Maryland

So I have arrived in Kensington, Maryland. It is so gorgeous here. An ugly house does not exist so far that I have seen. I am excited to get to know the area and venture into D.C. this weekend hopefully.

Jeff says that yard sales/garage sales are HUGE out here. So Niki and I are going to head out on Saturday morning and make the rounds. I guess that there are yard sales everywhere on whole streets. So we are just going to pick a couple of streets to go on and look around. I am way excited. Anyway here are a few pictures of around here from my cheap phone camera.

Another photo of the front of the house.

Trinity and I laying in the hammock in the back yard.

Trinity ran to pick me flowers to put in my hair.

Orwell. A.K.A. The puppy that bites.

The temple in my backyard. I pulled into the visitor center parking lot to take this picture on my way home from dropping Trinity off at school.

This is my house in the front yard.

Meg's mission photos!

So I have decided to revive the blog. I haven't completed a post since I have returned from the epic journey of Ecuador. I think the depression of being back in the United States paralyzed my reason of 'being' for a bit. Anyway.
I am trying to major in photography at USU. Let me just say I am a horrible student. Homework is beyond me. But I do enjoy taking pictures. (You'd think you do a lot of that in the photo program, but most of my time is spent in the demmed photo lab after taking a picture of one chair.)
My friend Megan Haslam asked me to take her photos before she leaves for her mission to Recefe Brazil. I of course agreed. Megs is basically my first client! So here are some shots of our photo shoot in Logan. She looks Beautiful! And though she believes she is the most awkward thing in front of a camera I think she's a natural. Enjoy.

Good luck on your mission Machen Lee!!

Things I have done this past week...

I ate guineau pig. It was disgusting.
We got to pose for a picture and pretend we were cooking it and we also posed by big HUGE chanchos that had been skinned. Before the guineau pigs had been cooked they looked like white lab rats. It was so gross. Needless to say I had a disgusted look on my face throughout the whole evening. Enrique, our spanish teacher who took us, just laughed at us the whole evening.

Yes. I went zip lining through the Andes mountains. And yes I did go zip lining UPSIDE DOWN. It was so so so fantastic.

I went to Remar for the last time on Saturday. It was horrible to say goodbye to all my kids. One of the boys, Carlos, that follows me around every time that I go to Remar asked if I would be his mom when he found out that I was leaving. I was heartbroken. The kids at Remar are the most amazing loving kids that I have ever met.

I also went to HML for the last time last night. One of the girls named Gabriella asked if she could come with me to the United States. And when I left she started to cry and said I love you. She is so precious. It surprised me when I realized how much I am going to miss all of those girls at HML.

I have to leave my yellow beauty of a suitcase behind. It is to much hassle in these crazy airports. So farewell yellow beauty, enjoy your stay in Ecuador.

I have started the horrifying adventure of packing. I do not want to leave this country yet. I love it here and the people are so wonderful. I am going especially miss seeing all of the cholitas roaming the streets in their cute little outfits.

Yesterday was National Women's Day. It is a huge celebration here. There was a parade. And men were giving flowers to women right and left. We even had random men at the Peruvian Market telling us "happy day!" in english. Or "Buenos Dias!" Which isn't to out of the normal as we have men saying that to us all of the time. But yesterday it seemed more genuine. We felt special. We also went to the flower market to buy some flowers to welcome Megan's parents to Ecuador and there were men there buying tons of flowers. Kenzi, Megan, and I think that this holiday should be celebrated like this in the United States.

blahhhhhh.

Yo estoy inferma para dos semanas!

Can't a girl catch a break??

Kenzi is sick as well. Our theory is that either we are passing our disease back and forth to each other. OR we have a parasite. And I hate to say it but I believe it is the latter. Disgusting.

And I don't want to go to a doctor here, as much as Lorena would like me to. I think I will wait until I get home...

That will be all.

Pictures of Horse Day and Remar

Playing Soccer and going up against Juan the Great


Itty Bitty Christian


And yes. I may have leaned on the soldier getting down from my horse a little bit more than needed. But they stand there and offer you a hand and a shoulder for support. Who am I to say no?


Isn´t Juan Presh??

Random things that happen in Ecuador

Every Friday morning we take the kids at OSSO to go and ride horses at the army base just down the road from the orphanage. We push the kids there in their wheelchairs and through the whole base to get to the back where the horses are. Which translates. We walk through a lot of men that stare. Which we all hate to admit, but it is flattering. We are going to feel ugly when we come back to the states. Anyway. We each get to ride the horse with a different child. So this is how it goes. There are three soldiers and a step latter to help one get up on the horse. Because there is no saddle, only a blue blanket with little handles on the front. Anyway. The soldiers sometimes will grab our hand to give a boost up. We are then handed a child to ride around with. One soldier leads the horse around and the other soldier walks alongside the horse to make sure that we are doing fine. And then we walk in circles. And they put the child in different positions for therapy.
This past Friday I rode with a little two year old named Christian. He has a very sassy little personality. And I was led around by TWO may I say BABES. One of the soldiers looked up and gave me a piece of chocolate and said it was for Christian. And then about ten seconds later after mumbling with his cohort he reached up again with a colorful marshmellow candy and said ¨para usted.¨ Needless to say I was very flattered and for the rest of the ride they tried talking to me and playing with little Christian as we rode around in a circle. It was fabulous.
Right before we left one of the attractive soldiers decides to hop on a horse that we had been riding and show off a little. Which turned into a disaster. His horse took of running as the boy yelled for the horse to stop and was yanking on the reins to no avail. The horse even came running back towards us at lightening speed and ran right beside us. It was so funny. When he finally got the horse to stop his commanding soldier (or whatever you call those) Made him do push ups and run as we were walking away. But the boy just laughed as he did it. As did three of his friends that were there with him. Does that happen in american boot camps? Can soldiers just laugh at their soldier in command? I don´t know. But it was a good day.

Also. On Saturday we went to my lovely little orphanage, Remar. Our activity was tug a war with a little swimming pool with water in the middle. Finger painting with different kinds of pudding and animal crackers, and tying balloons to their feet and they had to chase each other to pop them. A carnival of sorts if you will. Anyway. As all things there go. They all migrated toward the pudding rather quickly instead of staying in their divided groups. Which was fine. They never get treats. But one of the girls I was with got a little overwhelmed and screamed for me to help her, because she was holding a bowl of pudding and they were swarming her. After the pudding fiasco, Juan brought out a soccer ball and we started playing soccer in their little field. It was SO fun AND competitive. Those little boys out there are awesome little soccer players. I believe it is in there blood. They would kick the ball right through my legs sometimes. Quite embarrassing. All my toe nails were broken in half (I was wearing my chacos) and I was tackled numerous times. Juan was the best player out there. So at one point I grabbed onto him and wouldn´t let him go and play. And he was laughing and wiggling and trying to get out. Whenever the ball would come near us we would both try to kick at the ball to no avail. We would both just end up tripping over each other and falling to the ground. Which also caused his freedom from my arms. After I fell to the ground I jumped up to go and chase the ball to make a goal when I heard this swooshing noise behind me. It was Juan. He had jumped so high in the air to tackle me that his knees it my shoulders and sent me flying to the ground. I was so shocked he could jump so high. Juan is about twelve and VERY athletic.
Anyway. Probably one of my most favorite days at Remar yet. I only have one more time going there. Which makes my heart want to shrivel up and die.

Well that is all for now...
Bye!
Oh. P.S. I don´t know how I am even going to look at a white boy when I come home after seeing all the beautiful Latin Lovers everyday. That also makes my heart ache mucho. (Yes I am talking about Mr. Greek God and Eyebrow man and every other man I see on the streets)

Oh my WOW!

This day started out full of sunshine and new sunburns. We had girls laying out on the balcony and walking the streets of Cuenca. We sipped happily on juice freshly made by Catalina for lunch. I had an afternoon off today and I happily read my book in the sunshine. It was bound to be a marvelous day.
And then at five clouds hovered and thunder sounded. And then the rain came pouring down. In sheets folks. And then it turned to hail. Heather, Megan W., Mckenzi, and I quickly ran outside to play in the wonderful storm. Even though the hail was painful we stayed strong and ran in and out of it. And then it turned back to sheets of rain. We danced and ran down our street in it. Rivers formed along the sides of our streets in less than five minutes. We splashed in the huge puddles. After about ten to fifteen minutes of playing in the rain we decided being soaked to the bone was wet enough, and we proceeded to come inside. All of us girls were dripping. I myself was wearing a skirt and I could wring it out to no avail of getting it near dry. Soaked. Completely soaked.
I can definitely say this is the biggest rain storm of my life. Roddy said they don't even get hail hardly ever, so it was a rare occasion.
Also there is water leaking in our back hallway where the washer and dryers are and clothes lines to hang our clothes. Right now there is about an inch of water on our tile. And the storm is still going strong.
I love lightening and thunder! And Rain!

Pictures coming to blog soon.