we're back!

so we've been back in ecuador for 20 days and it feels like way longer than that (in a mostly good but also tiring way).  here is a quick update: 

the trip back went pretty well, mostly uneventful with the exception of a slight tussle with a lady in security who told me my carry-on was too big.  so we rearranged and got it down in size and moved on.  

all in all everything went well: we got to ecuador, no suitcases were lost, nothing was broken.  we met up with our friends amy and kim successfully at the airport (2 girls who visited us for 10 days) and the both made it safely and uneventfully with all their luggage.  so all in all... good.  however there was one snafoo: 

we had 9 suitcases and 2 carry ons and my purse and our hats... and so we get to quito, pick everything up off of the luggage thingy, put it all on carts... wheel it about 50 feet to customs where we now have to take everything off the carts and feed it through the huge x-ray machines... so it's total chaos with so much stuff, josh is feeding it all through the machine and i'm trying to catch it all on the other side.  the customs agents ask josh to take 2 of our suitcases to be searched, so he's dealing with that and i'm trying to get all our junk together... and we lost the hats in the craziness!  brand new hats that we bought in brooklyn and took super good care of on the whole trip... just completely lost them.  i didn't realize until we got home.  so we kept calling lost and found and no one ever answered the phone.  we figured it was hopeless but we went in with amy and kim when they left, and after visiting a few different offices and talking to a ton of people we got the hats back!  we were shocked, and very happy.  

here we are with our hats: 

here is a photo of all our luggage: 

you're probably wondering what on earth we had in all that luggage... well, it was the usual blend of kitchen and household items, clothing and shoes, electronics, and food stuff (like dried peppers and anchovy paste and puri puri sauce). since we have residency here now, and are renting our own apartment, ecuador is really becoming home for us and we wanted it to feel even more like home... so we brought down quite a few un-necessary homey decor items to make it feel more like OUR home (throw pillows and blankets, picture frames, cookbooks).  here's a snap of the fireplace mantle, now updated with some carter-items: 

we had a great 10 days with amy and kim, they came in service with us every day and had a great time.  well, they said they had a great time!  maybe they were lying :) here are some photos of our time with them: 

1/ silly in service with hats

2/ with a llama at hacienda cusin

3/ last lunch out

since getting back our focus has been getting back into our routine, which has been tough!  service has been enjoyable, it's been wonderful to get back to our studies, but getting ourselves back into speaking spanish after a 9 week hiatus has been an adjustment. here are two photos from service this past week: 

1/ josh getting one of his studies home for the first time since we are back:

2/ loved the color of the house, and i really think the dog was posing for me 

the altitude wrecked me for the first week and a half and i was super tired and headachy all the time, but that's passed now.  weather has been ok, the dry season is hanging on and it is super dry and windy, so there is dust everywhere, all the time.  we are waiting for rain!

that's it for the update... 

thanks so much to everyone at home who helped us out with numerous things, opened your homes to us, met us for dinner, etc.  we were so happy to see all of you and appreciate the effort some of you made to come to us while we were home.