Finn's Blog

http://finn-in-ecuador.blogspot.com/

And now for our weekly update...

We started Spanish lessons this week.  Three times a week for two hours.  Our teacher is Fabiola and she is great.  She works with the kids for an hour and Mark and I for half an hour each, mas o menos.  With me we are just talking to each other as I practice conversational Spanish.  It is not easy.  The past tense really trips me up and we are all pretty exhausted after each session.

Fabi working with the kids as they learn colors and parts of the house by painting with watercolors.  Scout wants to join in.

Scoutie kicking back during lessons.

On Sunday of last week the whole family was seen by a chiropractor/kiniseologist from Tennessee.  It was an amazing experience.  He uses muscle memory to find where the toxic blocks are, but it is much more than that.  It almost seems to be a psychic experience.  For example, he questioned whether I have chronic fatigue, and yes, I have been living with it my entire adult life.  He also wondered if I have issues with control.  Ha!  That's a funny question.  LOL

We saw him twice while he was in town and the last time I asked him to look at my finger.  Back in the spring in Ohio I had fallen up the stairs and tore the ligaments surrounding my pinkie finger on my right hand.  I was in a brace for two weeks and a cast for another two weeks.  It has never healed and hurts all the time especially at night when I would feel a sharp stinging sensation on the edge of my hand.  I would wake up every morning stiff and in pain.  I couldn't make a fist or close all of my fingers together. 

So, the doctor picked my hand up and in three seconds (no joke) he told me that the bone in my finger was twisted and jammed.  Within 5 min. he had the bone back where it should be.  I almost kissed him.  I can now make a fist and all of my fingers align.  It is still a bit stiff in the morning, but he suggested taking arnica and icing it.  I have a lot of faith now that it will heal properly with time.  Yeah!

These are the ice cream treats we had after Dr. Motley told us that the kids and I are allergic to wheat, and the kids are allergic to dairy.  One last hurrah!  No, he said we could have cheat days and we intend to take full advantage of them. 

Finn's is a pirate cannon.

Tali ate pinochio.

We took the kids to a local climbing wall within walking distance of our house.  This one was quite a bit higher than the one at the mall.  LOL

We hired our friend, Dan, to drive us around the countryside again.  We are looking for and trying to pin down areas where we might want to buy some farm land.  We drove around for 5 hours.  We had a bit of an idea where we wanted to go, but we also kind of whung it and went where the wind blew us.

This little burro was taking a rest from carrying all the milk.

Uh oh, traffic jam.  They would not get our of the way and kept walking right into the car.  Silly cows.

The senorita tries to direct cow traffic.

Lots to do and pictures to prove it.

This week we had to get a few more things for our lawyer...more notarized copies of our passports, more passport photos and a piece of paper from the immigration office called a "migratorio movimiento"  or is it "movimiento migratorio"?  What was supposed to be a quick stop at the mall turned into an expensive one.  I got a nice, warm hat for hiking in the Cajas and Tali got some really cute hiking boots.  Mark bought a drill so that we could hang our artwork on the walls.

In the backpacking store they have a climbing wall.  This is the second time they have climbed on it and they are starting to get the hang of it.

Here are Tali's new boots.  She just loves them.

Getting copies of our passports made.  It was cool and a bit rainy that day.

We managed to squeeze in a trip to Coopera.  Live crabs.

Yesterday was the first sunny day in awhile.  Every time the sun comes out I am mesmerized by the mountains and just want to take picture after picture of them.  This is taken from our house looking down our street.

We walked to a store that is similar to Bed, Bath and Beyond.  We are still looking for the elusive bathroom cabinet.  This was the view while we walked to the store.

I was so excited to hear that the Hummingbird Exhibit was coming to Cuenca.  It was in Quito and then in Guayaquil.  It is here for the month of August.  I think there are 65 sculptures.  Each one painted by a different painter.  Here are some of our favorites.

Tali and Finn liked the pregnant lady. 

This is the Justice Center in Cuenca. (I think.)  It is gorgeous.

The kids have been bugging us to go on the double decker tour bus again and we told them we would go on the next sunny day.  We are fools.  It was so hot.  But you can't beat the view when you climb to Turi on a clear day.

Listen to what Tali says at the end.  Hope you can hear it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=voriuPnlrgI

This street leads to the stadium.  Our house is on the other side.

This is Ecuardo Vega's shop and gallery.  He is probably Cuenca's most famous ceramicist.  He lives in a very beautiful spot in Turi with a gorgeous view of the city.

View from Turi.

Last stop for the day was going to Casa Flores to make sure that our furniture was going to be delivered tomorrow.  We decided to walk to Moca for dinner which was a little hike. We had to go through this construction and we just walked on through.  You never would have been able to do that in the states.

Fairies!

This past week we have slowed down quite a bit.  Mostly we are just waiting for our furniture.  Today has been three weeks since we ordered our couch, loveseat and chair.  We are planning on dropping by Casa Flores today to check on the progress.  We went last week, but they were closed for vacation.  Hmmm. That does not bode well. 

Our bed frames, end tables, tv console and computer desk will be delivered on Sat.  Fingers crossed.  Good news is that we were finally able to make a decision on a dining room table.  I wasn't happy with the dining room table designs at Mogab Muebles.  We ordered our other furniture from them, but I wanted to go somewhere else to look at tables.  We had read good things about Creacion Muebles so we went there.  I was very happy with what we ended up designing.  It is a rustic table with red-stained chairs and green or brown cushioned seats depending on what they have in stock.  I hope we get the green.  People who know me know I love color.  We also bought a small occasional table for the landing so that we can put our keys and sunglasses there.  That was delivered the next day and we are really happy with the construction.  I hope the table turns out just as nice. 

We met with our lawyer on Friday and things are going as planned.  Cuenca has opened their own visa office and they are pushing people to not use a lawyer, but Mark and I just feel better about using one at this point.  Maybe if we were more fluent in Spanish it would be a different story.  We have some tasks to accomplish this week.  We need to get colored copies of our passports notarized.  We also need to go and get what is called a movimiento migratorio.  I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I know where to get it.  We also need two more passport photos unless I can find ours in the mess that is still our house.  We meet again with her on Friday and present to the courts on Monday for our 12-IX extension. 

Three other things on our list have been checked off.  We bought a tv and got Direct TV hooked up just in time for the Olympics.  Yeah!  I made an appt. for all of us to get our hair cut tomorrow, and we are meeting with our new Spanish tutor tomorrow as well.  Mark and I are going to have to take lessons separately, but I think the kids would do well together.  I think they will push each other to learn.  Friday we are "renting" Dan and his car again and going to have another look at the surrounding countryside.  We are trying to narrow down our personal likes as far as topography and micro-climate.  Once we get that pinpointed we will have a better idea of where we would like a small farm. 

What else...I made another Ecuadorean meal from scratch.  Chaulafan de Pollo, which is Ecuadorean fried rice.  It took two days because I had to make the chicken stock from scratch.  First time I did that, but it wasn't too bad.  Coopera had already cleaned the chicken out.  That was the part I was dreading.  Mark deboned the chicken after it was cooked.  The next day I spent about two hours chopping up all the vegetables needed.  It turned out really good, but next time I will skip the rice.  I used brown rice and it was still a bit hard even after an hour cooking.  Don't need it anyway.  I would add a bit more seasoning as well.  I was worried about putting too much heat in it because of the kids, but it needed more of something.

Last night I finally returned the many edible favors our neighbors have given us.  Empanadas, granadillas, uvilla, and then Sat. it was cheese-filled fried empanadas covered in sugar.  So yummy, but so bad for you.  They seem to fry everything.  I tried to come up with an "American" dessert that they might never have had that I would also be able to bake, and that I would be able to find the ingredients for.  Cooking at 8,300ft. is very different than cooking in Ohio.  I was worried that I would screw it up.  My mom gave me a great recipe for an apple crumble.  It called for 35 min., but was done in 25.  It actually started to burn.  I learned last night though, that if you double the pans underneath that helps to prevent things from burning while baking.  Next time. The crumble turned out great and we had to hurry up and send it downstairs or we would have eaten it all. 

On Friday night we went to a "presentation" put on by Draw Cuenca.  I assume they do these often because this one was number 12.  We had no idea what to expect.  The presentation was at Sofy's Orchard restaurant.  The Draw Cuenca club was going to present as fairies.  We were supposed to bring paper and colored pencils and to get there early because you needed to get a seat.  Ha!  The fairies were supposed to arrive at 5:30p.m. We got there at 5:00 and no one was there but us and another table of gringos.  And that's all that came.  It was slightly lame, but we ate dinner there and the kids seemed to enjoy it, especially Tali.  This is what happened.  Some young girls dressed up as fairies posed for 10 min. while the patrons drew what they saw.  They they would switch poses and hold the next one for 10 mins.  Tali was really into it.  Finn said it was too hard, which surprised us since we all consider him our family "artist".  Tali may be usurping that role because what she turned out was pretty amazing for an 8 year old. 

Here is the first pose and Tali drawing the pink fairy on the right:

                   
Here is her first drawing:

 





Here is the second pose:

                      

                      





Here is her second drawing of two of the fairies.  Mark and I love her interpretation of the blue fairy.

Drawing on the balcony:

Our walk along the river yesterday:

Nectar Cafe was having a Sunday brunch yesterday with Argentinian flute music, so we decided to head up there and check it out.  Nectar is a vegan restaurant so we weren't sure what we would get for breakfast.  First was a very good corn-type pancake with vegan syrup.  It didn't taste like the pancakes and syrup we are used to, but it was good.  Next came a huge plate of home fries, cole slaw and grilled eggplant, yellow squash and green peppers.  That was good too, but we wish the pancake had come last.  The music was the best part.  The flutist was from Argentina and the guitar play from Chile.  They sang and played lovely songs from South America.  Tali was mesmerized.  She could not take her eyes off of the flute player, even when the food was in front of her. 

I'm not sure how to embed the actual video into our blog, but you can view it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUyXbViSN1M&feature=youtu.be



It rained a lot yesterday, but that didn't slow us down.  We walked all over town, went into some stores and an art gallery of a local artist.  Of course we couldn't resist supporting him.  :)