Back into it all

We are alive and mostly well. We can proudly say that we survived cockroaches, giant spiders, sickness, and water outages this week. Oh, "paradise!"

I thought we were pretty used to life here. Then again, I don't know if you can ever get used to living like this. More so, I think we have just come to terms and accepted the lower standard of living. You will get the gist of things as you keep reading. 

One letter, just maybe, you won't have to read about bugs. For now, overcoming creepy crawly critters is one of the biggest triumphs here. Since coming back, Austin and I have seen 6 cockroaches- dead or alive- at our house. We have sprayed as meticulously as possible and have successfully- hopefully- seen the last of those guys. The bigger deal is that we finally got rid of the ants in our kitchen! After 4 1/2 months, that is BIG news. The only problem now is that we pushed them out of the kitchen and into our bedroom. The war never ends. 

So the food chain goes- the spiders eat the cockroaches, eat the ants, eat our food. No food, no ants, no cockroaches, no spiders? WRONG! You'd think there were enough roosters, monkeys, birds and lizards to get rid of these guys too, but apparently NOT. Or maybe I don't understand the food chain? Get a load of this....

Eden and I came home from swimming to find that there was a funny looking branch/weed that got trapped in between our door and this foam padding we use as weather stripping. At closer look, I realized it was something more than foliage. Lucky for me, this baseball sized spider was smashed and done for. It's happened before with lizards too. Not wanting to touch it, I let it alone. When Austin came home, I unlocked the door for him and bid him to look at the real Halloween decoration I found. His eyes lit up as he realized what it was. So here was Austin, outside, and me, inside with the spider between us. It had been pouring rain and we have a broken rain gutter right above our front door that spills its contents so loudly that you can hardly hear anything but crashing water. As a result, Austin and I were yelling back and forth: "how long has that been there?" "Is it alive?" "It's dead." "Are you sure? No it's not." "Well it was." "It's Alive?" "AaahHHH!!! It's ALIVE!! I THOUGHT it was DEAD!" Good old Yabba heard us yelling and came over to see if we were all right. Austin yelled at him to come look at the spider, which he did, and continued to save us from it. It was a battle of spraying it with toxic chemicals, stabbing it with a stick, trying to keep it from running in the house after me and Eden who were hiding in the bedroom trying to still watch the escapade, and finally putting an end to that thing that was still twitching on the ground. Austin asked Yabba to step on it just to make sure he was really dead, which Yabba did. 

Whew! Glad we survived that one. Had I known that spider was alive, I never would have stepped foot in our house. I can't believe I stepped over that thing. Ew! Just thinking about the thing makes me shudder. Now you know why we have the reputation of being the sissy white kids in the neighborhood: a spider held us hostage. If only we got a picture.... that thing was HUGE! Yabba said they live in holes and come out when the rain floods them out. Rumor is they aren't dangerous, but rather advantageous because of the bugs they eat, but I'll tell you what- that spider was so big it could have eaten my baby alive!

On another note-

The island may be green, but we are still in a drought despite the water coming from the tropical storms (which we have yet to see). Our water is being rationed. It goes off anywhere form 8-10 pm and comes on in the morning around 6ish. That's no big deal. We have learned to fill the sink with water for hand washing and just wait to flush the toilet in the morning. What was a big deal, was not being warned that the water was going out in the middle of the day on Saturday. We have a water supply, but hoping it was going to come on sometime soon, we just let the dishes sit and didn't shower. Dealing with poop, making dinner, and cleaning are tricky when you don't have available water and a drain. How lucky we are to live in this day and age. The good thing is that I learned that we should have certain things on hand in case of a real emergency, like paper plates, disposable diapers, broth to cook with instead of water, and juice. Grandpa Cutler once mentioned that living here sounds worse than camping. Well, yeah. Camping is kind of what we are doing at times. 

Poor Eden caught a slight cold this week which quickly spread to the rest of us. She got over the most of it after 2 days of constantly sneezing snot rockets. I'm fine other than needing to blow once in a while, but Austin hasn't felt too well at all. Between the stress of school and not taking care of himself like he ought to, his immune system is what I would consider to be barely functional. Eden is now fake coughing to imitate her daddy. It's hilariously adorable. That, and she just won't stop talking! I love it other than making church a bit tricky. I don't know what kind of a lady we are raising though- Eden growls, screeches, and talks in her low, low voice. We have been blessed to inherit lots of toys from the other families on the island so Eden has lots to keep her occupied now. She really seems to enjoy being able to play.