Ecuador Day 1:

Remember this? Boy howdy do I, too. We'll see if I am as good as I was last time at updating the blog nearly every day. I did/will have a lot of time on my hands (I think) but I just can't say I am feeling as motivated as I was last time.

Anyway, I better finish the passport story before I move on to the actual trip, right? Devin and Flor drive to Denver Monday night and went to the National Passport Center first thing in the morning, even though their appointment wasn't until 12:30. They got right in, which was a huge blessing, because the passport was done by 2 pm. Had they gone at 12:30, it's doubtful they would have been done in time as the place closed at 3. Whew. Crisis averted. They then drove home that night and got home at 11 pm. 16 hours of driving for that.. Devin is a gem. We were glad to have that out of the way and spent the rest of the week packing and cleaning the house for an early morning flight Sunday.

So, onto Day 1, or getting there:

bye bye SLC!

My cousin Carlie was kind enough to meet us at our house at the very early hour of 6 am and deliver us to the airport for our 8:30 flights. She is a real keeper. On the way to the airport, we kept getting email notifications that Devin & the girls' flight was delayed, first by 40 minutes, then by an hour, then by three hours, then by five hours. Yep. That wasn't going to do. We were on separate flights to begin with because I booked his and the girls' first knowing that they would return sooner, then when I went to book mine and Jace's, those flights were not available, so I called Delta and booked a flight directly from SLC to ATL then on to Quito, whereas Devin had a stop at Dallas before Atlanta. Anyway. Once we got to the airport, we found the nearest Delta rep to find an alternative flight plan for Devin. The lady we got was very nice and told us she was sure she could just get him on mine and Jace's flights. I had my doubts because I had gotten an email saying the flight was overbooked and offering to pay people to get off. Anyway,  she worked her magic and sure enough got him onto the same flight.

We cleared security without any major problems (other than TSA thinking our two big bricks of cheese were bombs...they had to carefully search those. :) Remember, Ecuador has awful dairy products, so we purchased two big Costco bricks of cheese to bring with us). Anyway, I digress.

Security was fine. The first flight was fine. It was a huge jet, which was fun. The only kind of bad thing was that Jace has no concept of indoor voice and he really seemed to annoy the elderly gentleman sitting next to us every time he opened his mouth (which was a lot). Luckily this plane had individual tvs in each seat with quite a great selection of free shows, so I just kept him plugged in as much as I could. :) I was thinking that based on my previous flying experience with Flor in which I still have PTSD, Devin had the short end of the stick sitting next to her. However, she was a perfect angel. I kid you not. Not a peep out of her. And to think that we have deprived her of going anywhere all these years simply because we thought she could not handle the flights...Sorry, Flor.

We had a three-ish hour layover in Atlanta and since we were all hangry by the time we landed, we ate the nearest thing and then hung out until our next flight. This one was longer, but only 5 hours total. It wasn't bad at all. We even got Jace to take a nap and Flor made friends with the cutest little boy behind us. He was probably about 4 and kept coming over to share his tablet with her. He only spoke Spanish but didn't seem to care at all that she didn't talk back to him-- he just chatted away. So cute. We landed in Quito and cleared all customs and yadda yadda, then were picked up by a nice man named Paul, who works for an organization in Quito called Extreme Response and whose house we are staying at. Paul was picking up another member of their team at the time, so he picked us up as well and that worked great.

The housing story is interesting, but really amazing as it worked super well in our favor. We had been looking on VRBO and Airbnb for housing and had some options, but all were super expensive for the size and area in Quito we wanted ($2000-$3000 monthly) OR in areas that are not all that great. So we were holding off on making a decision when this girl named Lindsey sent me a message on FB. She is  part of an Ecuador Adoption group there that I am part of and saw that we would be traveling soon, so she emailed to tell me about the Extreme Response team housing. Her parents have been a big part of this organization for over 10 years- they are from Ohio but have lived in Quito that long (real troopers, I tell ya). Anyway, this organization does a lot of things, but they started with helping dump workers and their children in Quito who were basically living at the dump and working under horrible conditions. They have now built 13 of the families homes and have a day care at the place for the children, plus much much more. Anyway, I had never heard of this organization until now. Lindsey is the daughter of Paul and she and her husband and four kids (three adopted from Ecuador) live in Quito too and have for the past 3 years. Anyway, Lindsey said that the Extreme Response housing was available from the weekend we came to the 19 of October, so she wondered if we wanted to stay? She said it is a big place with a lot of bunk beds, a living area, a kitchen, washer and dryer, and internet. It is in the perfect part of town. And the best part? $600 for that whole time. YEP. We told her wanted it. Now that we are here, I can tell you that we seriously got so blessed. This place is probably bigger than our house. It has 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a kitchen, a big living room, and an amazing view. Devin and I thought we would be staying in bunk beds, but there is actually a room with a double bed. Yippee!! It is on the third floor, above the office space for ER and the first floor home of Paul and his wife. It has a separate stairway and entrance. Anyway, it's amazing and we feel really blessed.

That was a long story. Sorry about that. Anyway, we didn't make it back to the ER house until 11;30 and were not in bed until 12:30. It made for a long day, but the kids did really, really well. We were up at 6:30 to the rude awakening of MJB calling us...that story for day 2. However, we are beat, so I might just have to write about today tomorrow. It's been a big day as we finally met (re-met, whatever) our daughter!