Celebrating an amazingly interesting year!

Oh my gosh, so much to share and not enough time! I cannot believe that I haven't posted since October! From Jennifer's EcuaAlbuquerque visit (since she couldn't come out to Ecuador when we were living there, but we were so far away still that it was like we were practically in Ecuador...she called it her EcuaAlbuquerque trip, haha) to our visit to Utah, arrival in Ridgecrest, painting/working on the house, Thanksgiving at Jennifer's to now...Christmas Eve and not an update from Adam and I! So many photographs and stories to share!

I promise that in 2011 there will be more regular posts once again (I am planning to do Project Life for 2011 and hope to take at least a photo a day for that project, so I hope that I can make time to also share them here). 2010 was a whirlwind year...making new friends, creating new memories, seeing new places (including the Galapagos Islands!), saying many hellos and goodbyes, leaving Peace Corps Ecuador and starting new beginnings once again...I have no idea what 2011 brings me but I hope that it will be as interesting as the past few years have been!

And I promise there will be photos up soon... until then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Aperture, Wide Open!

After Jota got his 50mm lens and seeing how fast it was (and how inexpensive it is), I decided to get one for myself! I've been having fun taking photos (indoors, no less!) though I do have to say that I need to stop using such a wide aperture all the time! I just got the lens last week so it'll take some time for me to get used to the fact that I can't zoom in and out, and it'll also take some time for me not to stick to the widest aperture setting all the time (but it is so much fun!). Aperture!

Decor of California Missions in Adam's parents' house

Desert flowers in front of Adam's parents' house in New Mexico

Garlic knots, pre-oven...not as gorgeous as Jason's but tons of garlic on top! Yum!

Ginormous bento box...my new lens lets me have a really shallow depth of field (good or bad...lol, in this photo only the rice and a bit of the tempura is in focus)

Mmm, salmon inside and out!

Adam out on the deck with Mickie!

Last night Adam's mom made baked apples...these are pre oven...look at all that butter on top! YUM!

And we're back!!

Things have been great since being home! Family time, showers with hot water and lots of pressure, clothes that smell clean, and a trip to the Albuquerque Annual Balloon Fiesta! We headed out to see the balloons at 5am and were rewarded with seeing hundreds of hot air balloons take flight. I really enjoyed the special shape balloons (my favorites of the shapes were the Japanese Ebisu balloon, the Pondemonium balloon, and the owl) but really, everything was just stellar (minus the bad red chile breakfast burrito that Adam's mom and I shared).

First balloon to take off at around 5:45am

Decided to stop for a breakfast burrito (seemed to early for turkey legs, haha). Green chile one was decent, but we couldn't even finish the red chile burrito!

Finally! People started to get their balloons filled up! We had gotten up extra early to see the Dawn Patrol and the Morning Glow, but it didn't end up happening. 

All the balloonists filling up their air balloons

Slowly but surely the balloons started to fill up

And take off!

Pepsi can and a guppy, amongst the others

Starting to realize I am not in Ecuador anymore (everybody is too tall so I have to stand on tippy toes)

It really is amazing to see hundreds of balloons in the air, love it!!

I thought the dead cat balloon was hilarious

I thought the balloon on the right was just adorable! It is a pond scene with fish, swans, frogs, birds...

The Ebisu god balloon, holding a fish!

Wells Fargo stagecoach didn't quite get aloft

The balloon field from the parking lot

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. 

Daytrippin' in Podocarpus

And while I am posting, I might as well update on our past week and post up some photos from our day trip to Zamora to visit the Podocarpus National Park.  Last week was pretty much the same as always- Adam went to the UTPL to visit with some of the engineers up there, had a few meetings at CASMUL and the Tourism Office and I did the same ol' same ol', though it was sad going to all the centers without Eri!

On Monday I finished the scrapbook for Eri and then she came over and had dinner at our house (I made meatloaf and mashed potatoes since she enjoyed that the last time we had a potluck). The next day I went to the Centro Comercial without Eri. It was fine but the kids and I all missed her. Then I met up with Eri on last time for coffee and empanadas de verde at a friend's house while Adam made lasagna with Stacia and Liz. On Thursday I did an origami workshop at a school and had to play Eri's role of standing up in the front demonstrating while some of the CPD staff went around to help the kids- we made dolphins and Santa Claus...I have to go back to the center 2x this week, so we are going to make pistols, boxes, frogs and the kusudama.

Here are a couple page samples from the scrapbook I made Eri. The cover said La Gran Aventura and it was over 30 pages. It was a bit of a last minute crunch because the guy binding it for me didn't have it ready until 3pm and I was still short 10 pages! Yikes!

When the weekend came, Adam and I were glad to take a day trip out to Zamora since we hadn't been up until now. Plus it was nice for Adam and I to spend some alone time since we had volunteers crashing overnight at our house since Monday. We enjoy having volunteers over but sometimes it is nice to have our own time, just the two of us.

This is a row of ants walking along carrying leaves back as food. We saw tons marching along on the trails.

Cascada Poderosa (Powerful Waterfall)

And we saw tons and tons of gorgeous butterflies of all colors and shapes and sizes. I couldn't capture them all but I got a few shots!

View of Zamora from their riverwalk

Ok I have to run. A mosquito is buzzing around my head hoping to get a drink!! I can hear it buzzing!