What A Day!

I awoke to the sound of water running. My first thought was that it was raining. I heard the neighbor's calico cat meowing at our screen door, and my second thought was "the cat wants in out of the rain". I padded over to the door and flipped on the deck lights. No rain but the sound of water running was louder. I crossed the deck, opened the door to the kitchen side of the house and immediately saw a flood in the kitchen and breakfast room. The running water noise was coming from under the kitchen sink, but also from under the house (our house is built up on wooden piers, so the sound of water dropping several feet to the ground is pretty noticeable).  I yelled at Don to come quickly.

He had replaced our under-the-sink tankless hot water heater yesterday and all seemed well...then. We tried to start the dishwasher after dinner last night, but it didn't want to start, so we decided to leave it until this morning. We didn't realize that there was a problem with the water line to the dishwasher. At some point, the dishwasher did try to start, and the water that should have gone into the dishwasher went under the sink, out onto the floor and eventually through a crack in the floor somewhere and spilled out under the house. Don shut off the power and the water, and we spent the next hour mopping up water. Did I mention that this was at 5 a.m.? And I hadn't had any coffee yet? Not fun. But, we got the job done, the coffee made and consumed, the water line repaired and breakfast over with in time for Don to go tutor Nick by 8 a.m. We were both very thankful for our ceramic tile floors which dried quickly and were not damaged.

While we were busy cleaning up, the cat was playing with a mouse out on the deck. A real mouse. Great! The mouse was actually playing along with the cat and never seemed to be in any real danger. Finally the mouse was worn out and disappeared, to the cat's great disappointment.

We had the girls coming up to play games and have lunch, so I decided to make potato soup for them. Don brought the girls home with him, and the first thing on their agenda was to watch the new princess movie that Rachel had brought for them. It got 2 thumbs up. Julissa and I thought it was just so-so.
I had them help me finish lunch preparations, shredding cheese, crumbling bacon, setting the table. They didn't know what the bacon was! They had never had it before, so I let them have a taste. They liked it. They didn't care much for the potato soup though. They don't like onions or, apparently, celery, which I had added to the soup along with the potatoes and carrots. I was thinking that they all need to eat more vegetables, so load it up. Nope. Not a hit. They managed to eat most of it, sans celery and onion when possible. They opted for lots of cheese and bacon to disguise the taste...and Leidy was heavy with the salt. I got out the peanut butter and more crackers. Leidy doesn't like peanut butter either! Then I sliced more cheese. A winner, but soon Julissa had a tummy ache from too much cheese and milk. Might have a lactose problem!

We cleared the table, and Karla grabbed the Joy and claimed the role of dishwasher.  She just loves to wash dishes!! Too funny. We played several games of Uno, one of their most favorite games and then had our dessert - ice cream floats. I had even found some root beer at the grocery store the other day. Hondurans don't know what root beer is. I poured a little out for them to smell and taste; 3 thumbs down. They preferred Coke floats. Don and I had the root beer.

 Karla insisted on planting the carrot top that she had cut off so we could raise some carrots. Leidy and Julissa went down below the deck with her and the next thing we knew, Karla was climbing a palm tree, then sitting the in mango tree. She's such a tomboy and Julissa is such a girlie girl.