Our First Week

Well, we have completed our first week here in Shell. We arrived last Friday early evening and spent the night in the guest house. Saturday late morning our first shipment arrived from Quito containing our refrigerator, stove, washer, dryer and mattresses. It took a few days and several trips to the hardware store in the next town over to get the dryer hooked up, but everything is working now. About a year ago, we bought a queen sized bed, a kitchen table and chairs, a bookcase and a desk from a missionary family that was moving to Mexico. So, Joe and I have a bed with a mattress and the children are each sleeping on two mattress stacked up until we can get their bunk beds make. Bunk beds are not a common occurrence here so we will have to get them made in the next town over.

Joe started work Wednesday and of course he is adjusting amazingly (no one doubted that.) The children could not be happier because they play outside ALL day and get muddier than I could ever have imagined. I am busy but enjoying life here especially with as hot as it is in Texas! Getting a house set up in the jungle is not the easiest thing ever. Fortunalty we have had a lot of help from our friend the Hardins and we have lots of advice for those coming after us!

We are hopeful that our freight shipment from the states as well as the furniture we ordered in Quito will be here in about 3 weeks. Hopefully we are not too far off because I never knew I could miss sitting on a couch so much! Our table and chairs are nice, but relaxing after dinner with a book just isn't the same on a wooden chair at a wooden table. I will write more on our furniture purchase later. As with most things here, there is a story to go along with it! I'll leave you with pictures of our house, backyard and poinsettia tree. Yes, TREE! When you only have one season and lots of rain, that small plant you give your grandmother every year for Christmas could look like this one day!