Life

It has been quite a week!  We have had dinner guests all week - which makes our kids very happy.   Monday night we had unexpected visitors from the jungle.  One of the families that is so kind to always welcome guests into their community for tours, was in Shell to make some purchases for their community's school.  They ended up helping Josiah with his "rain forest biome" project (don't tell his teacher!) and Olivia was able to show her friend Gima her tree house (which I'll have to post more about later).  Also this week we were able to eat a couple of times with Darryl and Sandi Holland from Mississippi.  Darryl and Sandi served with us in Sucua when we first arrived.  This was their first trip back to Ecuador since they left 6 years ago.  They were able to come with a couple of guys from their church and worked at the orphanage here in Shell.  Also, they timed their visit perfectly to coincide with the birth of their first grandchild.  Their son and daughter-in-law are missionaries in Quito.   It was fun to spend time with old friends and think back to our early years in Ecuador.

Sandi getting her complimentary "war paint" during their jungle visit.

To culminate the week I went to a baby shower yesterday and then we all went to play ultimate frisbee with some of the doctor families at HCJB.  We had a great time and were ready for a relaxing afternoon.  Chad and Josiah drove home and Olivia and I decided to walk.  When we arrived home Chad met us at the door, informing us that we should get in the door quickly because of some wasps.  He also said that he had just gotten stung and was feeling kind of funny.  Within the next 10 minutes he was starting to itch all over and had a pounding headache.  Then his face turned red and his eyelids and lips started to swell (he reminded me of Martin Short in the movie Pure Luck!...OK, maybe not that bad!), so we were off to the emergency room.  Chad was happy to see his good friend Doc. Joe Martin on call at the ER, well at least until he said they needed to put in an IV. He wasn't too crazy about that, since he's such a baby about medical stuff.   If you've seen the "man cold" video on-line - you can understand a bit more.  I did rub his head and say "poor little bunny".....but it didn't seem to help!  After some epinephrine and steroids he was feeling much better.   We spent another hour or so there waiting to make sure he was OK before heading back home.   He's all better now.  If only they could've given us an IV to help our sore old muscles from ultimate frisbee!

***By the way, our ER visit cost us a whopping $26.00!!!  That's even with extra medicine and an IV!!