To drink, or not to drink... water, that is.

Whenever we have teams come, one of the conversations we always have is, "Can we drink the water?"  I think we are the only place in all of Spain where they do NOT recommend you drink the water.  We were told by our leaders when we came that the water wasn't good to drink; and then, we've had random parents from school say, "you're not drinking the water, are you??"  whenever we get sick.

We are SO thankful that there is a ministry who provides water filters for our company!  As a family, we pretty much only drink water... unless there's a special occasion or something fun.  Needless to say, we go through a TON of water... and water filters. :)

All that said, there have been many who have come through and either did not know or did not think much of the warnings... so they drank the water.  And they were fine.  I always tell both sides to our teams that come, and then let them decide if they want to go with bottled water or tap water.

BUT, after this week, I may change my mind. ;)  When we first got here, we were going through culture shock and all sorts of different types of shock, and one day our water came out brownish yellow when I was trying to give the kids a bath.  As always, we went next door to Javi and asked about the water.  He told us it was no big deal.  Every year it happens... he told us it would be fine tomorrow.

We just took it into stride... what else can you do?... and just avoided baths for the kids that day.  He was right.  The next day it was fine.  He was also right... it happens every year.  One day isn't that big of a deal, and I think we've always had other things going on, so we didn't ponder the "why's" too much.

Well, this year, it happened again.  Right after Jonathan's little fiasco at the hospital.  We waited out the day, thinking it would be fine the next day.  Nope.  Or the next day... nope.  It has now been like this for over a week...maybe a week and a half.  We couldn't delay baths that long, obviously... haha... so then it really made us start thinking, "Why is the water brown... is it dangerous?  Is it safe to bathe in? to brush teeth in?"  I think it was spurred on by the idea that Jonathan had a healing incision that we were trying to keep clean.

This week, the kids were all beginning to feel better and were going a bit stir crazy.  So Wes decided to fill up our little pool in the front yard.  It's shallow, but kinda big as far as inflatable pools go... so he put the hose in and left.  About an hour later, I look out and see yucky yellowish, brownish water in the pool (just like we were seeing in the tub... only there was a whole lot more of it!)  Sorry, I didn't think about it in time to get a "before" picture.  Wes decided to to put in the clarifier that he has for the pool to see what it would do to the water.  It's supposed to separate the dirt from the water, so that the filter can get rid of the dirt.  Oh my goodness... scary!!

Can you see the dirt that it separated from the water!?!?!  This is the "fresh" water we had just put in the pool... no kids had set foot in it yet! Can you see the dirt that had settled on the bottom?

I don't know about you, but there's NO WAY I'm drinking that tap water!... even on a good day! :)

School Birthdays!

Here in Spain, birthdays are a really, really big deal.  Granted, most Spaniards only have one or two kids, so it's doable... but most of the time, a child will have his/her birthday party at a place where they have the big blow up toys, a ball-pit, etc.  The parents drop off the kids, and the party is run entirely by the staff.  Our kids love going...but, we have yet to follow the cultural tradition b/c it's so expensive!  With four kids, I cannot even imagine fitting that into our budget. :)  It's expensive just to SEND the kids to the parties, b/c each of our kids is in class with 30 other kids.  So if you think about 30 birthday parties times 4 kids!... yeah, craziness! :)  Well, realistically, all 4 kids don't get invited to every single party, but it's still expensive... even for families with only 2 kids!  SO one on my closest friends came up with an idea that we implemented for Weston's class, and it was so successful, there has been talk of doing it in some of the other classes.  We were all for it.

The trampoline!

This is Marco, one of Weston's best friends.  He is Toña's son... many of you have heard me talk about her!

Nathan getting ready to swim!

They were much happier here than in the pool. :)

They decided to group all the birthdays every quarter together in one birthday party.  Every child (other than the birthday kids) going to the party, contributed 5 euros in place of a gift.  The money collected goes to paying for the party itself and then the parents bring one gift to the party for each birthday kid to open.  WOW.  Talk about saving money!... at least for the parents throwing the parties!  It was also cheaper for those of us attending too, b/c it's tough to find a decent gift for only 5euros.

Games!

Even Carolina got to play.

Weston has a summer birthday, so near the end of school, we coordinated summer birthdays.  Weston has one girl in his class who is from England.  Her family lives on the golf course and they live in the only "houses" we have seen in Cáceres... you know, like what we would consider a house and not a town home or an apartment.  This is a very, very well-to-do neighborhood, and it was like stepping foot back on American soil! :)  hehe... it was seriously beautiful... or maybe I just miss houses and lawns. :)  Anyway, this family offered to host the party at their home (since it's huge... by Spain stanards... and gorgeous!)  The perk from that, aside from the fact that we ALL got to go... little ones included... was that the money normally used to "rent" the facility, came back to us to buy Weston's gift! (after food expenses, etc. were taken out, of course)  HA!  Wes and I couldn't have had it better! hehe... :) It was hosted at someone else's house... Weston felt special and recognized... and they even paid for his gift! :)  It was a really fun day for everyone.

Antonio and Nathan... Antonio is Toña's husband.

Opening gifts!... that is Carmen beside Weston.  Her family hosted the party... does the blond hair give away that she's British? :)

Our most up-to-date News... on Jonathan

Ok,  life has been so crazy that I've had no time to be on here.  There have been little snatches of time that I have thought, "oh, I SOO need to blog" but there was SO much to catch up on, it caused me to stop before I even started.  SO, today, I'm just going to start with our most recent adventure, and then I'll go back and catch you all up on life here in the "White House."  hehe... :)

Our little tough man on the stairs of Mars Hill in Athens, Greece ... before any signs of trouble! :)

As many of you know, Jonathan headed into the hospital the other day.  It started off as a "quick visit" to the private clinic.  We can't use the public system b/c we don't contribute to their social security.  In most places, this is not a big deal; but here in Cáceres, there are very few private doctors.  Hardly anyone uses private insurance, so there is not a big need for them.  When we are sick, we usually "walk in" to this private clinic... kinda like an urgent care.  They have no pediatricians, but they are usually fine for the things that we need.

When we first went in, the dr. thought that Jonathan had a hernia, but because it was feverish to the touch and red and extremely painful, he thought it best to be diagnosed by a pediatric specialist.  He wrote a letter, which allowed us to be seen at the public emergency room; and he urged us to go right away. 

Now, the last time we had been to this clinic (we always see a different doctor...), the dr. didn't believe that Jonathan was really in pain.  He thought he was exaggerating in order to get attention (which is NOT like Jonathan at all!)  It's a long story, but Jonathan was hurting so much that he couldn't do some of the things that the dr. was asking him to do.  Because the dr. thought he was faking it, he threatened him that if J didn't do it, he would send J to the hospital "where they will take you away from your parents and you won't see them again."  J was so scared, and I was super angry.  At that point, I assured J that we were his parents and that they couldn't take him away from us.  I didn't want him to be scared of doctors and hospitals, so I was doing my best to reassure him.  Well, when this dr. said he was sending us to the hospital, those memories came rushing back, and he was terrified.

We made arrangements for someone to stay with the other kids, and Wes and I took J into the emergency room.  Thankfully, it was amazingly quiet, b/c it was during siesta... AND it's summertime when everyone leaves town.  It didn't take long for us to be seen.  The nurses came in and explained that they were going to need to draw some blood in order to be ready to do anesthesia, in case they needed to do surgery.  We explained it to Jonathan and he was scared, but ok.  Wes and I waited right outside the door, and everything was quiet for a few minutes.  We thought everything was going fine, until we started hearing Jonathan's screams... screams like I have never heard  before.  These screams still haunt me in my dreams.  He was screaming (all in Spanish, of course) "STOP! ENOUGH! I can't!  NO MORE!" and after each phrase, it was always followed by "PLEASE!!"  It was heart wrenching and horrifying for a Momma!  All I could think about was how scared Jonathan had been before coming and how he must think we had abandoned him to these terrible doctors. 

Just when neither of us could stand it anymore, and Wes was about to rush in there, they opened the door and asked me to come in.  My poor baby boy.  There were 4 of them holding him down, and he had bruises... you could see the finger prints!... all over.  Ugh, it broke my heart.

At this point, we were trying to distract J from the pain, poor baby.  All I had was a camera in my purse, so we put it to work! :)  He's trying to smile in the picture, but it looks awfully sad.

We took lots of pics together. :)

In all these pictures, he is trying to smile, but this was the best he could do... more of a grimace than a smile, but my baby was trying!!

The nurses felt so bad for my boy.  They made him a "friend" to try to help distract from the pain.

At this point, they decided to do some tests, b/c a hernia shouldn't be quite that painful.  Lovely... don't you think they should have one the tests before hand???  Anyway, it turned out that he did not have a hernia, and what they did find, required emergency surgery.

J was scared, so again, we were using the camera as a distraction... he wanted to see what they had put on his head.

J taking a picture of us! :) ... do you see worry and stress on our faces??

So, they whisked him away; and an hour later, the dr. came out to explain things.  They were able to fix the situation, but Jonathan will have some lasting effects from the surgery.  Thankfully, they are not life-altering! It could have been much worse.  We were reminded of God's mercy, grace and love.

I stayed the night in the hospital with J, and I was so thankful to know that so many of you were praying for us!  It was a long, lonely night, filled with continually strange, cultural things. :) In the back of my head, I knew to expect this; but I think all my emotions were tied up in being strong for Jonathan.  There were many things that happened differently here than what we'd expect in the States, but the strangest one was when the nurse came in to let me know that J could begin to drink water little by little.  He was sleeping at the time, so I asked the nurse if I just needed to ask for some water once he woke up?  She looked at me kinda strange and said, "You didn't bring water for him?"  Ha!  Yeah, no, I hadn't thought about bringing water for him...  She suggested using tap water (which is not really safe to drink here!), and then began looking around the room for something to use as a cup.  Hmmm... I ended up having to leave J alone (praying with everything in me that he wouldn't wake up while I was gone!) to find a vending machine with water bottles.  Praise the Lord, when I returned, I found him like this:

This was the room in the pediatric ward.

He slept on and off all through the night; but pretty much moaned and cried, even when he was sleeping.  The next morning, the dr. came in and said J could go home!... that's it.  Nothing more.  No instructions. No explanations.  No asking if we had any questions.  Of course, the American came out in me (I really think I annoyed the doctor... b/c even though I was asking all the questions, he directed every answer to Wes... I don't know.  We were speaking Spanish the whole time, so maybe he thought Wes understood better than I did? :)  Who knows.)  I wanted to know if J needed to stay in bed for a certain time; when could he eat, etc... you know, the basics.  Well, obviously, it's just "the basics" in the States, b/c it was not normal here!

Waking up in the morning

The screen messes up the pic, but I was thankful that we could see some green from the window! :)

Getting ready to go

He was adamant that he was bringing his "friend" home for Carolina to play with. :) I think the thought of his sister almost brought a real smile to his face! :)

I gave up asking my questions, b/c the dr. didn't even have answers for me.  I figured I could call Stateside when we got home and get some answers I trusted.  So, we just let it go and got J ready to go home.  From the moment we stepped foot into the hospital the day before, that's all he had been saying to me.  "I just want to go home."  He was pretty happy to be getting out of that scary place.

Waiting for Daddy to get the car... and still TRYING to smile...

Home at last!

Jonathan was SO happy to be home!... and finally, the real smile comes out again! :)  Thank you all for praying for our sweet boy.  He is still recovering, but doing well.  We appreciate all the continued prayers!