Library

If you are like me, the library has to be your favorite place in the whole wide world. Unfortunately, Honduras does not have a library system. So yesterday I got a box of books out of storage (we have no bookshelves) and put it in my office. The kids have enjoyed getting one book at a time out. They call it the library and have to return the book before they can get a new one. When we were in Washington we went to the library often and I think the kids miss it. When we build our own house we have one room planned for a library/office. We have at least a year or two to wait until we can get it built. We are just glad that we now know where it is going to be and now we are just waiting until we save the money to get started. It does give me more time to add/change my design again. :-) We did have to change the design when we found out that we are having a boy. We could never fit three kids in the size rooms that I had planned. I added 5 feet to the downstairs floor plan and was able to make my schoolroom bigger at the same time. YEAH!!!! As building supplies are different here, I have to take out one foot of floorspace for every two walls I have. I have been trying to make allowances for this. I just hope that everything won't be too big when it is built. It looks good on paper, but we will have to see when it is done.

We are praying that we can get a house outside of town to rent that will help us save more money every month. As it is impossible to get a loan to build the house as we are foreigners. We must save the money and put it aside so we can start building. In our house plans we are including a 2 bedroom guest apartment. Once it is built we need lots of people to come and visit us. :-)

The rat

A few months ago we started to smell a very strange odor. It was centered near the garbage and we found out that while it was near the garbage, that was not the offending member. The smell came from a bunch of plastic bags that I was keeping for later use. We threw them away thinking that maybe the cat had gone back there and used them for a litter box. That took care of the problem and life was peaceful again for a few days.

About a week later we smelt the same smell again, but this time it was coming when I turned on the oven. It wasn't strong, but I decided that we needed to mop the floor under the stove too. We did a lot of things, but the smell started fading. The only time you could smell anything was when the oven was on. I just figured that it was my pregnant nose acting up again.

Finally, last week it got so bad that I asked Jason to take to back off and see if something had died in the outer wall of the oven. He started taking the oven apart and the smell just kept getting worse and worse. We thought it would be a quick fix so I had bread rising on the counter. When we realized that something was on the insulation and it wouldn't be a quick fix we started taking the oven all the way apart to remove all of the insulation. I didn't get my bread made and ended up having to throw the dough away as we didn't get the insulation replaced until the next day. We did find a store near us that sells the insulation though.

After the stove was completely disassembled I was poking at the holes in it with a screwdriver and something moved. I shut the cat in the kitchen for the night as Jason was gone and I didn't want to see what had been in the insulation until it was dead.

The mouse escaped under the fridge and so we bought traps and more insulation and fixed things up again.

A few days after that we started to smell that smell again and so we moved the fridge and cleaned up behind it. It was so gross!!! As we were cleaning we didn't find the mouse and the cat all of the sudden had a great interest in our stove again.

Yesterday as I tried to cook dinner in the oven we once again smelt that familiar smell, although this time it was much worse. We found out that since the new insulation that we bought is thinner, it doesn't hide the smell as much. It was so bad that we had to turn off the stove, put dinner in the fridge for the next day, and eat out at Burger King after the service.

This morning Jason started to disassemble the oven once again to replace the padding, but this time we were determined to catch the mouse before we put everything back together. We put the cat on the top of the insulation and he started sniffing away. Jason tried pushing on the insulation to get the mouse to run out and couldn't find it. I started to poke with him on the top of the insulation and my hand hit this big bulge. I jumped back and told him that this was no little mouse that I felt.

That started an almost three hour time frame of chasing the mouse from fridge to stove and back again. During one of the trips between to the fridge we were able to see that this mouse was no mouse, but a rat. The little mouse traps we bought went off, but couldn't harm this rat as he was too big. The cat, we learned didn't want to kill the rat, but just wanted to play with him. Mittens was a great help though in letting us know where the rat was. After about 2 hours of chasing him all over the kitchen, the rat ran to my classroom/pantry. We kept chasing him and putting traps where ever we could to try and catch him. We finally succeeded when he was on the second shelf of my pantry with his tail hanging through one of the holes in the shelf. He was hiding from us. Jason took the rat trap (we went out and bought a new one that was bigger) and snapped it on his tail so he couldn't take off. He did manage to get loose from that, but he left about 1/3 of his tail behind. After that we chased him and he ran right into a glue trap. He caught his face in it. I took a picture of him (thinking he was dead) and then he started working his face loose from the trap so Jason took the dull end of a very big kitchen knife and beat him to death.

This whole time the kids were getting in the way so we told them to go sit on the couch and we would let them know when the mouse was dead. They were so excited to see it.

Our kitchen is now all back in order. We did move some things around to allow for ease of removing critters in the future, if needed. We are so very thankful that this is the first time this has happened to us. Ernesto and Nelly (Honduran friends of ours) told us that this is a very common occurrence and it happens to them a lot. No wonder the oven insulation is not hard to find. This is the first time for us in 5 years and I am very thankful for that. We did make a few changes to our house though. The dog food and water now stays outside and the inside garbage was moved so that nothing can fall behind it again. We are hoping that this will be the last time we have this problem.

Agua Splash

Today we had the honor to be invited to Agua Splash (a water park) by the colonel in charge of the Honduran Presidential Honor Guard. The military paid to take all of the families of these soldiers, and us, to the water park just outside of Teguc. Normally if we go to a water park it would be when no one is there and that was not the case today, but to refuse the invitation would be a huge insult. So we went and the kids had a blast.

The day started off with a bang when we found out that the time we had been given to be there by (7:00 am) was not correct and we didn't need to be there until 9:00 am. The bad thing was that we didn't get this call until 6:45 when we were dressed and ready to go, yet very sleepy. We got there a little before 9:00 am and had to wait until 10:00 am because the bus to pick everyone up was late. We were taking our own car, but we couldn't get to the park before them.

We have had a lot of heat and humidity these past few weeks. We were hoping that would last through today, but as our luck would have it, today was the day it started to rain. It rained and rained and then rained some more. The kids were already wet so we didn't make them come out of the water. It did make it cold though and they were shaking from the cold at times. Audrey (who must be part fish) came out of the water only for lunch and when we made her change to leave.

We are all tired out, but had a nice field trip day and are looking forward to a good nights sleep.