Ecaudor Day 15

Well, here we are two weeks in! The days seem to be going faster, which is nice. (Devin disagrees-- just because yesterday was so slow). Hallie threw up again last night after seeming fine all day. It's weird. Luckily, I know just how to get Pedialyte from the Pharmacies here, so she and Jace have begun a steady diet (and by that I mean as much as they can handle) of it.

We weren't about to sit in the house another day, so we took a trip to the MegaMaxi this morning. It is getting quite ridiculous that we have to go nearly every other day, so I proposed that we walk there, buy a larger supply of food and water, and then take a taxi home. So, that is what we did. We got 10 jugs of water versus the 3 we normally get, so maybe that will last us a week. I know the taxi driver thought we were ridiculous having him drive us just up the road, but who wants to walk 10 jugs of water, plus three kids, plus groceries up the hill? Not me. The 4 flights of stairs are fine, thank you.

After lunch and naps, we decided to head out to try to find the Metropolitano Park, which according to the map Andres pinned to the fridge for us, is just above Eloy Alfaro (the road right above us.) So, we set out to make the trek. Sure enough, we could see the park on the right side of the road up yonder, but the whole thing was fenced and barb-wired off. We continued to roam thinking that there had to be an entrance somewhere...but no such luck. The entrances must be on the complete other end of the park of something. So, we just kept walking. We ended up close to the bakery where we have been buying our bread, but had taken the long, long way to get there. It was actually quite nice just to walk around and see the scenery. We stopped in at a different bakery (across the street-- Devin says we need to "spread our wealth". Right, the ton of wealth that we have...) and had some rolls before continuing on. We caught a taxi and decided to have him take us to another large park here, the Carolina Park. This one is also close to our house in the opposite direction and a very well known park around here. However, we had walked ourselves so far that we were quite a ways from it and didn't want to keep walking to get there. The taxi driver drove us completely around the park instead of just dropping us off when we got there (I think to get some extra change from us), but finally did end up letting us out.

We made a potty break (another oddity about Ecuador: You pay for toilet paper in public restrooms) and then walked around some. The park was hopping today. There were people everywhere. It is a large park with a lot of things to do, including little carnival rides for the kids, common play areas, soccer areas, a observatory, a museum, and tons of food vendors. We opted to go to ride on the pedal-boats. I was familiar with these from my days with OSSO as we once took some of the orphanage kids on a field trip to ride in the boats. We thought this would be a fun activity for our little family and we did end up having a good time. 1/2 hour of riding cost $3.90, which isn't bad. After a half hour, we were done anyway, so that worked out great. We will definitely go back to this park again someday to do some of the other activities. By the time we were done with the boats, it was time to head home to get the kids fed and then ready for bed.

Hallie on our long walk to try to find the first park. We were up above our apartment, so had an even more incredible view of the city. We watched a plane come in from the south of the city and followed its path all the way to landing at the airport. It was cool to be able to see it all.

Another common sight here in Ecuador are these little plaza areas with statues of all sorts. This one was the Plaza of Chile, also on the path of our walk.

Here we are on the boat at the Parque Carolina. Hallie refused to smile or even look at the camera.

Flor, Jace, and I. You can't tell but Flor was sporting an awesome Deb-like side ponytail. I am having a good time doing her hair every day because it is so long. However, her hair is quite the mess. We will need to get it cut and styled cute when we get home, for sure.

Doesn't Jace just look like an old man all the sudden? He is growing up too fast and I am not okay with it! In fact, he turned 10 months old yesterday. Happy 10 months, buddy! (or as Hallie calls him, "Jacer babies")

Now she'll smile. That stink. We let her sit in the back of the boat and she was quite content.

Here is a view from our boat. I really do love this city. There are so many things to do and you never seem to see the same thing twice. It has a lot of diversity in sights, sounds, tastes, everything. We are loving the time we have to explore!

Well, that's all for today. The internet is being super slow, so it took quite a while to upload all these pictures. Let's hope that's not a trend from here on out!