Ecuador

My brother Alan, my friend Pilar and I took a trip to Ecuador Oct 10 thru Oct 26.

Alan speaks great Spanish having served two years in the Toronto Spanish mission. Pilar is my mission friend from Portoviejo. She was a member in the sector I was serving in...called La Paz. She now lives only 20 minutes or so east of me here in Mesa. She and I were roomates @BYU as she was sponsered to come to the US by a family friend of mine. She has since married and lives in the US. We have been friends for 25 years.

It is hard to put into words the experience, but I'll try. (The photos will do a better job)

No hot water

No water for days at a time, bathed from buckets of saved water

Electricity comes and goes

Fish eyeballs
Chicken Feet

Blood filled intestines

Had three close driving encounters/ Me at the wheel/dark/one way streets/ taxis everywhere /buses /bikes /carts /honking horns /...I have driven admidst chaos and lived.

Killed a chicken in the kitchen (Alan spun it around by the neck until the head fell off) That's how you do the pheasants he said.

Boiled water for drinking

Wonderful hospitable families and friends

Delicious food to choose from

(I truly mean it !)

Homes of cement and tin

Homes of cane and tin

Fruits like the Garden of Eden

Traveled from the North Ibarra (above Quito) and to the South of Bahia de Caracas. If you look at a map.

Didn't make it to Guayaquil the road had been washed out due to heavy rains.

3 members remebered my missionary name Hermana Kerbs.

Alan slept with bats (in the roof) that dropped their fruit pits near his bed.

Met some Otavalan members while bargaining @ the Otavalo market.

Take your toilet paper with you. You pay for it @ public restrooms.

Fun

Laughter

Bridget takes Silver

Friday, October 24th: Bridget and her partner, America Hansen, took home the Doubles Silver Medal in the 2008 Freshman City Tennis Tournament,-- only losing in the final match (8-5) to a team they had beaten just the week before in regular league play.

It was a fun day of the kind of tournament competition excitement that Bridget hadn't experienced before. Said she, "it was intense."

She will now set her sights on something "track" related -- not basketball as she previously thought.

Three Scenes on a Saturday

Three Scenes on a Saturday.

SCENE 1-A:
On Saturday morning after visiting a few Home Depots and Lowes for donations to Weston's Eagle project, we came home to carry on with the rest of the day. I went upstairs to change into my outdoor work clothes and immediately started coughing, uncontrollably coughing, borderline choking. I could tell something was in the air, and thought maybe Bridget sprayed Tilex in the shower (can be quite strong when not properly ventilated,) but came to find out that she accidentally released a shot of pepper spray in the bathroom (from a cannister of Grizzly-repellent left over from our trip to Yellowstone a few years back that I have in one of my vanity drawers .) I opened the windows, turned on the fans to air out the room then went outside to tend to my yard duties.

To be continued...

.

SCENE 2:

I was preparing to vacuum the pool and pulled up the bottom-crawling pool sweeper to get it out of the way. When I pulled it out of the water, 'something' plopped back into the water and SWAM TO THE OTHER SIDE! I didn't recognize what it was -- about the size of a small mouse, it looked like an alien critter propelling its way through the water! What the heck is it? (picture the Billy Crystal-Steve Martin skit from SNL) What the HECK is it? Once it stopped swimming, I realized that it was a crawfish/ crawdad/ crayfish (whichever you call it in your neck of the woods.) A very strange find to say the least. Can't 'splain how it got there, but he/she/it became our newest pet. Bridget named it Burt, I called it "What-the."

SCENE 1-B:

Fast forward a couple hours and it's time to clean up for Weston's marching band festival and competition at ASU. There is still a "spicy" scent in my room, but seems bearable enough to shower and get ready. It wasn't until I was drying off after the shower that I noticed a red residue all over a certain part of the bathroom. I was a little concerned when I realized that it was on my twin blade razor (that I had just used to dry-shave my neck,) the bar soap that I had taken into the shower AND THE TOWEL THAT I WAS CURRENTLY RUBBING ALL OVER MY BODY!!! Bridget's shot of potent pepper did not evaporate into the air -- it was a waiting napalm nightmare and my eyes grew large as, almost instantly, little fiery sensations -- especially in the sensative areas (lips, nips and well - you get the picture) -- grew quickly into raging infernos of excruciating pain. Within seconds I was trying to put out the invisible flames with Solarcaine in one hand and Lanacane in the other. FYI, neither work! I soon found myself laying on the bed, writhing in pain, with ice cubes and ice packs balanced and tucked for what seemed like an hour, but was probably more like 15 minutes (you lose all sense of time when panic sets in.) It finally calmed enough that I could carefully get dressed and head to Weston's band competition. Pardon my French, but Holy Crap!

SCENE 3:

ASU sponsors an annual marching band festival and competition -- an all day event where 30-40 bands from across the state perform and compete.
Weston plays trumpet in the Mountain View High School Toro Marching Band -- a Division 1, 120 member band (Division 1 = large bands, 100+ members.) It was a GREAT day for Weston and company. They received the highest possible rating "Superior with Distinction" and awards in all subcategories (i.e. percussion, visual, musical, etc.) during the first session. Then in competition they earned the highest score in their division, received the Robert "Coach" Fleming Outstanding Band Trophy, and took 1st Place overall. As their name was read, I stood to clap amid all the chearing and hugging with a tear in my eye -- but I'm not sure if it was because I was so proud of my son, or because the pepper spray from the carpet had finally soaked into the souls of my feet which were now on gosh dang FIRE !!!

Great job Weston! I'm proud of you.

Their program (almost 9-minutes long) can be seen on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/mvhstoroband
The recording isn't great (so much better live of course,) but you can get a feel for the difficulty of their marching formations which I'm sure factored into the judges decisions. And don't forget, this is highschool -- not college or drum corps. I could barely play chopsticks without falling off the piano bench back in high school.

...oh, by the way -- we set Burt free in a local canal yesterday.

Painfully and Proudly narrated by Rob.

Lana is still in Ecuador with her brother Alan, and best friend Pilar. They will return this coming Saturday and, by the sounds of their e-mails, will have stories to tell.

Stay tuned.

Homecoming

Trevor surprised Weston by sneaking into town and showing up at the Homecoming game this past weekend. It was fun to see them playing their trumpets and enjoying the band-stand scene together.

Go Toros !

In between sessions of conference, we also got some used car shopping in -- but found nothing acceptable within the budget, so he's back up at school walking and bumming rides.

...and as you might be able to see, Weston is giving contact lenses another try.