The Big City

Hi! Sean and I just got back after a long stay in the capital city, Quito. We went up there so that Sean could get his medical exams and take his written tests for his Ecuadorian pilot's license. It was an enjoyable time. Quito is a heck of a lot more civilized than we are used to and it is certainly bigger than Shell! There are several American chain restaurants there (such as McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Applebees, and TGI Friday's) and we took our opportunity to gorge ourselves on good, old-fashioned American deep-fat-fried foods! Yummy!! Here are a few of our highlights from the week:

• Sean passed both the medical and the written exams!!! I'll let Sean go more into detail about what exactly he had to do in order to take and pass these exams. The fact that everything went so well is a huge praise!! Thank you for praying with us.
• While Sean was away taking tests, Brooklyn and I went shopping! There are several malls in Quito and we checked a few of them out. I was able to find some new clothes for Brooklyn and few smaller items that we can't find in Shell, but for the most part it was just window shopping and drooling over all the nice things they have in those malls!
• We took Brooklyn bowling one night. She wasn't much of a fan of the sport. She did enjoy watching Dad bowl a few strikes (with the bumpers up, of course) but she didn't like the pressure of trying to push that big, heavy ball down the lane all by herself. We only paid a few dollars for one game and it is probably a good thing since Brooklyn was definately not in the mood to play. Sean had fun, though!
• We drove up to Quito in the car that we are "babysitting." On the way up, our program manager was with us and he was able to get us to Quito without any problems. But on the way back home we were on our own. We were hopelessly lost on several occasions and quite honestly, we have no idea how we made it home. Fortunately, we both found it very funny at times and we were able to laugh about it even in the most stressful situations. Plus, we saw lots of really cool stuff off the beaten path! It should have been about a 4-hour trip. We did it in 8.5 hours!!
• Okay, yes, we did take several unplanned detours and missed every shortcut we might have taken but we did make a very worthwhile and extended pit stop at a really cool place (that probably accounts for two of the extra hours it took us to get home). We'll have to dedicate a special blog to tell you about that one! One of our favorite things is to get off the beaten path (on purpose) and explore - this one was one of our best finds!

It is nice to be back in Shell. We look forward to settling back into our normal routine and enjoying the peaceful, quiet life of a small town. While Quito is fun with nice malls, American restaurants, movie theaters, and bowling, we're still country bumpkins at heart and enjoy a much slower pace. Quito is a great place to visit and very nice as far as cities go in our book...but Shell is home to us!