We made it!

To all my faithful blog readers...my apologies for not posting before now, but we have had limited access to the internet. It is not a bad thing, I guess. It is just an adjustment going from checking my email 4 times a day, to once a week... many thanks to all who have sent me personal emails. I regret that I am unable to respond to each and every one....I just dont have time ....btw, these keypads have lots of extra keys and it in order to type the at symbol, you have to do some crazy combination of letters with alt. Sadly i dont remember how to already...much less how to type a stupid apostrophe. I digres...

Anyhow, all is well here. It feels like we have been gone a month...even though we have been in country less than a week. It is not a bad thing. It is just that every day feels like 4 because we are doing so much each day. We are staying with our host family who are all really wonderful. We are living in a small town with the most fantastic view of mountains and when it is not cloudy, you can see a couple snow capped volcanoes. we keep having to pinch ourselves that we are actually in Ecuador. The views are just breathtaking! The weather has been really nice. Although it is technically the rainy season, they are having a drought of sorts. It has only rained once in the last month (conveniently just minutes after we finished hanging our clothes on the clothesline!!!) It is warm, borderline hot, during midday...and it is cool in the evenings. Very comfortable. Much more comfortable than Ohio weather. I hear that it is super cold and snowy...and that Anna Nicole died. Thanks to all of you for keeping us up on the news!!! PLEASE keep sending us messages and updates...even though we may not be able to reply promptly!!!

The food has been fantastic. Our host mom is an awesome cook...all the meals have tons of fresh vegetables and fruits. A lot of the other volunteers meals are heavy on the rice and other carbs, but so far we have lucked out with lots of fresh veggies. We had some meetings today in a bigger town, and we had lunch in a restaurant ---our lunch included fresh juice, soup, a big plate of food and a dessert for the grand total of 2 bucks!!!

I am trying to anticipate the many questions you undoubtedly have about our accomodations... we have our own private room in a house with a family of three: our host mom, her 15 year old son, and her 8 year old grandson. Her sister lives next door and so there are lots of cousins and neices running around. They are a lot of fun and are super patient with our Spanish. Jeremy reads the same Dr. Suess book with our lil brother every night. It is really cute. He is picking up on the Spanish pretty quickly and is not afraid to ask questions or practice it, which is good. My spanish is coming back to me, thankfully! I was very worried, having not used it in over 10 years. I still have a long way to go, though, to have more in depth conversations about more complicated topics... Anyway, our family has hot water, tv, dvd, and a computer (to play video games!). The first night we were at our family{s house, we watched the movie Garfield in spanish. It was a trip!!! The town is super small, though, and there is no bar, restaurant or any stores besides tiny corner stores that sell ice cream, junk food and a few staples. I haven{t had a drink since we{ve been in country...which is fine, because I think I needed to detox after a month of successive going away lunches, dinners, happy hours, parties, and the grand finale farewell fiesta of the century!!! MANY THANKS to all for the warm wishes, kind words of encouragement and thoughtful gifts. Thanks especially to the entire Thomas family who so generously helped pull off the party...and put us up at the hotel...and fed us on Sunday. Thanks also to the Dick{s Den crew for hosting the fiesta and cleaning up the mess we made...and thanks to our families for supporting us on this grand adventure and new chapter in our lives. I will try to keep this blog as up to date as possible, but please be patient. The pace of life in Ecuador is different. Tranquilo. And so far, it is treating us quite well. Hasta pronto!