She'd gone on Tuesday but it was too tight. Both seamstresses needed to zip it up! Neither spoke English and Kiersten doesn't really speak Spanish and couldn't express to them that it needed to be let out. Enter Google Translate! They agreed to take it out a few centimeters but were concerned it wouldn't fit her frame properly... it would look too square they said. Wednesday she tried it on and it better but still tight. There is going to be a lot of sitting and eating in this dress! Blanca, the woman who speaks English and runs this little operation, agreed it was still too tight and made the seamstress take it out even more. Kiersten came back on Thursday and the dress was perfect. Still snug but with room to breathe, eat, sit and dance.

On Wednesday we also cleaned up our Halloween decorations which took all of 5 minutes and set up our Fall things. We make it cold inside and wear jeans and sweaters so it feels like Fall! Making it work our way down here! Speaking of cleaning up Halloween, Scott made the executive decision that the mini Reece's cups he's ordered for the office Halloween trick or treating were too melted to be used for anything other than baking. Combine Florida heat with Paraguayan heat and delayed shipping times can do that to chocolate. He brought home the bag of misshapen candies and we spent the night unwrapping them all, putting them in a bag for later baking use and watching more Stranger Things 2. Oddly, we didn't eat as much candy that night.

Fall pumpkin and Autumn scented candle on the piano.

Our personalize Jackson pumpkin on the table.

Our favorite 'Welcome' pumpkin on the door.

The Reece's bacchanalia. Those wrappers got destroyed and our fingers all chocolatey. 

Thursday the weather was pretty nice with a good strong breeze most of the day. That morning Kiersten attended an Embassy gathering titled CLO Coffee. Anyone in the Embassy community is invited to come and talk about issues or questions they have about anything. It's usually the EFMs who go because they aren't tied down to work. It was nice to get out of the house and meet up with other ladies in the same situation. One great thing that came out of this gathering was discovering how to receive shipments of cheese. Never thought we'd need or want to ship ourselves cheese but Scott has sorely been missing cheddar cheese and they don't sell it here. Kiersten promptly went home and ordered some. Scott came home that night and told her he'd learned of another site that ships cheese! Did you know if it's kept in a wax wheel it can ship to DPOs? So we ordered even more cheese! Hoping it gets here by next week or sooner so we can evaluate if it's worth it. Honestly, the prices weren't bad for "artisan" cheddar cheese.

We also received many packages so the girls came to the Embassy to pick them and Scott up at the end of the work day. Mackenzie and Kiersten walked around and played on the playground until Scott was done with work and then we carted everything home. If you haven't noticed the trend, our shipments generally arrive on Thursdays and there has yet to be a week we haven't received something. Still learning what things we can and can't buy on the local economy so until we fully figure it out, we'll continue to live off Amazon shipments. Oh and the rugs we bought last Saturday arrived! Mackenzie's room is coming together nicely. Now we just need to get the one piece of Embassy furniture out and hang things on the walls and it will be finished!

Matchy matchy red Tom's shoes!

Passing the time waiting for Daddy at the playground.

"I LOVE GUACAMOLE!"

Friday was a little different than our normal Fridays. Scott needed to work late so after Kiersten's very productive Spanish lesson, she went home alone and let Annie go home. She then did something she rarely does... she took an afternoon to do absolutely nothing. Mackenzie was napping so Kiersten lit a Fall scented candle, cuddled on the couch with a sweater, a blanket and a book then also took a nap. It was glorious! When Scott got home he took Mackenzie outside to the pool and Kiersten began making dinner. It was still a little breezy so being wet in the pool was kind of cold for the little one but she didn't care that her teeth were chattering the entire time. She wailed when we took her out. She always does.

Playing with Mommy's sweater.

A little dazed by the cold perhaps but not ready to get out.

Mackenzie went to bed early that night due to all the excitement of swimming and Scott and Kiersten stayed up much too late and finished the rest of Stranger Things 2. Go watch it!

In the morning we woke to a cool, cloudy, rainy day. Scott had a headache when he woke so Kiersten and Mackenzie played downstairs so he could get more sleep. It was the definition of a perfectly lazy Saturday. We needed to get groceries for dinner for Sunday and neither of us wanted to go but we did it and then came home. We stayed up too late again but this time for a good reason. We made tortillas and put our pork for Sunday dinner in the crock pot to cook for 8 hours and in the morning we shredded it and let it cook for another 3 hours while we were at church. See, we had our reasons.

There was no parking at Casa Rica so S&M found this park
nearby while K shopped for food.

What a relaxing day!

Sunday was a fantastic day. The senior missionaries are gone which is sad but in their place came an American family to help work on the Temple renovations. They have 5 kids with another one on the way. This was a "it's a small world in the Mormon world" kind of day because we learned that the wife is from Ashburn, her family still lives there and her younger sister went to Seminary with Scott when they were in high school! Then there was a visiting senior couple who are humanitarian missionaries who are finishing their missions this December and were visiting our area. The Elder got up to bear his testimony and Kiersten noted that he looked familiar. She saw his name tag and whipped her head to find his wife. Elder and Sister Huling from the Woodbridge Virginia Stake (her home Stake). Kiersten was good friends with their son in high school. Gosh, what a small world it is in the Mormon world.

Anyway, of this new American family only the wife speaks Spanish. Their kids range in age from 11-2. Kiersten now works in the Primary... do you see where we're going with this? She introduced herself to the mom, Reagan, and said she worked in the Primary and if the kids wanted or would be more comfortable, she could teach them the lessons just for them in English. Is this the reason she was called to the Primary just two weeks prior?! The Lord truly works in mysterious ways. During sharing time, Kiersten sat behind the kids and was actually able to translate the lesson for them! She didn't catch everything but the topic and games were understood and fun for all. It was spectacular!

Mackenzie wore such a pretty dress to church.

This little girl is about 7 months younger than Mackenzie. They are the only babies
in our ward and both are adorable.

We got home, put Mackenzie down for her nap and then got to work on making dinner. Now that we have our crock pot we can officially make Cafe Rio inspired pork salads. Since this makes a ton of food, we invited the sisters over. They were coming at 5pm so we had lots of time to make the rice, corn, dressing and the always requested pumpkin pie. The meal was absolutely delicious and the company delightful. We love these dear sisters! We reminisced about our missions and chatted for a long time, longer than we should have and after they did our dishes (we protested this for the record!) Kiersten took them home. Since we had the missionaries for dinner and then with Daylight Savings ending in America, we weren't able to FaceTime with family because things were just off. We are now two hours ahead of DC for those keeping track at home. We'll definitely connect with them soon.

Our social bathroom decorations. Happy Thanksgiving y'all!

Nice centerpiece at the table. Those "candles" are LEDs
inside of toilet paper rolls! Kiersten's most recent craft project.

Monday, Monday, Monday. The weather all weekend was cool with low humidity and this morning was no exception. Scott needed to take his tux to work to send it to the dry cleaners for this Friday so he took the car to work. Kiersten went for a lovely run when Annie got here at 9 and Mackenzie joyfully played with her. We've got lots of food in the fridge so it's leftovers for us tonight. Back to the daily grind as it were.

Enjoying her bowl of cooked carrots.

Exciting things to look for in next week's blog:

• Kiersten's birthday on Thursday. She turns 30!
• The Marine Ball on Friday night. You'll finally get to see pictures of this dress Kiersten keeps talking about

To round out this edition let's hit our three favorite segments!

Misadventures in Baking:

• The mac and cheese that was made for the Halloween pot luck was a smashing success. We bother to mention it because it was made in the crock pot. This is the first time we've attempted to make mac & cheese in a crock pot and were a little hesitant but it worked like a charm. Find the modified recipe here.
• The dinner we made for Friday night was homemade marinara sauce with meatless meatballs and whole wheat spaghetti. Getting real fancy here people. The sauce recipe was from our favorite YouTube cooking channel, Binging with Babish. He started a new show, Basics with Babish wherein he goes through some basic cooking tips. His second episode covered sauces and this was in there. Sadly, we were a little disappointed in the taste which we both found underwhelming. It did improve the following day but that night it was kind of a disappointment. The meatless meatballs were certainly healthy but also missing a certain flavor. Not meat! We've made this recipe before and this time we forgot to add cheese so that's what was missing.

  

  Healthy doesn't always mean flavorful. At least in the case of this meal.

• Chunky Lola Cookies. Not sure where the name comes from but this recipe comes from that cook book we borrowed from our friends a few weeks back. They include oatmeal, coconut, pecans and dark chocolate. They turned out just like the recipe indicated but the first bite seemed like there was almost too much going on. The next cookie was better and very delicious.

  

  Chunky Lolas in a stack.

  
  

  

  Working on taking better food pictures.

• The Sunday meal for this week was Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Salads because we forgot it was Fast Sunday. The meal was complete with tortillas, black beans, pico de gallo (from Basics with Babish: Sauces), Mexican street corn, guacamole, cilantro lime Ranch dressing, cilantro lime rice, diced red bell peppers, cheese and lettuce. Everything was homemade. No beans from a can or pre-packaged tortillas. It was a labor intensive meal but so, so worth the work. Every bite was heaven.

  

  Almost everything on the table. Just missing the hot dishes.

• Pumpkin Pie #3. This is the third time we've made a pumpkin pie for the sister missionaries and it tasted fine. A little runnier going in than usual which we contribute to the organic pumpkin puree. Last time and this time we were missing heavy whipping cream for the whipped cream. Last time we used something that was like cream but didn't sit up so it was just a runny albeit delicious mess. This time we tried to make a substitute heavy cream but it was not meant to be whipped. Room temperature butter and regular milk do not a whipped cream topping make. So we ate our pie with ice cream, milk and some Chunky Lolas on the side.

  

  Mmmm!

Quirks of Paraguay:

• Parks. There are some parks here that are really nice with good paths or playground equipment or soccer field areas. There is a park across the street from us that could hardly be labeled as such. It's really more of a walking circuit and home for at least 3 homeless guys. We kind of want to find funds and resources to fix it up as our legacy here. Who knows if that'll happen. 

  

  Another image from the park S&M found on Saturday. Nice right?

  

  This is our "playground". We don't let Mackenzie touch anything.

  
  

  

  Yeah, those teeter-totters are NOT working. And that slide is wood.

The Mackenzie Update:

• New tricks! She can imitate a gorilla and it's just about the cutest thing ever.

  

  Gorilla arms!
• She can howl like a lobo (wolf).
• Squat dancing. Kiersten was completing a workout at home with squat jumps. Mackenzie was wandering around, playing, dancing to the music and laughing at Mommy when this was going on and in her little brain she must have internalized these squat jumps and music as a dance style. Later that day we played some music for her and she promptly began to move and groove like she does but then included some squats and attempted jumping. Oh no, what have we taught her now?
• She has discovered that she can close cabinet doors with her feet.

  

  This is our emergency light which she loves.

  
  

  

  Close!

• We are raising a prodigy. She has always loved to "play" the piano but now the notes she plays actually sound good! Since our piano is electric it comes with different sounds like harpsichord and organ. Organ is her favorite setting for two reasons. One, she can reach that button and make the red light turn on. Two, she can dance to the sound of the reverb.

  

  Making music that really isn't too bad.

• We think she is teething again. Finally. We saw two little white buds on the bottom next to her other two bottom teeth. She's been months with these 6 teeth so it was time. She has been super cranky and not wanting to eat anything. Poor little lass.

Thanks as always for reading about our adventures. The Christmas cards will be sent out probably next week so be on the lookout! We love you all and we'll see you here next week!