It's fun to have fun, but you have to know how.

So, I last left you all on the afternoon of December the 19th. This is what happened next: From about the time of 4pm to approximately 7pm, I sat perfectly still while my sister and my uncle attempted to paint portraits of me. Everything is a race with these two, and they wanted to prove who had the best art 'skills.' Unfotrunately, I didn't realize that this project would take 3 hours before I agreed to it, and I ended up getting quite the crick in my neck (for some reason, me tilting my head was imperative to the contest). (It is also hard to drink beer in that position.) During this time, Ashley and Esmil went to some kind of political dinner in Pifo, which I am pretty sure turned into a dance party thanks to Ashley. There are few things cuter than tiny old Andean women drinking and dancing. Uncle Matt left to go scoop up my mom and dad in Quito, so Cath and I watched Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (one of my dad's favorite movies, third only to the Diehards and the LOTRs). Finally around midnight, the family was reunited. We laughed about memories past and drank beer until about 4am. I didn't know that my mom could stay up past 730pm. Impressive.

The next morning was Sunday- market day. We went up to the Pifo market and had some hornado for breakfast (I am a bad vegetarian in Ecuador) and bought all sorts of crazy fruits. We then started the day's festivities. Although Uncle Matt's birthday was yesterday, we thought that it would be more of a surprise and slightly more fun if we did it on Sunday instead, so we baked a Dr. Suess cake and decorated the house with balloons and whatnot. Catherine had a meltdown when her limbs went numb due to the combination of a spider bite, low oxygen content, and her anxiety problems (it runs in the family). Due to her incapacitation, Ashley and I had to make the frosting for the cake and it ended up looking like pink ink. We had a bbq and cooked up some cangrejos and made some delish papa salad. We also brought out the reggaeton, because let's face it, Pifo isn't Pifo without the thumping sounds of Gasolina. I also whipped out my wonderful Pitu kit given to me by the ever lovely Paulinha, and of course that was a hit! Caipirinhas in the Andes, what a wonderful day. After the breaking of the piñata, we then moved onward with everyone's favorite holiday tradition: 'Faye's Christmas.' "Dust dust dust dust dust dust dust." "1,2,3, limes. How much do limes cost? 3 dimes." "Grapes come from France." What a quoteable movie. And for those of you that aren't yet fortunate enough to have experienced 'Faye's Christmas,' it is a 20 minute long movie about the 12 days of Christmas acted out by weimereiners. Nuff said. We finished up the evening with a little of the aforementioned cake and due to the previous night's hurrahs, everyone went to bed at about 7pm. That is except, of course, for Ashley and I becasue hello- you can sleep when you're dead.

So, we cracked open a few more Pilseners and started to plot out our near future adventures. Not long after our plotting started up, however, we heard a rather loud domestic disturbance out in the alley behind the house. So, we did what any rational people would do and we brought our beers up to the the top of the roof to observe the goings ons in order to determine if we would have to step in and beat up the unreasonably loud and exceptionally short Ecuadorian man. (The dogs and the pigs of the neighborhood were not happy about the yelling in the street, and made this unhappiness quite clear. There is nothing worse than the sound of an angry pig. Ear-wrenching.) Luckily, I didn't have to go down and use my newly custom made Alex-spear to break up the fight because someone came along and brought the girl to safety. But, the young man did proceed to yell into the night for a good 45 more minutes. The pigs and the dogs remained unhappy. After a while it started to rain, so we decided to go back inside. However, that proved to be impossible because somebody had locked us out. We were not ready to sleep (it was only about 8:30 at this point), so we sat in the shop with Argo Argo and Luna and drank more Pilseners (thank the stars that they are kept outside) and had one of our good old fashioned heart to hearts. This heart to heart included us talking about blogging about having a heart to heart. Eventually, we went into the casita and I crawled into my top bunk with a bat and a tarantula next to my head while Ashley fell alseep down below next to Cath in the bat-free beds.

Yesterday we woke up and had another country breakfast. Even Cath the Vegan ate an egg, but only because it came from a "happy chicken." My mom is now feeding the chickens extra corn in order to keep them happy. We then took a family outing to Tumbaco to go to Supermaxi, because my dad's all time favorite extracurricular activity is grocery shopping. So, we hopped into the back of the truck and rode into town. Riding in the back of the truck is almost as fun as riding moto-taxis. We stocked up on goodies including diet coke and nachos (things we have been craving for a month) and made our way back home. Yesterday was Uncle Matt's real birthday, so we spent most of the day hanging around the backyard drinking and eating and having some quality family dog time. Ashley held her own quite nicely with our crazily neurotic and psychotic, yet pleasantly charming and witty family (as I knew she would). She really is a "lifer."

Today, Ash went off to Otavalo to meet up with another friend that also just so happens to be in the equatorial region of the Andes. We decided that she needs to explore this beautiful country that is new to her and that I need to hang out with my wonderful family that I never get to see, but it was quite sad to part ways as we haven't been apart in over a month. We will meet up again soon enough to trek through Peru though, so at least we have that to hold on to. In the latter part of the morning, the whole fam took a drive up to the pass and in order to experience some gorgeous views of the ancient Incan Trail, some wild goats, a few llamas, some sheep, a field of horses, a couple strangely colored cows, and about 7 rabbits. Many birds were also present. It was a crazy-fun ride in the back of the semi, and the scenery was simply breathtaking. Plus, we all looked quite cute with our makeshift hats. We just made a couple of pizzas and now everyone is taking a nap. You tend to get tired out when you breathe only half as much oxygen as you are used to.