Videos of Owen

I know I've been slacking on posting Owen videos, it really is my computer's fault! But hooray, today it decided to cooperate. So, for your viewing pleasure - grandmas :) - here are some recent videos of cute little Owen.

Owen recently learned how to crawl! I really have to watch out, and him, now! He mostly just scoots or tries to crawl on his hands and feet, but here he is actually crawling on his knees.

Owen is so fun to play with, and my new favorite sounds in the world is his laughter. In this video I was putting a little plastic cup on my head and letting it fall to the ground. He thought it was hilarious!

Grandma's Visit

Josh's grandma decided to come visit us, and we were so excited to have a visitor! She was here for a full week and we had fun showing her around. Here are some of the highlights:

We went to Old Town Quito

We went up to the Panecillo, a little hill in the middle of Quito that has the popular Virgin statue. Ecuadorians are proud they have the only Virgin depicted with wings.

A great view of Quito from the Panecillo

We went to the town of Otavalo to see the markets, and we stopped by San Pablo Lake.

We also ate lunch by the Peguche Waterfall, surrounded by beautifully fragrant Eucalyptus trees.

We went to our local Friday produce market and bought these 25 roses for $2.

We had a picnic lunch at Parque Carolina, followed by yummy ice cream at Crepes and Waffles.

We went to Mitad del Mundo and stood on two hemispheres. We were there for the spring equinox, when the sun passes directly above the equator. This means at noon the sun is directly overhead, making it so nothing casts a shadow. Well, at noon on the equinox it was cloudy so we couldn't really tell that nothing had a shadow. But it was fun to be there for the equinox anyway!

Grandma also had loads of fun just being entertained by this cute kid! (which we're sure is the main reason she came, right?)

Thanks for coming to visit and giving us such a fun, enjoyable week!

7th Anniversary and Baños

Thursday we celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary! When we first came to Ecuador we knew we wanted to do something fun, so we planned a trip to Baños, a popular vacation place for both locals and tourists.

Baños is south of Quito, nestled in a beautiful mountain valley at the foot of the Tungurahua Volcano. It has been one of our favorite places in Ecuador. The weather was perfect, the scenery breathtaking, the city clean, the people friendly, and the food yummy. It's not often you find all of these together in one place in Ecuador.

Thursday we spent the morning hiking the mountain and we had awesome views of the valley. I am still sore from the hike!

After our hike Josh and I both got massages that were heavenly! (and it's great they're so inexpensive here!)

In the evening we went to the "piscinas" or baths that make the town popular (hence the name Baños). The water is naturally warm and full of minerals from the nearby volcano.

Then we enjoyed a delicious fondue dinner at the restaurant at our hotel, and we had the whole restaurant to ourselves! (Owen is asleep on the ground next to us).

The next day we went to the local zoo. We love zoos! We saw tons of beautiful tropical birds.

And we saw these (ugly) capibaras, the largest rodent in the world.

But this was just adorable! A mama spider monkey with her tiny little baby clinging on to her. We could have watch these monkeys all day.

To end our trip we took Owen to an awesome park. Daddy and baby had lots of fun on the toys.

It was a fun, relaxing anniversary. Oh, and Josh surprised me by getting me a new watch that I wanted. Plus, we got our tax return on our anniversary, which was an added bonus!

Seven Months Old

Happy 7 months to Owen!

He just keeps getting closer and closer to that one year mark, and his actions surely show it! He is just the sweetest, funniest, and most fun kid ever. Every day, all day long, he just makes us laugh and smile. We love this little boy!

Here's the latest and greatest Owen happenings:

*He started eating fruits and veggies: green beans (his favorite!), peas, carrots, butternut squash, prunes, peaches, and some applesauce. I really struggle to get him to eat the prunes and peaches. He highly favors the veggies over the fruits!

*Going along with eating solids...he HATES to have his face cleaned, especially his nose. But I figure, what baby likes it.

*He got his first two teeth just last week! He surprised us with his two front bottom teeth. No extra fussing, no crying, no swollen gums. They were just there one morning!

(In this picture you can see them, if you look really close or make the picture bigger.)

*He has started to develop his object permanence. When we hide something he'll often look for it because he knows it's still there.

*He can keep his attention on one toy for quite a while, even when there are several other toys right by him. If the toy goes out of reach, he'll work really hard to try to get it back instead of switching to another toy.

*He is getting very close to crawling! He gets up on his hands and knees, will rock back and forth, and tries to scoot. He still doesn't quite have the coordination down yet though.

*He just started pulling himself up to standing position. When Josh or I are sitting on the floor and he's in front of us, he'll grab our shirt and pull himself up. He also tries to pull himself up in the bathtub.

*He holds his arms out to us when he wants to be picked up.

*He now gets scared when I turn on the blender. And I use it a lot lately since I'm making all of his baby food. If I hold him up to the blender when I use it, he doesn't seem to get quite as scared, but it's sort of cute the way he curls up and burries his face into my chest when he is scared.

*He loves dogs! He loves to look at them, he smiles at them, and when the dogs bark he will sometimes laugh hysterically! (if only we could get one of our own)

*He loves to have his neck and chest scratched, especially after he eats. He'll tilt his head back, I'll start scratching, and he just seems to be in heaven! He is just the sweetest little boy.

and now some classic Owen Funny Faces...

Tena

This week has been a busy week! Josh got home from hiking Cotopaxi on Monday, then Wednesday morning we left for Tena. Tena is a city on the very western edge of the Amazon rainforest, to the east of the Andes. Tena and the surrounding areas have a large population of indiginous Quichua people. We went because Josh planned a white water rafting trip down the Misahuallí River. Josh had said one of his goals while in Ecuador was to go rafting in the Amazon, and he had an AWESOME time! I was bummed I had to stay behind with Owen.

Here he his with Eddie, Sarah, Sarah's friend Jennelea, her new husband Troy (he's to Eddie's right), and a guy from Belgium.

Below is the The Misahuallí River, and it goes through primary rainforest. There were waterfalls all along the way. Josh said this was a great way to see the jungle.

These rapids were too dangerous to raft through, hence the look on Josh's face. They had to get out, walk the raft around the rapids, and then get back in the river.

While Josh was rafting, Owen and I went to the Parque Amazonico, a little reserve/zoo situated on the peninsula at the merging of the Tena and Pano Rivers. We had so much fun that we went again with Josh the next day. We had to cross this foot bridge to get there.

All the animals at this park are brought here due to injury or whatever, and are being rehabbed. We saw lots of cool things including snakes, huge rodents, cats, ostrich, tropical birds, monkeys, and a tapier.

This is the tapier. Looks like a huge pig, but with this strange face and long nose. I even got chased by it the first day! Well, not really "chased" I guess, more like followed. Good thing he didn't walk very fast!

The tapier really liked Owen, especially his pants!

We were able to get up close with this wooly monkey, Coco. She was so friendly and cuddly!

I was a little nervous, this was my first time touching a monkey.

The two little monkeys checking each other out. Coco even reached out and touched Owen's cheek! It was soooo cute!!

Owen is always quite an attraction wherever we go, but we're used to it. This was a rather larger crowd than we're used to though, so I had to take a picture. Owen was more popular than the animals were!

We had our own personal guides at the park, and they were really nice. This man is Javier, he's Quichua. He taught us about traditional medicinal practices, many of which were interesting. (they say rubbing termites on your skin works better as an insect repellent than DEET. not so sure about that one.) At the end of the tour he made himself and Owen leaf headbands.

Owen is our little King of the Jungle!

Cotopaxi

This week we (Eddie, Sarah, and I) were finally able to complete our goal of climbing Cotopaxi volcano, the mountain pictured in our blog header. Ecuador is a natural world marvel with several very tall peaks close to Quito. I never really thought about doing anything but Eddie (the doc working with FHN) suggested we give it a try. We were going to try to summit two weeks ago but there was too much fresh snow on the mountain. We saw our window this Sunday and headed up to the mountain. We arrived at the refuge ate lunch and dinner and settled in to sleep at around 6:30 pm to wake up at midnight. Midnight means the glacier will be frozen top to bottom and we can climb it easier. We left around 1am. This was the first part (picture taken on the way down) that we climbed in the wee hours of the morning.

Here's a shot of the glacier formations up on the volcano.

We arrived at the summit around 5:45 just as the light of dawn was peaking over the horizon. It was really windy and cold so there aren't too many pictures.

But here's the proof. Here I am at the summit of Cotopaxi, 19,347 feet, and lovin' life.

Climbing Cotopaxi was one of those great physical challenges that I probably won't do again. However, many other mountains loom in the horizon, which one is next?