School Daze

We are slowly establishing our school routines.  Sammy has been in school for 2 1/2 weeks and Nathan started last week.  Samuel goes to Nate Saint Memorial School.  This school was started over 40 years ago so that parents serving as missionaries in Shell wouldn’t have to send their children to school in Quito.  It was a dream of Nate Saint, missionary pilot and one of the five men killed by the Huaorani in this area in 1956., to have a school here to avoid this separation of families.  The school is K-8, although this year the oldest student is in 5th grade.  Typically there are 30-40 students, although this year there are around 15 since the older grades are absent.  Many families have children similar to our in age, so in the upcoming years, the enrollment will increase as Nathan, Josiah and Isaac and their friends start school.

Sammy’s class is a combined first and second grade class with 4 boys and 3 girls.  He comes home for lunch every day except Fridays and it’s fun to see him in the middle of the day.  The school is a 10 minute walk or 5 minute drive from our house.  The curriculum is American and everything is in English except Spanish class.  Sammy loves everything about school and in spite of being a bookworm, will tell you that his favorite thing is P.E. which all the students at the school do together.

Nathan is going to a preschool that was started last year by one of the missionaries.  There are twelve 4-5 year-olds, several from the orphanage that is located in Shell.  This school is also in English with a part of each day set aside for learning some Spanish words.  He has enjoyed the first week and the only drawback we can see is that Josiah misses his older brothers and wants to go to school as well.  Although Nathan likes doing crafts and activities, his favorite part of the day is recess time!

See our photo gallery for pictures of all four boys from 0-2 weeks of age and guess who is who!  You can post your answers here (they won’t show up on the site right away) and we will have a prize for the winner!  One clue – each row includes a picture of each baby boy.  Just so you know, we might have a hard time getting them all right ourselves if we didn’t know the pictures and backgrounds!

THE WINNER IS AUNT JANICE (KIM’S COLLEGE ROOMMATE) WHO GOT ALL 16!  I realized I got a little carried away putting 16 pictures of our 4 newborns up, but there were so many cute ones!  The amazing thing is that Aunt Janice lived in NYC and has not seen our boys at this age except in pictures.  The runner-up was Maw-Maw and Pop who got 14 right.

Dear friends and family:

We are excited and grateful to the Lord to announce the arrival of Isaac James Barton!  He was born yesterday, August 12th, at 4:20pm weighing 8 pounds 1 ounce and was 20.5 inches long.  Mom and baby are doing great and plan to come home this afternoon.  His name comes from a short list his mom and and I compiled over the last few days.  We settled on 3 but decided we needed to see him to make the final decision.  When I held him for the first time I thought out loud “He looks like an Isaac”.  Later Kim confirmed that she was thinking the same thing when I said that earlier.  When Sammy met him, he also said Isaac was his number one choice so that set it.  The name James is in honor of Kim’s father.

Thanks to you all for your continued prayers.  We thank God for the uneventful delivery.  To Him be the glory!  Please see some more of the pictures of our little one in our photo gallery on this site.  Blessings to all.

When we stop and look at any of our children, we have the sense that time is passing much too rapidly.  However, this is especially true with our (not so) little Sammy!  Has it been 8 years since we started thinking about starting a family, then wondering if it would ever happen!  Can it really be six years ago that we started this wonderful, challenging and exciting journey as parents?  He was born on his great-grandmother’s birthday and she and all four grandparents were on hand at almost two in the morning to welcome him!  Two years ago we visited Ecuador for the first time just after Samuel’s birthday and last year we finished our training in New York City and celebrated his birthday with a trip to Mars (but only for dinner) and then to Connecticut and Vermont.

Samuel has matured so much in this past year.  In June he graduated from Kindergarten, which he loved.  We celebrated his birthday early so he could have a party with his school class in Quito.  Check the photos soon for these events.  He really adapted well to the major changes in our lives last year and is always ready for an adventure.  Now with our newest move to Shell, he has made friends and adjusted to “jungle life” rapidly.  He learned quite a bit of Spanish in Kindergarten and is always willing to use it.  He loves to read and I laugh to look at the back seat of the car to see his brothers carrying on loudly about something while he sits there and reads.  Not unlike his mother (and from what I understand, his grandmother and great-grandmother!)  Paul gave him his first real lego set for his birthday and the two of them have enjoyed putting together the different options in the kit.  When Paul is at work, Sammy does quite well at following the directions by himself.  He also loves music and drama and time will tell if this is an interest or a talent.  We delight to see his personality and gifts develop, but most of all, we are proud of his developing character.  He loves his brothers and helps out in many ways with Josiah, especially.  He is excited about the new brother due any day now.  We see his faith developing as we listen to his prayers and comments on Bible time.  As his name means, he continues to be an answer to our prayers and a great blessing to our growing family.

Gracias a Dios, we made it to Shell safely and our boxes are now unpacked and we are mostly moved in!  We were met with great pomp and circumstance upon our arrival complete with a cook-out and fireworks in our back yard!  Really it was the Shell community 4th of July dinner that met in the pavilion across the street from our house.  We arrived in Quito on July 2nd around midnight.  The following day we spend running errands and, at 6pm, we began to pack the moving truck.  We had purchased several items from other missionaries who live around Quito and had some trunks stashed in yet another home.  Thus, a simple pack and move became a gathering of piles of stuff at 5 different places around town!  The following day we readied our car and drove the 5 hour trek to Shell in time to enjoy the 4th of July party.  We are thankful for an uneventful trip to our new home.  Our moving truck arrived the next day and filled our house with piles of boxes and trunks.

Over the past 3 weeks I have been on call about 1/2 of the time where I have shared the work load with my colleague Dr. German Suarez.  I have done about 10 cases to date.  This is a bit light but I’m thankful for the extra time to get settled into things here and move into the house.

As you can see from our photos we have quite a bit of scenery right out of our windows!  Samuel and I have visited a local “casa de arbol” or tree house which is like the Swiss Family Robinson tree house on steroids.  Atop it’s 12th floor balcony that peeks out over the surrounding jungle canopy, we enjoyed a great view of our local community!

Kim is doing remarkably well and adjusting to life here as well as to being 8 months pregnant with our 4th boy!    She however, does not have the diversion  with work to get her some “professional” time away from the house and kids.   She is making friends here, mainly other missionaries.  Recently, our baby has moved to a head down position so we are anticipating a normal delivery.  Please continue to pray for us as the birth date approaches and our continued transition to life here!   More to come and check out our recent pictures from here on this site!

Josiah should be the child that keeps us on our toes.  He does his best, but we must be worn down by the other two and persist in believing that a quiet toddler is a good thing.  Thus, we come on situations like the picture shown.  Josiah’s response?  “Eggs, Mama?”  He is teaching us the meaning of the Spanish word “travieso.”  He celebrated his second birthday recently during a visit from Maw-Maw and Pop.  It was very special to have them here.  See the photo album for pictures.  Our little two-year-old is full of contradictions.  One minute he is all snuggles and smiles and the next minute he is a pint-sized picture of adolecent independence!  In other words – a completely normal toddler.  He talks up a storm and we can’t remember what is was like before he could talk.  At dinner time we all talk about our best and worst parts of the day and he chimes in with his own random answers.  “Best thing was the balloon,” as he catches sight of a leftover birthday balloon.  He adores his big brothers as long as they let him play with their toys.  It never occurs to him that he is too small or young to do some of the things that they do.  Josiah may have the best Spanish of all of us – at least in comprehension.  It’s hard for us to know because he doesn’t use it with us, but he seems to understand the ladies that took care of him while we were at language school and the other day asked one of them “Que estas haciendo?”  Literally, “what are you doing?”  Most of all, we love his smiles and giggles which are the best therepy for packing woes.  We are glad that Josiah will get a chance to connect with his cousins in our upcoming vacation, since he was a little young to remember them from last fall.  We look forward to seeing him grow with the changes the summer brings.  After our move to Shell, he will have the entire hospital compound outside his door to run around and play.  And in August, he will have his own baby brother to love, adore and torment!  We are so thankful for our little rascal!

Seems like I am always fixing things or being fixed…uh, that is, having work done on me…uh,… for example: this week has been punctuated by the recurrence of an infection in a problematic molar.  Thursday I spent several hours in the dentist’s chair where they hopefully removed it all.  I feel much better and am recovering fine and hope to have the stitches out soon.  Thanks to those who helped and advised me through this.  Your prayers would be appreciated! 

As far as things that I’m continually fixing, most notable lately is that there seems to be some form of vermin that keeps eating vital parts of our car.  First it was the wire to the engine temperature sensor rendering the car unable to start.  Thankfully the wire was right on top of the engine and when spliced together it runs as good as new.  Then, today I tried to wash the windshield.  I could hear the pump spinning but no water was shot onto the windshield.  Under the hood again I found more teeth marks where something had chewed through the hose that carries the water to the nozzles.  Guess we need a cat! 

Josiah recently, with gusto, inserted a VHS tape into the VCR backwards and upside down.  Needless to say it broke the eject mechanism.  Thanfully  was able to repair it one night with the help of a 16 penny nail and some super glue.  Good as new!  Sparing you the many details of other fixes, I will list them as best I can remember:  the car CD player, car overdrive switch, many furniture items and toys, master bedroom light fixture, kitchen cabinet door, and the list goes on!  Other things that broke and I had fixed include the computer power supply, 2 of my 3 pairs of glasses (all in one week!), battery cables of the borrowed car we used when we first arrived, etc.

Through it all I have learned that the tyranny of the urgent and the joys of working with my hands definitely can drag me away from spending adequate time developing my spiritual walk with the Lord as well as time with family.  I must make a conscious effort to not allow fix-it jobs distract me from what is really important!      

On a positive note, I also just finished building a custom roof rack that will hold six of our trunks in preparation for our move to Shell.  Our car now looks like we are ready for a safari.  See the pictures on this site in our photo gallery. 

Fnally, as you can see by the lack of some letters n ths sentance,  need to replace the eyboard n our laptop (the repar would be $130 at the Dell shop here but on only $25 for the part on ebay and my labor s cheap!)

This past weekend Paul and I successfully recreated Cheesecake Factory’s Thai Lettuce Wraps!  We were so excited to be able to make a favorite eating-out treat thousands of miles from the nearest restaurant.  Ecuadorian food is quite good and varies by region – coastal, highlands or jungle.  Rice is a staple and potatoes are often used in the mountain regions.  One of our favorite sides is potato “tortillas” or pancakes called lapingachos.  This is often served with small pieces of beef in a thin gravy and beets on the side.  We’ve learned to pass on the beets and have a tomato, onion and cilantro salad that resembles pico de gallo.  We have international options here as well -  good Asian, Italian and Mexican food.  We haven’t found anything that qualifies as “Tex-Mex” however.  We were surprised to be served “fajitas” with a mustard sauce a few weeks ago!  Paul is working on developing his own beef fajita recipe, experimenting with different cuts of meat.  We have found American style burgers here; one place imports rootbeer syrup from the U.S.  It’s probably the only place in the country that serves rootbeer floats!  We live in close proximity to Pizza Hut, Papa John’s and Domino’s and of course, they all deliver!  Interestingly, these fast food places aren’t a bargain here since their prices don’t differ that much from what we’re used to.  In a city where it’s easy to find a 3 course lunch for $1-2 and $10 can be a day’s wages, pizza is a special, expensive meal.  Just in case you’re wondering, no, we haven’t tried guinea pig yet – we’ll keep you posted!

As parents, we are constantly tempted to write about our amazing kids, but we try not to over-do it. This weekend we celebrated Nathan’s fourth birthday and I want to take this opportunity to write about him. You can see pictures of the Cars party in the photo gallery. Nathan is all little boy and always has been. He is the one most interested in flying model airplanes with Paul and loves sports, cars, trains, you name it! He is, as they say, “very active” and we predict is most likely of our boys to be an athlete. He also has a sweet, sensitive side. Every morning and night he talks to my belly to say “Hello” or “Good night” to the baby. Sometimes during a family bowling game he will suddenly get sad because he can’t roll the ball as fast as the rest of us. However, he is quite a good bowler for his age and size. We are very proud of the way Nathan has adjusted to all the changes in the past six months. It has not been easy for him and he misses Dallas and his best bud, cousin Silas, the most. He goes to a Spanish pre-school and has just started to put words together in Spanish – or so his teacher tells us. We don’t get to hear his Spanish very often! We hope our upcoming transition to Shell will be good for him. There will be more space and warmer weather for running around! Happy birthday our precious Nathan!

As we wrote in our last e-mail update, this has been a very unusual rainy season for Ecuador.  It hadn’t affected us as much here in Quito except for cloudy rainy days until the beginning of ths month.  The excess rain water caused a drain pipe to burst under a cloverleaf connection of several main highways which in turn resulted in a huge crater in the highway.  Fortunately no one was hurt.  The minister of education closed schools for two days and although schools are back in session, it will be months before the hole is repaired and traffic patterns are back to normal.