Mitad de Mundo

We drove to the middle of the world today and it was pretty cool I must say.  Never in all my years growing up did I think I would live on the equator.  For this reason, I think this would be a great excuse for our families and friends to come and visit us.  I mean how often do you get to go to the middle of the world?

This is the ball that you see on the tower in the first picture.  It's the world.

For those of you who don't know.  Ecuador is the spanish word for equator.

I made this picture bigger so you could see the view better.

Standing on the equator.

Balancing an egg.  How cool is that?  Oh and supporting the Razorbacks at the middle of the word.

Soup Kitchen

Since living in Ecuador I have made a lot of different soups. I think I might need to open my own business.  (Like the soup nazi on Seinfeld)  Kidding!  I'm pretty sure the weather has something to do with it.  It gets cold here in the afternoons and at night and soup just sounds good to me.  That and coffee.  Well, not at the same time.  This morning while Shannon and I were watching TV, a commercial came on advertising chicken tortilla soup and at the same time we both said "that sounds good."  So I decided I was going to try and make it.  I had to make some substitutions because I was not able to buy everything the recipe called for.  (it's not sold in Ecuador)  It turned out really good.  Even Ethan liked it. Now that's saying something.

Maybe I will get over my soup fetish soon.  I think this is number soup #5.

A room with a view

....of the airport.  Look what we can see from our bedroom window.  Not only our bedroom but the kids bedrooms too.  It just amazes us.  The flight path is right through the middle of the city.  For us 'country foke' this is crazy.  (We like it though.) 

Look closely and you can see the plane taking off.

No, it's not too loud.  You get use to the noise.

The ugly curtains are gone!

Here are the ugly curtains.  Don't you think they are ugly?  And old.  You should have seen the curtain guys face when he looked at them.   Take a look for yourself.

 I told you they were ugly.  See the neighbors?  It was really weird being able to see your neighbors watching you.  

These are what I replaced them with.  I like them so much better than the yellow ones.  So much more private.  

These are adjustable and can be raised during the day and lowered when the neighbors are home.

I have no idea why I'm blogging about curtains???  Oh well.  There you have it.  Since getting our car we have been so busy trying to finish furnishing our house.  We are finally getting somewhere.  I am ready to have our apartment done.  I'm sure that that is just wishful thinking because that is not going to happen anytime soon.  It seems like everything takes so much longer here.  But that's ok because I can wait.

Not only have we been going house shopping, we have been trying to learn all these streets in the city. We have gotten lost two days in a row but we always seem to find our way back.  It's amazing what you can find when you get lost.

Ecuador has calmed down since last week.  It's really crazy to me.  Last Thursday was total craziness and then Friday was a normal day.  So strange.  The only difference is the military.  We see military everywhere with machine guns.  It kinda freaks me out a little bit.  Other than that, things are great.  I'm so glad that it didn't last long.  Last Friday I did look up plane tickets to leave and you would not believe how much they were.  $2000.00 a piece!  No joke.  That is outrageous.  However, if we would have needed to get out of here, we would have paid every penny.

Pray 4 Gray

The Everaard family is from Oklahoma.  They found out last week that their 2 year old son Grayson has cancer.  Grayson has started chemo treatments and is still in the hospital at this time.  Please pray for Grayson and his family.  I can't imagine what this family is going through.  They have started a blog and you can check it out here.  

So thankful for this....

Thank you Arkansas STL and Jonesboro First Assembly!

Update from Ecuador

I know, I know, on facebook I said that we were staying in until things settled down.  But... we were suppose to get our car yesterday and was interrupted by the President getting kidnapped.  (or supposedly kidnapped, I don't know) When we left the Toyota place yesterday we were told to come back at 10:00 today.  We were really unsure as to what to do.  Do we get out and get our car or do we stay in and wait until tomorrow?   We ended up calling a missionary friend to see how things were in the city and he said that is was calm and we should go get our car.  So that is what we did.  We signed all the papers on the car and get ready to drive out of the parking lot and the car won't start.  Why is this happening to me?  I told Shannon that our last name should be Lucky.   Shannon and Susan Lucky.  That is how things have been going for us.  But, I'm still living the blessed life.  The car not starting had something to do with the newly installed alarm system.  Something about a fuse or whatever.  We ended up having to leave without the car.  On the way back to our apartment we got to check things out on the streets.  When I say that I don't mean we got out and walk around.  Toyota gave us a car to drive home so we were safe in a car.  There were people everywhere.  The streets were crazy crowded.  I told Shannon that you couldn't tell that this country is in a state of emergency for 5 days.  These people are living like nothing ever happened.  We did see lots of police.  There was nothing out of the ordinary, though.  There were banks open, malls, and the airport.  I'm not going to lie to you, yesterday was very scary for us.  I had to keep updated by the internet because it was in English. By that afternoon the government had taken over all the TV stations and the radio.  I do know that the President was rescued from the hospital where he was being held last night around 10ish.  This rescue involved gunfire.  Which we could here from our apartment.   I am so glad that things are better today.  Please continue to pray because we don't know what these next few days hold.  Ok, back to the car situation. Before we got home we got a call from Toyota saying that our car was fixed and we could come and get it.  So, we go home get E and Meg and take them to McDonalds for lunch then back to Toyota.  And this time the Toyota Fortuner started and we drove home.  We finally have wheels!  I don't have any pictures yet but I will tomorrow.