The Past Few Weeks

We’ve fallen a little behind on our blogs lately, but we’re alive and well here in Shell.

We attended another very special wedding this past month when one of the couples in our marriage class decided to get married in a civil ceremony. In Ecuador the civil ceremony is the official and legal ceremony, sometimes followed by a church ceremony if it’s affordable. Unfortunately we can’t share our pictures from the wedding since our camera, telephone, and electronic reader were stolen on the bus to Quito one afternoon, but we do have a shot of our latest class.

Celebrating our last marriage class

 We were blessed to have our good friends from residency training in Idaho come and visit us last week. Ryan and Alanna were great sports as we showed them around Shell, they played with our kids, and were even (un)fortunate enough to share the flu with the rest of our family one day. We took them for a hike on the military base here (which always feels a little intimidating to leave your passports at the gate as you drive past camouflaged young men with large guns). Currently there is a baby ocelot that was confiscated from a family trying to keep it as a pet and we had the chance to hold the little guy.

Ryan and Alanna in front of the "Shell" sign

Playing with the tiger baby.

One morning while Alanna and I were talking, Caleb calmly walked in and told me there was a snake on the back porch. The kids are always pretending so I told him I’d be out in a minute to “kill” it. When we finally made our way outside we discovered Caleb wasn’t pretending.  I put an end to him, though it took me a shovel and machete to do it. Another missionary later told me that it is some kind of blind, snake-like worm that wouldn’t hurt anything….oops. It’s difficult not to be too judgmental when there are slithery creatures near your house.

Our slithery visitor

Dan will soon get another medical blog posted.  He's on a seven-day, four-call workweek, but should get a chance soon.