Día de la Independencía

We had a typical morning… typical breakfast, and children making their beds, brushing their teeth, and showering.  Angela is excellent about showering every morning; the others are every other day, which is fine.  We’re not exactly working up a sweat in an unheated house.  Dave enjoyed his time brushing and drying Angela’s hair.  She was so excited to have her hair blown by Papí.  It was quite a cute scene, especially for those of you who know Dave.  We watched more television… you are probably wondering why we watch so much TV.  Well, there’s not a whole lot to do other than shopping and getting a taxi, particularly this week. Peruvians are celebrating Independence Day all week. Fiestas Patrias is on July 28th.  We enjoy staying together at home anyway.  The plumber returned to seal the toilets and apparently his sealing caulk includes fish oil.  So, our bathrooms now smell like rotting fish with a hint of orange, thanks to the air freshener.  This just gets better and better, doesn’t it?  For lunch, Cornelia prepared a meat loaf that included peas, carrots, onions, grapes, and sliced ham, which was on the bottom of the loaf.  It was different, but very good.  She also made a rather large batch of mashed potatoes.  These potatoes were yellow, similar in taste to Yukon Gold; my understanding is there are over 300 kinds of potatoes in Peru.  All afternoon and early evening we’ve been playing games, napping, and watching television.  Tonight, we had leftovers; green rice and chicken, beef noodle soup, and bread and butter.  We finished it off with more chocolate cake.  Cornelia made lomo saltado for tomorrow.  Naty will be surprised!  She was going to make this but I think something was lost in the translation.  Later, the kids got ready for bed and we reminded them that bedtime is at 9:00.  In the meantime, we watched John Cena and that cage-fighting thing he does… I have to say, I’m not impressed with wrestling in the United States, and I’m not impressed with it here, but the children are quite the fans of John Cena, regardless - especially Lizet. After, we watched one of their favorite programs: Al Fondo Hay Sitio.  This is a popular telenovela.  It contains some comedic aspects throughout, and bloopers at the end, and they enjoy it.  They went to bed at 9:00 and Xavier chose to sleep in the girls’ room again since he saw a spider on the wall.  We’re not real sure how true these excuses are… but as a new mom, I told Dave we need to choose those battles.  This is not an earth-shattering problem, even though our goal is to have Xavier sleep in his own room.  The fact that he loves his sisters and is somewhat protective is admirable.  I’m willing to bend on this issue.  I couldn’t ask for three better children.