Thanksgiving at the Beach

On Luke's birthday, we left school a little early and headed to the beach for Thanksgiving.  When we got to the beach, we had dinner and celebrated Luke's 12th birthday. 

This was the view from we were staying.  A huge thank you to the Brown family for sharing this condo with us.  We celebrated Thanksgiving together with fish, chicken nuggets, french fries, rice, salad, and pineapple juice.  That was a first for us but a super fun and delicious first! 

Let the fun begin!!  The weather was beautiful, the waves were fun, and the company was the best part.  Michaela (Mimi) and Molly have such a special bond.  Molly thinks Mimi is the greatest thing ever, and Mimi is so sweet and loving to Molly. 

Here are Josiah, Jordan, Luke and Alexa waiting for the perfect wave to ride.

Same is a beautiful beach in Ecuador where the water is warm and is only 5 hours away from Quito.  One of the highlights of the trip was when we walked down the beach to eat a late lunch and we could see kids playing with what looked like a dolphin, but we just knew it could not be real.  After all of our ridiculous theories, we asked the waiter and he told us that it is a real dolphin that comes up to play with the local kids.  By the time we tried to get out there, the dolphin swam back out to the ocean.  It did make me smile that these kids who are swimming in their underwear get to swim and play with a real dolphin.  What a sweet gift from God!

Another highlight was the pick up soccer game on the beach.  A group of students from Colombia asked us if we wanted to play a game.  I don't think they were expecting us to be much of a threat - they were wrong.  Yes, team gringo won.  Even though the Brown's may look gringo, Rich was born in Ecuador, Elisa was born in Argentina, and Michaela and Josiah were born in Peru. 

Casey played goalie and had written in the sand between the cups - Es mi casa!  Don't let Elisa fool you, she is a scrappy player who is not afraid to take the ball away from the other team. 

I took these pictures as I was loving on Molly who got hit in the ear by the ball, but I quickly returned to the game and managed to be the human wall and got nailed twice by the ball.  After the game we all cooled off in the ocean and enjoyed the big waves with our new friends. 

Happy Thanksgiving!  We greatly miss our family and friends in Texas, but we are so blessed to have wonderful friends here who are like our family.  We love you Brown family and are so thankful we get to share our lives with you!