Garbage Dump

Posted on August 10, 2012 by kelsey

Why is it that my kids only want to get along while up to no good?  Bedtime when they are supposed to be quiet?  They want to hug and laugh and jump on each other’s beds.  Dinner time when they are supposed to be eating?  Seems like the perfect time to tell each other jokes and swap food around on their plates for six hours.  After bath?  Run naked chasing each other and jump on mom’s bed while she yells at you not to.  Playtime?  Best time to beat on each other and cry over someone walking near you or looking askew at your toys.

The exception to the playtime rule is called “garbage dump”.  My kids always get along while taking all of their stuff out of everywhere and putting it all into one big pile affectionately named the garbage dump.  Most of the time I tell them to stop, because let’s be honest, even if they help clean up, a 3 and a 2 year old do more destruction in 5 minutes than they can clean up in an hour so I end up having to do most of it.  But other times, I just let them.  Because come on, a lady needs time to sneak oreos for breakfast and take a shower.  Don’t judge.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

All About Aaron

Posted on August 1, 2012 by kelsey

I was just thinking that you wanted to know some more about Aaron that is not found in his bio.  So here you go.

1. When Aaron found out that I had never read Lord of the Rings he decided he would read it out loud to me.  At first I thought this would be really lame, but I actually really like it (we are almost done!) and today as I was driving on the freeway and saw the license plate “nawzgull” I felt totally culturally literate.  (I can only assume that nazgul was already taken)

2. Aaron is totally honest.  Two weeks ago when I said “I can’t believe I am 5 months pregnant” he replied “I know, but you look 7!”  At least I can count on him to tell me if this belly makes me look fat.

3. Aaron likes to do ridiculous stuff with the kids.  For example last week he wanted to drive to the mountains and tie ropes on the kids and tell them they were rock climbing.  And so we did.  And they loved it.  And didn’t fall off the side of the mountain either.

4. Aaron overlooks my extreme ridiculousness.  Recent example: I brought home an oversized spinning round chair thing from a second-hand store, ripped off all the old stinky fuzzy fur covering and recovered it with fabric and a staple gun and Aaron just smiled.  (Photos of chair coming soon)  Also I bought a reel mower instead of a gas one and after inquiring about the price he complimented our efforts of lawn mowing.

5. Aaron really likes frozen Hershey’s bars.  I realize that this one is not that interesting but I blame the fact that I got distracted by the Comcast guy digging up our yard to bury our internet cable.  The silliness of it all almost made me think I was in Ecuador again.  More interesting facts about Aaron later.

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Once A Month Is Good, Right?

Posted on July 15, 2012 by kelsey

Greetings from the world’s laziest blogger.  Ok maybe like third laziest because some people haven’t posted in years.  But still, pretty lazy.  Here is a thrilling update on our lives:

-After returning from Ecuador we spent two weeks in Seattle.  It was fun, we loved seeing our family and friends and even enjoyed one or two days where it didn’t rain.

-Immediately after returning from Ecuador Aaron flew to his mom’s house in Montana to pick up his truck and a few of our remaining belongings stored at her house.  30 minutes after leaving her house towards Seattle he was in a car accident.  After one billion hassles a month later his truck is finally fixed.   A big shout out to the insurance company for being super ridiculous and still not sending us money and the repair shop for working extra slow and when Aaron’s mom picked up the truck yesterday and heard a rubbing noise on the tire and taking it back they said it was probably the brakes and not their problem.  Aaron really looks forward to going back to Montana to drive his truck to Utah because he hasn’t taken any super long trips in 2 weeks.

-We drove to Utah in my (new! wahoo!) car and a 10 ft rental truck.  It turns out we had more stuff than we thought and without Aaron’s truck to pull a trailer we needed their smallest truck.  We were pretty smart and made my sister Eden come with us to entertain the kids.  She kept telling me thanks for bringing her.  13-year-olds!  Best idea ever.

-We have now been in Utah for two weeks.  We are currently in temporary housing in an apartment complex Aaron’s company set us up with.  Aaron so far likes his new job and has been riding his bike to work (and back in 100 degree weather).  The rest of us have been spending days looking for housing, swimming, and more importantly catching up with old friends.  It feels like we have been here a month as we have packed a lot in already, including this past week when we found a house to move into.  So after Aaron gets back from his trip this weekend we will be moving!  We are pretty excited about the house, although we will miss the pool at the apartment complex.

-My belly is getting huge.  And I’m only 5 months along.  But it’s a girl so I am hoping that it won’t turn out to be as huge as Harmon.

The end.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Return to the US, A Saga

Posted on June 13, 2012 by kelsey

Thursday 6/7: Move out of house into a hotel
Friday 6/8: Finish cleaning house, check out of house
Saturday 6/9: Enjoy the day like tourists
Sunday 6/10:  Church, see friends, fly to Quito in the night, 45 min flight
Monday 6/11: Spend day in Quito at park, Teleferiqo (gondolas that go up a mountain to 26,500 feet), McDonald’s
Tuesday 6/12: 7:15am leave hotel
7:30am arrive at airport
7:35am wonder why line is so long over two hours before 9:45am fight
7:40am find flight is rescheduled to 7pm.  SEVEN PM, over 9 hours delay.
7:45am get taken to special line for being pregnant and having small kids
7:55am check bags, get told captain is sick, voucher for free lunch at hotel across town, told about shuttle to hotel at 12pm
8:05am eat nasty Dunkin’ Donuts to kill time/feed hungry bellies
8:55am take our own taxi to hotel, $5
9:25am get vouchers changed into different vouchers, amazing concierge takes our carry-ons to holding room.  (Shout out to Quito Hilton Colon Concierge!)  (There should be an accent over the second o in Colon, but whatever.  The restaurant is called Cafe Colon, don’t think we didn’t laugh a lot because we are 13-year-olds)
9:35am go to huge amazing park across the street from hotel (that we spent a while at the day before.  Very lucky.)
10:55am go back to hotel and have a snack from our bags, hang around
11:55am go to eat lunch, get snubbed by stuck-up maitre’d
12:15pm eat delicious buffet at Cafe Colon
1pm hang out in lobby, watch Lion King, try not to go mental
4pm catch shuttle back to airport
4:30pm go through immigration, security, gate “special” security
5:30pm buy world’s most expensive Subway ($7.75 for 6″) and cheap cheese sandwich for kids
6:45pm board plane for 7pm flight
7:15pm plane fully loaded but upon looking out window see plane begin to get fuel, because the 24 hours that the plane had been at the airport weren’t ample time to get that taken care of
7:30pm take off.  nice attendants, no one goes mental, kids sleep 2-3 hours of 4 hour flight.
6/13 12:30am land in Miami
1:10am finish at customs
1:40am hotel shuttle arrives
1:50am arrive at hotel
2am go swimming
2:30am get ready for bed
3am kids asleep
3:30am wonder when I will be asleep, fantasize about eating delicious bagels
5:30am alarm goes off
6am catch shuttle to airport, check in
7am eat world’s worst bagel that is coincidentally also extremely overpriced even for the airport
7:45am board plane first thanks to small children policy
8:10am take off on time!  kids play moderately well for a while, eventually I force them to lay down and they sleep almost 3 hours.  people find this a great time to tell me loudly how well they are doing or how cute they are.  I rudely shush several people because if they wake up my kids I will chop them.  I mean, really.
11:30am (6+ hours later, time change) land in Seattle.  slowest unloading plane ever (isn’t anyone else tired of being on this plane?), eventually get to baggage, where my mom has already found half of our eight giant suitcases.
12:00pm get picked up by Jama, 2 minutes after Aaron finishes carrying bags to the sidewalk
12:30pm eat tasty food at Dick’s.
1pm arrive at dad’s house.  rejoice.

And that my friends, is how you move back from Ecuador.

Posted in ecuador, I don't love it, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Mother’s Day Questions

Posted on May 13, 2012 by kelsey

What is Mommy’s name?
H: Kelsey S: Kelsey

What does Mommy do for fun?
H: Help me put on ties. S: Dance with us.

What is Mommy’s favorite thing to eat?
H:  French fries and chicken and water and soda. S: Toast.

What does she like to drink?
H: Soda S: Soda

How old is Mommy?
H: 4 S: 4

How tall is Mommy?
H:  5 inches tall! S: Grande!

What is Mommy’s hair like?
H:  food, dark black S: ponytail

How much does she weigh?
H:  30lbs S: 24lbs

What makes Mommy the best?
H:  Walking and running for a little bit. S: Go for a walk.

What is your favorite thing to do with Mommy?
H:  Go for walks to our park. S: Dance

How long have you known Mommy?
H:  15 elephants. S: I love you, you’re my best friend!

Where did you and Mommy meet?
H:  At the church last night. S: At the play area.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Having a Baby in Ecuador

Posted on May 11, 2012 by kelsey

Is not something I’m doing.  So, that was kind of a rude trick title, huh?

Probably half of you (two people) already know that we are planning on coming back to the US, but the other half of you (the other two who read this blog) might not have been informed on the subject.  At any rate, although we got our visas extended until the end of September and could probably have gotten them extended again, we will instead be coming back in the middle of June.

That probably brings us to your next burning question, where?  We will be flying into Seattle and spending a few weeks in the lovely Evergreen state, hoping for nice weather.  Near the end of June we will be loading up the remaining belongings we own and taking them with us to the Beehive state.  Aaron has just accepted a job offer there, and we will enjoy spending time with friends we haven’t seen in a while and enjoying that strange yellow ball of gas in the sky that we didn’t often see in the Seattle area.  And eating Cafe Rio.  I will be doing a lot of that.

Oh, why are we not staying in Ecuador to have a baby?  Lots of reasons really, but mostly my own personal desire to have a baby at home with a midwife (I’m a weirdo, you already knew that though).  Also there are lots of things here that are doable with two children (I have two hands, so when we walk to town to do any errand we must do, it works) that seem to me to be ridiculously difficult with three, especially if one is a newborn and two will be 4 and 3.  Aaron is sad because he likes it here, and although I do like it here, I am admittedly very excited to use a washing machine, the drive-thru, have hot water at my kitchen sink, an oven, and flushing toilet paper.

So there you have it.  We have a month left in Ecuador.  Also, if anyone wants to take over our lease, unfurnished 4 bed/4 bath super great house at $330/month, let us know.  We may even throw in an almost new fridge.

Posted in ecuador, pregnancy | 11 Comments

My Dad & Co. Came to Visit

Posted on April 29, 2012 by kelsey

The first weekend in April my Dad, Jama, Jordan, and Eden came to visit.  Although they would spend a week in Ecuador, they were only supposed to be with us 1.5 days.  Then a canceled flight dropped that down to just 24 measly hours.  But it was pretty jam-packed.

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!

Posted in ecuador, holiday | 1 Comment

We did the touristy bus

Posted on April 28, 2012 by kelsey

And it was actually pretty good.  There is a company that runs red double-decker buses around town and they drive by our house 4 or so times a day.  And if you have a 3-year-old who is obsessed with all vehicles, chances are you will eventually have to ride on said bus.  So we did.  Last month, but whatever.  Here are a few photos, and if you want more, you can click here (actually that is all of March’s photos).

Posted in ecuador | 1 Comment

Daddy Dressed Me

Posted on April 27, 2012 by kelsey

This is a blog series I always mean to start, but I mostly forget to take photos.  Here is the first installment for your pleasure.

(Aaron’s defense: “You bought all these clothes!”)

Posted in aaron, sammy | 5 Comments

Cuatro & 1/2 Puerqueños

Posted on April 1, 2012 by kelsey

3 years ago today I was delighted to announce the fact that I was pregnant.  Of course no one believed it because I also had a barely 5 month old at the time.  Turns out it was true.  If I would have followed along the same schedule, having babies every 13 1/2 months then by now I would be ready to give birth to child #4 any day now.  Luckily I am still (partially) sane and didn’t go that route.  If you did, you are a champion.

Today I am however happy to announce that I am growing a third child in my belly.  It is a very strong baby who thinks it is fun to take all of my energy and make me sick 23 hours a day.  The remaining hour is obviously spread out in several 5 minute increments which I relish.  However both previous babies made me ill and I still liked them a lot when they came out, so it seems as that won’t really be an issue in several months.  In case you were wondering, this baby is set to make it’s appearance at the very end of November.  Everyone in the house is very excited.  Harmon says it’s a boy and a girl (twins, thanks!) and Sammy says a girl.  Harmon has so far suggested the following names: Flower Weed, Lightie, and Bengee the dog.  Strangely enough, none of these names are currently being considered.

Posted in baby, pregnancy | 13 Comments