DASHING THROUGH DECEMBER, but its January!

Well once again I have managed to slide though another month without posting...

Lets see.. We had a great time waking my mom early in the morning to sing happy birthday to her (yeah, the same mom who had the 90th birthday last year) Lucky Me!

We had a very full month in the Condo that we manage. Myrna and David, returned to the condo again for almost a month and decided that YEP, Cuena was their new home. So the mad dash ensued with everyone trying to help find them a rental.

We scored a free Christmas dinner at our friend, Nancy Hofmeisters house. I actually have some photos of that, but blogger has changed their settings and I cannot figure out how to add photos directly from my camera card...... hmmm whats up with that?

Oh, and we had some exciting news right before Thanksgiving... our daughter Kelsey is getting married.. in JANUARY! Yep. We are going to brave not only the snow, ice and freezing temps, but the major flu epidemic that is sweeping through Washington state, but...

We got flu shots.. OH, I expect all the disenters to chime in here and scold me on trusting those drugs that can maim or kill me.. but hey, The flu is KILLING people in Washington.. I choose to take my chances and go drugged to the epicenter of pukedom..
(that being my friends houses with reports of small children who are projectile vomiting..yeah fun)

ANYWAY.. Kelsey is getting married. She is my youngest, 21, and has been dating a very nice young man from a very nice family for 6 yrs. So I guess I should give in gracefully and be happy for her, but JANUARY? sheesh..When I talked with her about this she said.. "So I should change my wedding plans to accomodate you?" WELL YEAH!  As you can see that didn't happen.

We are flying out through Quito, into Panama, then Las Vegas on COPA  and then on Alaska to Portland. I chose this route trying to avoid nasty weather and the Miami Airport. Also, on the way back we have a 7 hr layover in Las Vegas! Late at night, so we have been told what off strip casino to go to so we can hang out and have the most fun. Fortunately for us we don't really like to gamble so it will just be a nice place to hang out other than the airport.

Shopping for "the dress" to wear to the wedding has been interesting. I found out that Macys does not like debit cards. I ordered and they waited until I placed the order to tell me it could not go through cause I had a debit card.. did I want to use a credit card or their Macys card? NOOOOOOOOOOO. So now I have this swirling pending charge on my debit card that I have to go and try to get canceled. Thank You Macys...

I did manage with the help of my mom.. again.. Picture this

 She is 91, about 5'2", driving 30 miles in a big old gas hog of a car, through the driving rain to get the dress I want at Macy's.  She is such a sweet heart!  So I got the dress.. now lets just hope I can find shoes!

We will be leaving Portland and taking the Amtrack up to the Tri Cites. We are really excited about this because  A. we dont have to drive up the Ice Rink called the Columbia Gorge and B. We get to see the scenery and enjoy the trip instead of the white knuckle trip in option A.

ECUADOR.. ok, here is whats happened here.
The flu is here too.. we hear its on the coast mainly, but we have the vaccine here..obviously since we got shots today. OH @20 each at the Dr. office. Free at the local clinics.
We are in the middle of upcoming elections. Rafael Correa our president is predicted to win. We hope he does. We are not sure we can vote yet. It was very confusing last year so we didn't . If given the option I will vote this year.

The Tram work will start next month, and hopefully will be finished by 2014. It will make a marvelous difference in the flow of people and traffic. Also one of the stops will be very near our house.

Weater finally got warm and we had a whole string of days of pure sunshine. Then it rained really really hard. Oh our landlord has agreed that the roof is not the problem with our leaks, but its the skylights. We have massive skylights and they both leak. So now the issue is the cost. But I will leave that for the next time...

HAIL IT'S FUN IN CUENCA!

My posts have had a continous thread lately.. rain. We have found out that Cuenca has had 50% more rain than normal. Not that that relieves the sogginess around here, but at least it gives us hope that next year will be different.

The weather in Paute last week was marvelous, and when we got home we had HUGE puddles of water all over the house. It had rained here. What we did not know was that it had Hailed as well. Monday the hail returned with a vengence, and those of us here on the West side of town got about a 10 min. show of what mother nature can do!

Unfortunately when it hails like this we get almost as much water in the house as out. We had  every towel, washcloth and even afew pillowcases spread all over to sop up the water.

I have a longer video of the hail if you are interested. I cannot get it to load on this site. Let me know I can email it to you if you would like to see it, or look on Facebook, I have it loaded there.

We have not let the soggy weather deter us from having some fun in between storms. We headed out on Wednesday to Nectar, a Vegan/Raw restaurant here in Cuenca. It has good reviews on Trip Advisor, and a variety of reviews from those we know who live here.. so we were off to check it out.

The photo above is just the first soup course of the Almuerzo or Menu del dia that is offered daily.  This menu consists of fresh juice, soup, main dish (ours was a bean and rice dish with a greensalad) and then dessert, for $2.75. We returned on Friday with other friends and had another delightful meal. I hear they are beginning Brunch on Sundays and that will be a larger menu for 6.95. We will definately return, both times the food was good, and the atmosphere is fun and welcoming!
Friday nite California Kitchen had a Jazz group playing for the dinner crowd, and it was crowded! We met up with our friend Nancy Hofmeister and enjoyed the music and seeing other friends from around town.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and it had the wonderful "Jazz" atmosphere.. sans the smokey haze!

Just want to say what a great job the crew of California Kitchen does when they have these events. They weave and wend their way in between the packed crowd, trying their best to make everyone happy and move the food to their tables as fast as possible.. all with a smile and good nature. Thanks guys ya' did good...once again!

Despite the rain and hail, the new under/over pass continues to move right along.. rumor has it that at this point they are a bit ahead. We are hoping that it continues to progress on this early path!

I just had to add this photo of the clouds the other day.. they are so pretty.. how funny.. now that I see clouds all the time I think they are pretty.. when I lived where there were brown hillsides I thought they were pretty.. I guess I am very adaptable!

WHETHER, WEATHER, WHEATHER?

When I call my family back in the states we always discuss the weather. The weather there, the weather here, and the odd weather all over the world. I don't know if this is just a family thing; as we have always done this, or if its because we are intent as humans to have a predictable pattern to follow.

Well, if we need a predictable pattern to follow, we are out of luck... most anywhere lately. Our Spanish teacher told us this is the dry season, and soon it would be windy. Well we have had wind, chill and the occasional wonderful sunny day that just makes you smile and want to head out for a long long walk... with your umbrella.


To says that we (me mostly) do not trust the weather here is an understatement. When we first came in 2008 to visit friends, (Feb.) we were enthralled that it would be sunny and then every afternoon like clock work it would rain, and then the sun would come back out... what a perfect predictable pattern.. easily dealt with, and predictable.. well somewhere in the world "they" skewed the predictability of weather patterns all over the place.


Ok, so just in case some one is thinking that I am whining.. or upset with our life here.. I am not. I love it here. I guess I am just saying that I would appreciate a bit more predictability 'cause I can't get it right about what to wear or bring when we leave the house. Here is a example. Father's day we went to a Garden Party. It was a gorgeous day, sunny, warm and just an amazing day. We rode the bus with our friends Jacob & Sharon, it was all warm and cozy in the bus, the windows were open and everyone was smiling that is was a wonderful day in the neighborhood!

We get to the party, and the clouds began to gather.. a bit of rain started to fall, then it picked up, the wind came too, and within 5 minutes there was a downpour so strong that all the folks who were squeezed inside the tiny house began to oohhh awww, OH MY!  We could not hardly see the trees for the downpour.. Then I realized what everyone was in awe about... it was HAIL! HUGE hail... and it kept on for about 10 minutes.  Then it turned into rain again...

I kept an eye out for a break in the weather, and when it looked like the sun was coming back, I gave Randy the high sign that we needed to leave  ( he did not bring his coat, cause it was so sunny!)

Hail about 20 minutes after the storm!

Our 12ft tall Sunflower did not survive the hail storm

We arrived home in time to watch the next wave of rain come through, and luckily there was no more hail. We have heard since that the outlying areas only had rain. In old town we were treated to the whole majestic treatment! I wonder if they have hail damage insurance here for cars?