Bagorbox Potatoes

I’m hoping someone else is going to help me redeem myself by asking, “What are bagorbox potatoes”?

That’s exactly the question I asked Ryan this afternoon when we arrived at a home to find the dinner menu was planned for us. It read: Ham, bagorbox potatoes and veggies. As always, I speak before I think, so I immediately asked “What in the world are bagorbox potatoes”? It only took me about two seconds of Ryan’s uncontrollable laughter to realize that it meant we could make homemade potatoes using bagged pototoes or make instant potatoes using boxed potatoes.

While I’m sharing funnies, I may as well share something that happened the other day that I found absolutely hilarious. PNC Bank, our new bank in Hershey, is offering a $25 Target gift card when you sign up to have two of your bills paid through online automated payments. Since we only have two monthly bills and I love Target, I was thinking this would be a win-win situation. I mentioned to Ryan that I was going to sign up to have each of our student loans paid online. His reply, “We already have student loan automated payments”. My reply, “No, actually we don’t have automated payments”. Here’s the funny part – the reason why he thought we already had automated payments was because he receives an email each month stating that the payment was received. The reason he gets this email is because I write a check each month and make sure it gets there on time. Therefore, I am the automated payment system, so no need for PNC Bank to take care of things for us. We both got a good laugh out of this and still joke about it.

Catching Flak

I’ve really been catching some heat lately for not doing my fair share and posting on this page that I created. Jeanna does such a good job of keeping everyone up to date that I just get lazy and let her handle it. Since our Alma Mater evidently ran a story in the quarterly magazine about us and our recent travels I can’t put it off any longer. Thanks to everyone that has sent an email thus far. I love hearing from everyone and I promise I will write back.
This new job is unlike anything I’ve ever been a part of in my entire life. I can’t even explain it well to others because I have no frame of reference outside what has happened in the month since we arrived here. As far as adjusting goes, we are making strides. We work in the mornings from 6am to 8:30am and then go back on duty from 2pm ’til bedtime. I’m having a hard time constructing a pattern for the other things I have to take care of when we aren’t working, like this site, but I’m sure that will come before too long.
I’m gonna turn the rest over to your imagination now. I’ve gotta go get my daily dose of coffee before we go back to work. Keep those emails coming.

Survival of the Fittest

Well, we survived the 4 year-old triplets . . . just barely. What a week it’s been. We started off in an elementary home on Monday that had the triplets, another boy who just turned 5 last month and 2 fifth graders. It was the most fun I’ve had in a home since arriving, but also the least fun I’ve had. When the boys are playing and being good, they are awesome. But when they decide to act like Satan’s children, it’s horrible.

My favorite part about working with kids that age is that they are so curious and so honest. They ask a ton of questions about everything. It always amazes me. For example, I had my contacts in the first day we were there. The next morning when I got up really early, I had my glasses on. Two of the boys were so curious (and a little freaked out) and keep asking questions. I explained to them what contacts were and showed where they were on my eyes. The boys were very excited and asked if I popped my eyeballs out each night when I took them out.

They are brutally honest at that age too. While I was buckling one of the boys into his car seat he told he that I had bad breath and needed to brush my teeth. One night while Ryan was tucking one of the boys into bed he told Ryan that he smelled and needed a shower. I know Ryan’s favorite happened yesterday morning when we were eating breakfast. I was having cereal with the boys when one of the triplets said, “Mrs. Stewart, do you know when you chew with your mouth open it’s called chomping?” He wasn’t asking a question . . . he was calling me out. I couldn’t help but laugh.

For some reason the triplets had a fascination with babies. The first thing they asked when we got there was where our babies were. When I told them we didn’t have any babies of our own yet, they were highly disappointed. About an hour later, they told us that they wanted us to have babies very soon. If it was a boy, they wanted us to name him Frankenstein. If it was a girl, they wanted us to name her Dora for Dora the Explorer. One evening during devotions, one of the boys prayed that God would bring us babies soon. I quickly said a prayer to myself asking God to bring us babies, but not anytime soon.

I really enjoyed the young kids and would still consider having that age level when we get our own home. Ryan, on the other hand, enjoyed that age level, but said he definately didn’t want kids that young. We’ll see. My guess is that we probably won’t have a choice anyway, so we’ll just be happy with whatever age level we get.

Last night and this morning we worked in a senior boys home. It’s nice because we don’t have to do things like deal with temper tantrums, change sheets because they wet the bed, or miss our own dinner because we’re too busy helping four others eat theirs. However, I haven’t had any of them crawl up into my lap and give me little kisses either, so it definately has its drawbacks.

Wanna Shoot Some Hoops?

Well, I think the house we’re working in right now definately takes the prize for the biggest style of home on campus. Believe it or not, there is a full size basketball court in the basement of the house. Yes, that’s right folks, a full size gymnasium lies beneath me. This style of house is one of the oldest on campus and is starting to fall apart. The word is that these homes will be gutted and completely remoldeled within the next few years. I can only imagine what they will look like after that.

Ryan had the thought last night that we should be taking our digital camera into some of the homes we work in to take pictures of some things. For example, he was wishing he had the camera last night after he made mashed potatoes using 35 potatoes. Once ready, it was pretty hilarious how much there was. We had a huge mixing bowl full of mashed potatoes. Of course the evening Ryan decides to spend an hour peeling potatoes, half the kids weren’t home to eat them. We decided to save them for potatoe cakes in the morning.

Tomorrow morning we head to our first K-5 home. We’re excited for the change, but anxious to see how well we like it. We’ll probably be pretty worn out by tomorrow evening, but at least the kids will be in bed by about 8pm, so we can crash then as well. The real test will be getting all seven of the kids ready for chapel on Sunday morning decked out in their Sunday best. At least we won’t have seven little girls to put panty hose on.

Still Here

Well, we are still here, although sometimes I think my body is here but my mind isn’t. We started flexing this week (working in homes on our own) and it’s been going ok. We are in a senior boys home until Friday and starting this weekend we will have K-5 boys. I’m actually looking forward to the younger ones. Right now I’m thinking I’d rather have bed wetting and temper tantrums as opposed to the attitudes that come with the older ones.

On another note, our personal belongings have finally arrived in Hershey. We went to the moving company today to sort through our things and pick out what we wanted at our temporary apartment. We were amazed (and saddened) to see how much “stuff” we have. It really puts it into perspective when you see all your belongings in one big pile. It just means that we will be forced to have another major eBay sale, as well as give some things to charity. If we haven’t missed it yet, we certainly won’t be missing it in August when we get a permanent home.

Thanks to those of you who have sent us notes via mail and email recently. We really appreciate them. Please know that we are struggling right now with adjusting to our new schdule and still trying to keep in touch with our family and friends. During our off time most of you are at work, so it’s been hard to keep in touch at times. Please just bear with us for now and we will hopefully figure out our routine in a matter of time.