Hangin' Around...

Sorry about the "feast or famine" on posting blog pictures, 

but I guess you'll have to take what you can get.

 I think about things I should post. 

I even take the pictures.

 It is the sitting down and getting it

 into the computer that is an issue. :) 

We got the hammocks hung!

A Waorani family was over the other day, 

and we learned the fine art of swinging double. 

Not the best pic, but the only one I took 

that shows both hammocks.

This one is upstairs.  

One of my favorite recent Dan pictures.

 Calmly reading...

OK. Back to reality. :)  

...and no, I can hardly think about doing that. :P

"Jungle Lunch"

The other day, we picnic lunched "Jungle Style".

 Because seriously, EVERYBODY should have a paper-plate plant in their yard. ;)

We didn't have a fruit tree to climb for dessert. 

Little oranges hung up tall were as good as I could do. :)

Life around here...

Um...Yeah. Reduce, Reuse, reCYCLE? 

The boys room finally got organized a bit!....They had decided it was too boring to each sleep in his own bed, and had been moving their sleeping bags to the floor. Instead of leaving the beds empty, 

Taylor pushed two of them together and they all pile on. Whatever. :)

 They delight in jumping out that big window and going biking before breakfast. :)

Part of the celebration for finishing the school term was
getting to "Camp Out" on the porch. 

Our dear friends the Bradberry's included us in a geography project where this paper man "visits" different places. We had fun taking him around with us and sending him on his way again. :)

 Daniel got this book from Gran-mom and has just about memorized it. It had a recipe in the back for gingerbread men, which he had been hounding me to let him try. After putting him off because ground ginger is not available locally, we finally got brave and researched how to substitute fresh ginger in baking. :)

 They were really fun!
 (...and almost all eaten before I remembered I should take a picture.)

Noah the chicken farmer. :)

...and just because that last picture makes him look WAY too grown up.

Love, the Hollingsworths <><

Crash & Burn

I have two short stories to relate. The first is about a crash, and the second is about something burning.

The Crash
Many of you who keep up with us will know about Ariel. Something that you may or may not know is that he REALLY likes bicycles. In fact, he spends more of his free time and money on his bike than anything else. The bike that he has now is one that he bought from me, but over the last several weeks it has had various issues that needed repair. Most recently, while jumping his bike off a one foot high incline, the rear gear shift got completely demolished - somehow the chain got stuck between the gears and the wheel and bent the gear shift; almost tearing it off. So Ariel spent the next few days working and earning some money. During this time, he and our boys "found" some spare wood and built a ramp...this was no small ramp either! After finally getting his bike in smooth working order he wanted to try out the ramp...note here, that Nate thought the ramp made a nice slide. So before going to the young people's meeting Saturday night, Ariel set the ramp up and several neighborhood kids poked their heads out their windows to watch the amazing jump. Ariel hit the ramp and went flying several feet up in the air, but his front tire hit the ground first with Ariel's head hitting next! Thanks to Levi for running to get the helmet prior to the jump! After the bike and Ariel rolled on the ground, he gets up checking himself and repeating, "I'm fine. I'm fine" (yes, in English). He walks over a few meters to me and we look down at his left wrist and arm and I ask him if he can move his fingers. He shakes his head no, so we rush off to the hospital. After two and a half hours, the doctors have a temporary cast on (the full casting to be done on Monday morning), and we return home.

Yes, Ariel arrived at the hospital with this helmet and he left the hospital with this helmet. 

The Burn
Lord's Day morning we sat together as a family enjoying the morning services, and then an older Waorani lady comes to sit down next to me. I quickly smell the all familiar scent of "smoke" on her and her clothing, then a subtle smile creeps on my face. I lean over and whisper my findings to Alesha who also reveals a smile. The smoke smell is likely not what many would expect; it is the smell of campfire smoke. Having been to Makuma and learning some of the ways of the indigenous, we can appreciate her unique scent:

This lady likely rose up early and kindled or rekindled the fire from the night before and started to heat up breakfast for herself and her family. The breakfast consisted of some hot herbal tea to drink and yucca and potatoes and maybe some rice to eat. We should also make note, that this fire is not large enough to heat up multiple things at once, so she spent a significant amount of time juggling the various pots to keep them warm as the family came in to eat at varying times. Once all the food was gone and the dishes clean, she quickly made her way to the meeting, and since it was a cool morning she kept her jacket on which held the most potent smell of smoke. 

Therefore, we had to smile and enjoy a brief moment the campfire smoke smell and all the work and joy that came with it. I did end up talking with the lady after the meetings, but since she only spoke Wao, the conversation was enjoyable, emotional, and short-lived.

Enjoy!
TaylorH

We're back on line!

God is good! We are moved over to the new house and even on line, which means that as of this morning, Taylor is working from here. Also, the part for the refrigerator that went out two days before we started moving (a week ago) arrived and was put in today!!! Yeah!

I didn't unpack...or paint...ANYTHING today. Not that we are finished with either, but it was fun to do some "normal" life stuff, like laundry, cooking, toddler training...you know, actually living here. While I was at it, I took a bunch of pictures. Some of you are happy for us, but could care less what the house looks like. If this is you, just skim on down to the bottom of this post. :P For anybody else, here is the guided tour. :D

 One of the things we really like about this lot is that there is a wall around it, 

meaning that the smaller kids have a safe place to play outside. 

 The house is surrounded by this black gravel for now...
someday we want to put down something 

softer to play on, but for now, we are glad it isn't concrete.

 There is, however, several garden spaces, including this big covered front garden. (Yes, it seems wrong that you can put a greenhouse roof on a garden and it still get enough water...but apparently you can. )

 The front porch, and our little dog who is very happy to not be living on a chain.

 Taylor and Noah, trying not to trip on the dog getting out of the house. :)

 The living room, err, moving box stack...and a cute door opener who didn't want to smile. 

 Turning around in the living room, you see the dining room, (and the loft above you)

 ...a bathroom and the kitchen

 more kitchen space, and the stairs

 If you would have walked through the dining room, you would come to this point of decision...a big hall closet on the right, the Boys' room (still it too much disorder to be very photo worthy), Glory's room straight ahead, and the back door out to the laundry area on the left (also better left undocumented. ;).

 There is another bath room attached to the boys room.

 Glory in her room. With a Closet!!! (not necessarily a given in Ecuadorian houses)

 OK...back to the main part of the house. Up the stairs...to the loft (school room, library, what-have-you)

 "Floor-to-ceiling bookcase"??? :P

Looking the other way in the loft, out to the balcony...

 ....otherwise known as the Noah-free Lego zone. :)

Walking through the loft into our room. Taylor has to duck through the very little doorway, and watch for rafters, but he loves me and let me keep the cool room anyway. :)

 For now, Noah has a corner in our room. 

Also attached to our room is a small (think large travel trailer sized) bathroom, and Taylor's office.

 That desk is staying with the house. 

It is by God's mercy we didn't drop it on my husband's head trying to get it upstairs.

 One thing Taylor learned from my Daddy; if you're gonna build something, go ahead and build it sturdy. ;) 

We are looking forward to getting back into regular life a bit. Between moving, and many of our friends being gone to help put on a camp in the jungle, we've felt pretty disconnected with normal goings on. Now that we're back in the game, at least for the most part, pray with us that what we do, be for God's glory! 

a little bit of life...

I'll try to write more later, but to prove we haven't fallen off the end of the earth, here are some kid pics of our pre-Christmas, December happenings! 

A friend of mine invited us out to eat

 fresh-caught, farm-raised tilapia with her family.

Glory is holding the ready to grill packets of fish. 

Nate and his dinner.

...my always-serious husband.

 I was so wowed to see all 4 of our boys still at the same moment

 that I ran to get the camera...

 yup...it lasted for the length of time it took to snap ONE picture,

 before normalcy took over. ;)

 Glory has really been working hard to learn to play the guitar.

 It has become very pleasant to hear her practice.

 Sorry this one's blurry...but I still like it.

 (if you can't tell, he's walking the Nativity Scene people around on the roof.)

Life continues...

In honor of lots happening around here (and my computer getting worked on so that I can blog more easily)...here is an update of what life has been like in our corner of the world!

Dan Courage turned 5!  His gift from us was a little green parakeet, who has since been named Kiwi. After two or three weeks of practice, Dan can now get him to sit on his finger! (still inside the cage). Dan is our boy who delights in holding little animals...baby chickens, snails, and earthworms are particular favorites. :) He says that Kiwi is still "learning to be his friend" and wants to get him finger trained enough to be able to take him out of the cage.

Glory Lynn is now a nine year old!!!! Now, you have to understand, Taylor has been looking forward to Glory being nine ever since she was born. He loves his little-bitties dearly, but there is a level of maturity and logic that happens around when a kid turns nine...they join his world a little bit more. Her present from us, (apart from a new paint job on her old bike) is that she no longer has to go to bed with the boys. Within reason, she can stay up and read /craft, etc. with the big people. :)

Friends: Monika is still living in our downstairs apartment and working for us, so she is a friendly face we get to interact with on a daily basis. Ever since going to the jungle with her extended family, we have also gotten the opportunity to know her brother and his wife a little bit. Taylor and the boys went fishing with them a week or so back. Later we were invited to eat with them. I'm so glad my kids have gotten used to being handed a whole grilled fish to eat with their fingers...they don't even bat an eye. ;)


 Ariel is still a good friend and comes over either to visit or to work for Taylor often. He is missed if he doesn't come for a few days. :)






Sala Kairos:

Our downstairs study room is up and running! Or at least started finally! We're open downstairsTuesday and Thursday afternoons, though since we have Monika working for us down there, we do not have to be down there non-stop. Taylor set up a wireless doorbell so that we could know if we were needed without much hassle. It was really good to have our first few students to tutor this week...Taylor had lots of fun helping with math and physics, and two people came the other day to practice English.
(OK, one of them was Ariel, who perhaps doesn't count, but he was invaluable in not making the other student feel completely out of his comfort zone reading for the scary gringo lady. :) I have not taken any pictures while things are going on downstairs, so you'll have to use your imagination. :)

School: We are really enjoying homeschooling this year! Since we school year round (meaning that we school if we are here at home and don't if we aren't. ;), our school year doesn't switch over at the "proper" time of year. We do have a schedule, and we do level up to the next grade, it just doesn't happen in September, necesarily. That being the case, Glory is continuing 3rd grade; Levi is in 1st. Dan is learning how to read and write. Nate is learning how to play by himself until it's time for Mama to read him a book or Dan is ready to play outside with him. We hope Noah sleeps through most of it. ;)

call it woodshop??? He's helping Papa sand. :P

...big brave boy. blowing bubbles. biking backwards :)