My house

My new home!

Our front porch

My bedroom (although, the bed with the light colored sheets will be moved  to the spare bedroom soon)

Other view of my room, my picture wall, and the windows, made of glass (or in this case, metal) slats
that can be opened with a crank to let air in

Julie's room

Spare bedroom

Dining room

Living room

Kitchen! One of the most important rooms in the house!

So, here is where I live. Pretty nice, isn't it?! There is tile throughout the house, many windows which all have screens, and clean white walls. Some interesting things about our home?

Some of the screens had holes at first, so those were letting in the mosquitoes. Fixed now, so that is a blessing. Our oven doesn't work because it is missing a part. Stove works, though, so another blessing. Ants appear out of nowhere, so all of our food, including flour, rice, oatmeal, salt, pepper, bananas, are all in the refrigerator. We wash dishes as soon as they are dirty and wipe down the counters very carefully every night so we don't invite the little things back.

Our living room has nice clean white walls but no pictures (with the exception of a little one Mom received as a gift on her tour, which she is kindly loaning us for the year). We need to find things to decorate!

We don't have hot water... It would seem like a big deal but there are 2 benefits: 1) it is so warm and sticky right now, it is quite refreshing to take a cool shower 2) it takes quite a bit of expensive electricity to heat the water so we are saving money! and 3) the tap water is much warmer than it is in the States, so sometimes you don't notice it. (I know I did 3 benefits, just for fun!)

We used to have gaps under our doors to the outside, letting in some lizards, but those have been fixed with boards nailed to the bottom, so no more of those visiting us.

Our neighbors have goats and roosters. If you are like me, that equals not sleeping in very late =)

The windows are slats that are similar to the slats of blinds, but much broader. They are nice to open and let the air in as long as you have screens in place to keep outside outside. The burglar bars you see over the windows are to protect from hurricanes, not thieves. We can't stop the wind and rain from breaking windows, but we can use the bars to prevent tree limbs and other debris from coming in and damaging the rooms.

We do have a spare bedroom and the couch in the living room pulls out. Want to come and visit?