Back by popular demand!!

I guess I didn't realize that there were people actually reading my blog until I stopped posting. So, due to a few requests (some by my own husband) I thought I better pick this hobby up again.

The biggest and best thing that's happened lately is we went to Ecuador! Finally we got to go back to Ben's mission and it was perfect. We loved it and I don't remember ever seeing Ben that happy...honestly. It was like he was home. It was amazing for me to hear him speaking nothing but Spanish (some thought he was a native or a Mexican). It was also a lot of fun hanging with Chuck (Ben's BFF and our college buddy) and his wife Melissa. Chuck still makes us laugh harder than anyone!! Another fun thing is that Ben's sister Anne got to come too. Thank goodness I had two gringo girls with me that also spoke only English 'cause Chuck and Ben were all Spanish all the time. It was like having the TV stationed to Telemundo constantly...and I loved it. ;) Ben and Charlie lived in the same house for 12 months but were never comps. Then after the mission, Ben talked Chuck into coming to school in Salt Lake and that's where we all met up.

We were in Ecuador for 10 amazing days and the trip was so incredible that I really can't fit everything I felt and heard on this little post :) So, I'm going to try to break this into days so that it's not quite so overwhelming.

Day One

We spent the day just kind of checking out the city, Quito. We were wiped out after our red eye flight but I was also so excited to see everything. We walked to El Jardin (the garden), which is a total American mall. Finally Chuck and Melissa got to Quito in the evening and we were so excited to see them. We walked back over to the mall and had a delicious dinner at Crepes and Waffles, a delicious South American resturant. I finally got to taste manjar, a yummy caramel sauce. I have wanted to try it since I read the recipe for it in the Worldwide Ward Cookbook, 3 years ago.

Earlier in the day, we took the Teleferico, which is a gondola lift.. It runs up the east side of the Pichincha Volcano and gives an amazing lookout of the city of Quito. It is one of the highest aerial lifts in the world, rising from 8,850 feet to 13,400 feet. And you travel to that height in about 8 minutes! Just to give you an idea of how high we were, Salt Lake City's elevation sits around 4,200 feet!!

It was cold and we were right in the the middle of the clouds.



Ben overlooking the city he loves!!



So far Ecuador was looking and tasting good!!