deep cove

A while back I posted a little about my trip to Vancouver to visit my long lost friend Sherri (well, she wasn't lost at all, actually).  Let me just clarify before I go on again - yes, here too I did not bring a good camera - only the piece-of-garbage made by Kodak.  Do I regret not having good pictures?  Yes.  Do I regret not having to lug that extra 8 pounds around everywhere with me? No.  So I will no longer complain.....

There is nothing extremely remarkable about most of these photos other than they are things that just simply made me happy.  And being that this time was very mixed emotionally for me, I won't write a whole lot.  Other than a few words of explanation, this post is just going to be photos.  Honestly - it is for my benefit than yours!

The shop where I bought my now-favorite scarf.

Lucas the artist and creative genius - bike, scooter, long board, short board, rollar blade/skate.

The skylight in the Koop bathroom.

That, and this fabulous shower head made it feel like you were outside on a sunny day and it was raining.  I could have stayed in there all day.

Ah, autumn.

Another joy was while I was babysitting Lucas and Sylas:

 Lucas turned on the TV to the Retro channel and low and behold - Hercules was on!!!!!  What a physique!

 He once again took on that nasty, vile villian Deadalis and hurled him who knows where.

 Of course it was Newt with his "better call Herc, call Herc!!) and Toots little toot that alerted Hercules to the foul acts of Deadalis in the first place.  

Ah, the joys in life.....

A long time home. Four flights and one hotel stay made up the trip back to Ecuador.  But in the middle - a pleasant discovery.  Super 8 hotels - beautiful, huge king sized bed, down duvet,

huge flat screen TV and nice furniture and fixtures.  Who knew?

Airport Panda does not measure up.

And a blast from the past seeing that the yogen fruz from my teenage years still exists.

This one's for Sherri - just pretending we are at Polo Park mall.

The following is one of my favorites:

I was situated in the old, non-updated wing of the Miami airport.  It was full of old telephone booths.  My hope was to catch someone sitting in one using their i-something-or-other, but it never happened.  Just seemed so telling to me - I was surrounded by people with their faces buried in their phones or tablets at the same time as being surrounded by many, many old telephone booths.  

Obsolete.

I love to fly.  I could stare out the window the whole time.  I love to see the shadows that the clouds make over the land and imagine being in that shadow, waiting for the cloud to move out of the way so we can have the sun again.  Or being thankful for that cloud as it offers a temporary respite.

I love to stare at a city -day or night- and see all of the cars driving along, all of the houses, all of the offices, and realize that in each place is another person.  A person just like myself, with hopes, dreams, pains, joys, - a person in each place.....  so many people.  And I am not the center of the world.  And I am not what matters.  And I am not the only one hurting and in desperate need of a Saviour.

This world is in desperate need of the Saviour.

farewell

I am rather quite embarrassed by how far behind I have gotten in the blogging department.  Life has been unbelievably busy since I started working at the school and there is very little time for much extra. Since today I am laying on the couch feeling poopy, I am taking the time to try to do some catch up.

Back in the middle of September, we had a despedida - a farewell party - for one of Mia's good friends, Maria Gracia.  Her father is an Ecuadorian Ambassador and they were sent back to India where they had previously been.  It was a big loss for us - more wonderful people we once again had to say goodbye to....sometimes this goodbye thing gets really, really old.

Mia and the group of friends partied on down on our roof. 

Maria Gracia is in the red and white stripes near the middle.

They watched "The Perfect Man" - a great chick flick.

The girls also planned and played a few games and of course had lots of food and lots of tears.  While there was plenty of laughing, giggling and talking, there was also plenty of crying - get a bunch of pre-teens together to say goodbye and there is bound to be a lot of sadness.

Maria Gracia is already greatly missed!

harvest-ween

I'm pretty mad at myself right now.  Pretty darn mad.

I deleted all of my actual halloween night photos.  What a moron.  It was an accident, obviously, and one I am having a bit of a hard time forgiving myself for.  Sigh.  You see, this year, for the first time in four years, we had an actual real trick or treating experience.  We've got friends in high places so we were able to participate in what felt like real North American trick or treating.  It was a little more like trickle-treating, as there were only a few houses here or there that were participating, but it was great nonetheless.

There is an area in the city - highly secure, with clean streets, blissful calm and of course, very large houses - where most of the US embassy people live.  There are also some US oil people and some wealthy Ecuadorians and others, too.  We were invited to participate with their festivities.  They had a map of houses that were handing out candy, so we headed out with a bunch of friends from that area and went door-to-door (with many doors in between).  It felt almost like the real thing.  We even had misty rain.  Unfortunately, you will have to take my word for it as there is no actual photographic evidence.  We all had a great time, though, and are so thankful that we could enjoy this event even though we are from "the other side of the tracks" so to speak!

We also got to enjoy our friend's annual party.  Since the term Halloween is pretty sketchy with many people, and it isn't really a Harvest Party, the event goes without a real name - so I just refer to it as harvestween.  Mari, who hosts it, makes many people very happy with this event!

I honestly didn't pay much attention to what was going on as I was busy socializing, but I did catch on to the green spaghetti with treasures hidden inside.  This was mainly because my friend's three year old daughter started to toss her cookies at the sight of it!  Yes, for real.  One look as something she finds gross and the poor little pumpkin (or in this case, winnie the pooh) loses it.  Another friend affectionately started to call her Winnie the puke instead.

Okay, moving on.....

Cade was Russell from the movie UP.  I had to make the costume for another event (Spiritual Emphasis Week), so we repurposed.  He was quite delighted.

Mia and Lucy improvised with stuff we had around the house.  Mia was a pirate and

Lucy was a Japanese girl.  The only thing Japanese was her dress as she didn't want to hold her fan or have chopsticks in her hair.

Then it was trick-or-treating time.  Mari set up a few houses a head of time that we drove or walked to.

I once again kicked myself for bringing along only our little piece-of-garbage point and shoot (worst camera known to man) - I had to delete most of the pictures because it doesn't enjoy focussing.  I took a million (well, maybe 15) of Lucy helping her friend Molly hold her long skirt up because they were so cute.  This one is the closest to turning out.

The whole crew at the elementary school chaplain's house.  She normally isn't a clown....

And at our friends the Bryans.  The Bryans are leaving in two weeks and we couldn't be more sad.  It is a horrible, horrible loss.  I mean seriously - look at those legs.  Okay, but seriously, they are the most wonderful people and it is devastating that they are leaving.  Not surprising, I am tearing up as I write this.....

We ended the event by trick-or-treating at the Tassy's house.  Our house was supposed to be on the radar as well but somehow it got missed.  I told everyone that they might want to stop by, however, as I had imported some real North American Halloween candy for this purpose but they were only going to get some if they stopped by.  We had a few takers.