Two months!!!????

I knew it had been a while since I posted, but I am shocked to see that it has been two months!
Sorry family.....I know we said we would try to post at least once a week, and we will try to do better in the future.
Ok now....let's see if I can give you the short version of the past two months...........
We are getting settled into our apartment and furnishing our new home with the "essentials'.
Sometimes it is hard to remember our goal of keeping life simple. I am getting into the habit of asking myself  do you "need" this or do you just "want" this? It's not that we are denying ourselves anything, but life is a lot simpler now. The memory of all the "STUFF" we disposed of when we left Canada will always be with me.
Speaking of which......we received the two trunks of things from home that we had sent to us. It was like Christmas! I am so glad that we chose to ship these. It was not cheap, but having my sewing machine and Doug's power tools, and a few personal things, like pictures, and a good set of kitchen knives and quality bedding......I would do it again..
.....
Other than setting up the household, we have been getting acquainted with Ecuadorian life. We now have a Doctor and a Dentist. I  have a hair dresser.
Doug has had a great experience with the dentist. He has a new set of dentures and they are very nice.
They were 1/3 of the price that he would have paid at home.
My experience was not so great. I was going to get dental implants, but after the surgeon cut into my gums, they discovered a thin spot on the bone  (that did not show up on the CT scan), and the implant could not be installed. Lucky me......I got to have the surgery, but didn't get to have the implant!
So now, back to the drawing board to see what we can do to fix my missing teeth.......

Doug has lost at least 25 pounds. This, inspite of the fact that he visits the local panaderia (bakery) every day. It was very easy to get used to not having a car. We walk distances on a daily basis that we would never have considered walking once a month when we lived in Canada.

We go to Spanish classes twice a week and are actually starting to understand some of what is being said to us!
We've made some friends and have had started exploring areas outside of the city.
For Doug's birthday, we went up into the Andes mountains to a small village and had a great experience. I will post pics and a bit about that on another blog.

Here is a pic of our dining room furniture.

 

Our purple living room furniture.

 

Our bedroom...complete with the first set of curtains I have ever made!

 

 

This shot was taken from our balcony with a telephoto lens. I love that we can see the domes of the Cathredral from our place.

 

I promise to post more often.

 

Life is good!