Wednesday, March 12, 2008

More snow fun...

Here are the pictures from Saturday morning. We woke up to quite a few inches of snow and as you can see it was still going strong!!! So, we took "Bob" the Hales' jeep out to play;-)...it's a 4wd and they left it with us for James to look at because it has been having problems. Worked great for us though, and the kids thought it was the coolest vehicle ever(especially since we were the only ones on the road NOT getting stuck!). We had soooo much fun!! I'll post a video of the kids sliding down the hill on tubes later...

Snow Fun

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Ecuador Trip Update

Things are moving right along in our attempts to prepare for our trip to Ecuador. I guess I should begin in the beginning for those interested...for those who are not or who may already know all of this, please fell free to skip to the next paragraph;-).
Well, as anyone who has traveled to another country for any length of time knows, there is alot of preparation that goes in to it. Imagine that multiplied by eight! I was beginning to rethink this whole thing when I saw that the suggested immunizations for travel to Ecuador included a Rabies vaccine! Yes folks, you saw that correctly...a rabies vaccine. Now, it could just be me but I don't think it sounds like a whole bunch of fun telling the six kids that they will have to get a shot for rabies...I can just see their panicked faces now(they have all seen Old Yeller and so, they know what rabies is,yikes!). Yeah, no thanks. So, I pulled the professor's wife to the side and asked about vaccinations and thankfully we don't have to get any at all!!!Yahooooo...that totally made my day!
And then I asked the next question that had been weighing on my mind and this may not sound all that important to most of you but to us it means ALOT!! Would there be a washing machine or would we be washing by hand??? I am completely o.k. with washing by hand but I would have to factor in the time needed to wash all of our clothes by hand on a stone;-). Thankfully, there are other alternatives...there may be a washing machine or the prof. said that the ladies around our street would do it for a certain amount...humm, sounds good but this puts a new spin on things. See, we do not want to go in there with the typical American attitude...we want to mingle with the people. Here is where I would love to hear your opinion in the comments section;-).
BTW, the girls were really excited about being able to wash the clothes by hand for 3 weeks!! Seriously, they think it will be like Little House On the Prairie! I told them they could get a good head start and wash the clothes in the bathtub if they liked...they gave me the "Mom, why do you have to be like that?" look. Oh well...maybe that was why God felt the need to interject that verse about parents not exasperating their children!
Alright, now for the good stuff. We recieved an e-mail from the good professor saying that the guy we are being hooked up with in Ecuador found us a house to rent for the 3 weeks that we will be there!! What a huge blessing...can you imagine being in one room with six kids for three weeks?!? I can't either and they are my kids!!But it gets even better...for that one room we would have paid about $15/day/person. For this whole house we will pay $20/day!! God is so good!! He is laying it all out before us, perfectly planned by Him...keep praying for us and how He is going to use our family.
~For His Glory~