Ecuador Days 11 & 12

We're ALIVE!! I know none of you were really worried, but I was. The internet was out for two days due to an accident on our street (pictures below). Do you know how bored we were without the internet? Oh boy. We went to McDonalds both Thursday and Friday to pass the time and check our emails and such. Luckily, it came back on about 7 pm last night. Hallelujah.

So let's recap a bit here.

Wednesday 9/23/2015
Wednesday we did our regular school/cleaning routine in the morning and then met my friend Maria Dolores for lunch at Texas Chicken. We were supposed to meet her at 1:30 at the Hospital Baca Ortiz, so we left at 12 to get some walking in. We walked about halfway and then took a taxi the rest of the way because the kids were whining too much by that point.

Baca Ortiz is where Flor was for quite a bit of her infancy. It is a free public children's hospital. Mishell also spent time there, about 3 weeks when she was an infant. I am not sure where she had some of her surgeries (lazy eye and something with her leg) but I would bet there too. Anyway, I met Maria Dolores back when I was volunteering with OSSO and spending a lot of time with Flor there. She is really a sweet lady who just took us OSSO volunteers under her wing. She would bring us snacks at the hospital and come check on us. When I returned for a visit with my friend Kylee a few months after my OSSO days, she invited us to her house for dinner. We also went last time when we adopted Flor and she has since visited us in the US twice. She is a great lady. So, we were excited to see Maria Dolores.

We had a great lunch...so great in fact that none of us was watching our backpack behind us in the stroller. It was literally in my eyesight the whole time, but ya know. Anyway, someone stole it. We think it was a guy who came in trying to sell us gum while we were eating and Maria Dolores shooed him off. But, the joke was on him, because the only things we had in the back pack were snacks for the kids, hand sanitizer, a roll of toilet paper (most public bathrooms here are without), and some wipes. We usually have Flor's pills in there when we are out and about, but we forgot them that day. Huge blessing! What would we do without those? So I hope the thief enjoys his snacks and his nice clean hands. :) Lesson learned, though, to keep everything really close by us!

We then had ice cream with Maria Dolores before she had to go back to work. We invited her for dinner this Sunday, so we will see her again then.

Waiting for Maria Dolores at the Hospital Baca Ortiz

Ice cream every day is becoming a reality...

While we were out and about, this lady came running after us. She apparently used to volunteer at SVP and knows Mishell. Mishell was really excited to see her. Funny how we seem to find people who know us all over the place!

We took a taxi back home, but only made it partway up the hill before we saw a huge commotion- a ton of police cars and people milling everywhere. We got out and walked back up the rest of the hill. We first saw a dump truck crashed into a cement fence after it took out a bunch of power poles. As we continued up the hill, we saw cars smashed to bits, glass everywhere,  and finally, we walked past the guard station that sits just outside our house and it was completely gone. The only thing left that would even indicate something was there (besides the rubble) was the toilet still standing. We found out later that the guy in the dump truck came to a construction site just above our house and got out of the truck but forgot to put the parking break on. So it rolled all the way down the hill, crushing the guard station (and someone was inside- we heard he survived but with a head injury. It's seriously crazy to think that anyone could have survived that-- unless he was on the toilet at the time...). It then ran over the parked cars and stopped a number blocks down the road by when it crashed into the power poles and cement fence (good thing everything around here is cement). It was a site to see.

Our first view of the truck

From the back

One of the cars that was hit

Oh and the guard station. Just gone.

And another car taken out

This is the view from our window. The guard station is down there on the right of the truck that is hauling away the broken car. The truck started just a half block or so above us. The poor guards have had to stand outside all day and night since the accident. They are, however, rebuilding the station and making record speed of it!

So that was the excitement for Wednesday. Our internet was out from then until Friday night.

Thursday 9/24/2015

Thursday was a less eventful day. We walked down to the market for some more food, stopped at McDonalds for ice cream and to borrow their internet, and spent the afternoon preparing for dinner guests. We had the Baumer family over for dinner with their four kids. They are the ones who arranged this apartment for us. They are from the US but have lived in Ecuador for 3 years and last year they adopted a sibling group of 3 from here to add to their one biological child. They work for the Extreme Response organization here in Quito, thus they knew about the housing.

They came for dinner at 5:30 and we had spaghetti for dinner. We made wayyyyy too much, but better too much than too little, right? The kids all ran around and played and had a great time together. We enjoyed their company a lot. They are about our ages and it was fun to talk to them and hear about their experiences here in Quito. They are amazing-- I don't think I could live here for years on end. It's a great place to visit, but it would certainly be hard to live here. Their kids were a delight too-- super well behaved and very cool to see them speaking English fluently. They have an 11 year old, a 6 year old, and a 3 year old who were adopted, and then a 4 year old son biologically. I didn't take any pictures, unfortunately, but I should have!  I think we will see them again, so I will get some then.

I failed to take many pictures that day, but here's a few:

I think this is actually from the day before....but oh well. Proof that Hallie has learned to do the dishes here :)

Hallie has been surprising us with notes all around the house. This one was for Mishell. It says "My Sister. When I met my sister, I wanted it to be a week and it did. I am grateful I can have a nice sister and I love my family and I am grateful that my family can adopt Flor and Mishell and I love my sisters." I will have to upload the ones she wrote for Devin and me too. Pretty cute. Oh and yes, we definitely need to work on spelling!

They are the best of friends already. No matter that they can hardly speak to each other! :)

Things continue to go really, really well with Mishell. There are no problems to even speak of.  I had my expectations so low as to how this might go just because I think you have to prepare yourself that way. A few conversations that I had with co-workers before I left started me on the track of thinking that maybe it's okay to be hopeful that things will go well and that she will adjust well to us and vice versa. I am almost hesitant to say that it couldn't be going any better, but that's the truth at this point. I am hopeful that we can stay on this path! We are all doing well as a family. I think being set aside from home and spending all day, every day together has been helpful. When we get back to the reality of every day, things may be a little different. Also, we are still in Spanish speaking territory and getting her home to everyone speaking English all the time may be rough. We'll see how things go though!

Friday recap later today.