Pardon my lack of communication this week.

I have promised much communication this, our first week in Ecuador as a family, but I have not provided and I feel bad for that. Hopefully, this post will explain and make up for most of it!

We had a safe and uneventful journey in our big white rental van from Tampa to Miami. We were able to enjoy a relaxing evening with friends who live in Miami at the hotel pool. It was an early morning up with a nice breakfast and then off to the airport. As anyone who has travelled through Miami knows, you officially arrive in South America at the airport. We were told by the airline that it was required to have our bags wrapped in plastic for protection. At $12 each times 8 bags, I was a bit upset, but realized that if we were the only ones who didn't do it, our bags would be a target. So instead of telling them what I felt, I just aquiessed and had it done.

Other than that, there were no hickups along the whole trip and all the kids did very well for the whole flight. Our layover in Caracas was pleasant as I was able to enjoy some "authentic" Venezelan arepas and a cold Malta!

Our flight to Quito was deleyed a half hour, but no sweat. We all arrived safely in Quito and had several people, ADSE staff and Maggy's family, waiting for us to take us to our temporary house in Quito. Out of our 8 bags checked, only 5 made it, but another showed up the next day. As of now, we are still waiting on the other two. We have the bulk of what we need, but Maggy and I both are short most of our clothes. We have enough to get by, and the most important items arrived. After all the travelling I've done, this is the first time I've ever lost a bag, so I figure I'm due! God knows where they are and when they will get here.

We got a good start the morning after our arrival on getting our paperwork started. We have the list of items needed for my residency package submittal, which is the priority. Everything else pretty much hangs on that. We hope to have everything gathered and submitted by the end of next week. From there, we are told that it should take 20 to 30 days for approval and receipt of the Resident Visa.

The kids were able to obtain their "Cedulas", which are their official Ecuadorin ID cards. Everything one does in Ecuador requires showing your "Cedula", so this was a big step. We were quite surpised at the organization and speed this was accomplished. When we walked in to the Department, there was this huge line. We got through the line in about 20 minutes and were sent to another area. Our number was called after about 10 minutes and a total of an hour and a half had elapsed from walking in to walking out with all 4 kids registered and new cards in hand! That is a far cry from how I remember things working when my parents did the same for us in Venezuela! In fact, in the 13 years we were there, I never actually received my hard copy.

We arrived in Shell today to start looking for a house and to speak with the ADSE leadership to coordinate time lines, schedules and expectations. We plan to be here until Sunday afternoon or Monday morning. The ride down was a good one and the kids enjoyed it. Both older kids like Shell and we already met with a few families with kids their age for them to start connecting. Praise God for the work he has done in their hearts to make them so flexible!

As far as the communication issue: I am unable to connect my laptop to the internet connection at the house we are staying. That is a big deal, becuase most of our stuff is run off software on my laptop, and I don't want to be messing with the configuration of someone else's computer and loading a bunch of software on it. We have been working on getting my laptop connected to the existing internet connection and hope to have that working soon. This especially affects the Magic Jack phone that we hap hoped to be using to update everyone on our trip. That also affects our Skype, because the computer we are using doesn't have that and as I mentioned, I don't want to be loading software on someone else's computer.

The other issue is our lack of uploading pictures. This arrangement also prohibits us from loading our pictures into our albums until we can hook my computer up directly to the internet.

Thanks for your patience with us and I hope this brings you up to date and I will be posting more especially after we return from Shell and have things more lined up.