July 9, 2008 (night)

What a day! After Spanish class in Cayambe (we presented vocabulary words, learned new cooking vocabulary, studied mandatos, and visited the hospital again) I returned to my crazy household. I wanted to try cooking something with the kids, but the oven here doesn’t work. My PC cookbook did have one dessert recipe that did not require an oven. It was a peanut butter and chocolate recipe. I asked the kids if they wanted to give it a try and they were game. Lauren was bored so she came over to help. All of us walked to the grocery store and I bought all the ingredients. We then tried to prepare it, but the first peanut butter layer was too dry. Lauren suggested adding a little bit of water and I agreed. Mama Inés, however, put WAY to much water in the mixture and suddenly we had a peanut buttery mess! What to do!?!? I tried adding my sugar, but it didn’t work. Guadalupe (Mama Inés’s niece) suggested a bit of flour, so we tried that and it kinda worked. Now, however, we had to bake the peanut butter mess. Luckily we were already planning on going to Fanny’s house for dinner because her oven works and Guadalupe wanted to make pizza.

Lauren then went home and the kids and I retired to the Monica and Juan’s bedroom/ living room to rough house. They love to gang up on my and tickle me until I start shrieking. Unfair!! I then convinced Carla to be on my team and suddenly Mayra and Isabel defected to my team too. We attacked the boys and soon had them begging for mercy. Wahahaha!

When we arrived at Fanny’s house I put the PB mess in the oven and it didn’t exactly cook. Oh well. I kinda gave up caring. Guadalupe then made a pizza from scratch and it was FABULOUS! She is an amazing cook and so sweet! She lives in Quito with her kids and invited me to visit her sometime and bake cookies with her. Since the PC office is in Quito, I will be there frequently and will have plenty of opportunities. While Guadalupe made pizza I got to play with her four month old baby. Sooo cute! I can speak English to her and not feel guilty because she doesn’t understand and language.

Once we finished the pizza we feasted on my PB and chocolate mess. Everyone ate some and said it was good. I’m not sure if they really thought so or were being polite. The kids, of course, ate plenty (it was, after all, sugar, PB, and chocolate). I brought the leftovers back… maybe I’ll try putting my PB mess on some bananas. All in all, it was an interesting day!