Ecuador Day 10

10 days! We have been here 10 days...and it feels like a month! Seriously.

A few things before we get to today's activities:

Adding to the list of odd things about Ecuador...
* I can't tell you how many taxi drivers we have watched relieve themselves on the street outside our apartment. They pull over, walk to the back of the car and open the door as if they are cleaning something, but it is very obvious that they are actually peeing. Then, when they finish, they usually give the car a few swipes to make it appear that they are finishing their cleaning job. Yeah, right. It's difficult to stand at the window and do the dishes because the view often includes this lovely visual...

*The water temperature situation. In our apartment, you pretty much never know what you are going to get. The water varies between warm and freezing cold; no hot included. One shower can include rather nice warm water, then freezing, then back to warm, all in the matter of seconds without touching any of the dials. Eeesh. I am pretty sure the one thing I will look forward to most when we return is a nice HOT shower!

And two little Hallie-isms from the past day:
*We were getting ready to go out somewhere and I had Jace and Flor while Devin was carrying trash or something and then told Hallie to hold his hand. She whined a bit about it and then said, "But I want moooooom to deal with me!" I think we must use the phrase "You deal with her" too often, eh?

*I went to take Hallie's picture tonight because instead of laying on her bed (air mattress) like she was supposed to, she was laying sideways on the bean bag in the room (see picture below). I told her I was going to take her picture and she said, "But mom, it's not picture time. It's bed time." I wish she would listen to herself sometimes...

Alright, today. We spent the morning deep cleaning the apartment. And by deep cleaning I mean cleaning the bathrooms and mopping the floor. That is pretty deep for us here. :) We finished in about 20 minutes (small apartment!) and then got ready to head over to Stephanie's house. Stephanie and family are at the tail end of their adoption process and hope to go home sometime next week. Today they went to get Alison's birth certificate, passport, and ID card. Apparently the civil registry place here in Quito had 4000 people waiting in line and they use a lottery system to see who gets the limited amount of stamped official forms available. Our in country rep, Maria Jose, went to stand in line at 4 am and Stephanie and Alison joined her there at 7:30 am. The things we have to look forward to! The process took them almost all day, but they got what they needed. Yay! While they were gone, we thought we would stop in and check in on Stephanie's two other girls, Allie and Jenna. Her oldest, Jamie, flew home this morning.

We walked down to a local chicken place, Gus, for lunch with Allie and Jenna. Hallie loves these girls and thinks she is so big when she is around them.

Allie, Jenna, and Hallie. Hallie refused to look at me or smile for the picture, so we went without.

Flor and her daddy. She hates the camera. Every time I pull it out, she hides her face, but Devin can make her smile! How about that?

Ummm, yes, this picture makes it rather clear why all the people here call Jace "fat." Is it just me or does he look gargantuan in this photo?

We figure this might have been Flor's first time eating out. So of course it needed documentation. Such a healthy choice for her first time, too!

This demonstrates a classic Flor move. When she doesn't like the sound of something (in this case, the music playing), she covers her ears to make a statement that the sound is not okay with her. When Jace cries, she can always be found covering her ears.

After lunch, we went back to the Broaddus apartment. Jace and Flor went down for naps (yes we just make ourselves at home in their apartment! It is like three times the size of ours, so it is nice to be able to spread out and have a little space) and Hallie and the other girls and I went outside to play in the park that is across the street. It is much nicer than ours from yesterday, in case anyone wonders. The playing outside did not last long as we soon heard these huge booming sounds that seriously sounded like a cannon was going off. The ground rumbled a little even. I am sure it was fireworks or something, but it scared Allie and I enough that we got the children inside, pronto. The girls then watched a movie (Barbie Christmas. Hallie was in HEAVEN) while Devin rested and I read.

After Stephanie came home, we returned to our apartment and spent a lazy afternoon. I started reading Flor's packet of information that Pamela gave us. I can understand most, though it is in Spanish, but it does make difficult reading. For what I don't understand, I use google translate, which is not always accurate, but hey, it gives me an idea. I got about halfway through that. The most fascinating thing to me is the records they have. We have copies of the forms Flor's birth mother filled out when she entered the hospital to have her. It's that in depth. When we started this process, I definitely thought that we knew nothing about Flor's background other than that she was abandoned. But, no, we have the records of her birth mother from the hospital where she was delivered. Interesting. Most of the hospital and doctor records are from the time Flor was young, mostly in her first year. It is interesting also to read the records of when I was here with her as a volunteer. I remember the times she was in the hospital and what was going on, but now to have the official record from that time? It's kind of crazy. They have kept very accurate records of everything. We have x-rays, reports from visiting the doctor when she had a cold, psychologist reports, social work reports, immunization records, orphanage reports, etc. She even has a little Ecuador ID card. It's cute. These things will all be invaluable when we take her to the doctor in the US as well as when we start her in school.

Dinner was PB and J sandwiches (just PB for Flor, poor thing. No jam for her) thanks to our friends Erin and Zac who left us a huge thing of Peanut Butter when they were here for Christmas. We are not about to buy it here, as a tiny jar is $7. We would be through that in two meals! We packed some to bring when we came, but it got confiscated in the airport in SLC as it was in our carry on bags and the lady deemed it a liquid. Yeah. First time I have ever heard of peanut butter being a liquid! Oh well. We also ate some local fruits for dinner, none of which Devin or Hallie enjoyed. I did though! I don't know what these things are called, but I have great memories of eating them with Kylee when we were here on my second trip. Remember those gel-like seedy fruits, Ky? Anyone know what they are called?  Speaking of the fruits and veggies, Haylee asked if they are safe to eat. They are, but we take the precaution of cleaning them in bleach water first. We also ate meat last night for dinner from the market we went to....and we all feel fine (so far!).

That funny Hallie. Here is the picture I was talking about before. 

Well, that's all for today I suppose. We appreciate all the emails, Skypes, comments, facebook messages, etc. that we are getting. We love you all and are so appreciative of your support in this journey!