Down on the Farm!

I'm super late blogging this one, but it was too good to race through. We went to a beautiful farm

south of Quito, and stayed in a gorgeous historical hacienda.

The boys loved riding horses...

watching the cows being milked...

exploring a cave...

harvesting veggies...

playing old-fashioned games...

relaxing by the fire...

and "hiking" (which means being in a backpack carried by mom or dad) through beautiful countryside.

Taking the Last Train to Boston, rather to the Devil's Nose

We had the wonderful opportunity to join for the opening of the refurbished tourist train going from Riobamba, near imposing Chimborazo Mountain, to a well-known tourist spot called the Devil's Nose. Ecuador has long had railroad tracks, but they have been unused for decades. The government has refurbished them (or is in the process stretch by stretch) to open them for tourists.


We left Riobamba with beautiful Chimborazo looking over us.

We passed through gorgeous Ecuadorian countryside. (That's Chimborazo hovering behind the rolling hills.)


We stopped in Guamote, a small indigenous town known for its large market on Thursdays. We arrived in the midst of the affair, and once the conductor was able to untie several cows from the railroad track, we entered the town and marveled at the sites.

We proceeded to Devil's Nose, which is a steep drop where the trainlines from the cosat and the southern cities meet. Legend has it that many said that they could not be connected in this trecherous area, that it was the work of the devil that procluded their connection. One wise engineer discovered that the unconquerable mountain could be conquered if the train zigzagged down the mountain - forward and backward!! Very scary, but lots of fun too.

A wonderful group received us warmly, dancing a traditional dance and serving us a delicious meal. OK - it included guinea pig which I ate for the first time. Oy!

Our boys - 2/11 and 1/8

Here are our little princes at 2y 11m and 1y 8m, respectively. Getting bigger in front of our eyes.

Stay tuned for most posts as we had 2 fun trips last week!

The boys joined a whole group of little people at the Ambassador’s residence for a really fun Easter egg hunt.

I’m not sure they really understood what was going on but they were certainly delighted once they found out that there was chocolate and taffy in the eggs!

Happy Birthday Santiago!

We celebrated another year of Santiago with some of our favorites in Quito. We had a surprise party on Saturday. He had no idea, clearly because of great acting on lots of people’s part.

Lots of good friends

Many cute kids

Yummy cake…

What more do you need?

On his birthday, we had a cake with our Bible Study group (the 20-somethings) at church. They are a wonderful group of young people who value all that Santiago does for the group. Lots of fun to spend the evening with them.