This is the first part of a multi-part story of getting thrown out of Ecuador and our amazing race to leave the country in 7 days. Part 1 It is about 4 pm on a Friday…we arrived in Quito, Ecuador a few hours ago having made the journey from Cotacachi this morning. This is our...
View full post »
More than a year ago I was searching the web for stories of people that had embarked on a journey similar to the one we were contemplating. Stories of families selling all of their possessions, getting out of the rat race, simplifying their lives, and spending their time traveling to different parts of the world....
View full post »
Some may view our life as one without purpose or direction. We do not know what tomorrow will bring, or where we will sleep in a month, or what the next 40 years holds for us. It is a life currently without possessions or the encumbrances we have come to associate with success. We don’t...
View full post »
One of the reasons for deciding to spend some time traveling as a family was for all of us to learn more about different cultures. We believe it is important for our children to develop an understanding and respect for cultures outside of their own, and believe that there is much to learn traveling to...
View full post »
La Calera is a small village inhabited primarily by a local indigenous tribe, the Quechua. The town of Cotacachi Ecuador is surrounded by small villages like these, and is what gives the town its sense of culture and family. We have met several families from this village, and consider a couple of the families friends. ...
View full post »
As promised, I have posted the story and pictures of our visit this morning to a local school for their x-mas program. I took well over 400 photos, cut it down to around 120, and will cut them down again before I upload them to the web. I will post all of them on Flickr. ...
View full post »
Our x-mas this year will be a simple affair, both by design as well as circumstance. There is an overall design related to selling our stuff back home and changing our lifestyle, and a more specific design of a conscious effort to simply our lives…this certainly includes x-mas. Our circumstances this year put us in...
View full post »
Can you hear it? Silence…. IF you are sitting in a small Ecuadorian village in the Andes that is, if you are in the U.S. right about now (December 20th) you hear anything but silence. It is only 5 days until x-mas and we have not heard one radio or television ad marketing diamonds, the...
View full post »
Pop quiz time….what do Balloons and Toilet Paper have in common? Ok, that was a toughy…lets try this – What can Balloons and Toilet Paper teach us about sustainable living? It started a few weeks back when we needed 2 balloons for a science experiment Grant was conducting for his homeschooing. We set out one...
View full post »
We are often asked what we do with ourselves all day while we are living in Cotacachi. Both Gina and I feel a little guilty when we reply…oh, not much. Just spend time with the kids, homeschool in the morning and Spanish and Music lessons in the afternoons. We visit with friends, either stopping on...
View full post »
