Gramma's House

Remember a couple weeks ago when we didn't blog for a whoooole week? That was because we took a little trip to Grampa and Gramma's house! They had been travelling in the US for the last 3 months and there were a few things that needed to be taken care of at their house before they got back. We also wanted to have a last shabang before the school year started back up. After church at our place on Sunday, we trekked our way across town and made it safely to our destination.

As soon as we got home, Nicole had to take care of her shoe that had stepped in something human lol

When we got there, we realized we had made a grave error.

Nicole forgot to leave a very important document in the hands of our trusted agent-mother for someone in the church. We couldn't imagine going back home so soon - that would have been very counterproductive. We put our noggins together and came to a brilliant conclusion - our other agent...Abner Garcia! Thank the Lord for friends that are there for you in your time of need.

Nicole called him up and told him of our predicament while I was screaming laughing in the background. We told him that if he would come over the next day to pick up the document and take it back to our house, we would have a lemon pie ready for him when he got back. (We had seen a lemon pudding in the cupboard and a pie crust already made in the pantry so we figured this task would be pretty easy. And lemon pie is Abner's favorite).

"Uhh, we need some uhh...help."

We were so happy to get that taken care of. We then decided we should probably fill the tank of water on top of the house since no one had been there in 3 months. (The water situation is a little complicated, but basically there is a well that fills a cistern, then a pump takes the water from the cistern up to the roof, then it comes through the pipes.) I flipped the switch to get the party started, but it only made this "wa wa wa" sound. It was then and there I realized I was going to have to put my prairie skills to the test and PRIME THAT PUMP!!!

So I got me some water from the cistern...

...and poured several pitchers into the little pipe sticking out from the pump...

....and I poured, and poured...and crossed my fingers that we would not have to be drawing buckets of water to take baths for the rest of the week...hahahah...

And all of a sudden the clouds parted and the sun shone through! The pump started happily gurgling and spitting water everywhere. 

After this, we decided we'd better get to work on that lemon pie. 

It was all supposed to be SO easy....

Until we found this little guy crawling in the pie crust. Talk about dreams being smashed to smithereens! I'm ashamed to admit it, but we actually did contemplate just removing the worm....guys will pretty much eat anything....BUT...our conscience wouldn't let us. 

Believe it or not....I actually ended up having to make a pie crust....from scratch....with flour and shortening and all that... Our nice gesture ended up taking wayyyy longer than planned....but we sure did laugh a lot that night!

The next day, I made chicken divine and Nicole got this picture of the chicken boiling. If I remember correctly, her exact words were, "Oooh, look! It's a heart!" (I wonder who she was thinking about right then....)

One of the tasks to be accomplished while we were at our "vacation home" was the yard needed to be shorn. Sadly, we didn't have any proficient shorning equipment. (Spell check is saying "shorn" isn't a word, but I'm pretty sure Ruth Reider has used it - haha!)

This is the arsenal provided to us, but I'm disappointed to say that the grass had grown a spine, roots, and had gotten rebellious. We had a fight on our hands and these tools were not cutting it...heh heh. 

Count em! One, two...

Nicole harvesting the field

Monday morning, Abner came over to pick up the document and found us slaving away in the yard. Of course we looked crazy out there cutting grass with scissors, so we explained about the faulty tools and mention there was a weed-whacker, but we couldn't figure out how to turn it on.

He fooled with it for a little while, but never ended up figuring it out.

Here's the pile we accumulated with our bare hands. 

Yes, we had to resort to scissors. This is the end product. Looks like somethin' got a bad haircut....

The next day, we were back to working the fields and gardens when I heard a noise outside. Nicole went and stuck her head out the door and saw an electrician disconnecting our electricity. She asked him why he would do such a thing and he replied, "Falta de pago." Somebody (Mr. Lemon Pie) forgot to pay the bill!!!! So if you wonder why the rest of these pictures are a little dark...........THAT IS WHY.

On the bright side, we brushed up on our "end times" skillz...

We were in the middle of a scintillating round of Boggle when it started getting dark so we just took it outside onto the evangelism trailer. Aka - the evangelist quarters lol. 

It was during this game that we heard the tamale man passing by announcing through his crackly speaker "tamale, tamale, tamaleeeeee!!!!" We ran outside to catch him, but realized our ears had deceived us and he was not very close. 

Nicole sitting in the freshly shorn yard, waiting for the tamale guy

Here he be! 

Have any of you ever had a sweet tamale with cream in it? 

They're AMAZING! 

Wednesday night we went to Bible study. We were looking forward to seeing civilization and Elissa. 

We went home afterwards and when we were going inside, I felt something fly by my ear. I ran inside so fast and slammed the door behind me. I caught a glimpse of this "little" guy fluttering around...

He was about as big as my hand. According to Wikipedia, this moth flying into your house means you're either going to die, or win the lottery (depending on if you live in Texas or Mexico lol). 

The last night, we went down the street and picked up some tacos for dinner and brought them back to the house to eat. 

Praying for the food..."Lord, don't let us get sick..."

After eating dinner, we gathered ourselves in the living room for many rousing rounds of Boggle! (We were addicted to Boggle over the summer). 

~Bethany~