There is ALWAYS something...

Life can't just be easy can it? What fun would that be?

Take today for instance.

Andrew was invited to a friend's house for a fun little get-together with about 8-10 kids he hangs with at school. I was thrilled to see that the time for this shin-dig was 5pm-10pm. Reasonable. I hear that the parties here don't typically start until around 10pm and go until 1-2am. So a non-native family, working on more of a European schedule. Whew. Didn't have to address that whole time obstacle just yet. It's his first outing with friends that didn't involve working on a school project. I've been encouraging him to invite his friends over, but he's hesitant and I don't want to push - if he's not ready.

I'm finding that it isn't that he's not ready it is the fact that his friends are working on a much larger pay scale than we are and he is not overly excited to bring them to our little humble abode. Granted this humble abode costs more than our house payment in the US; but it's about 1/3 of the size. He's also friends with the Ambassador's kids. Sorry. We can't begin to compete with the Greek Ambassador to Chile's home. That house was unbelievable. The house today - even bigger. The girl, Isa, had everyone bring swim trunks and a towel because she had a heated pool. Well, we have a heated pool too, and there is NO way we'd get in - it's still too cold. Come to find out her "heated" pool was INSIDE a pool house. So a heated, indoor pool... Yep. What exactly can we offer these kids at our house? The Playstation 3? I'd buy a ping pong table - pool table - whatever it took to bring these kids to our home. But that doesn't even begin to put us on a level playing ground. We've got nothing cool to bring them our way and I desperately want to know my kid's friends. crap.

Anyway, we were asked to bring soda and or treats to the party. So we stopped at the Supermercado down the street. They were doing some kind of inventory. We waited at the counter with our stuff and nobody came. We waited some more. Finally I went up to someone and said "ready" in english and pointed to the counter. I don't know the spanish word for "ready to check out" - I did say please in spanish. I figured that my pointing at the counter and saying anything was better than just waiting around. It worked. We paid and Andrew chastised me for speaking to her in English. "Mom you always speak in English" - "Andrew, I don't speak spanish". I told him to shut it.

We went home and per Andrew's request, I made no-bake cookies for him to take. I made a double batch so we could have some at home. I scooped them out and noticed that after an hour, they still hadn't hardened. I recalculated and realized that I didn't do a correct conversion on the butter. I added twice as much as needed. They don't look runny - just won't harden up. Forget the stupid cookies. He'll just have to go with soda.

So we head to this massive indoor pool party and I get a little lost. Just a little. I have the good ole Garmin so I know we're close, but I can't find the house numbers and the street is crazy busy and it's rush hour. I see 2 cars in line to get into a gated area and I know were close so I tell Andrew - I bet that's it and we follow them in. Well - it's not. No big, we'll just go back out. Um - no we will not. Apparently, just pulling UP to a gate will not activate a sensor to open it and let you get out. No. Of course not. So we had to back up and find someone to ASK to open it for us.

I went to a house with lots of cars and pushed the button on the gate to ring the house. Luckily, the nana came out to talk to me and didn't try to talk to me through some type of speaker. I started by telling her I didn't speak spanish very good and then pointed to the address on the google map printout I had. She started to tell me where I needed to go and pointed me in the right direction. I had Andrew look up how to say "open gate" on his phone, so I told her that phrase while making an 'open gate' motion with my hands. She was so super nice and said that she'd open the gate for me. Well, I think that was what she was saying...

So we pull up to the main gate and wait. I tell Andrew that I hope she understood what we needed and just then the gate opened. WHEW! Free at last!

We finally find where we need to be, and pull up to that gate. Andrew goes to the speaker and pushes the button. The nana answers and he tells her "Isa" pretty soon I hear him say "si" and he comes back to the car. He said she asked if we had a car. Apparently she spoke to him in spanish - and he understood what she was saying. So my question to him: Why the H-E-double-hockey-sticks and I the one trying to communicate with everyone? He knows more spanish than I do!

His response? "Mom, you've got bigger balls than I do." I was laughing so hard I couldn't reprimand him for his crude mouth. DARN TOOTIN I DO!

Done. Back home to my english haven. At home in the states, when Greg was gone and Andrew out with friends; Alex and I would have usually had a date to some fun restaurant. Not here. Bean and Cheese Tostadas and some TV are on the agenda... Quality time - just in a different way.

On a side note:

I am anxiously awaiting news and updates from my family in Missouri about the birth of my brother Randy's first little baby. I am so excited for him and Casey, but hate that I am missing out. I'm connecting through Skype for updates and hopefully, a first visit with my new little man - Colton.