Where did the month go?

When they say "time flies, when you're having fun", they aren't lying! We must be having fun, because I swear, I don't know what happened to the month of October! Going thru my Camera Roll, I see that stuff has been going on, I have photos to prove it, but wow! Days turn into weeks, then weeks turn into months, and if you're not careful, your life has gone by and you didn't even realize. One of the reasons we chose to do this adventure now, while we are still young enough to enjoy it, and we certainly are enjoying it, so let me stop babbling and share.

According to the Camera Roll, on October 16 there was the strangest sound outside our house, it was about nap time, as I remember and we had to get up to see what the racket was. Still not totally sure what they were doing, but as far as I can tell they were unearthing large rocks.

They could have been adding the large rocks to the sea wall, but some of them just got unearthed and then left where they sat, hmmmm, I'm sure someone somewhere knows the story, I'm just glad I got some pictures. 

We have had a couple over for dinner a few times during the month of October, one of the dinners I made was BBQ chicken and  Macaroni and Cheese. I thought I'd picked up a block of cheese, but when I unpackaged it, it was slices! No problem, I just cut it into strips, but then Mike said it looked like cheese noodles, no matter what it looked like, it all melted into cheesy goodness and was a success.

I had some leftover Ricotta from a lasagne, so this was at least tres queso! It was a little taste of the States here in Ecuador, I've been enjoying cooking more, now that I have more than one skillet. We bought a rice cooker, (had to look up the directions online, since they were in spanish, and I looked up other recipes that can be made in one, but haven't tried anything other than rice yet)  also bought a griddle, which has made pancakes, eggs and grilled cheese a breeze.

We went to Manta one day to meet with Fernando, and talk to Immigration about our Residency. We got on a bus that took us the long way, but we got to drive thru the town of Montecristi, where they make furniture and Panama hats, and snapped a picture of their statue.

Her skirt was beautiful tile mosaic, that just shimmered in the sun, sorry it didn't read on film. After we finally got into Manta, we had about an hour to wait for Fernando, so I took some pictures of the Immigration office. Now for those of you who have been following awhile, remember the first time we came to this office I was in a boot and crutches for my broken ankle, check out all the stairs!

Check out the elevator...how many flights of stairs does one have to take to get to the elevator? Yikes! That would never fly in the States...but I survived, and now it's a piece of cake all those stairs! We didn't get extensions on our Visas, but did find out that our rental income from the States will help us get residency, they just want original lease and original letter from Housing Authority apostilled and sent to Consulate for approval. Of course we are $50 shy a month to both qualify on the rental income alone, so we still have some hoops to jump thru. Hopefully our empty rental will sell quickly and we can qualify that way, it went on the market this week.

Another outing we did in October was to Bahia, we had seen an advertisement for an art show, but when we got there, there was no art, and certainly no show, so we just shopped, wandered, and had an awesome lunch. Last time I posted pictures of the bay of Bahia, these are ocean side.

Huevos anyone?  And here is a picture I borrowed from Facebook, the one at dusk, the daytime photo is mine. We live on the other side of the point.

And our fabulous lunch $6, which turned into enough leftovers for fish tacos, yum! And then some...

We added some more finishing touches to our guest room. Bought some sheets and a bedside lamp that day in Bahia at the Tia store and I made curtains from $1 remnants I bought in Charapoto. Really wanted that art show to be something, because decent priced artwork is hard to find here, but maybe we'll make something.

With all this busy-ness you'd think we missed the sunsets, but we still try to take time out and watch.

This one taken from our friends balcony at The Boca

This one while walking down the Malecon to dinner...

And this one, I stole from our neighbors Keith and Becky...wow! Isn't that gorgeous?!

At times our adventure just seems like everyday life, cooking, cleaning, shopping, but then I take time out, sit and write this, or just think back on the weeks, and months and I realize this is AMAZING! What a special time and place this is in our lives, what blessings and gifts these days are, I hope we never loose sight of that. Thanks for joining us on the coast of Ecuador, stay tuned...the adventure continues!