First Days

We’ve been in Quito nearly two weeks already, so it’s high time for an update! It’s been a busy two weeks settling into life here. We arrived in Quito on April 12th (actually it was early in the morning on April 13th). Our plane was rerouted to the city of Manta on the coast of Ecuador due to bad weather when we were on our approach into Quito. After spending some time on the ground refueling and dealing with a medical emergency (not ours), we were finally able to fly back to Quito and this time, successfully landed. All of our luggage made it intact, and Josh was waiting at the airport to take us to their house.

We spent the first few days living with Josh and Julie (my sister), and it was a nice way to recover from the trip as well as the craziness of the last few days in the States. It also gave us an opportunity to take care of things like making sure we had working cell phones and a drivable vehicle – after sitting for several months, our Land Rover was in need of some TLC, as well as insurance. We learned our way around the Marcum’s neighborhood, and I even made my first foray into a local grocery store. For some reason, grocery shopping is just one of those things that is always completely overwhelming and stressful to me in my first few weeks in a new country. We went to church with the Marcum’s (they attend a church plant in “the valley”) and attended their small group that meets on Wednesday nights. The cousins also enjoyed some concentrated time together, and we went on a couple of fun outings.

After the first week, we moved into a small, furnished, two-bedroom apartment at the EQEB (Quito School of Biblical Studies), which also houses the Colón Church of Christ. Interestingly, this is the second time in our married life that Rusty and I find ourselves living temporarily in a church – the first time was right after we moved back to Japan, when we spent about a month living in the Hitachi-Taga Church of Christ! It is pretty tight quarters, but I think we’ll manage for a few weeks. Our plan was to live here until we find a house and our container arrives. Amazingly, we have already accomplished the first part – finding a house! We thought it would take us much longer to find something both suitable and within our budget. But, the third house we looked at was pretty nearly a perfect fit. Rusty signed the contract on Monday and we will get the keys this Friday. So, technically, we could move in anytime. But we would be sleeping on the floor and cooking over an open fire in the backyard because all of our things are still in the States. The folks at Healing Hands will hopefully be shipping our container sometime next week, but it could still be awhile before it gets here. So, I think we will stay put for the time being.

A good thing about living here at the EQEB temporarily is the location. We are right downtown, and close to many of Quito’s plethora of Spanish language schools. We spent yesterday and today visiting several of them to find out about their prices and services. We hope to make a decision and start classes by next week. I have actually been pleasantly surprised by how much Spanish I understand, thanks to all the time spent studying Portuguese. Speaking is a little more difficult, so I’m looking forward to getting into the classroom and actually learning the Spanish so that I’m not constantly guessing at words and how to pronounce them when I talk to people! Living here, we will also have the opportunity to practice our Spanish with the students and staff.

Here are a few pictures from our first couple of weeks:

Cousins at the Carolina Park

Paddle boats (Carolina Park)

Our Land Rover will fit both our families -- 11 people in all!

Enoch and Benjamin are going to be good buddies!

Eliana and Alex (The kids got their faces painted at an open house at Jana's preschool.)

Jana and Stephen

Michaela

Building my RAFT

Written the week before we left the U.S. for Ecuador:

Recently, while at my parents’ house, I picked up a copy of the book The Third Culture Kid Experience: Growing Up Among Worlds by David C. Pollack and Ruth E. Van Reken (Intercultural Press, 1999). It is a wonderful book, which I highly recommend to anyone who is a TCK* or is raising a TCK. One of the authors, Dave Pollack, came to Kenya when I was a senior in high school to do a weekend Reentry Seminar with all the graduating seniors at Rosslyn Academy. It was something he did every year at the time, trying to give all of us who were getting ready to leave Kenya and head off to college the tools both to leave well and to enter the new phase of our lives well.

There is one tool that has stuck with me through the years, through all of the many transitions I have faced, and that is the idea of building a “RAFT.”

Click here to continue reading.

Stephen is Three!

Stephen turned three at the beginning of April. Since we were busy making the final preparations for our move to Ecuador, I just didn't have it in me to plan a huge, elaborate party. Stephen had been begging to go to Jungle Java again for awhile, so we invited a few of his friends from church to meet us there for a play-date one morning. Then, we headed over to the Livonia church and had lunch on the playground, followed by cake and ice-cream. It was a simple party, perfect for a 3-year old.

Fun at Jungle Java

Blowing out the candles on his "Cars" ice cream cake

I can't believe he's three!

The Seventh Month

Benjamin is now seven months old. He is sitting up very well and starting to rock forward from a sitting-up position to try to get up on his hands and knees. Although he still has a ways to go before he is officially crawling (thank goodness!), he is getting more and more mobile. He has figured out that he can get from point A to point B by rolling over several times, and he is also starting to "army crawl" when he is on his tummy.

Ben continues to eat with gusto anything you put in front of him. This month, he also finally started taking a bottle, much to my relief. I have been having supply issues for awhile, which I think is mostly related to how stressful the last few months have been and how difficult it's been to maintain anything resembling a schedule while traveling. Although I'm grateful to have the option of formula feeding, I also recognize that this is the beginning of the end of my nursing days, and that is bittersweet.

During Ben's seventh month, we went to Chicago for our visas, so now he has an Ecuadorian visa in his passport! How many 7-month olds can say that? I do think it's pretty crazy (and a testament to our globally nomadic lifestyle) that he will have lived on 3 continents before his first birthday. At the end of March, I took Ben in for another well-baby check-up, and he now weighs 17 pounds! He got four more shots, plus an oral vaccine, so we are now mostly caught up.

Speaking of vaccinations, I came home from the doctor visit feeling a little frustrated because all my kids have had vaccines in so many different places, due to all our moving around. It is getting harder to keep track of it all, and harder for the nurses and doctors to figure out exactly what it is they need, especially when you factor in that other countries follow different vaccination schedules than we do in the U.S. For example, in Portugal, the BCG vaccine (for tuberculosis) is still standard at birth (it is not in the U.S. and hasn't been for years), and they start vaccinating for meningitis at 3 months (in the U.S., they wait until junior high school). I have at least 2 different vaccine records for each of my children, and Alex also has his "international yellow book" since he had the yellow fever vaccine before we went to Angola in 2008.

I decided that I needed to find a way to keep a record of all their vaccines in one place. A quick Google search turned up this little gem -- a free downloadable blank vaccine record done in Excel. I love that you can not only print copies and fill them in by hand to take with you to doctor visits, but also save it to your computer. I am planning on creating an electronic version for each of the boys so I always have a back-up in case the paper versions ever get lost or destroyed. Eventually, I plan to do one for Rusty and myself also.

Okay, that was a little off-topic. Here's a picture of 7-month old Benjamin. I swear he gets cuter every month!

Alex is Six!

We finally got around to celebrating Alex's 6th birthday, about one month late. We had a party at Pump It Up, a bounce house, and invited all of his friends from the Livonia Church to celebrate with us. The kids had a great time bouncing on all the inflatables, followed by cake and ice-cream in one of the party rooms.

When we started planning his party, I asked Alex how he felt about using his birthday party as an opportunity to bless other less fortunate children instead of making it all about him and getting a bunch of presents he really doesn't need. I expected a lot of resistance, but he surprised me by being very enthusiastic about the idea. Instead of presents, we asked his friends to contribute money, which we then gave to World Vision, an organization that helps needy children. We sat down with the World Vision gift catalog and Alex picked out a $22 backpack filled with school supplies as his gift of choice. At his party, we collected enough money to purchase 6 backpacks, one for each year of his life! And honestly, he didn't even miss having presents to open! He still got presents from us, from his grandparents, and from the Angola Team, which he opened during a Skype phone call. But no presents at the actual party.

Happy Birthday, Alex! We are so proud of how you are growing and learning, for your tender heart and your energy and enthusiasm for life. We look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with you in the years to come!

What We've Been Up To (Road-Trip Edition)

Sometimes, it feels like the last three months have been one giant road-trip. It hasn't, of course. We have been traveling a lot, but it's been more like several shorter trips interspersed with time in Michigan. I can't tell you how wonderful it is to have my parents' house as our haven during this in-between time! We walk in the door after being on the road for awhile, and I just breathe a big sigh of relief. I know it's not always easy on my parents to have 5 extra people around cluttering up their home, especially right now while my mom is going through her cancer treatments, but they are so gracious and they never complain.

As a way of catching up, then, I thought I would just do one huge post about all the places we've been. I should probably mention that we haven't been the greatest about taking pictures during our travels. We take pictures of the "fun" things we do, but we forget to take pictures of people and other activities. I plan to intersperse pictures with commentary here, lest you get the wrong idea about us and think that we've just been gallivanting around the country and playing the whole time. Actually, all of our traveling has been "work-related" -- we just try to do fun things with the kids every once in awhile, otherwise they would drive both of us completely bonkers!

Kids asleep in the car

And there's the other one!

Our first trip was in mid-December. We traveled to Nashville to meet with the missions committee at Hillsboro, our sponsoring church. We also went to Huntsville for a couple of days to see some of Rusty's family -- his uncle and aunt, and his cousin and her family, who are dear friends and also personal supporters. Rick and Marinda Trull, team coaches for the Angola Team, drove up to Huntsville for the day and we spent a morning having coffee and a very good visit with them. On the way back to Michigan, we stopped in Cave City, KY and took the boys to the big dinosaur park there. It was really fun -- if you have a kid who's totally into dinosaurs as Alex is right now, I highly recommend it!

Dinosaur World -- Cave City, KY

In mid-January, we began a three-week long trip. First stop: Somerset, Pennsylvania, to visit the church there that supports us, as well as our friends the Hintons (Jimmy is the preacher at the church). We were there over a Sunday, so Rusty did a presentation during Bible Class and also preached.

Sunday lunch at the Eat 'n Park in Somerset, PA

From Pennsylvania, we began the long drive to Manson, Manitoba. We stopped along the way in Hudson, Wisconsin (just across the river from Minneapolis St. Paul) and stayed two nights with Dale and Vicki Hawley. Dale is a missionary counselor who did some work with the Angola Team in the past when we were doing our training with Missions Resource Network. We really enjoyed our time with the Hawleys. On the day we left, we took the boys to the Mall of America. We played a round of mini-golf, ate lunch in the food court, went to the Lego store, and rode a couple of rides at the indoor amusement park.

Mini-golf at the Mall of America -- Bloomington, MN

We left Hudson and drove to Fargo, North Dakota, where we stayed the night with some friends of the Hawleys, who graciously opened their home to complete strangers! What a gift it is to be a part of God's family and to have brothers and sisters literally everywhere in the world! Then, it was on to Manson, Manitoba to visit Rusty's Uncle Ken and Aunt Rae and the church there that has started supporting us. We spent almost a week with them, and it was lovely to just be in one place for a few days! Aunt Rae spoiled us with all sorts of yummy treats like her homemade Cinnamon Buns; Uncle Ken loaded us up with a few things for our future home, including Rusty's grandma's old oak dining table; the boys got to play in the snow; we saw Kemmy and Christina, two of Rusty's canuck cousins; and Rusty did a presentation and also preached at the church on Sunday.

With Uncle Ken and Aunt Rae -- Manson, Manitoba

Snow angels -- Manson, Manitoba

Leaving Manson, we drove to Winnipeg to do a presentation at the Central Church of Christ, a possible future supporter. Then we drove back to Michigan, but we took several days to get there and stopped in Wisconsin Dells for two nights on the way. It was a nice way to end the trip. We stayed in a hotel with a nice little pool with kiddie slides and fountains. And one day, we bought day passes to one of the bigger resorts and spent all day playing in their big water park and indoor amusement park.

Bumper cars -- Wisconsin Dells, WI

Mt. Olympus Indoor Water Park -- Wisconsin Dells, WI

After a couple of weeks in Michigan, we hit the road again, this time heading south. Our first stop was Nashville, TN, where we spent two weeks with our sponsoring church, the Hillsboro Church of Christ. It was wonderful to reconnect with all our friends there and make some new ones! I wish that we had taken more pictures of our time there, but we were literally so busy running hither and thither that we just never thought about it. We had dinner with folks from church nearly every night, and the days were taken up with doctor and dentist appointments (Rusty even had his wisdom teeth out!), errands, meetings, and playdates for the boys. I met up with my dear childhood friend Rebekah one morning, and we enjoyed catching up on each others' lives. We had lunch with Rusty's Uncle Dennis in Clarksville one day. The church had a lovely send-off for us on our last Sunday there. They showed a video of our family where we shared some of our plans, interspersed with some of the footage Rusty shot on his survey trip in November. Then they said a prayer of blessing over us, followed by singing "Surround Us Lord," all of this while huge flakes of snow were falling softly outside the windows. It's a memory that will stay with me for a long time.

Stephen getting his teeth cleaned -- Nashville, TN

With Uncle Dennis -- Clarksville, TN

From Nashville, we drove to Memphis and spent a few days reconnecting with friends there. We visited the Park Avenue church on Sunday morning and Rusty gave a short update on us at the end of the service. Then we drove down to the Thyatira church for their evening service where Rusty preached and shared about our plans. Afterwards, we had dinner with several of the young families, our good friends when we lived there. On Monday, we met up with the Gearsons and Jin and Gina, friends from our grad school days. We went to the park and then had dinner at Chick Fil-A. Alex was so excited to spend time with Mackenzie and Esther again. I couldn't believe how much they have all grown up in the last few years.

Mackenzie and Alex -- Memphis, TN

Unfortunately, the evening did not end well as Alex fell while climbing on the outside of the play structure and busted his head open! He was bleeding pretty profusely (I am told head wounds do that), and 911 was called, so the firetrucks and EMT's showed up at Chick-Fil-A. They checked him over, bandaged up his head, and then we drove ourselves down the road to the closest hospital. Several hours and 10 stitches later, Alex hopefully has a better understanding of why it's not a good idea to climb on the outside of the play structure! This all happened the day before he turned 6, so it was definitely a memorable birthday. On his actual birthday, we went to the fire station that had responded to the 911 call, and the boys got the grand tour and got to sit in all the trucks. They thought that was fun.

Alex with Evertt Huffard, who shares his birthday -- Memphis, TN

At the fire station -- Germantown, TN

From Memphis, we drove to Oklahoma City and spent almost a week there. We so enjoyed seeing all our dear friends from our time in Japan as AET's (I wish we had taken more pictures!), as well as Robbie, Rusty's nephew, who is a student at OC this year. In addition, Rusty did a presentation at a church in the Oklahoma City area on Sunday morning and was able to connect with many missions-minded folks on campus at OC.

Lunch at Pops with Robbie and Cat -- Edmond, OK

All the kids at the "Japan Peeps" get-together at the Lj's - Edmond, OK

From Oklahoma City, we drove back to Michigan, and upon our arrival, discovered that the final piece of paperwork we needed in order to apply for our Ecuadorian visas had finally arrived. So, 10 days later, we were packing our bags again, this time to make the trip to Chicago to the Ecuadorian consulate. We stayed with our friends the Mearses in Naperville and so enjoyed our time with them. On Monday, we trekked in to downtown Chicago, dropped off the paperwork and the payment at the consulate, went to Gino's and had Chicago deep-dish pizza, then went back and picked up our passports with Ecuadorian visas stamped inside them. It was ridiculously easy!

 Walking the streets of downtown Chicago -- Chicago, IL

So, the fact that we have visas now means that The Great Road-Trip is coming to an end at last. We are aiming to be in Ecuador by mid-April. Rusty is in Nashville this week getting all of our stuff ready for shipment. I stayed in Michigan with the kids and am working on a hundred other little details, like plane tickets. It's hard to believe after all this time that we are just a few short weeks away from actually leaving!

There are lots more pictures of all our travels on Facebook. Click here to view the entire album.

The Sixth Month

Well, after I publish this post, I will be caught up on Benjamin's monthly milestones... for the next 3 days anyway! (Sigh.) It's hard to believe that he's almost 7 months old. And then I look at Alex, my SIX-year old (How is that even possible?), and I think, He's a third of the way to 18! And then I freak out just a little.

But, I digress. Benjamin's 6th month was again spent on the road (road trip post coming soon, promise). He is a great little traveler -- all our kids are -- but he does get tired of being in his carseat so much! Towards the end of our trips, when we have been in the car for days on end, he starts crying every time I put him in. The poor kid probably wonders if we know how to do anything other than schlep him around all over creation.

In the 6th month, we continued with solid foods, introducing rice cereal, peaches, plums, prunes, peas, carrots, and sweet potato. Ben visited our pediatrician in Nashville for a check-up and 6 shots! (We are trying to get him caught up, since we missed the 4-month check-up... I know, I know, bad mom.) He weighed in at 15 pounds, 8.5 ounces, more than double his birth weight, and measured 27 inches long. He also met his Great Uncle Dennis while in Nashville.

The big milestone during month 6 was, of course, learning to sit up on his own. I am always so glad when my babies learn to sit alone! They seem to stay content longer when they can sit up and play and observe everything that's going on around them. And the bald spot on the back of the head starts disappearing when they aren't laying on their backs so much! Being able to sit up also changes the bathtime routine -- Benjamin can sit up and splash in the water, which he thinks is great fun, and he now takes baths with his big brothers more frequently.

Benjamin's 6-month birthday was pretty memorable, as it was the day that Alex fell while climbing on the playplace at Chick-Fil-A and busted his head open. More details coming when I blog about our road-trip, but suffice it to say that we spent several hours in the ER, and Alex ended up with 10 stitches! Life with boys is never dull!

 6 months old!

The Fifth Month

A large part of Benjamin's fifth month was spent on the road. (Look for a future post about all our recent travels). In fact, we celebrated his fifth-month birthday at the end of January in Wisconsin Dells, but the pictures below were taken a few days later after we got back to my parents' house in Michigan.

Ben celebrated his first New Year during this month, although he actually slept right through the big moment! He met his Uncle Ken and Aunt Rae, actually his great-uncle and great-aunt, and other relatives while we were in Canada. We finally had to retire the cradle, as he was just getting too big and wiggly for it, and moved him back into a pack-n-play. The other major milestone this month included the introduction of solid foods. I held him off as long as possible, but when your baby starts watching you eat with rapt fascination and actually trying to grab food out of your hand, then it's just time! He actually had his first taste of mashed banana on his fifth-month birthday.

During Ben's fifth month, I noticed a gradual decrease in his spitting up (yay!), followed by an increase in drooling. However, if he is anything like my other two, the first tooth is still months away from making an appearance. That's okay by me -- nursing is not nearly as comfortable for me once the teeth come through! He loves to chew on his hands and feet and is getting better and better at using his hands to pick up toys and get them into his mouth.

There were so many great pictures from our photo shoot this month that is was hard to choose just two. He was in a good mood when I took these, plus he had his older brother standing nearby acting crazy and making him laugh!

The Bend in the Road

This is a post I have put off writing for awhile... and even now, I am not going to do it justice. There is so much that could be said, that needs to be said. However, in the interest of time (and because I'm sleep-deprived, and because I've already written about this for two different newsletters), I am just going to stick with the facts. Here they are:

• We are no longer moving to Angola as missionaries.
• We are moving instead to Ecuador as missionaries.
• Ecuador is in South America.
• We will be working with an organization called Operation Ecuador, alongside my sister and her family, who moved there about a year ago.
• We are hoping to be there by the end of March (contingent on visas).
• We will live in the city of Quito.
• No, they do not speak Portuguese in Ecuador. They speak Spanish.

For more details, you can read our recent family newsletter here, or my article in the recent Angola Team newsletter here.

This means big changes ahead for the blog as well as for our Facebook page. Stay tuned.

The Fourth Month

Ben's fourth month was a little more restful. We did take a trip down to Nashville in early December, but for the rest of the time, we were just hanging out at my parents' house. Benjamin discovered his feet and learned how to roll over. He is starting to laugh when tickled in just the right spot. Baby laughs are the best! He is becoming more and more interested in the world around him. He especially loves to watch his brothers and is very interested in all the things they do. Often it seems like he is longing for the day when he can join in the fun.

We celebrated Benjamin's first Christmas during his fourth month. It's not like we planned it this way, but I do think it's special that each of my children has celebrated their first Christmas at Nyanya and Babu's house! He loved to look at the lights on the Christmas tree and watch the train go around and around. He got some fun gifts like new warm sleepers, socks, baby slippers, more burp cloths, a baby's first year calendar, and a paci-clip. Honestly, I think he was a bit overwhelmed by all the festivities!

Special people Ben met during his fourth month included his Uncle Matt and Aunt Janille, who came for Christmas. He loves to meet people and is usually quite the little charmer. Benjamin was especially fascinated by Uncle Matt's Donald Duck impersonation and thought he was pretty hilarious!

What We've Been Up To (Holiday Edition)

By way of catching up, just a few pics of our holiday celebrations...

Just before Thanksgiving, we celebrated my grandma Nadine's 85th birthday. My parents recently moved her from Oregon to Michigan, and she lives in a retirement home a few blocks from their house. The last time we were with her on her birthday was when she turned 80, 5 years ago. Alex was just a baby! It's hard to believe. We also went to visit my grandma Ruth in southern Michigan.

Happy, Birthday!

With Great-Grandmother

Then, we got ready for Thanksgiving -- my favorite holiday! The boys and I put up a "thankfulness tree" again this year, and every day for the week before Thanksgiving, we would put up a few leaves of things we were thankful for. We also made turkey cupcakes! We had a lovely feast on Thanksgiving Day, and my grandma Nadine was able to join us.

We are thankful...

The Thanksgiving feast -- yum!!!

After Thanksgiving, we got ready for Christmas!

The boys helped Nyanya decorate the Christmas tree.

They loved to watch the train go around the tree.

We went to see the Christmas trains at the Henry Ford museum.

Santa was there!

Our homemade ornament project this year was skiing snowmen -- made with pinecones, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, and pom poms.

We also made Christmas cookies with Aunt Janille.

On Christmas Eve, we read "Clarabelle the Christmas Cow" and sang carols around the Christmas tree.

We had a very nice Christmas with my parents, and my brother and his wife. My aunt and some of her family joined us for Christmas dinner.

Family pic in front of the Christmas tree

Benjamin was the star of the day in his Santa suit!

Opening presents

On New Year's Eve, Alex helped Nyanya and Babu deliver homemade loaves of bread to all the neighbors.

Happy New Year!

More pictures on Facebook!