Ecuador Day 4:

Today was much the same as yesterday. The days are starting to blend together a bit (I know, it's only day 3). When we adopted Flor, we only spent 2 days with her at the orphanage and then she came home with us. Per our schedule, we will be spending all 5 days this week with Mishell at her orphanage. While I understand the need to have the kids transition well, we are very eager to have this part over with and to have Mishell with us full-time. I think she is ready too. Tomorrow is her big going away party (and her birthday!) that they do for closure purposes, so maybe if we are lucky, we can just pick her up Friday and be home for the weekend. 

The hard part about all of this is that we are in someone else's territory, that we are completely out of a routine and schedule, and we have no control over what goes on. It's not really like real life at all. At SVP it's especially hard because we just hang out in the yard area for hours on end. The houses are not really conducive to a big family like ours spending a lot of time in there (nor are they comfortable and homey-think cement blocks), plus during the day while the kids are gone, the nuns and workers are cleaning the house and doing the laundry. But out in the yard, there's not a ton to do. We swing, we play on the teeter totters, and we play games. Repeat. 

Today we did spend the majority of the day out and about for an "adventure". The extra fun part was that the SVP psychologist, Hector, got to follow us around all day with our driver. Our regular driver, Ramiro, showed up this morning with his wife and son and told us that he was off to surgery, but his dear son Josue would take great care of us! Sure enough, we dropped him and his wife off for his surgery on the way to SVP. Hope that all went well. Anyway, I think Josue was just told by his father that he was driving us to the orphanage, nothing further. Little did he know that he was actually driving us and the psychologist to a fun center in a city a half hour away. This was all set up by MJB ahead of time, supposedly. The drive to Cumbaya was extremely scary, down a winding canyon with narrow roads and crazy horrible drivers. We were all white knuckled the whole time, except Mishell who promptly fell asleep, and Josue who drove on like nothing was wrong, oh and Hector who chatted Josue's ear off the whole time in the front seat. I couldn't hear all of their conversation, but I am pretty sure Josue got far more than he bargained for today. He got a free all day session with a psychologist in addition to driving us all over! 

Oh yeah, We found out that Mishell wears glasses today! She just hasn't been wearing them because she doesn't like to. That will have to change. 

When we arrived safely in Cumbaya (thank goodness!) we showed up to our destination to find out that it is only open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Excellent planning, eh? We took the ride of death for that! So, guess where we ended up? YEP! Yet another mall with a MegaMaxi. This one, however, was super fancy, much like Cumbaya in general. Very nice. It suddenly felt like we weren't in Ecuador anymore. This mall was probably the same size as one of ours with the addition of the grocery store. Awesome Hector negotiated some deals for us for fun things for the kids, starting with bumper cars. Then we had about 2 hours to burn before the kid zone play place thing opened, so we roamed around the mall, bought Mishell some more shoes, and roamed some more. I totally wanted to get a picture of our posse following us, but didn't manage it. Hector and Josue stayed about 20 paces behind us the whole time and never communicated  with us, just followed along like spies making sure that all was well, I guess? Again, poor Josue. Hector continued on taking care of his psychological needs for the better part of the day. 

While we were in getting shoes for Mishell, we ran into two ladies who ran over excitedly to ask us if this was little Flor? They recognized Flor! Seriously, so crazy! I am pretty sure that when Flor moved from SVP, she moved to Cumbaya. The area was familiar to me and the drive down the winding canyon stuck in my memory as well. So, I asked them how they knew her, and they said they worked with her while she was a baby at Previous Miracles (her second home). How crazy is that? I am in shock that in a city of millions of people, we ran into someone that knew our little Flor. And that they recognized her. Of course I took a picture-- see below.

After lunch, we played at the kid zone play thingy for an hour and that was a lot of fun. They had a hand-run train, a big play place, a ball blaster game, and rock climbing. We were the only ones in there, so the kids had a blast. After that, Hector had to get back to some appointments, so we climbed into the van and took a different highway (much safer- paved-why we didn't take it in the first place, I have NO IDEA as it was also faster) back to SVP. On the way back, Jace threw the biggest fit after he was asked to stop pretend snoring really obnoxiously about 100 times. I am sure we looked like a star family right about then. Jace then got hauled into a new seat, away from everyone, and cried and made obnoxious noises the whole way back. I bet our psychologist really liked that display. Ugh. Real life, though, right?

Mishell was dragging quite a lot by the time we got back as well. We spent a little bit of time with her outside and then decided it was best for everyone to have some rest. We got the okay from Hector and left at 3. Mishell told us that she hadn't slept well the night before. I'm not really surprised. So many changes, so many exciting things, probably a ton of emotions. She was more reserved today than she has been too. I think she had fun, but I am guessing it is all hitting her how much life is going to change. At lunch today, we had Quiznos and ordered the kids a kids meal, which was a ham and cheese sandwich. We asked Mishell if she liked ham and cheese and she said she had never had it. There are going to be some really big changes coming for her. It has got to be so hard to take it all in. 

My heart is definitely soft for this sweet girl. I just look at her face and see heartache. I know she has been well cared for and for that I am grateful, but as I said yesterday, there are layers of trauma under there that she may or may not even recognize. No child should be in her position, but the sad truth is that there are millions across the world. I hope Mishell begins to feel safe, secure, and loved with us and that can help heal some of that heartache. 

Anyway, I'm off track again. After we left SVP, Josue was kind enough to drive us to the grocery store (our third MegaMaxi in as many days) to pick up some more groceries. Since we had him driving us, we tried to stock up. We will need to go to the fruit and veggie market ASAP, though, as the grocery store is just so expensive. 

We had dinner, finished Harry Potter book number one with the kids, and then sent the kids to bed to do prep for Mishell's party tomorrow. I hope she enjoys it and feels special.  I also hope that Friday is the day we get to bring her "home". 

Other pictures from the day:

Ecuador is the rose capital of the world. This mall had beautiful flower arrangements all over the place! Some real, some fake (like this one)

Quite the modern mall, no? We did get in trouble for playing in the fountain shortly after this. Oh well.

Real roses.

Rock Climbing (or ball climbing?)