experiencing ecuador

I chatted with my brother on the phone the other day, and realized that an entire month has passed since our Ecuador trip, and I had not shared any specific details of our trip with the majority of my family. Seriously?! Life is crazy busy, and I really love looking at these pictures and wanted to share them. I won't narrate too much, but thankfully kept a journal while there so I can remember all the day-to-day adventures we had. So enjoy the pictures!

First off are a few pictures from R's time there with the other students. We just did an exchange of all our photos and while looking through them found these gems. The first collage is a canyoneering adventure that looks awesome, and the second is showcasing their amazing karaoke talents. Pretty funny stuff I tell ya. :)

Our spring break just happened to fall on the week directly following R's rotation down there, so we tried to take advantage of that and B & I went down to visit our hubs.  It was nice to have good friends there to have adventures with!

 Our first morning there with R & J's host family. Really nice people.

Our first day we toured the city of Quito. Saw beautiful cathedrals and fun older areas of the city, along with a gondola ride up to a mountain for a bird's eye view of the city. Beautiful! 

Everywhere we went it felt like we were charged more for being tourists. Made us laugh every time. :)

We met up with some wonderful people that my brother knew from his time in Ecuador serving a mission for our church. They were incredibly generous and drove up all the way up to Papallacta to see these amazing hot springs with us. One of which (the one where R's dipping his feet in the water) was practically boiling it was so hot. Ridiculous! My favorite part of it all was just getting to know these good people and hearing them share stories of my brother as a missionary.  

We definitely stayed busy, visiting six different cities (Quito, where R lived for the month; Papallacta, Mindo, Guayaquil, Puerto Lopez, and Otavalo). This was the first time R and I had traveled within our travels - does that make sense? We rode buses daily, and have fond (or not so fond) memories of cramming in with a thousand of our best friends or sweating bullets because the only windows open were the ones right next to us gringos and it's 100 degrees outside! We'd ride buses in town, buses to new towns, and buses out of town. Let's just say that it feels good to not have to ride buses anymore (and to have toilet paper, but that's a different story).

Obligatory pictures on the Equator line (which isn't the exact equator, but it's fun nonetheless). 

From Mitad del Mundo we took a bus to a mountain town called Mindo. Small and nestled in a small area surrounded by gorgeous mountains. We had fun watching the HUGE rain storms - I've never seen rain like that and I'm from WA, catching truck taxis, following our guide dog around, zip-lining, drinking lots of yummy juice, visiting a butterfly conservatory and watching lots of hummingbirds, and swinging in hammocks at our hotel listing to the rain on the roof. 

Seriously the coolest drink stand ever. Loved the swings, but the drinks made it even better. I will have dreams for the rest of my life of the juice. It was that good. 

From Mindo we went back to Quito, caught a flight to Guayaquil, and met up with my sister-in-law's family! Plans changed a bit and we weren't able to stay as long as we would have liked, but I am really grateful that we got to see them even just for a little while. C & B showed us around Guayaquil a little bit, visiting the temple and the Malecon, and fed us delicious food and homemade juice that night and the next morning. It has been so neat to know and love this family. They are kind, generous, good people. They always make me feel like I am apart of their family, and went out of their way to help us. I love them! Thank you Sanchez family!

 We caught a couple buses out to a beach town, and had a stop in this random town along the way where we made some local friends. :)

 We stayed in Puerto Lopez which was to die for. So beautiful, and the hotel was perfect. This little iguana was our friend perched right on the planter-box outside our bathroom window. He hung around for the day, then we saw him at a different spot in the gardens the next day. We were basically best friends by the end of our trip. 

 Puerto Lopez was called a "sleepy fisherman town" in our little guide book. And it seriously was wonderful. This was the scene in the morning when all the fishing boats brought their catches in. They would haul buckets and coolers and nets full of fish to trucks parked on the sand, and then drive them to these cleaning stations up farther north in the town. It definitely feels good to order fish at a restaurant and know exactly how fresh it really is! (not that I'm a big fish connoisseur by any means, but I can still appreciate it)

 This basically captures why this spot was our favorite location ever. R and I are total beach bums and we loved swinging in our hammocks at the beach in such a secluded remote town. We read our books, talked a lot, walked along the beach, chased sand crabs, swam in the ocean, shopped around the town a little bit, and played games in the hotel's main house which was open to the evening breeze by the water. Absolutely perfect. We totally want to go back there again.

We left the day before Carnival started, which was nice because it was still a very quiet town while we were there. As we walked through the town to get on our bus we could see all the preparations for their big festival and were glad that we were missing the crowds! We went back to Guayaquil just in time to catch our flight back to Quito. 

 Our last full day in Ecuador we went to a city called Otavalo, which is known for our Saturday Market. I've been there before, and I swear it has multiplied since then. It is huge and so fun. I LOVE walking around seeing all the textiles and colors, crafts, paintings, clothing, the beautiful native Indian dress, everything! Loved it. 

All in all, a wonderful vacation. Words cannot define how good it felt to be with R again after being apart for so long. It was marvelous to have so much "just the two of us" time to play together, and so fun to see all the wonderful sights and think about how much our kids would love them - maybe someday they will! 

Seriously, the best spring break ever. Loved it. 

match day

Match Day in the medical world is a big deal. All across the country, 4th year medical students all open an envelope at the exact same time that reveals where they will complete their residency training. It's the first real "Doctor" job they will have, and ranges anywhere from 3-7 years (not including fellowships).

Today was the day! And here are our results:

Carolinas Medical Center

Charlotte, North Carolina!

I am so proud of R and all the crazy hard work he has done to be such a good applicant. I honestly cannot say enough good things about him, and we are both really excited for the future! CMC was our first choice, which was a difficult decision to make since it was the farthest from family. It is an amazing program, a great fit for R, and a wonderful opportunity for our little family. We are so thankful and can't wait for this next adventure. Bring it. 

eight months

Lady-LE is still amazingly sweet! She got ditched for a little over a week from Mom and Dad, and got a whole lot of one-on-one time with Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt K. From their reports it's safe to assume that she loves to be around people, and as long as someone is nearby she is quite content (most of the time).

Recent Favorites:

-takes bottles 24/7

-sleeps through the night, typically speaking 10 hours

-loves to be sitting, does not like to be laying anymore (and has recently stopped rolling over)

-showing no motivation for crawling as of yet

-laughs at big brother all the time

-complete impatience for vegetables, while she willingly holds still and opens her mouth wide for any kind of fruit

-her tongue is always hanging out of her mouth

-still takes three naps a day

-momma's girl: during one of our skype conversations while in Ecuador, she saw me and immediately started crying. Aunt K eventually had to take her out of the room because she wouldn't calm down. If she knows I'm there, then I better be the one closest to her. If she doesn't know I'm there, then she warily allows others to tend to her

-loved visiting both sets of grandparents

-just stared at me for the longest time when I came back from Ecuador - as if she was not willing to warm up to me until she knew I was there to stay

-hangs onto my shoulder really tight when I'm carrying her on my hip and moving fast - she hugs into me and sometimes buries her head in my clothes. So close and cute.

-when you do catch her laying down (which is not often), her legs go stick straight and she kicks them out. Makes diaper changes pretty easy.

-content to just sit still in the same position for a long time, especially in a laundry basket where the toys are never out of reach

-master of the pacifier

-sharing a room with big brother now at home, oh the joys of having a room to ourselves!

-blows raspberries like there's nothing else in the world

-loves to talk in a sing-song voice full of "la-la-la"s
-don't know her weight, but she seems to be a little chunkier since being on formula

Love her. 

Ecuador - Canoa

So, I'm not so good at this making-time-for-blogging stuff, but I have another post. Currently, the first 2 weeks of this trip exists as a bullet-point list of things I'm trying to remember, but halfway through we took a trip out to the coast to the beach town of Canoa.

Since arriving in the highlands, or Sierra, of Ecuador we’ve all been excited about the prospect of the coast, surfing, and laying on the beach. After many discussions and reading numerous articles and opinions, we decided on visiting Canoa, a small beach town that sits almost directly west of Quito. We had decided on renting a car instead of testing our luck with the bus, and although the trip ended up costing a little bit more per person, I feel it was worth the extra cost, despite not seeming so at first.

When we arrived to pick up our Hertz at the airport location we realized, after almost a half hour of the slowest rental car processing I can remember, that they were going to charge us almost double what we had anticipated. Discouraged and frantic, we raced around to the other car companies to learn what they would charge us for a similar trip. We found a good prospect with unlimited mileage, covering the hidden $160 Hertz didn’t exactly tell us about in advance, and quickly set off on our 6-7 hour journey with 5 grown men in a Chevy Aveo. Those of you familiar with car rentals may recognize that name under “Compact” as you scroll to the larger, more luxurious options. Keep in mind that one of us is 6’ 7”. I’ll leave the rest for your imagination.

We set out from the airport and learned very quickly that Quito’s roads don’t really have speed limits – it’s more like whatever you can manage without hitting pedestrians who cross anytime they choose or one of the large public transit buses who appear to have learned the same lesson my father taught me as a young boy regarding the rule of tonnage. As a family sailing in the San Francisco Bay, he taught us the concepts of “right of way” and how to be courteous sailors.However, he also reminded us that even when we have the right of way, our 35’ family sailboat didn’t really stand a chance against the much larger, and slower tankers. With this in mind we cautiously made our way through the city, and Jimmy quickly assimilated to Ecua-driving, including the requisite horn usage every 4-5 seconds.

I’m writing this post in retrospect, and between the trip there and back I’m not sure I’ve ever had a more exciting, adventurous, or scary road-trip in my life. We took two different routes, both of which presented unique challenges and experiences. On the way down we took the less traveled road, traveling through small cities packed with moto-taxis and people on bicycles reminiscent of Calcutta India, and at other moments we found ourselves on the brand new “paved” road that after 5 miles continued as a dirt-road lined with potholes the size of small craters. Not even an hour into our trip we realized how interesting it would be, as we were descending the winding mountain roads, with large buses and chivas bearing down on us, dodging potholes that threatened to swallow our poor compact rental. When we finally reached the coast we decided to take a break in Pedernales for some grub. I’ve never felt so out of place in Ecuador, and we’re still not even sure what it was. Maybe it started with getting the Aveo high-centered on a speed bump the size of a small pyramid, or maybe it was sitting down at a restaurant only to realize it was a $25 a plate parrillada (Ecua BBQ) restaurant and telling them we were going someplace else. Regardless, we finally found a way out of town (the only road south out of town was initially a one way in the wrong direction – it was like a casino with no feasible exit!) and got the heck out of dodge. Hungry and tired, we continued down the coast towards our destination, on another newly paved road…which coincidentally was not-so-paved; it was interesting to say the least. I’ll comment on one more aspect about the drive down – speed bumps. Ecua-bumps can seemingly appear anywhere, anytime, and without any prior notice. Most often we found them scattered along the main roads near small towns, and it only took once to realize that we needed to watch for them more carefully. Our poor Aveo almost went airborne when we didn’t see one coming, and there were absolutely no signs of warning.Excellent planning. I think they might be built up locally so that the local Ecuas can sell off any parts that fall off the cars. We’ll never know for sure.

Arriving in Canoa, it was soon apparent that the trouble was very worth it. El Hotel Bambu was literally right on the beach, with the only possible downside being the neighboring bars which played incessant Reggaeton 22 hours of every day (between 4 and 6 am). We surfed, layed in hammocks, read, web-chatted, played pool, and surfed some more – it was fantastic. The local food was excellent, especially the seafood and fresh fruit / juice. Sunday came much too quickly, and we bid farewell to the beach. Opting for the supposedly better roads of a different route, and wanting to see more of the country, we set out towards Bahia to take the south roads back towards Quito.

These roads were ripe with similar surprises of potholes that doubled as small swimming pools, but the scariest part of the trip home was attempting to get to the town Chone, which according to our map was connected to our path by what was noted as a “major road”. Major road my eye – it turned out to be muddy mess thanks to the rain. After making it up a somewhat treacherously steep portion, we were able to ask directions; continuing would not be possible, but we found a detour and made it down without major damage to the faithful Aveo. We pushed her hard this trip, and despite rain, mud, speed bump-mountains, fog, 12,000 foot passes, construction, and surrounding Ecua-drivers, we made it back to Quito in one piece. As Justin and I talked about it in our room later, we realized that our travel was full of miracles and Heavenly Father watching over us, and I was grateful for those tender mercies that helped us enjoy ourselves safely.

5 pobrecitos in an Aveo

This chicken was still alive...

Outdoor pool table - Jimmy using their version of a billiards rake, Ecua-style

Surfing the beach break at Canoa

We almost caught a ride with these guys, but decided against it

recent update

We have started another big trip that will last about three weeks total, so before I get too far behind I figured I would do a quick recap of life lately. This is what we've been up to in the month of February, in no particular order:

 Testing out graham crackers. I'm honestly not sure if any were swallowed. She seemed to suck on them and then move onto the next piece! But it's good entertainment at least.

 L is 100% loving his "Sporties for Shorties" and gymnastics class. We go to each one once a week and he is in heaven. It's so cute to watch him get all excited to go, and the minute he sees his teacher "Miss Ginger" he yells for her. We are diggin' the recreation thing!

 All of us are longingly looking outside, waiting for spring. I feel ya, Lady-L.

 Sucking our thumbs out of curiosity. She's definitely a pacifier-baby still, but loves her thumb at random times.

Skyping with Daddy a LOT. L loves to give him (i.e. the computer) high fives and tickles. It's pretty cute.

Making dozens of funny faces! All of these were taken within 60 seconds. She's pretty impressive!

Blowing LOTS of raspberries. Especially in church, during naps, and meal times. Oh so fun! :)

Growing teeth. 

And learning how to share.

It's a pretty good life, I'll be honest. 

look-a-likes

We recently introduced some easy finger-foods to Lady-LE, and it brought back all sorts of fun memories from when L first tried graham crackers. Oh man it's crazy how much time flies and how cute my babies are. 

They look quite a bit a like, don't they?

race for the cure

Back in June last year (a couple weeks before Lady-L was born), we found out that Ryan's dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lymphoma. It was scary, unknown, really advanced, overwhelming, intimidating, and difficult. Ry's parents told us over the phone, and when they came out to meet Lady-L when she was born we still didn't have many answers as to treatment. Bit by bit questions were answered and he started chemotherapy. The cancer had spread all over, but they were hopeful and optimistic. 

A few months later, in October, we received another phone call from Ryan's parents telling us they discovered that my mother-in-law had breast cancer. Once again it was scary, overwhelming, and difficult. My father-in-law is such a good man, and loves to use humor to help ease tension or worries, so he would say, "Ya know, we're best friends and we like to do things together!" Cancer included. 

{Lady-L's blessing day, 07.18.10}
{Lady-L is named after Ryan's father}

So right in the middle of my father-in-law's chemo treatments, my mother-in-law had a double mastectomy and reconstruction.. Results were good that she was cancer free, and recovery was the last thing to concentrate on. It continues to be the goal as she has experienced four surgeries since then trying to combat infections and complications. 

Recovery is this elusive term that seems to keep hovering over them but never quite settling. However, we are all incredibly grateful for their progress and continue to be hopeful for this to be done with. It has been a difficult time for Ry and I to be so far from family, and we cherish those days spent with them over Thanksgiving. Our faith and hope in the Plan of Happiness has deepened as has our love for one another. 

Why share this now? Because I think that I am the luckiest person in the world to know and love these two phenomenal people and to have their love in return. And my sister-in-law is challenging us all to sign up for a Race for the Cure this year and I wanted to extend the challenge to everyone I know. She has started a blog sharing a little bit of their story, in addition to a growing list of all those who sign up to run. I love this idea and loving tribute to two of the most amazing people I have ever met. Ryan and I will DEFINITELY be running for them, and I hope that you will too. 

{G & C with all their grandchildren, 11.26.10}

You can find my sister-in-law's blog HERE if you would like to read more and sign up.

We love you Nonnie and PopPop!

thank you

I'm not sure who you are, but thank you for delivering these sweet flowers from my best friend. It means so much to know that I'm not alone. What a wonderful Valentine's day surprise!

My heart is so full!

early valentine

Since Ry would be gone this year for Valentine's day, I gave him his present before he left back in January. I love any and all food-related gifts, so here's what I gave him: a RootBeer Sampler! Now we can finally be root beer connoisseurs! We broke into it that night, and I think I'm as excited to try all the different varieties as Ryan is.

Since then I had to go back to a particular store where I found two more varieties! I couldn't help but pick them up, even though they weren't included in the original 12. Here's to many, many more date nights where we can sample our rootbeer varieties together!

seven months

I feel like through this past month Lady-L has all of the sudden decided to show us her personality and it is SO fun. She is growing and learning, and I love her to pieces. I can't believe how fast the time goes.

Few Favorites:

-loves to blow raspberries; especially when she's tired. They are the strongest in the middle of the night.

-she smiles with her eyes just as much as with her mouth. I love watching her eyes light up when she's happy.

-laughing at mommy's funny faces

-incredibly responsive to facial expressions

-takes a bottle! After months of trying, she finally took one particular sippy (only one - we tried lots of different bottles and sippys). Then after a couple weeks of taking only one sippy, she finally caught the concept and has now graduated to a bottle (I know ... a little backwards. But I like bottles better. So there.)! Hooray!

-giggles a ton at big brother

-rolls over both ways, but still doesn't chose to do it that often

-obsessed with her tongue

-said goodbye to swaddling a few nights ago. She likes to have the blanket around her belly/legs though, so we still do that.

-sleeping still is a little rough. We decided to focus on the bottle first, and then the sleeping. One down, one to go! 

-sitting up all by herself

-sometimes sucks her thumb and thinks it's pretty dang cool

-I am really questioning the need for teeth. She seems to be always in pain these days.

-rubs her left ear lately whenever she's tired

-has two teeth

These two now love to sit up next to each other and play. It is darling to watch.

 The one food item that continues to be a "no" is squash. She always does this squished up nose face and clamps her mouth shut. funny girl.

This was earlier in the month practicing our sitting-up position. She's a pro now.

Angelic. Honestly. I love her. 

An Early Valentine's Tribute

For those of you who frequent our blog, you've likely noticed that the majority (read all) of our blog posts are courtesy of my talented, creative wife. She has a way with written word that still amazes me. Admittedly, I am lazy and inconsistent when it comes to recording memories, journaling, letter-writing, and pretty much anything of the sort. However, I am trying to break this mold I've created for myself.

Some, but probably not most of you know that I currently am living in Quito, Ecuador for the month of February, currently completing a Global Health elective in my 4th year of medical school. What does that mean exactly? Well, I received some funding to come and experience medicine in a developing country, practice my Spanish, and gain an ever greater appreciation for the Latin culture. I hope this will help me in my future practice as many patients of Emergency Departments around the country are Latin, many of whom speak little or no English.

(And finally getting to the reason for this post...) This fantastic experience would not be possible without the complete support of an incredibly selfless, strong, and loving wife. There were times leading up to this trip that I doubted my desire to leave, for various reasons, and although I'm sure she would love to not be a single parent right now, she never let me give up on what I had talked about doing for so long. I often tell people that Heather is my better-3/4, and being here makes me realize that the ratio is even more skewed. I can't possibly express here exactly what I feel for her, nor how my love for her has grown since being apart, but I will attempt to thank her for 5 1/2 years of being steadfast, energetic, fun, loving, patient, and again, completely selfless. And she has only grown in these attributes over the years.

As part of this gift, I am going to make a serious effort to record my experiences here in South America. Although we talk almost everyday, I hope that by sitting down and writing my thoughts, I can give her, as well as you readers and myself, some insight into what I am doing. Heather is a record-keeper, so hopefully this will live up to her high standards.

I'll start by giving a quick overview of what's going on, and then will hopefully get into some more detail in later posts.

We arrived in Quito on Sunday, January 31, and reported for orientation and clinical duties at 7:30 the following morning. So far, it's been a blast, although the clinical rotation isn't quite what I had anticipated, and some kinks are still being worked out. I'm working in the ICU of a large, social security hospital in Quito that receives some of the sickest patients in the country. Granted, most of these patients aren't very talkative, but it's been a growing experience, and I'll hopefully get more patient interaction in the coming weeks. I definitely have ample opportunities to speak Spanish with the residents and doctors; Intensive Care Medicine was hard enough in English, and being thrown into a busy unit has been tough and challenging, but strangely rewarding as well. The teams are great, and we even have had some opportunities to teach them some techniques that we use in the US and at OSU, specifically ultrasound.

Our days typically start around 615 with an Ecua-shower, followed by breakfast at home with our host family (pictures to come). We catch the crazy-scary buses around 7 and arrive at the hospital around 730 to round and help out until 12. We then bus to the Spanish-school, find a place to eat lunch, and then have Spanish classes from 2-6. Despite serving a Spanish-speaking mission and minoring in the language in college, I've forgotten quite a bit and it's nice to be able to learn and practice from Ivan, our teacher. I say we because I traveled here with a med school buddy Justin Wheeler, along with 3 other guys from our class. Justin and I are staying with the same family, and the other 3 are spread between 2 other homes.

Since this post is already forever-long I'll finish by saying again that this experience would be possible without Heather, who I miss dearly every day. I will be honest and admit that some very manly tears have been shed since I have been here, even just thinking about my beautiful family in Ohio. I love you and look forward to seeing you.

A view of the ED entrance to the hospital

A traditional Ecuadorean dinner in La Mariscal

A view of our breakfast spread - fresh fruit every day!

Our room, and a faux-studying Justin

The city from our window