Heading home!

I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend

Lucky to have been where I have been

Lucky to be coming home again!

Hope you enjoyed that little bit of Jason Mraz! After much reflection, Adam and I decided that it was time for us to head home. In Peace Corps acronyms, we decided to ET (early terminate) for many reasons (those good ol' itchy hives, the amount and type of work we were doing, fit with our jobs and community, family, etc.) but we can say with confidence that we had a great 15 months in Ecuador. We are leaving the Peace Corps with lifelong friends, great memories, amazing experiences, over 5,000 photos, and knowing that we were able to make a difference in some small way. Adam and I joined the Peace Corps because "life was calling" (a little Peace Corps phrase for you) and now life is calling us back home to be with our families. Fortunately we have been able to wrap things up with our friends, colleagues and the kids we worked with in Loja...our last few weeks in Loja were spent saying our goodbyes, having coffee, eating cake, and taking photos (of course!). We will be flying into Albuquerque tomorrow to be with Adam's family, and then off to Ridgecrest shortly after!

In a future post, when we have a little bit more time, we'll share a little summary of the things that we learned and experienced in our time in Ecuador, but until then...and like always, here are some photos!!

Adam and I with all the kids at the orfanato on our last day with them. Celebrated with cake (or in Ecuador, "key").

My last day at the Centro de Protección de Derechos. More cake!

Stacia and our despedida with some of the volunteers in the cluster. Yes, we spent all day cooking a Thanksgiving feast of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, gravy, pumpkin pie, carrot deliciousness, and of course, Jason's wonderful cockaputzy! And we happily ate turkey "moistmaker" sandwiches on the bus ride to Quito.

Ethan!

Adam, Stacia, Justin and I

Adam and I on our last day in Loja visiting Vivi and Luis (who were so wonderful in our last few days, especially when we ran into problems with our landlords)

Adam and I with Adam's counterpart Gloria on our last day

If you have never been to Loja, you don't know my country!
We were planning to make a t-shirt that said "If you haven't been to Loja, no conoce mi País"...maybe with a voice bubble coming from the mouth of the Virgen del Cisne. We'll have to leave that task to another Loja vol!

Jason seeing us off on the Loja bus to Quito. We will miss you Jota!

We spent a few days in the office in Quito but were able to go spend the weekend with our host family from training. It rained in Puruhantag so Edwin's truck got stuck in the mud. Here are Pacha and Mica with the two girls from next door hanging out while all the adults are pushing the truck (headlights in the background!)

Pacha and Mica had to participate in a parade with their school (very common in Ecuador) so we watched from the sidelines.

Micaela with her xylophone. At the end of the parade (two hours later) her arm was all cramped from holding her xylophone! Poor thing!

We also went with Magy and the girls to Tabacundo's makeshift "Plaza de Toros" (bull fighting ring) Adam and I weren't willing to go to the second floor (by climbing a flimsy homemade ladder) because the whole thing was made up of planks of wood, cardboard, and wires. Though Magy and the girls were scared of staying on the ground level in case the bull came charging. Safety first!

Inside the bullring...kids were running around everywhere!

I gave all of my cute Sanrio stickers to Pacha and Mica and they had a great time putting them in their little sticker books I made them.

Adam and I with Edwin, Magy and the girls for one last visit.

Adam and I at the office with the Tiffany and Tom, like the good ol' training days.

If you have any questions about our decision to head home, feel free to ask! We had our "period of reflection" as all of our close friends know, and it resulted in a decision that we are feeling really good about.