Moving day...

We just got word this past week that we will definitely need to move again within the next four months. The owner of the building we live in and the property next to us has accepted an offer for both properties with a possession date of midnight, June 30.

So, that means we will be looking for a new place to live. As we look, we'll keep you updated on what we are finding.

The dancers...

Just this past weekend Joshua and Joel went to a birthday party and they had a really good clown there who got everyone involved in activities. One of them was when she had the older children dancing.

I'm glad I had my Blackberry as I completely forgot to take a regular camera. So, you can watch this short video of the dancing but the quality won't be that great.

They do a great job of following the clown, but the person who did the best job (according to the judge) was the boy in the white shirt.

Christmas time...

At ANAN (Joshua's and Joel's school) they presented their Christmas show last Tuesday (Dec 21). It was simple, but quite cool (and not just from the weather here).

Joshua dressed up as Frosty the Snowman and looked great in his costume.

Joel came dressed as a boy dressed for winter.

It was hilarious watching them dance to the music. Joel especially has a capability to move his body to rthymn.

If you want to see more pictures of the event, please see the photo album for ANAN Navidad 2010.

And you thought you had a long drive...

When Marlene and I went out for dinner on our anniversary (yes, happened a couple of months back) we found this van which caught our attention because of the Canadian flag. So we stopped and took a look at it.

The person or persons (we never saw them) are driving from Canada to the Land of Fire off the souther tip of South America.

Now, that's a long drive!

Quito Day Concerts

The Quito Day concerts were performed over two days, December 4 and 5, each day having three concerts. It had some really nice elements to it with an interactive sequence between the hosts on-stage and a video. Very well done.

The special guest this year was a group call Dos o Mas (Two or More).

We really enjoyed the presentation and we were even able to give some tickets to Joshua and Joel's English teacher from school.

Thanksgiving Day

We had a week of festivities, from the 9th through the 13th.

Saturday, Marlene and I decided to go out for dinner, just the two of us, to celebrate our anniversary and my birthday. We had received a gift of a membership in the Marriott Club which included a dinner for my birthday. We had a great time and then we went to our study group. We miss the group but it is difficult to get to because we don't want the boys to be up too late. It was wonderful seeing our friends again.

Sunday we celebrated with the family our anniversary, and my parents-in-law's anniversary.

Monday, we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with delicious dinner and pumpkin pie.

Wednesday, we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with turkey. I hadn't thought of a turkey until Friday morning which didn't give us enough time to thaw the turkey before Monday. So, I baked the turkey Wendesday afternoon. Delicious!

The calm after the storm

Things have returned to a more normal state-of-affairs here in Ecuador.

Following a 35 minute firefight between the military and some police at the police hospital, the president was taken by the military to the Carondelet Palace around 9:15pm, he gave a speech saying that it was a "very sad day for Ecuador". And it was.

The private TV channels were allowed to broadcast their own programming in the evening for a while after about eight hours of Cadena Nacional (in which the media outlets must broadcast the government provided feed). Several of the stations had cameramen at the hospital and we could see and hear a large amount of shooting. It was reported that the military were using rubber bullets.

There are many write-ups about what happened, but many details are still unknown and others will probably never be known.

A YouTube video by a reporter from El Comercio shows a bit of the action at the police hospital. In the video it shows police. These are the GOE, special-ops police which it appears were not part of the uprising but were helping to get the president out of the hospital.

Coverage in Spanish is available at El Comercio