Amazon Spring Traditions

Foam fights during Carnival festivities

 Living in the Amazon region of Ecuador, our family is always deciding to continue traditions from the US culture, or take on new traditions.  In February, we had the celebration of "Carnival" here which involves street festivities and throwing of water and colored foam before the Catholic Lent season begins.  Usually we do not choose to participate, but our boys had vacation from school and our older son was asked to participate in a folkloric dance for our neighborhood in the parade.  So, we braved the foam and water throwing to watch.  Here is a girl in a all out foam fight at the end of the parade route.

Our oldest son (in black) participates in the Carnival parade.

Our beautiful Amazon, day hike on a farm

 One day in March, we went for a hike in the jungle.  Well, it was actually a farm, but involved wading through small rivers and climbing up and down ravines with our boots, avoiding poisonous ants, eating fruit from the trees, and stopping at a farm to have a freshly killed chicken for lunch with local potatoes just dug out of the ground.  It was a strenous hike but a great family activity.  Our daughter took her nap on daddy's back!!

 

Learning to ride on daddies back!!

 In March we had the festivities of our school and I ran in a 5K in the sun.  I found that I am not in the best of shape, but enjoyed being outside and supporting our school.  I read an inspiring book about the culture of Ultra Running before this event (this is an affiliate link and we will be paid a small percentage if you purchase this book through this link):  Born to Run by Christopher McDougal

Running a 5 K with friends in support of our school

Making easter eggs with friends

Making easter eggs

For Easter, we enjoyed attending several church services to talk about the week that Christ died.  On Easter Sunday, we invited some friends for lunch and colored Easter eggs.  This IS NOT an Ecuadorian tradition and I had brought the dye kit from the US.  It was SO much fun and our 4 year old friend had a great time.  We also ate some delicious carrot cake, made by our middle child.  Our two year old has been watching Miss Pattycake Eggstravaganza this week.  As a family, we continue to enjoy both the Ecuadorian culture and our US background to create our own family culture.  I hope that you are also working on creating a family culture of your own!! 

Bubble Therapy and Oregon!!

Wow, it is already December!  As I tried to pack up what we would need to go to the US for 6 months, I did some bubble blowing with my baby girl in our "eternal Spring" weather.  Since everything that is good for you is now deemed "therapy" I thought I would recommend "bubble therapy", especially with a 12 month old!  The bubble are not only beautiful, the joy of a 12 month old trying to catch them is contagious. Our baby turned a year on November 29th and has been taking little steps between furniture since then.  We had a great Thanksgiving/1st birthday party!!

We finished our homeschool and said goodbye to our friends last week.  Time has gone by fast!!  The boys have learned so much.  When we finished we put our books in three carry on suitcases and took them with us to Oregon;  from the land of eternal Spring to Winter!!  Our family and friends generously donated winter clothes for our arrival.  Here are a few pictures as we were getting ready to leave Macas!!  

We made the twelve hour overnight trip to Oregon safely via Houston last week.  We are figuring out how to live here for the next six months!!  We are excited to have two week of vacation here before we resume homeschool and Robin begins speaking and getting involved in helping with some ministries at our church....Thanks so much for traveling with us!!

Learning to Walk in the Rain!!

It has been raining some days this week.  Baby girl wakes up scared when the rain comes down hard on our metal roof.  It is very loud.  We comfort her. I (Wendy) am also scared about the unknown sometimes.  It makes sense to feel scared when you don't really understand what is happening...like who will stay in our house here when we go to the US in 7 weeks or if we should just box everything up and put it in storage while we are gone...Baby girl will be 11 months this week and is working on her walking skills.  We hold her hands and she walks around.  She got her first shoes last week and enjoys putting one foot in front of another as we hold her hands.  We try to go out and do some walking in the park at the end of the day after her nap and before dinner.  Robin and I also continue to walk forward, taking one step at a time...getting ready for a government review at the school, working every day on relationships and being people who can really call ourselves followers of Christ...Making every minute count here with the every day life activities of cooking, cleaning, communicating, documentation...

Learning to Walk!!

The boys finished their American Colonists unit this week and are starting to learning about the Revolutionary War.  Big boy age 7 says that he really liked making a straw tick--the boys stuffed pillow cases with corn husks to see what it was like to sleep on beds in the colonial days.  This week he enjoyed making a replica of Jamestown colony.  We read a lot about Jamestown during our Explorer unit when we read Captain John Smith.  Big Boy age 9 says that he really liked making a tin lantern (great boy activity where they got to punch holes in a tin can to "draw" a design) and designing a sign for the job he wanted to do in the colonies.  He chose to be Cutler, a person like a blacksmith who worked on making knives and swords.  The projects they did in this unit were found in a great book called Great Colonial American Projects.   It was definitely written with boys in mind.  We learned a lot about what life was like in the Colonies by reading some books available digitally from Heritage History. Early America library on CD which offered us a lot of choices and we read Stories from the Pilgrims and Massasoit.  The boys also finished reading Orville and Wilbur Wright out loud.  They LOVED this book and have been trying to make some of their own inventions.  Enjoy the pictures below!!

American colonist unit, big boy age 7 sports a home made colonist wig!!

Replica of Jamestown made by big boy age 7

Replica of Jamestown made by big boy age 9

Tin lantern, straw tick, marbles and "job" poster made by big boy age 9

Silloutte, used by the colonists to send a "photo" home to family in Europe.

Business sign, marbles and tin lantern made by big boy age 7

Silloute done of big boy age 9 by big boy age 7

Bits and Pieces of Ecuadorian Life

About a week and a half ago on a Sunday I was about to post a blog.  We had gone to a new place for lunch and took this great picture!!  

Fun afternoon with family!!

In the afternoon we all needed a break and we sent the boys to their rooms. That is when son #2 was playing with his radio antenna and a small piece fell off the end and into his ear.  After trying to get it out, he pushed it farther in with a q-tip and ended up taking an all night bus ride with dad to get it out at the hospital in Quito.  Fortunately, after sitting out of swimming lessons for a week, he is fine!! Here he is enjoying reading an electronic book during silent reading time.

Reading time and peek-a-boo!

We eat lunch at 1:30 since Robin finishes his morning at school around that time.  The school kids go home at 1:15 PM and have lunch at home.  We usually eat an Ecuadorian lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day here.  We eat a lot of food from scratch.  There are canned goods here but they are consistently more expensive than fresh fruits and vegetables.  Fresh items are available here all year 'round due to life on the Equator not having seasons.  So, if you open our cupboards you will only find canned tuna and tomato paste.  We eat a lot of stirfry, spaghetti and Ecuadorian chicken with tomatoes.  Baby girl is a good eater and eats a lot of what we do.  I take out her portion before I add the salt.  Here is a great recipe that I enjoy making here.

Cooking Seco de Pollo!!

Ecuadorian Lunch...canned peaches are considered dessert here

SECO DE POLLO:

Chicken pieces for the number you want to serve.  I make 4-6 pieces.
3 tomatoes
1 green pepper
1 onion (we use green onions)
cumin
oregano
cilantro
garlic or garlic salt
salt

Blend a chunk of onion with the spices, cilantro and about 1/4 cup of water until smooth.  This mixture here is known as "alino".  Put some oil in a large skillet that has a lid.  Turn heat on medium.  Cut up the rest of the onion and grill.  Add chicken and brown on both sides.  Cut up tomatoes and green pepper.  Add on top of chicken with "alino" and salt, adding to taste.  Add 1/2 to 1 cup of water.  Put lid on and simmer.  Continue to add water as the mixture dries to keep a nice sauce with the chicken.  Continue to turn chicken over.  Usually chicken with bones cooks for about 1/2 hour.  When chicken is no longer pink and starts to fall off bones, recipe is ready.  This is served here with white rice.  Feeds 4-6.

This recipe has a funny story about how it got its name...at restaurants here for lunch soup is served first and then the second plate is commonly rice with chicken or beef.  Many years ago, Americans were contracted to build roads on the coast here.  The workers would ask for the "second" plate.  The Ecuadorian cooks couldn't say "second" so they called the plate "seco".  The name stuck and has continued until today.

Making a volcano for geography class!

Making the volcano explode!! 

We will be in the US in about 9 weeks...Robin is working very hard to get the school year going well.  We will have a government review this month to put the school into a classification on which the future tuition rate will be based.  Robin and the admin. team will be working diligently to get ready for this.  Wendy has been helping put some finishing touches on school schedules...Life is good!!

Thanks for stopping by!!

 

Gutierrez This Week!!

God's hands hold the earth's waters by Big Boy age 9

Hello from Ecuador!! 

Our boys finished their first unit of homeschool last week.  We are using some fantastic material, which we would like to share with you.  A Child's Geography by Ann Voskamp is a great book that lays out the basics of the earth.  Last week we were studying the earth's oceans and the boys drew pictures of God holding the earth's oceans in their hands with the chalkboard program on their tablets.

God's hands hold the earth's waters by Big Boy age 7

 We have been using a downloadable Math book called "Ray's Practical Mathmatics".  So far it has been a good review and helped them to be able to write big numbers well.  They also enjoyed studying roman numerals.

We finished a Language Arts unit on the "Boxcar Children" using "Learning Language through Literature: The Orange Book".  They really enjoyed this especially hearing the book for the 2nd time outloud.

Explorer lap books

In Social Studies we are studying North American history.  We finished our unit about New World Explorers.  We read quite a few books out loud and the one they liked the best was "Captain John Smith".  They made lapbooks to keep their work in, a timeline and quite a few crafts.  The ideas came from "Explorers" from Homeschool in the Woods, a CD full of resources and projects. 

Baby girl has been very busy as well.  She loves to be outside and below is a picture of her having some water time outside on a warm day as well as learning to make her little car go.

Explorer time line

On the school administration front, Robin had a really good trainer come from Quito and present some new curriculum for math and the preschool level.  The man has had a Christian school for about 20 years and began making curriculum about 5 years ago.  This was very exciting because his curriculum is getting full approval from the Ecuadorian government, while still incorporating Biblical values.  There are many details at the beginning of the year in school administration and Robin finds himself in meeting after meeting problem solving and helping to start the school year off well.  Our 6 English teachers will be starting an afterschool enrichment program 2 afternoons a week beginning next week.  It is great to have such a hard working staff who cares about the kids so much!!  

In 10 weeks time we will be in the US.  We are looking forward to the trip!!  Thanks for stopping by!!

Incan artifact made by big boy age 7

Afternoon water play!!

Learning to make the car go...

Learning Together!!

Our boys finished their 4th week of homeschool here in Macas, Ecuador.  Robin bought them desks and last week was their first week to use them.  Next week I will post some of the projects they have been making.  It is the first time that they have their entire school day in English and their spelling and writing is improving. The boys' schedule looks something like this: (depending on baby girl's naptime and wake up time)

Our 7 year old in his homeschool uniform!!

7:30 Breakfast
8:00 Bible and Character Training
8:30 Math
9:00 Science
9:30 Handwriting and Greek/Latin Roots
10:00 Break Time and Snack
10:30 Reading Comprehension and Grammar
11:00 Spelling
11:30 Social Studies
12:00 Hands on Projects (arts and crafts mostly related to Social Studies)

12:30-2:30 Break for lunch prep, lunch and down time
2:30 Read Aloud and Silent Reading
3:00 Geography
3:30 Done for the day, chores and outside time
 

Our 9 year old cleans our front walkway as a chore

On Monday the 2nd was the inaguration of the new school year at Emmanuel Christian School.  It is the first time that the boys and I did not attend.  Robin and I have been talking about what our roles are right now with a baby and two boys homeschooling.  I would love to be more involved at the school, but I am learning that I have limits.  Our baby girl is now 9 months old but she still usually gets up twice at night.  God is good and I trust that the 5 English teachers that have come from the US this year are getting along fine without my micromanagement!!

Robin inaugurated the school year with a few children less than last year:  about 300 from 3 year olds to high school seniors.  We think this might be due to inflation here making it difficult for families to pay the tuition.  This is stressful for him and he ended up cutting a few staff positions as a result.  We do have a donor program so let us know if you are interested in helping a child attend our school: it is $50 for a half scholarship and $90 for a complete scholarship.  Some donors give another $30 per month to cover additional fees.
 
I am reading a book called Margin by Richard Swenson.   So far I have learned that I need to take more breaks and not allow myself to get to the end of my emotional energy.  I recommend this book.  It was recommended to me about 2 years ago, but I didn't have time to read it at that time due to my lack of margin!!

Robin went to a great leadership training back in April.  One of the men has a great website on leadership that Robin would like to recommend it.  Lead On!! is the name of the website.

We are planning a trip to the US in 11 weeks!!  There is a link on the right if you want to give toward our trip--we are still a little short on our funds for airfare.  We hope to see a lot of you there.  Thanks for stopping by.

Looking forward to seeing grandma soon!!

August 2013

Hi!!  Welcome to the new Gutierrez Family Blog!! 
We have called this "Amazon Rain". We are blessed to live in a very green place where it rains A LOT. The rain makes things grow very fast, and the indigeousness here see the jungle as the mother who feeds them because of all of the fruit bearing trees and plants. 

Amazon pineapple:  hope to be able to harvest it next month!!

 We are calling this blog "Amazon Rain" because we want to see God's working be ABUNDANT here like the rain that falls every day.  

A preschool group sings about God's love with some 
short term workers at our summer school field trip.

Working at a Christian school is much more like a steady soft rain fall, where Christ slowly works his way into the life of students. 

Boys enjoying nature at our property.

Robin and friend do some clearing at our property.

July 2013 Graduation of the 2nd class of Emmanuel Christian School

Sometimes we have seen cleansing strong rain come down on particular individuals, like the two students who graduated last year and have remained faithful to Christ despite not having other Christ followers in their family.  We have yet to see ABUNDANT rain here.


Join us on our journey here in the Amazon area of Ecuador.  We have posted the song "Healing Rain" by Michael W. Smith for your enjoyment!!  This is our prayer for Macas, Ecuador.