First Trip to Pediatric Urgent Care

On October 30, Collin and I were enjoying the amazing fall weather at our neighborhood park. We were running up and down hills, digging in rocks with sticks, and checking out the other children who were actually using the playground equipment. As he went from one section to another, he headed down three little steps. And that last step got him. I thought it was a typical toddler crash where a mommy hug and kiss make it better in 30-seconds or less.

But while he's wailing, I see a pebble IMPALED in his forehead. I panic and try to calm him down as I consider my options - get the pebble out, go home and take it out with tweezers, take him to the ER.

Then the world's nicest people enter the scene. The couple with 3 older boys comes over with water and paper towels. Then a first aid kit. All the while telling Collin how brave he is and telling me I'm doing a great job (I'm sure they could see I was shaken). The guy helps me hold Collin as I free the pebble, then clean up and band-aid the wound. Collin calms down now that we've ceased to mess with his forehead, and we even swing for a few minutes to try and settle both of us down before we head home.

Once at home, I text my best friend Amber, mother of three, and Cas this picture with the question of does it look bad enough to visit an ER for stitches.
Not the best of weekends for Cas to be out of town with work. I was worried that he'd have a scar and I'd forever regret not having taken him to the doctor. So an immediate response followed by a call from Amber encouraged me to take him in to glue up his wound. A long hour later, we were back home, his wound thoroughly rinsed (while Collin screamed like he was being tortured) and glued.

Here he is enjoying a well-deserved dinner of animal crackers and ice cream (while I sipped my well-deserved glass of wine)!
When asked about his wound, his story goes "by the statue, all fall down, bumped my head, sharp, ouch, band-aid." Pretty much sums it up - I'm hoping he won't be traumatized on our next visit to the park.

Posing with Pumpkins 2011

Collin's school has a pumpkin patch, and we hosed him down with bug spray, dressed him in orange, and brought him up there for pictures.
This is the only decent shot we got in the fall display.
Most of the time he looked like this - stick in one hand, tossing hay with the other -
Whoa this pumpkin is huge -
Posing on the pumpkin is much better than holding the pumpkin -

We tried in his dragon costume, but by then he was done with photos. I'll cross my fingers for at least one cute shot of our little dragon at our church's fall festival.

Collin can't wait for our next vacation

We're pretty sure Collin is counting down until our next adults-only vacation. Because while we were in Ecuador, he split his time between Grammy and Brownie, Grandma Libia and Lita, and Great Aunt Debbie.

Grammy and Brownie shared some pictures from their weekends with their grandson. His first weekend involved a Saturday morning trip to the Children's Museum, where he visited the stuffed animal vet.

He navigated the toddler roadways and read with Brownie, among other activities.

During the week, he was spoiled by Grandma Libia. He had a cold and she made him chicken soup and rocked him until he fell asleep in the evenings. On my first day back, we went to the grocery store, and as we were pulling into the parking lot, Collin shouted "HEB." So I'm sure his stay with Grandma Libia involved balloons and treats at the supermarket too.

The next weekend, they headed to the zoo -

In the afternoon, Collin played in the park with some new dump trucks. My mom said he pretty much ignored the playground equipment in favor of rocks and trucks - what a boy! He and Rudy had some bonding time on the couch too (while my poor, obnoxious dogs were stuck outside).

Sunday night, Collin met up with a lot of my family at Cafe Express as they transferred him from my parents to the care of Great Aunt Debbie. Here he is with Great Aunt Carla.
Great Aunt Debbie had him Monday and Tuesday, and I can't imagine how many times they read Farley and the Lost Bone, but when we returned home, Collin was quoting many of Debbie's lines from the book. Debbie also had roses and chocolates waiting for us, as we returned home on our 8th anniversary. How insane is that - not only family that loves our child like crazy, but surprises us with anniversary treats. We are so blessed!

Taking in Quito as Tourists and Locals

While most of our time in Quito was spent loving on kids, we had some time to see the city. We went to "the center of the world" the equator monument, though all of my photos were taken on our teammates' cameras. We went to a market for souvenir shopping and to a supermarket to stock up on their wonderful jams, coffees, and yuca chips.

And one of the highlights for me, a gelato and coffee shop. We visited it shortly after the Equator where I had eaten lunch and an ice cream, but I found room for a double scoop of gelato and mocha coffee - yum! We walked through the city, noting the incredibly cheap roses (that's right, 25 roses for $1 USD)! And we stopped by a bakery for more delicious food.

At home in the evenings, we had home cooked meals, team meetings to reflect on the day and plan the next, and game time. We learned new games like Telephone Pictionary and Phase 10. And played old games like cards and Scrabble.

Here's Oswaldo and Denise's 3-year-old showing off her spelling ability with letters she arranged on her own.

Ganas was near a great overlook of Quito, so Lizzy and I took in the views

Our final night, we had a FEAST at Chio and Gustavo's home overlooking Quito. They were the family who hosted us in the rainforest. It was a wonderful evening - incredible scenery, delicious food - the largest shrimp I've ever seen following palmetto ceviche, sweet conversations and plenty of photos.

We ate in their backyard overlooking the city with wonderful company, our teammate and VO staff member, Casi.

Most of the ladies of the trip - myself, Lizzy, Cindy, Denise, Melissa holding Denise and Oswaldo's son Joshua & Casi (Amanda & Jeannine must have been off taking pictures).

Our guys - Oswaldo, Cas & Daniel -

My brother told me this looks like a fake background -

Goodnight and good-bye for now, Quito!

You Don't Have to Be a Millionaire to love these kids

On Sunday and Monday, we went to an orphanage called Ganas. We went in knowing the conditions there had brought Oswaldo to tears. We went in knowing that about 14 of the kids had been at another orphanage that had shut down and were dropped off at the women's prison where their moms were incarcerated, and this orphanage had taken them in. We went in knowing these sweet kids needed love, attention, and hope.

On Sunday there were only two workers, Inez and Violet for the 37 children. We toured their facility and saw the boys and girls dormitories - beds with mattresses that sunk down because the frames were broken, no electricity in their rooms, a broken window letting in the 50-degree Quito air in the girls room. The washer and dryer was broken, the refrigerators only marginally worked. It was overwhelming.

And then there were these sweet faces. Not cynical faces. These children and teenagers who had been through abuse, been forced into prostitution by their parents, been abandoned somehow had the capacity to hug strangers. To sing songs with us. To play frisbee and soccer and catch.

Here are some of their beautiful faces:





We started Sunday with songs - Cristo me ama (Jesus Loves me) and Hillsong's "Came to my Rescue" in Spanish. It was a sweet God moment to sing a song about God saving and rescuing his children to these children in their language, and watching as for the most part they quietly listened. We taught about Jesus and did some coloring, followed by time outside for games, face painting, and sports.

Monday the guys spent most of the day trying to fix the washing machine. They found out it was an electrical issue, that if resolved or even band-aided, can help with the lighting in the kids rooms, refrigerators and washer and dryers. With all hands on deck for the children, they hadn't taken the time to find the source of the problem.

While the guys were once again being handy, the ladies tried really hard to remember parachute game activities from elementary school. Though the kids would have been content if we spent an hour of running under the parachute to a new position!

Arts and crafts, dancing to Justin Beiber thanks to Cas' ipod library, and reading ensued. Many of our teammates took time to pray around the facilities. Below is a picture of the girls' room. Each child had a bed and a nightstand. That was it.

One of my favorite stories was when an older boy asked Cas if he was a millionaire. No, why did he ask? Because he knew it took a lot of money to fly from the United States. And Oswaldo and Cas explained that yes, it was very expensive, but that he was worth it. It was worth it to pay money for a flight to meet him. And his face lit up at the realization of his worth in this former stranger's eyes - it's what Visting Orphans is all about!

Here's our team with many of the kids at Ganas -

I don't want to forget these faces, their stories, these needs. I don't want to go back to my comfortable American life and forget to beg God for families, for supplies, for electricity, for love and attention, for salvation for these children. I am so thankful that Oswaldo and Denise want to partner with Ganas and they said on our last day that they're aware it's a marathon, not a sprint. Praise God for servants in it for the long-haul!

Re-living my days as Cheer Captain

Our first day in Quito, we visited an orphanage with younger kids - from 2 to 8 years old. When we arrived, most of the kids were at school, so we got to play with the toddlers and help with some projects around the facilities.

Posing as I weeded the garden with Lizzy -

We painted the toddler play room, removed some fencing from their playground, and the boys took on the glamorous task of fixing toilets.

Once the weeding was complete, I headed to the playground and caught Jose just as he was reaching the point of morning exhaustion. So he sat in my lap on the swing and fell asleep. We moved to the ground and I lay down with him, relaxing in the sun, stroking his arm, and praying over him. It was a bittersweet moment - so incredible to get to cuddle with this little boy but so sad that he doesn't have a parent to cuddle with him everyday.

After lunch, one group of kids returned from school and so we set out to do our lesson on Ruth. At one point there were 5 adults and 7 kids and we had absolutely no control. It probably didn't help that 3 of the 5 adults could only say "no" in Spanish, not "no, don't climb out the window" or "no, don't jump off the table." It was udder chaos! We managed to get through the lesson and they enjoyed drawing and singing.

Unfortunately, the guys were busy with dangerous tools in the playground area, so we were trying to entertain hyped up kids along the concrete pathways. These kids desperately needed attention, and the way they were accustomed to receiving it was by throwing fits. We had almost a 1:1 adult to kid ratio and it was our hardest day from a crowd control standpoint. Definitely humbling.

At the end of the day, I had one sweet girl Anjelika, tagging along with me. We started out doing forward rolls and as I watched her do jumping rolls that seemed too close to concussion-inducing, I switched us to jumps. We did jump turns and a few others joined us. We did tuck jumps and a few more kids joined the squad. Before we left, I had most of the kids on a little patch of lawn doing straddle jumps, pike jumps, and other acrobatics from my former cheerleading life. And it was the best activity because it allowed them to receive positive attention while burning off energy!

We returned on Saturday to more kids, but since they hadn't been in school all morning - and since we had prayed about our frustrations - more control. We spent much of the morning on the playground.

Cas always had a crowd of kiddos around him, and he served the orphanage not only as a plumber with Daniel, but as a human jungle gym and book reader extraordinaire.

The orphanage we visited had only female care-takers for the kids, so they were thrilled to spend time with our wonderful guys. A typical scene with 4 girls fighting over Cas.

In the afternoon, we had success with stations - coloring, dancing, reading, etc. The sweet kids were incredibly patient as I butchered the Spanish books, and I always had at least one in my lap.


We will be praying for these kids. Some are in the process of being adopted. Some may return to families in Quito. But we are praying that God will be near to them until they are a part of a secure earthly family.