Nathan is now 3!!!

Where did the time go!?!? Our little boy is now three years old! We had tons of fun celebrating his birthday on Saturday, December 25! Our little Christmas baby is now a boy. I just took a little trip down memory lane - looking at older photos of Nathan! God really did work a miracle in our lives and I'm reminded of it every year at Christmas! Thank you, Jesus! So . . . . here's Nathan! To see more photos from his birthday party, please click HERE!

Censo Sunday

And then right after Ruth's birthday, we had "Censo Sunday" - a once in every 10 years day here in Ecuador. This year, the unique thing was that everyone in the whole country (yes, everyone!) had to stay put from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wherever you were at 7 a.m. (hopefully at home), you had to stay there until the census was over at 5 p.m. So churches didn't have services, stores were closed, buses weren't run, there weren't any taxes.

Only those employed in places like hospitals were able to move about. And the census takers were thousands of young people from all over the country who were required to go to several homes and do a long survey!

So what does one do on a census Sunday? Well, first of all, our three guests (Ana, Julie and Nanette - see previous post) were actually glad to have a "down day" to just hang out and do basically nothing - but oh yes, we did have a few things on our list:

1) sleep in

2) eat "locro de papas" - an ecuadorian dish - potato soup

3) watch movies and eat popcorn

4) somehow keep the kids entertained

5) make 4 batches of sugar cookies for the ER Christmas Outreach at the Hogar Betania on the following Wednesday

6) make chili for other guests arriving the next day

7) play games

8) have a fire in the fireplace

9) talk and chat and catch up as only us women know to do

10) and wait for the census taker to show up (which he finally did right around 4:45 p.m.)!

And the picture above is of Santi with the census taker, answering a bunch of questions (and apparently Isa thought it was pretty funny - can you see her big smile!?). I'm so glad my husband was here to take care of it! I probably wouldn't have had the patience for all the questions!

Celebrating Ruth's Birthday - Nov 27

The day after Thanksgiving brought special guests from the US - Ana, Julie and Nanette - good friends from the Indianapolis area. They came down a few days early to hang out with us before participating in the week-long Extreme Response Christmas Outreach

On Saturday, November 27, we celebrated Ruth's birthday in a big way - starting with a little service at the Hogar Betania (Bethany Home for the Elderly - see photo below) due to the fact that we could not go on Sunday as we normally do (more on that in another post).

Then we had empanadas (turnovers) and fruit for lunch (see photos of the girls waiting for the empanadas),

After lunch we headed to the art park to see some beautiful ecuadorian art and made some special purchases for all of us (forgot to take photos though)

And for supper, it was on to our favorite restaurant - Crepes and Waffles. We finished out the day with a two hour ride on a "chiva bus" - a special holiday/event bus that is open on all sides and has music (see photos below). We enjoyed driving through down town colonial Quito and seeing all the old churches and buildings lit up at night! What a great way to celebrate!

To see more photos of our special chiva bus ride, click HERE.

us girls on the chiva bus!

Looking good on the chiva bus in downtown Quito!

Standing in front of the San Francisco Church - oldest church in Quito!

The girls waiting for our empanadas for lunch!

The service at the Hogar Betania, with Ana sharing, earlier in the day!

An International Thanksgiving!

It seems like our lives go in waves and we seem to be in one of them right now! The events over the past few weeks have kept us busy, but overwhelmed with God's goodness! I hope to add a series of posts these next few days that will help you get caught up on our lives!

We enjoyed a Thanksgiving Dinner at our home with several other friends in our home. The guest list included an Ecuadorian couple - Sandy & Edi (expecting their first baby any day now), a Swiss family (missionaries with HCJB with three children, Tomas works with Santi in the computer department) and a family from the US (the Dawsons - also missionaries with HCJB with three children too). It was definitely an international occasion. We were so busy with the turkey that we forgot to take photos, but fun was had by all with 8 children in the house busily playing and all of us enjoying some pumpkin pie!

Fun with the kids

Last Saturday was a busy day with a visit to a park in the center of Quito - El Ejido - we often call it the "Art Park" because on the weekends there are a lot of artists who display their work for sale. We had a guest from the states with us, so we thought it would be fun to take her there so that she could do some shopping. Little did we know that the park now has lots of fun things for kids to do - Nathan and Isa had a great time playing on the playground equipment (which was the perfect distraction wile our friend Christy did her souvenir shopping!). Later in the day, we went to the Harvest Festival at the school and Nathan played a few games, but his favorite was racing cars! He loved it! And Nathan's hair now looks a lot better since his bad haircut two weeks ago and he no longer is sporting a band-aid on his chin!

Drawer Fun!

I couldn't resist taking these photos of Isabella the other day while she was having fun playing in one of the kitchen drawers . . . it's usually full of games and toys for her and Nathan to play with, but she found it more fun to take everything out and try to get in herself!

Papallacta Hot Pools

Some gracious friends came and stayed with Nathan and Isabella for a night so that Santi and I could get away for our anniversary. We had a wonderful time (and both of us thought we should do it more often!).

We stayed one night up at the Termas de Papallacta - a beautiful resort high up in the Andes Mountains that features natural hot springs. We enjoyed our own private pool right outside our cabin. The views of Antisana - a snow-capped volcano - were spectacular as we relaxed in the hot pools. And it was fun to take a hike up the mountain side to see some of God's creation. Here are a few photos of our time away.

Here was the view outside our cabin door at dusk.

Can you see the snow-capped mountain in the background?

Mt. Antisana still showing it's snowy glory in the morning.

We found some llamas during our morning hike.

This was a fun organic garden - featuring mint among many other things.

Everything grows up in the mountains - even beautiful flowers!

There is no such thing as a tree line here at the equator

(even though we were at 10,000 feet altitude).

We stopped into a little museum along the way and

saw this big huge feather from Ecuador's national bird - the condor.