anotheronething

Before resuming teaching after a week at camp, Brandon enjoying a weekend golf outing with one of the students (a semi-pro here in Paraguay). It was a beautiful day and he golfed well, considering it's been at least six months since he last played.

We thought that with camps being over and company gone, it would be time to get back to "normal" life. But alas, normalcy alluded us for yet another week.

I had been battling a cough - no sore throat, no fever, just a cough - and Brandon made me promise to see a doctor if it wasn't better when he returned from camp. Since it only got worse while he was away, I made an appointment and saw the doctor on Tuesday. I felt silly - a grown woman going to see a doctor over a little hacking - but the doctor said that my lungs were heavily congested and prescribed a cough syrup and antibiotic to fight off the bronchitis. He told me to hold off on the antibiotic unless I wasn't feeling better in a few days (since anything I take gets passed on to Bailey), and only has me taking the child's dosage of the cough syrup, for the same reason. As I type, I'm feeling better and haven't taken the cough syrup in 36 hours.

(Funny side note: I needed a prescription for the cough syrup, but the antibiotics are "over the counter" . . . does that seem backwards to anyone else?)

Two short days later, we were once again temporarily evicted from our apartment as the exterminators returned to re-treat the entire building. You see, the bed bugs returned, in a different apartment, and the company was still under their 30 day guarantee. I have to laugh, though, at the fact that there were ants on our kitchen counter as I went in the apartment to open windows to air out the place before returning for the evening. Hummm . . . .

Thursdays are also the days we are taking Spanish lessons. We have recruited one of the teachers at school to be our profesora and she has been fabulous. It's a "Spanish only" hour and she is very patient with us as we stumble through the vocabulary. We've started with numbers, family, kitchen items and frequently used phrases for use on the buses. I'm keeping my notes pinned to the curtains in the kitchen so I see them while I'm cooking and washing dishes.

Brandon has been busy getting ready for the start of the soccer season here at school. He will be coaching both the girls and the boys teams (for now) and spent much of his time between classes shopping for jerseys and equipment around town. The girl's team will start practices this week, while the boys won't start until next. The good thing is that practices run the same time as I do tutoring, so we (hopefully) won't miss out on the family time that we have come to enjoy in the evenings!

The weekend ended rather uneventfully and we almost forgot that it was Halloween. It's not widely celebrated here, though some of the stores were selling the plastic pumpkin baskets, decorations, and costumes. Late in the afternoon, we remembered that Grandma brought us a "My First Halloween" bib, so we took a few pictures . . . and that was the extent of the festivities.