Monday, January 7, 2013

Of Trials and Triumph

Lest you think that we just have fun down here... I decided to post what our week looked like last week and then about the great day we had today!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I will start with a picture of where we spent a lot of our time last week... No, we are not potty training, both of these girls are potty trained. However, both had Ameobas and DID NOT have bowel control night and day! Rudi joked that he had a "CaCa Factory" with two employees! We were up and cleaning up sometimes every fifteen minutes for three nights in a row...
Want to trade places????? 
Partners in....Crime!
 I decided to add both pictures because they are so cute... the little Potty masters!
My Amazing Cloth Diapers
These gals managed to soil ALL 32 of our cloth diapers in one night and then moved on to disposables. Our amazing Tia washed all of these by hand. They look downright beautiful on the line! I would like to add that my super generous cousin Clayton, and his wife Kim, donated 16 of these beautiful bumGenius diapers to us. I don't know what we would have done without them. THANK YOU AGAIN. You guys are awesome!
Paula "Just resting"
My Inside Dryer
 They say when it rains it pours and last week it did. I had a hard time drying the clothes because I would just get them on the line and it would start dumping rain. We are in our rainy season here, even though it is Summer. I have a backup dryer that runs on propane that I thought was broken. (Forgot to check and see if the propane was full or empty...hmm) So we ended up drying inside during the night! Not as fun as it sounds.... Truthfully it was just a long rough week in many ways. I think the sleepless nights played into it all!

TODAY was the wonderful day in which we got our passports back with our one year visas. We also completed the process for our Carnet, a national identification card that we all have to have.
We started out the morning by leaving the house at 6:15 to be at SEGIP (Don't know what it stands for sorry!) in time to meet with our lawyer. It was a perfect morning to be up and out. The picture below shows some of the zoo that outside SEGIP is before it opens. There are lines at least five people deep about 200 ft to the right and left of this door. See if you can find Rudi in this "Where's Waldo" type picture... can you spot the Extranjero. One clue, Rudi has on a white shirt with Paula on his shoulders. Okay, another clue...He is behind a Bolivian man and you can just see a corner of his shirt and Paula on top.
 Our fantastic lawyer, who has made this whole process a piece of cake for us, had an appointment and like Rudi said "it was like having a fast pass at Disneyland." We went straight into our appointment for pictures for our Carnet. Our lawyer will pick them up when they are ready and we will pick them up at her office. Most people get in line outside of SEGIP as early as 3 a.m. to be able to deal with Carnet stuff before they close at 5 p.m. 
The family with our Awesome Abogada, Janeth!
 After our appointment we walked to breakfast. Here we are waiting for our fresh squeezed orange juice. A favorite for all of us! For 3 bs. (Approx .45 cents) you can enjoy fresh squeezed juice. These carts are all over the city!
 It is very common for the street vendors to have a child with them. Sometimes on their back in a blanket or just playing at their feet. This is the child of or our orange juice lady. He was so cute I had to snap a picture!
The little boy of the Orange Juice Lady!

On the way to breakfast we stopped and visited the mechanic shop where "the Happy Mobile" has been staying for the past month. We were glad to hear that our car will soon be well enough for us to take for the next "safari" soon! 
 For breakfast we had a traditional Bolivian treat of Saltenya's (Bolivian Spanish buffs, I know that this is spelled wrong, but I cannot type the "Spanish n" on my keyboard and I want people to know how to pronounce them!) They are a mixture of sweet and savory. I think I would like them to be one or the other! They are very yummy and very Bolivian!
Pastry filled with meat and veggies!
Just because I know you wanted to see what was inside.....

 To really celebrate our Visas and Carnets being done, (I don't know if you know that getting a one year visa is a really big deal here for a North American?) we went to our favorite espresso place here in Cochabamba.

 Their outdoor sitting area is al fresco and was perfect today for waiting for our drinks.
 This picture is for our employees back home. They have the same machine that we have at Main Street Espresso!
Waiting for our Raspberry smoothies and Coffee drinks!

Myles and Clancy, "Happy Boys"

 This picture is not an announcement... I put all eight of our passports in my money belt for safe keeping. I was joking to Rudi that I looked at least three months prego and we decided to snap this picture for you all! Those passports are seriously thick... I promise!
With our Mocha Frappes! In any language....Yummy!
 It was a blissful beginning to a better (?) week ahead! If the picture below means anything I think it will be!


Beautiful Paula...feeling better!

12 comments:

  1. Oh man now I'm hungry for SalteƱas! so sorry the kids are sick! I've had amoebas and know how NOT fun they are :( hopefully they don't come back ever again!

    Love your posts!

    Denise

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  2. Aaah, such sweet pictures! So glad that Paula and K are feeling better! And that you got your visas just fine.
    Oh and I had fun w/the picture of Carla and her "baby belly". I blew it up and carried the laptop over to Dad, Matthew, Elizabeth and Kimberly, then said "Hey! Look at this picture!!" You should have seen their faces! They all thought it was real! So funny!

    We will continue to be praying for further healing for the girls.
    Lauren for the Dealy's

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  3. PS How does Tia Techy feel about your fancy BG cloth diapers? does she love them or think they are too much?

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    1. She seems to really enjoy using them. Both of us have talked about the fact that the inserts take a long time to dry on rainy days :). This is the only drawback as they have been performing great for us!

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    2. I'm glad she likes them - of course other than the drying time :( though that will improve greatly in a few months!

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  4. I love getting to read what you guys are up to and see the pictures! It looks like God has some amazing (yet sometimes messy) work planned for you guys :) I wondered if you had found a good coffee place yet. So neat to see that they have a machine just like ours! Carla I got really excited when I saw the "prego" picture until I read the caption haha!
    Keep the posts coming! We love you guys and are praying for you :)

    Elyssa

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    1. Sorry to get your hopes up with the picture! I took the chance that that might happen! Too fun!
      Thank you for all of the prayers...a lot of days that is what is keeping us going!
      We love you back!
      Carla:)

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  5. We are so glad to hear that the sickness is going, and have been praying daily that The Lord would heal the girls! Wow, you all have really been thru it, and what a nice and sweet way to celebrate recovery! We miss you lots! Thanks for all the posts and pics, it really makes us feel like we're almost there with you :) it sure is important to protect those visas, and that was a worthy announcement, Carla. You are funny! We love you!

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  6. A satisfied smile and a restful sigh for another wonderful blog. You are good at this blog "thing," Carla!

    It was a relief to see Paula with the flowers; she looked so peaked in the earlier picture. I was wondering how much fluid such a wisp of a girl could lose without blowing away.She and K seemed to have had good spirits regardless of the ameboes. Rudi's comment about his factory made Daddy laugh!

    Your "broken" dryer reminds me of hearing tales of appliance repair men going to a house and finding the "broken" appliance just needed to be plugged in. I am glad your dryer problem was only a lack of propane and that you figured it out!

    More good food--and drinks--thanks for sharing. What a nice espresso shop. The juice lady's son looks like a miniature vaquero--so darling.

    I could go on and on--and you did shock me a bit, Katie No Pocket, with your pouch full of passports! :)

    I pray that this week is still going more smoothly. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Amen. 2 Corinthians 13:14

    Much love to each of you,

    Mama/Paula/Grams



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  7. Oh, by the way, I enlarged the photo of Waldo/Rudi and saw his head, back,and a portion of Paula. I also noted that SEGIP stands for Servicio General de Identificacion Personal: perhaps general service for personal identification??? I am no translator, but the words have a familiar spelling to them! Mama

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    1. Thank you Mother for demystifying what SEGIP stands for! I knew I could figure it out by reading the sign, but who has time for that sort of thing!!!
      It is definitely a center for personal identification!

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    2. You are welcome, Carla! :) I wasn't looking for the SEGIP words, but when I enlarged the picture, there they were! :) So, why not appear to have done some "extensive" research? Ha! Ha!

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