Ecuador Day 18

Well, today was a special day. I guess I should say tonight. The day was pretty standard-- in addition to our normal activities, we walked down to the store and market for groceries. Yeahoo. 

Anyway, this evening we met up with my dear friends Angel, Jenny, and their kids Grace, Jared, and Maibe for dinner. These guys were the directors for OSSO when I volunteered here ten years ago and were the directors for many years. Another friend, Amber, is here visiting them and she was a big player in OSSO for a long time too. She ran the office in Rexburg and basically made the OSSO world turn. :) We met at Crepes and Waffles, which is a Quito classic. They have, you guessed it, crepes and waffles of all different varieties. It is quite delicious food. Anyway, that is beside the point.

It was really fun to see and reminisce with the Chicaizas and Amber again. OSSO changed my life completely. Look where I am now, ten years later. Had I not made that decision to come down here (and it was super scary for me at the time to come down all alone), my life's path would be completely different, no doubt. Because of that decision, I have these two beautiful daughters in my life. I know Heavenly Father's hand is in EVERYTHING-- and sometimes we can't see the end from the beginning until many years down the road. This is one of those situations. When I was 19 and making the decision to come here, I never would have thought that in 10 years I would build my family through adopting two of the babies I met as a volunteer here.

Anyway, it was so great to catch up with everyone. It seems like no one has changed all that much. Angel told us that he remembered Mishell well and he started going through his phone and finding old pictures of them together! What a gift!! I have no pictures of Mishell from any ages except a few as a baby when I was here and shortly after, and then the one from 2012 when we adopted Flor, and nothing else. Angel had quite a few of Mishell from various parties at SVP. I have copies of them now & feel so blessed. It took a minute for Mishell to warm up to Angel. She said she didn't remember him, but pretty soon she was going through all his pictures with him and commenting on who she remembered. At the end, she said that she does remember Angel and Jenny from their visits to SVP (back then the volunteers did not live on site like they do now). It was really a fun evening and really awesome to see things come a full circle from ten years ago. No doubt certain people are put into our lives for a reason & I feel that my association with the Chicaizas has been a rich blessing in life.

I was feeling a little down and discouraged earlier today, just because of the lack of control in this process. We still didn't hear anything about court today, which means it almost certainly won't be this week. It is incredibly hard to be at the mercy of other people and have no control of what happens to us and when. I think I am especially prone to feeling discouragement here because I spent so much time here last time and the thought of that literally makes my stomach turn, and also because I am usually such a go-go-go type person. It dampens my spirits to be unproductive and that's exactly how I feel. So, I had a moment of despair earlier today, but the evening definitely turned my spirits around. It's really amazing how human connection and friendships can change everything. That really is what makes me happiest in life- relationships and connections with other people. So to get a little dose of that from people who are an important part of my story- and my girls' stories- was a great feeling.

Here are a few pictures of the evening:

Yeah, we pretty much let the kids eat dessert for dinner. Every once in a while, that's okay, right?

Hallie's crepe and Devin's two waffles. Because why not?

I actually had a dinner crepe because I am good like that. Then I finished Flor's dessert crepe for dessert. :)

The group of us-- minus Devin who is taking the picture and Flor and Jace that are hidden in the back there

checking out all of Angel's pictures. Everyone was fascinated!

Bummer that Flor is turned around and Mishells' hair is a bit in my face, but it's a picture of all of us, so it will have to do!

Stole this one from Angel

And this one. Look at that cute Mishell on the bottom left!! Such a treasure!!

Ecuador Day 17

We are starting to feel the boredom creeping in. It's so hard to be away from our own home, out of our own routines, and away from our normal activities. There are plenty of things to do in this city, and we make ourselves leave the house daily just so we don't die of boredom, but we are also trying not to spend a billion dollars while here, too (since you know, no one is working at the moment!). It's a fine balance. We had our normal school and cleaning this morning and then spent about an hour playing games. You can only play Uno so many times, though. We tried to teach the kids Phase 10 to drag things out a bit, but they are just a bit too young for that still (and Mishell's language barrier is an issue with that). We had lunch and were about at the edge of stir craziness, so we opted to leave and go for a walk. 

We were told there is a park somewhere behind our house, so we walked up the road in a direction we have never gone, just to find that there is only one road behind us that loops back to where we are. And no park. However, we did get some lovely views of the mansion across the street from us. It's HUGE. Our friends told us that supposedly the richest man in Quito lives there. You can only see parts of it from the street and it is heavily gated, but yes, it's very, very large. 

We walked down the street and over a block and found another little park to play at instead of the imaginary one above us. The kids played for a while and then we entertained ourselves by having them race the length of the basketball court as well as try to beat their own individual times. We even made Flor do it, just for fun. We are mean parents. :) So that burned some time. Then we continued on walking down the street, stopped at the mall for a bathroom break, watched a guy juggle on the street for a while (this is very normal here- to have people perform for the cars at stop lights and hope for some payment). We then walked on down to Carolina Park and burned a few hours there. Carolina Park is right in the middle of the city and sort of like the Central Park of Quito. There are a lot of things to do there, but the park is kind of run down and concrete-y, just like everything else here, which makes it not have such a warm and friendly park feel, if you know what I mean. How's that for horrible descriptions? Anyway, the kids liked the toys there, and that's what counts. 

at the first park. I wasn't trying to take a picture of Jace...I was trying to get Mishell having a good ol' chat with Flor in the back there. Too cute.

And helping her on the exercise machines. This is a common thing in parks here, exercise type play toys. This is a treadmill (duh), they also have stair steppers, a bike, an elliptical type thing, and a bench for sit ups. At least they promote exercise, right?

At Carolina Park. Lots and lots of toys here, but see what I mean about not being the warmest and most welcoming looking toys? Everything is made of concrete and metal.

Oh, the plane is still here! No idea why, but they have an old plane in the middle of the park. It's a bit run down too. But fun to look at.

This is new. Rock climbing! 

After the park, we took a walk down the road to one of our old favorite ice cream shops, Lekka Lekka. When we were here last time, our friends the Schinnerers were staying right close to there, so we ate far too much ice cream. We miss having friends here this time. Last time, we had three other families who we spent a lot of time with, the Harlans, the Schinnerers, and the Broadduses. The Schinnerers were long waiters to get out of here, like us, so we spent many a day with them. It was so incredible to have friends like them here. There is another family here this time, too. They got here a week behind us and are adopting a sibling group of 3 little ones, so they are having some bonding/adjustment time. I am sure we will meet them later and we look forward to that.

Since it's Tuesday, we continued our tradition of Papa Johns pizza. It's 2 for 1 night there and you can't beat that. It also doesn't hurt that we don't have to cook or clean up. :) That about sums up the day.

We heard from MJB this morning that she was not able to get an appointment with the judge today as she had hoped. She is hoping she can see him tomorrow. We are really, really hoping so too. She said she wants to tell him the importance of getting a date as soon as possible since Devin is leaving next week (WAH!!). I started reading my blog yesterday from our last time here, but had to stop because it was so depressing. It was seriously so discouraging. We'd think we were getting somewhere and then nothing would happen. Like at the stage we are now-- all our documents were turned in and we waited for a court date for WEEKS. Oh, we so cannot do that again. I am really praying and trying to have faith that what MJB told us about the court in Tumbaco is true- that they care more about adoptions and process things more quickly. Oh, please let that be true. I really pray for a judge whose heart is softened for us and for adoption in general. 

I suppose that's it for today. Maybe I will take pictures of our house for tomorrow. It's a great place to stay- so much better than where we were last time!

Ecuador Day 16: Teleferico

Today we opted to go to Teleferico for an outing away from the house. It looked like a clear day but by the time we got there, some clouds were rolling in. Oh, well. Teleferico is a tram that takes you to the top of one of the mountains here in the city. Quito is situated in valley between numerous mountain peaks (we are right in the Andes mountain range). The city itself is long and skinny....it stretches on for what seems like forever. From the top of Teleferico, you can see pretty much the whole thing. It is beautiful. 

Teleferico is clearly past its prime. Everything is pretty much shut down except the tram itself. In its day, I am sure it was a wonder. Even from my time here 10 years ago, it seems a lot more run down. There are numerous (like 12) parking lots, but we only counted 5 cars total in the lots as we came up. The tram itself wasn't busy, but there were people in most cars going up and down, so they are still doing ok business there. But there used to be restaurants and all sorts of other things up there, but now there are just a bunch of empty buildings. It's kind of sad. There is an amusement park at the bottom of the hill (where we went last time we were here because Jace was too young to ride the tram) that looks like it is on its last leg. It is still open, but we walked through it, and literally there were maybe 5 people there going on the rides. I have no idea how they stay open. Anyway, it's sad, because it was probably a really fun place in its prime. The tram ride is still really awesome and worth it, though.

Be prepared for a lot of pictures!

Going up:

At the top, there are trails for miles. One trail in particular leads to a cave and other cool things to see, but it is a 5 hour hike total. Yeah, no. There are a bunch of biking trails as well, horses for rent (though we didn't actually see this-- there was a sign for it though) and even a chapel in case you want to get married up there.  There are a few small cafes, but everything else is shut up and graffitied out. Again, sad. 

We took some of the smaller trails and got to see some amazing views of the city and surrounding areas:

That's the chapel down there. Locked up tight as a drum...though looked like it still might be functional.

Just some facts as to the altitude and such

 Of course we had to have a few good photo ops while up there:

A nice couple from Indiana visiting their kids who live here took this for us. Not bad for a family picture..everyone is actually looking!

On our way to check out the chapel

We found this cute little hut with a picnic table in it, so we had our picnic lunch there.

A sandwich in hand and a little bridge and he's a happy man! :)

And these two together..oh boy. They are troublemakers.

Picture courtesy of Hallie. Big zit on my forehead courtesy of oily skin. Just ignore it.

Again.

This is purely for my friends Beth and Ashley. I posted it on Instagram for Beth (Ashley's not on there). Just a little re-enactment of our Sound of Music days when we were here last time together. I think of my OSSO friends often while I am here. They are true friends who shared an experience with me that was truly pivotal in my life and those are connections that can't be replaced. 

If only Flor was looking...

I took about 100 of this shot...and this is the best we could get. My cute 4 kids.

Devin liked the idea of posing us all on this rock and so we did. Whenever he gets out his camera to take a picture, we oblige, since this is about a once in every 47 years occasion. :)

Don't worry, I made him do it too! 

You can learn a lot from your children by the things they write in the dirt with sticks. And apparently we learned something important about Mishell today...(and no, she doesn't mean Grandpa Dave here...)

Just a little shot of the ghost town amusement park below. Looks like it was fun once upon a time (even last time we were here it was busier than this!)

It was a great day! We haven't heard anything further from MJB today, but she should follow up with the judge tomorrow, so we will check with her then. Thank you for all the continued prayers-- we feel them!