Home Sweet Home!

P9070276, originally uploaded by A Family On A Mission.

We have officially been in our new place for a month now and are definitely glad to have a place to call our own. You can see Ceara, Travis and Calen standing outside our living room window, above is Ceara's bedroom, as you can tell with the barbie curtains. Our place is in a closed condo with three houses and four apartments. We have three floors in our place the first floor is the laundry room, kitchen, living and dining space and a guest bathroom. The second floor is three bedrooms and two bathrooms and the top floor is an open space and a bathroom that we have made into the kids play space. It's been great having a separate place for the kids to go play and not have to worry about cleaning up every night or when company might come over.
Besides the play room the kids have lots of space outside to run around as you can see in the picture the large driveway that they can play in. The great thing is that there is a locked gate so they can't just leave the condo area and that there is very little car traffic so they can still play in the road without worry.
We have a couple that lives in the last house of the condo with a grand daughter Calen's age and she comes over to play all the time or the kids go over there too. As well there is another house that has their parking space in the condo but technically is not a part of the condo. They also have a boy around Ceara's age and he often comes over to play too. So it's been a great move for our kids being able to play a lot with the Ecuadorian kids.
We finally have all the things we need for our house like the fridge, stove and washer, dryer. They finally were hooked up so we are glad to be able to finally cook and wash our own clothes. Our couch arrived the same day as our dining room table which ended up as a surprise as they had said it wouldn't be ready till this week. And Travis and I finally got our bed frame so now we don't have to sleep on the floor. Which since I am getting up at 6am every morning to get the kids ready for school, it has been a little hard waking up since I am still a night owl, but now it's not so hard to wake up in the morning knowing I don't have to crawl up off the floor, haha. The only thing that we have to get still are the kids bed frames. I had originally made a design for their beds, a princess bed and a race car bed. We were going to get one of the church members who is a carpenter to make the beds as we knew he was in need of the work, however, they have recently moved back to his home town so we are stuck with just the designs. So now we either have to find someone else to make them or we go with a second option and buy them already built beds. It may just be easier now to buy them already built beds even though it would have been fun to make custom beds here.
Last Friday we hosted our first group of people over to our place in honor of Travis' birthday! We invited all of our team and then the families that we have been studying the Bible with. As well, Bolo's daughter Valeria is going out with Mateo and his birthday was the same day as Travis' so we had his family over too. It was great to be able to host something at our place and know that it won't be the last time. All the kids had a blast playing upstairs, it's a pretty big room but the whole floor when they were done was covered in toys. But at least they enjoyed it and they kept busy which was nice as all the adults were able to chat without having to worry about the kids.
We barbecued chicken wings and added a few new flavors that the Ecuadorians loved. I made Greek and potato salad which went over well then then to top it all off a carrot cake and cream cheese icing. That went over so well that I will now be translating the recipe to give to everyone that was there. It is funny what things we make that end up being favorites for the locals of the countries we go to. It was great having everyone over and we hope to do a few more things like that here, where people see God through the way that we live and give to others.
Another thing that we enjoy is the neighborhood that we live in. Just a block from where we live is a great park for the kids, it's one that's a little off of the main beat so the playground itself is in better condition then others. As well there is another park just two blocks away that have a few different play ground equipment's. We are also near a little store so if we find we are out of something we don't have to go far to go get it. As well, there is a great bread store near us, a hardware store and a soccer field that the kids could join. So just in this little area you can find everything you need in a 5 or 10 minute walk. It's definitely been a great move for us and we know that God is already making way for us as we continue to meet new people and make more connections here. It is so nice to have a home sweet home! Please continue to pray for us and the people that we will meet just because of where we have moved.