A Weekend with the Girls

 Well the chicas came and are gone now. We had so much fun while they were here! The first night we got some pizza for dinner which was delicious! And then we headed to the beach off of the main square in Puerto Lopez. It was Kaitlyn's first time swimming in the ocean!!! It was so adorable seeing her reaction. I did not get it recorded. But I'm sure they will be documenting it on their blog manzanameansapple.blogspot.com.
 Friday we all had planned on going for a hike to the sulphur springs in Agua Blanca, but the heat was too intense. So we headed off to Piqueros instead for a nice easy day at the beach. Everyone tested out the mud bath, mostly voluntarily. I didn't get any pictures of that. I'm counting on you girls for the photographic evidence for that experience as well. I have found out that the beach prices are much higher than inland. So I'm really excited about visiting Cuenca and being able to get more for less :)

 We went out in service on Saturday. Sadly this was the only photo taken. Ari was trying to steal my boyfriend Jonathan. It wont work though, we have a deeper connection, lol, jkkk! Ari got a couple return visits for Kel. And Ashley got one for me! Thanks girls! I got to make my first return visit that day with Kaitlyn. It was so exciting!
 After service we headed back to the house in Machalilla and studied for the meeting and hung out on the beach a little bit. Ari and Kaitlyn got to have their first bucket showers! I'm so proud :') haha.Then we went to the meeting. Everyone did an amazing job of participating at the meeting! I was so proud of everyone at that point :)

  Then we all went to Puerto Cayo! There's a family from Australia out of town that let us use their house for the weekend. The house was very spacious! We counted at least 7 bathrooms! There was at least one for each room. Everyone is so hospitable here. It never ceases to amaze me how awesome Jehovah's organization is. And we were directly on the beach much to everyones great joy. Courtz went ahead and had a restaurant stay open for us when we arrived and everyone that likes seafood got "Encocado Camaron or Pescado". It is so delicious!!! And I'm totally in love with Patacones. They are fried plantains. Salted and dunked in "Tomato Sauce" aka ketchup they are super fantastic.

  I do believe that the highlight for me was when we all got to ride on this truck to get to the beach house. There will be video on youtube, lol. I am so easily entertained ;)

The following day we all baked on the beach. It was so beautiful being on the beach. Puerto Cayo is even more aesthetically pleasing than Machalilla or Puerto Lopez to me. I loved it there! We went to a restaurant owned by a brother from Canada called "Con Coco". That was some of the best food I've had here. He had a trampoline in the front yard. So we had to play popcorn. Me, Ashley, and Allison were unpoppable! We suffered through some unbelievably awkward moments to keep hanging on though... lol.

 Then we headed down to see the sunset. It was absolutely gorgeous! And not only did we have a sunset, but we also had a full moon! It totally took my breath away. It was uncontrollable the thanks I gave to Jehovah for his wonderful creation.

 We got to swim in the water for a couple more hours. There was so much light from the street lamps and the moon that we could see just fine. Unlike the last time me and Kel tried to swim at night and we couldn't see anything!
 On our way back home we accidentally crashed a going away party. It just so happened to be for the brother that owned the restaurant we had gone to, Pedro. Everyone was playing a very interesting game called "Estrellas", aka "Stars". It looked like it was a lot of fun. Ashley, Ari, Allison, and Stephanie were all brave and played. Me Kel and Kaitlyn stayed on the sidelines and just watched. We were all sunburned, among other things. But I would definitely like to play it under different circumstances. It's like dodge ball on steroids! There were two teams. One team was trying to flip over all the bottle caps on the ground, while the other team was trying to hit the opposing team so that they were out and not able to flip the bottle caps. There were extra rules and such that I could not pick up on. All I got was that you weren't allowed to hit the ball into the street (which didn't stop some from doing that anyway) and you couldn't run with the ball.

 So today we all got up and gathered our things. The girls left. Then after me, Courtz, and Kel watched "A Walk in the Clouds" we finished cleaning. The girls had done almost all of it before they left. So it was super easy to finish. Gracias chicas!
\And now here I am. Totally tuckered out and ready to sleep for a couple of days.