While you all are enjoying Christmas vacation we are just trying to adjust to the idea that we actually had Christmas. 😊 It just doesn’t feel like Dec. here. In fact, the other morning I put on a long sleeved shirt because I was chilly. I checked the temperature and it was 78*.

We are still trying to get our house finished. We are having some difficulty getting the concrete guy out to finish the job. He only has about 2-3 days work left. Meanwhile Stan is working on the septic. It all has to be done by hand of course. He said it got pretty hot working in that hole when the sun was shining and there was no breeze down there. It means washing some very dirty clothes at the end of the day!

I have recently resorted to washing by hand. As I mentioned in another post, our machines are located in town and you can access them by crossing a long bridge. Several weeks ago they closed down the bridge for construction. Now we have two other options. We can pay someone, usually young boys, to ferry us across the river in wooden boats or pay a taxi to take us a long way around which involves several wooden bridges and a bunch of pot holes. Now when we finally get there the electric may or may not be on. On top of that, only one machine is working right now. I found it’s no more hassle to simply wash everything every day. I usually need to get the boys to help me wring out the heavy things.

Right now the kids are out of school for the ‘summer’. Whew! There’s a lot of energy around here that needs to be harnessed. Cynthia usually tries to keep them occupied with activity books in the morning while others color some pages. Occasionally someone will put a puzzle together or some will play Bingo with pictures. The older girls help in the kitchen. The older boys help with maintenance, building, weed
eating, etc.

About two weeks ago we changed the seating arrangement at meal time. We split up the kids among 5 tables putting an assortment of ages to each table. Each set of parents is responsible for a certain table. It takes a lot of concentration to communicate but it is good for us. Juan Carlos is at our table and wants
to learn English so we have him teach us Spanish words and we teach him English words. He has trouble with pronunciation but he’s very persistent!

We have been running out of water the last few days. ☹️ We decided there is a bad leak somewhere. Actually there was a small one we were aware of but the just found the other one. Israel and Austin are working at fixing it. Hopefully we will soon have water again. 😊

There is a cold/flu bug going around. I think most of the kids are over the worst. Denver and I have it now and Austin has an itchy throat too. I hope we can all go to church tomorrow.

Wishing you all a very happy New Year!

The Schrocks