After arriving Saturday evening, we rushed the entire crew to their hotel then to our house, where we had an eight piece band and open back party bus (trolley?) coming to drive us around for an hour.  Of course the bus called to say it would be half hour late, but they would still give us the full time, but what was I going to do with the band that I had booked for the same hour?  Well, we opened up the garage and had the band play for 30 minutes while we (the family and the volunteers) danced around on the sidewalk.  I took no photos so had to steal some from the volunteers on facebook.

After a half hour the bus indeed did show up, so we let the band on, then we all climbed aboard.  We spent 30 minutes driving around the downtown of Cuenca, and enjoyed the ultra-loud band and the many many people laughing at/with us.  Probably the worst part was our ridiculous selves driving by where pre-Easter mass was just being let out…  We had to drop off the band, but went back out for another 15 minutes listening to my dad’s CD he made specially for the occasion.  It had two songs, Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People (because my children love it and always danced to it at my dad’s) and Panic Switch by Silversun Pickups because my dad loves it and something about the irony of old Cuenca and blah blah blah.  I told my dad it must be nice going senile, because only crazy people want a party bus with a band.  He says it is nice indeed.  Eventually we got home and went to sleep as church started at 8am the morning.  We went to church and then got into a van and went to some waterfalls we intended to hike up.  There ended up being an excessive amount of water flow which cut our hike very short, but we had a good time getting soaked on a scary bridge below the waterfalls anyway.  I took no photos.  My dad has a couple perhaps.

After eating lunch we enjoyed the drive back to our house. Aaron put the kids down for a nap and I took the family to one of the orphanages to donate the awesome giant towel bibs they made for a service project before they came. We had a good time and then came home to eat Easter dinner. This included many fine Ecuadorian dishes, including Cuy (roasted guinea pig). If you haven’t eaten Cuy for Easter dinner, then you are not really missing out.  Eden was pretty grossed out, especially after I told her all about where different meats come from (hamburgers come from COWS?) but eventually came around from her newly declared vegetarian ways and tried a bite.

She didn’t like it.  But we gave her many points for trying it.  After dinner we had cake and the family went back to their hotel to sleep for their flight out the next day.  We loved having them here even if was for such a short time!

If you like water fights, you would like Carnival in Cuenca. If you don’t, then you better stay indoors. Starting on Saturday, water and foam spray fights began breaking out across town. The volunteers in the orphanages were attacked by the workers with buckets of water, and most of the orphan kids were armed with squirt guns and if they wanted got “thrown” into the kiddie pool. There were even reports of nuns getting in on the action. If you walked through town anytime between Saturday through Tuesday you were a moving target for groups of people in the back of pickups armed with water balloons, buckets of water, and spray foam. Or course you could just as easily be attacked by kids holding their cans of spray foam walking down the street. And finally you need to be careful of crazy people standing on their balconies hitting innocent people trying to get from one place to another. Like these ones:

We had lots of fun with squirt guns for about 10 minutes the day we bought them until they broke. On Saturday we broke out the two cans of spray foam which I originally thought was silly string, and the kids had fun spraying the patio. On Monday we decided it was water balloon time, and made 100. Mostly the kids dropped them over the balcony onto the front patio, but occasionally some English speakers would walk by on the far side of the road and I would loudly tell the kids to hit them. This made them laugh, as obviously a 2 and 3-year old would not be launching balloons that would land anywhere near them, and most would pretend to be scared as Sammy and Harmon threw as far as they could and reached the sidewalk on our side of the street. After a while Aaron took a break from working and came out below us. We made sure he got plenty wet, and he got us a few times with balloons he caught. Late Monday afternoon we were sad we were out of balloons with an entire day left, so we walked a block and a half to a little store that was still open (most everything has been closed) and bought 200 more balloons for Tuesday. Tuesday was pretty much the same as Monday, we sat on the balcony and had fun dropping balloons over the edge. I was apparently more careless with the filling of balloons, and made them all a lot less full, so when the kids dropped them, several did not pop. (Give me a break, filling up 200 balloons is a lot!) This meant lots of ammo for Aaron when he came out, and also several rolled onto the sidewalk, much to the joy of kids who passed who now had protection walking down the street. Oh, and one adult male who spoke English (slight accent, couldn’t place it) who was soaked with water and foam. He was happy to pick up 3 that had rolled to the street so he could protect himself and his wife. Aaron definitely won Tuesdays event, leaving the other three of us quite wet. And the playroom, and the windows.

It is a fun holiday in Cuenca, everyone does lots of BBQing, lots of family water fighting, music, and of course a few fireworks. It is more or less the same as when many other people in the world are celebrating, right up until what is called Fat Tuesday in the US, the last day before Lent begins. Today is Ash Wednesday, and here in Ecuador you will see many people who have been to church to begin their Lent observance with ash on their foreheads. In our house however, we are just sad we are out of water balloons again.

There are a lot of holidays in Ecuador. It seems hardly a month goes by without a parade or two. Many of the streets are named for dates, “10 de agosto” for example, and you can bet that if there is a street name then there was something important that happened on that day, and we will be celebrating it! I love holidays and reasons to celebrate so this always pleases me greatly.

Two holidays seem to be extra important here in Ecuador, more so than in other parts of the world. Of course when I say other parts of the world I mean the US, the only other country in which I have lived. Anyway, those two holidays are Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. The reason I know these two days are super important it the party that starts the night before each of these days. When I lived her in 2004, all the neighbors had parties the day before, starting around 7pm and going until forever. And when I say forever I mean 4 or 5am. That is some hard-core partying, especially for the day before the actual holiday. This year I was excited/nervous to see what Valentine’s Eve would bring.

When I put the kids to bed around 8:30pm on the 13th I heard a lot of male voices outside. I looked out the window and saw approximately 10 guys, probably in their 20s hanging around two cars parked across the street. They were talking loudly and I assumed they were on their way to party. As it turned out I was both right and wrong. They were already at their party. On the street. Starting around 10pm they started singing along to romantic songs they either brought or were being played on the radio. The group size varied throughout the night, having as few as 4 singers, and as many as 20 at some points. At one point a few gentlemen came to our gate and saw Aaron working in the front room and tried to convince him to come out. As he had been working 18 hour days for the past many days, he decided to stay and finish his work instead.

Meanwhile I covered my head with a pillow and wished for it to be morning already. The singing finally stopped around 4am, at which point I can only assume they were hoarse from their 6 hour concert. I have yet to ask my Ecuadorian friends why these dudes were all out singing, but my assumption is that were either mourning their single-hood or trying to attract mates by their karaoke skills. Either way, it was loud.

In future holiday news, only two days until Carnival, which here means a big water fight. With strangers. Who will pelt you with water balloons from moving cars. Or balconies. Or alleyways. Fun?!

Highlights of Sammy’s Birthday

-Eating as many lollipops as the kids could get ahold of (Sammy managed 3, Harmon and Leah only 2)
-Sammy refusing to eat her cake with her hands.  A true lady uses a fork.
-Harmon “cleaning up” Sammy’s cake with his hands
-Sammy’s tutu she danced around in for a few minutes then demanded to take off

Highlights of Christmas

-Visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Montana
-Cats that don’t run away when you try to pet/attack them
-Playing with cousin Mirmo’s toys
-Harmon finally getting the tow truck he asked Santa for (see the excitement?)
-Going on hay rides
-Helping decorate Grandpa’s white tree
-Eating way too much tasty food
-Three Christmases

Ok, that wasn’t so long after all.

It is no secret that I love Halloween. I love it the most. Maybe it’s because I like candy, but mostly it’s because I like costumes and parties. And candy. The love started at an early age. In elementary school I loved creating my own costume ideas including someone escaped from the insane asylum and a giant tv. Probably my love of pumpkin carving was started by my parents in elementary school as well. By the time I reached college I often could be found carving pumpkins EVERY day in October, working on a Halloween farm, and getting paid to carve more pumpkins. Excellent costumes have included a fooseball player, a teletubby, Angelina Jolie (while pregnant), and a magic 8 ball (also while pregnant). Fortunately I married someone who is willing to indulge me in my love of Halloween, even if it requires him to wear ridiculous costumes. Ladies and gentleman, I give you Halloween 2010:

(if the pillow is falling out of your costume, your friends really should tell you)

Sammy believes in magic. And french fries.

Harmon believes in red lollipops, and Sammy should watch out for creepy clowns behind her.

A slightly better shot from the day before. But just remember, even Ronald, Grimace, Fry Guys, and The Hamburglar have to pay for their meals at McDonalds. Bust!

P.S. Because I get asked a lot: I did make all the costumes. Except Harmon’s tie. Aaron made that.

I also abide by the rule that no Halloween decor or apparel may appear until October 1st, and since that is today, enjoy the one viewing of the outfit that doesn’t fit Harmon:

See you soon Halloween!

There are some more on our photo site if you wanted to look at them.

In other news I am starting to do a toddler class at the baby orphanage three times a week starting on Monday. And I will probably start it at OSSO soon too. So, I’m staying pretty busy. Aaron has been working hard on his website and business stuff. We are managing to stay healthy, but have gained a few pounds from turkey day. That’s about all I can think of right now.