Our house has been descended upon by people of more direct Latin lineage than I, but they are doing a bang-up job of moving around rocks and dirt. We have a fairly major backyard leveling project, and, at times, I look out over our balcony and it looks like the walls of Constantinople are being rebuilt. Ethan always runs out there and yells “Hola! Como estas!!” Then he turns to me with a serious face and says, “They speak Spanish.”

I also found it interesting that they brought their own microwave that they store overnight underneath our inverted recycling bins. Every day at lunch (and they have been here over two weeks), they run an extension cord to our front door socket so they can warm up various Mexican confections.