Neener's Travel Blog

Jr Sr was absolutely amazing!!! Spent some time in the morning setting up at the hotel, lugging trees up the stairs, putting together the center pieces, sort of helping stringing lights on the trees... Went over to the mall and bought jewelry to match my dress. Finally. XD Had lunch and all that and went to our cita for nails and hair. I had my first pedicure and manicure ever! Pretty awesome. I got a French mani and pedi. That's as French as I get. XP Got my hair done and it turned out pretty much like I wanted it. I liked it. :) Then we headed up to Hannah's to get dressed and make-uped. Fun stuff. "The entrance" when the guys arrived was sort of awkward... "hey..." (What else should I say...? :/ ) We had our pictures taken, of course and then all packed into the Maloy's van and headed over to the hotel. Had more pictures taken. Stood around. Took pictures. Sat around. Walked around. Finally got to go in! Sat and waited. The banquet was super fun. All ...

Today was a great day. :D My back is feeling better, as is my leg. Today was the last day CSO is going to Pan de Vida. Sad. :( But we had pizza and Fanta to celebrate a great time and everyone was pretty wired. XD A bunch of us were running around taking pictures of everything and everyone. And of course there was that one girl, as there always is, that did NOT want her picture taken and was going to do everything in her power to ensure that her picture was not taken. Which of course led to everyone trying to take her picture or help those with cameras to take her picture. I greeted and handed out fichas today, which I've done most days. And I put lids on the cartons at the end. Brady was in a crazy mood today, just like everyone else. He was singing some "chi chi wow wa" song or something... Sonia and me were teasing him about making it up. "No, it has nine verses or something like that!" "Wow, Brady, you made up NINE verses?" And then he and some oth...

Haha, just kidding. Sort of... Anyways... well, this weekend was a long weekend for Ecuador, too. We didn't go anywhere, but Nathan stayed with us. Translation: I had an older brother for the weekend. Complete with getting made fun of and getting beat up. What fun! :/ A Charlie Horse. He gave me a Charlie Horse! For no reason! It still hurts... :( On Monday we (Nate, Eli, DK and I) went shopping at another market type place. We rode the trolly there. Haha, before it left Eli said, "You're gonna go flying." I had nothing to hold onto... the trolly starts and I go flying... I grabbed Nate's arm and thank goodness DK was behind me. XD When we got there I got three pairs of earrings and a funky colored leather journal. Pretty sweet stuff. Today we had another BYOM. So awesome!!! Rick and Luke and Jones and a bunch of others were part of the group that performed at the end. They did a song from each of the decades Rick has lived through. Man, they...

I've been saying that a lot. Really high pitched. It has to be said high pitched. Examples of its usage: I love Toni! I love tacos! I love Combos! I love Mini Joes! Apparently I use it in reference to food quite a bit... heh, heh... Other things I've picked up here that I'm saying lots: "beast/beastly", "stud/studly/stud muffin", (in response to "Why?") "Why not?". I've also started making random noises randomly and my klutziness has increased immensely. Yep, Ecuador is rubbing off on me. I love Ecuador!!!

Went to Otavalo today - the major market town area of Ecuador... It was so fun! We started out at the market, which had jewelry, scarves, bags, paintings, doodads, thingamabobs and things of that sort. I got a few gifts for people. Got some jewelry for myself - a fun necklace, a necklace that matches my cow earrings, and a bracelet that matches my earrings for Jr Sr. It was cool seeing Aunt Cathy, Uncle Earl and Eli bargaining. And I actually understand some of it!!! Then we headed to leather town. Got a really awesome leather jacket and a really cute (not leather) purse. :) Then we went to wood town. There was some pretty cool carvings and such. Uncle Earl talked to one of the store owners who was working on a carving while we were in there. He was making some carvings out of cedar and orange tree wood. He said the carvings he was working on took about four days to complete. So shopping was so fun! As shopping always is when you find what you're looking for... :D

Spent the weekend at the beach. It was so awesome! I went boogie boarding for the first time and I loved it! It was so fun! We swam in the ocean tons. I thought my eyes might burn out of my head (salt water=not fun in the eyes), but other than that it was fantastic! We went out for a night on the town, drank batidos (kind of fruit smoothie-ish. Nate and Eli both had coconut ones and I had a banana one. Then we went to this other place that sold batidos five times as big. Nate and Eli shared another coconut one and I had an orange one that tasted more like grapefruit.), went shopping. I got some pretty fantastic earrings - one of them has cows on them. XD