well, my parents are here, and we are having a great time. friday, amy and i went to quito to pick them up, and on saturday we went to a great market town called Otavalo...with so many colors that you couldnt even imagine! the ride to otavalo was georgeous also! otavalo has basically everything that you can buy as a tourist in ecuador....from fruit, to grains, to ponchos, shoes, purses, jewlery, baskets, etc. its awesome. then, we went to a couple other towns, knicknamed leather town and wood town. those were also neat, cheap and great leather if you can find it! my dad got a sweet leather coat and my mom a cool purse. that was a full day.
on sunday, my birthday, i turned 23...it was a pretty uneventful day...but i knew i was going to be having a big party tonight, monday.
so...me, rachel, and amy decided to all have a party because mine and rachels birthdays are in the same week, and amy is leaving this weekend...so that called for a community wide party! we invited the whole missionary community, and about 80-85 people showed up. we decided not to do burgers, but each girl make their own version/ spice of sloppy joes...! it turned out to be great! i think everyone liked the idea and the joes! then, a few of our close friends decided to get a little game show going, which was a total suprise. what they did, was made a version of that game show where 3 guys are behind a wall, and the girls ask the guys questions and then decide at the end who they want to go on a date with one of the guys (because on the invitations we also said to bring a single male (age appropriate) or some advice for us single women) so we all asked them our quesitons (pre made) and they males answered (with pre made responses) and then us girls decided who we should pick to be our dates....it was halarious because when our dates came out, they were the Hardin's small boys and their pet turtle, the pet turtle was my date :) it was a great time!
then, we had a bonfire, i had my parents bring marshmallows and hersheys chocolate from the states because the marshmallows and chocolate here are far below par. so it was a big hit, you give someone a bar of hersheys chocolate here and you think they had won a thousand dollars! its just that good :) esp when you dont have access to it 24/7
so the party was a great sucess, and it didnt rain so we could have our party (it rained before, and stormed right after :) ) pictures later
one thing about being in Shell is that there is not full access to pre made things....especially not in Shell, a little more possible in Quito. Due to this, I have had to make my own things versus go and by them from a store....like above (it even looks like a real pretzel :)), homemade whole wheat pretzels! I dont know if I will ever make them again because they are very time consuming, but fun! I have also made my own whole wheat tortillas, pancakes, and sphagetti sauces! I like making my own things because I know what is going into them, and I can fix the ingredients if I need to...I know this may not seem really interesting or anything, but it is for me because in my family, we just went out and bought boxed or premade everything...so its new to me!
