Counting Down...

All I need to do is survive Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I'm not sure how I am going to do it...

I am literally shaking with excitement, just thinking about our upcoming trip. I know spending seven weeks in Ecuador may bring some rough days, but I am really, really looking forward to it. Ecuador holds a chunk of my heart.

The bags are packed. Yes, I know. We are a little anxious! We are maxing out on our luggage capacity, for sure. We have had an overwhelming response from people who have donated things for the orphanages and probably about half of our suitcases are filled with the donations. THANK YOU, THANK YOU!! We are going shopping tomorrow to finish up the donation purchases as some people just sent money for that purpose. We are each only bringing one week's worth of clothes, so don't be alarmed if we are wearing the same thing over and over again when we post pictures! We have 1.5 suitcases left to fill...and then wah lah! All ready. The plan to keep ourselves busy for Friday and Saturday is to deep clean the house. Fun, I know. But, I do much prefer to come back to a clean house than a dirty one.

Today was my last day at work for the time being. I will return once we get back...but let's be honest, this week I couldn't even concentrate anyway. Dead weight on the job= awesome. Everything has worked out beautifully for my case load...I just got a few things finished up and then transferred a few clients to other workers. I have seen quite a few tender mercies from the Lord in the timing of everything, that is for sure.

Monday we received a few new pictures of Flor from my friend Stephanie, who is down in Ecuador adopting her daughter Alison. They visited Flor's orphanage and took some adorable pictures. They made my day, okay, my week. I just can't wait to be there holding her! Stephanie and her daughter have volunteered to come with us when we first go see Flor so that they can take pictures/video. That will be so great.

The visa process has been started for Flor- she had her picture taken for that and I hear it went well. :) I'm sure she looked adorable! What can be done ahead of time for the visa should wrap up tomorrow or Friday. Perfect timing.

So, um, I guess there is no point to this post, except to say that we are excited! Prayers are appreciated that things will go smoothly (Particularly the flights--I am super nervous about that aspect. Especially because we have about a thousand layovers. We go from SLC to Dallas to Tampa to Miami to Quito. No big deal. Just the Christmas season threw the flight schedules off a bit! 15 hour day Monday! Yay!)

I'll post again when I can once we get there. The apartment we are renting has Wifi, so it shouldn't be too difficult.