Getting Big

Getting big . . . okay so I sound like a first time mom . . .but Nika is growing so fast! What once was a little ball of Nika is now a big puppy.

It's raining Mangos!

Its mango season! We have a great big mango tree in our front parking area and it has so many mangos that the branches are being weighed down. Most are quite green but when a gust of wind blows the ripe ones fall from the sky. Nika finds them in our back patio area and likes to play with them. Sometimes she comes running inside excited that she found a good one. I take them away, wash them, and put them in the fridge. Other times I hear them hit the car or the pavement in the front and I quietly go outside and snatch them before the guard does and put them in the fridge with the others. In the morning I make a great mango smoothie breakfast.

My friend Lia once said when she eats these types of mangos, its like a mango milkshake in her mouth . . . .I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Nicaragua - the land without jumper cables

We had a nice Sunday planned . . .we were going to get some errands done and then meet up with some friends for the afternoon at a place that looks out on a lake.
When we were running our errands we took Nika along and while Matt went into the hardware store I stayed with Nika listening to music in the car. Matt came out 5 minutes later and tried to start the car . . nothing happened. He tried again . . . nothing happened.
Luckily we were parked on a hill. Matt pushed to get the car rolling and we figured when it picked up speed I would start it and it would be fine . . .it worked before.

After pushing nothing, just a clicking noise. We tried again, Matt pushed and I tried to start it . . just clicking. We turned the corner into a neighborhood to try again . .push, . . click, click, click. We pushed it to a gas station, of course they could jump us and we could go on with our day. I forgot to mention it is 2pm the hottest part of the day.

When we got to the gas station, they said they didn’t have cables, ask some of the cabs that drive by. Matt stood at the busy intersection asking cab after cab, even a utility truck. No one had cables. Nor did a lot of them want to roll down there windows to talk to Matt. He asked one guy, does anyone in Nicaragua have cables . . the guy answered, ask an electrician . . thanks a lot

In the end a family helped us. It took 30 minutes for a big pick up truck to get the engine started. We ended up having to buy a new battery, but there aren’t any Sears around these parts, nor is any body shop open on Sunday. We have friends that have a membership to Price Smart (a Walmart owned Cosco-like store) where we bought a battery and wanted to buy jumper cables . . . but they didn’t have any!

BBQ in February

When we moved into our little house we were so excited because it had a built-in brick oven/grill in the back patio area. Unfortunately though, a tree's branches hung over the chimney, there was dirt in it, and the cooking level was all rusty.

A couple of weeks ago we asked our guard/buddy Wilfredo if he might be able to help us cut some branches away so that we could maybe use the grill. We took Nika for a walk and when we got back Wilfredo had already cut the branches down. Now all we had to do was clean it up. We took the bricks out of the chimney that were blocking it and scrubbed the rust away. Now it was time to grill.

We invited some friends over to help us out with our experiment and we got together some veggie kabobs, coal, and lighter fluid. The coals were glowing in no time and we feasted.

The next Sunday Matt and I decided to try another experiment . . .brick oven pizza!
We made the dough from scratch . . .after spending 2 days hunting down yeast, one day bargaining with a bakery to sell us the yeast the following day and the second to go pick it up. We let it rise and spread it out in pizza shape. We then put it in the grill until it got golden brown on one side. We took it in the house, flipped it and added the toppings onto the brown side. We added, homemade tomato sauce, eggplant, broccoli, garlic, and cheese and slid it back into the grill. Of course we didn’t have a backers paddle so a plastic plate did the job. We made two pizzas and of course ate two pizzas that night ☺

The fun doesn’t stop there. For Valentine’s Day we decided to make s’mores in our grill. We got the coals to glow, took Nika’s stick from her and popped a marshmallow on it. We found Hershey’s and had to improvise a little with the grams. It was a good Valentine’s treat.

While I felt bad cutting the tree, I think the little treats have made up for it.

The two of us bacame the three of us!!

Welcome Nika.

The Fischer-Dalys now have a new family member; her name is Nika. She is a 3 month old boxer puppy. She truly has become a companion to us and definitely keeps us busy and entertained. Now that I am no longer working at the school, she and I spend A LOT of time together. I unfortunately had a seizure and am now taking medication for epilepsy, so Nika has been a great distraction for me ☺

Nika is pretty popular, all the guards and the fruit-selling ladies on the block know the gringa and her little dog Nika. We are hoping to get her running with us very soon.