Happy birthday Tami!

Happy Birthday Tami! Hope your day is great. We've been thinking about you!!
It's been a great day here. Gary was the first one up as he had rounds at the hospital at 8a.m. The rest of us got up at our leisure. Brett was the last one up at about 9a.m.!! He must have been tired to sleep through the hot sun beating in and the cacaphony? of birds and insects singing praises this morning...It was a beautiful, sunny, hot and humid day. The kids would go out and play and soon be in dripping with sweat. We really are not used to the humidity. We had cereal and fresh cantalope for breakfast. The cantalope was amazing!!
Adam and I headed up to the market this morning to get some fruit, veggies and eggs. It was an experience. We brought our Spanish dictionary and came home with what we wanted so guess we did alright. The Ecuadorians are very patient and gracious with us.
I got just what we needed for today so that we would be able to carry it home. The market is really close to the compound here, so it's very handy.
We are right beside the hospital in the mission compound. There are about 2 duplexes and 6? houses in the compound. This hospital was built in 1985 and the houses and duplexes since then. The old hospital, Nate Saints house and the mission school is just across the bridge from us. We haven't taken a walk over there yet. The old hospital is going to be demolished next week, so we will have to go and get some pictures. It has been used as a guest house since the new hospital was built.
Klaudia, our designated hostess gave us some fresh bread last night, so we had bread, cheese, veggies and fruit for lunch.
Gary got called in for a case this afternoon, so the rest of us, wanting to get into the Spanish routine, took a siesta for a couple of hours. All the stores etc. close down from about 12:30/1:00 until 3:00/3:30 anyway. There are also quite a few really young missionary kids that nap close by, so I like the siesta idea.
The kids played some soccer outside and some other games. It started to pour about 4pm and they were playing out in the rain and of course got soaked. Don't know how quickly clothes will dry on the line here being so humid.
Four girls came over that were about Brett's and Carly's ages, so we visited and played games for a couple of hours.
Dr. Hardin and his wife took us out to Puyo (a large town about 6 kms away) for supper to a gorgeous restaurant. The food was delicious. I had a chicken dish with an Ecuadorian cinnamon-like flavouring in it. Yummy! Gary had a steak and the kids had a beef and veggies plate. The juices were fresh and cheaper than soda. They have a blackberry type of fruit that makes an excellent juice called "Mora" and then we had pina (pineapple) and Passionfruit juice as well. They entertained us with some great stories about funny things that have happened to them in Ecuador.

Now to back up a bit. We arrived in Quito and got to the HCJB Guest House at about 12:20 am on Friday. The guest house is really, really nice. We got two adjoining rooms(almost like hotel rooms) and slept until 6:30 when we got up for breakfast. Roger and Lois Reimer run the guest house. He is one of the Reimer family from Winnipeg area. They had a delicous breakfast for us. Ecuador is their home.They have been here for 34 years. Our driver, Vicente picked us up at 9:00a.m. for the 5-6 hour drive to Shell. He had a nice big van and we all fit comfortably in with our ten bags. It was a great road most all of the way. We saw the plains and highlands and the beauty of coming down into the more jungle type area. Lots of waterfalls and lush vegetation. We arrived in Shell and met some of our neighbors, got our bags unpacked, had a tour and then went to our hosts home for supper. Kids were tired so we came home early to put them to bed.
Well Carly would like to get on here, so guess I better share the space....
Lori