God's Little Details

I hope this picture does the bug justice. This was an amazing bug Sebastiao found at the zoo. His feet were the most amazing blue color and the green was almost metalic. We are always amazed by God's attention to detail here in Ecuador.

Ultima Dia Antes Escuela

School started yesterday after a long and wonderful Christmas break. To celebrate our last day together we went to a local zoo in Tarque. It isn't large but is beautiful and has some wonderful animals and a paddle boat that Sebastiao can't wait to get into (someday).

Spring time Christmas Tree

Well we have another first here in Ecuador. Our Christmas tree has begun to have new growth. After over a month of sitting in a bucket of water surrounded by rocks the tree has decided it is happy and is growing. When we took down the Christmas decorations we just couldn't bear to throw it out so the tree is now sitting on the back patio continuing to spread the holiday spirit. I just have to remember to water it....

Please Pray

Please pray for the LaBouef Family. Sharon LaBouef is Isabella's preschool teacher. The LaBouefs have been missionaries in Shell for a number of years. They raised their family here and now have 2 grown children who still live in Ecuador. One of their grandsons, Joshua, who is 2 yrs old almost drowned Saturday and is in ICU in Quito. Please pray for the family and more importantly for little Joshua.

Family Time

While Joe's parents were here we got to visit La Casa del Arbol. basically a HUGE treehouse. They also have some caverns there that they have done some beautiful mosaic work on. Here is a picture of Joe's parents with the children and then one that shows just how much the monkeys loved Calvin's head! There are also several version of the family picture which include the monkey climbing all over everyone.... monkeys can be such camera hogs.

Praise God! We Have A Car!

Yes, Praise God we finally have a car and I dont' think any of us is as excited as Bella. She told everyone we were going to Quito to get a car and we all sure hoped she was correct. We were fortunate enough to find a 2005 Explorere in just one day and complete the transaction (much more involved than in the states) the next day. We figured that if our explorere in the states could take us over 200,000 miles, it might just do the same down here.
The first picture below is a picture of our explorer and yes, that is a monkey sitting on the hood. Don't worry that isn't a normal occurrence- we don't live that remote. We went to a big tree house that is close by and this was one of their pets. He was very cute until he started swinging from our antenna. Fortunatly Joe's dad came to the rescue. The monkey preferred licking his dad's head to swinging on our car - Thanks again Calvin!

Joe's parents were kind enough to visit us for the holidays. Fortunately they arrived in Quito the day before and in Shell the day of Sebastiao's school Christmas program. We were all excited to see them and even more pleased that they got to enjoy the wonderful night of singing. The children worked so hard on the program and the teachers did an amazing job getting it all put together. Sebastiao sang a trio with the other 2 second grade boys. I have put it here for you to enjoy. Just for those of you who were wondering, yes, this is the entire school with exception of the kindergarten class who served as the nativity scene (but there are 7 kindergateners so that makes a difference in numbers!)