House Tour!!

I know this may be a little delayed, but I finally have pictures of our host family and house that I can post!  All of us girls that came to Ecuador through the Early Childhood program at Whitewater live in the same general neighborhood.  Laura (my roomie) and I have the longest walk compared to everyone else.  It’s kind of a bummer, but the house we live in is beautiful!  Not to mention that our family is amazing as well!  We have truly been blessed!

First, I thought I would tell ya a little bit about our host family!  I’m pretty sure that I mentioned just a few basic things about them in one of my first blogs.  We have two parents who live at home with us.  Our Dad is an engineer and stays busy with work everyday.  The only time that we really see him is super early in the morning and late at night.  Our Mom is the biggest sweetheart in the world!  She is a stay at home mom and does a wonderful job taking care of the house.  Laura and I have three siblings and two of them live at home.  Carlos is our brother who is 19.  He is studying to be a doctor at the University of Cuenca.  Christina is our 18 year old sister who doesn’t live at home.  She is currently attending a University in the capitol of Ecuador, which is Quito.  Lastly, we have Maria Rosa and she is our youngest sister who lives at home.  Maria Rosa is 9 years old and she goes to a grade school in el centro de Cuenca.  El centro de Cuenca is the term that they use here for the downtown area which is located in the middle of Cuenca.  Maria Rosa loves to hang out with Laura and I.  On a daily basis she asks us to play Uno, which has been fun!  We also do our best to help her with her English homework!  She has been teaching me a lot of basic Spanish vocabulary and laughs often when I call different items the wrong name!    

Overall, our family is great!  We actually had the chance to meet our sister who goes to school in Quito over the Cuenca Holiday.  She came home for about 4 days.  We had the opportunity to hang out with her a little bit, but she was busy with friends…which was no surprise to us.  I wish she lived here though…she was so much fun! 



*From the left...Dad, Maria Rosa, Mom, Carlos, Christina*

 Oh yes, and I can’t forget that we have a dog and a cat as well.  The dog’s name is Poncho and he is an outside dog.  He runs free during the day and then sleeps in the garage during the night; I guess you could say that he just comes and goes as he pleases.  The cat was in the house before I moved in.  I’m allergic to cats, but I usually don’t have any reactions to them unless I touch them.  Well, this cat has a ton of hair and I was having major sneezing attacks at the beginning of my stay so we had to ask the family to keep the cat outside.  They were totally fine with this, but oh my goodness this cat cries like a baby.  I recorded it on my camera…you will all laugh so hard when you hear the crazy noises it makes!

Poncho

Matilde

 Our house is located on the top of a hill; therefore each day we have a steep road that we have to walk up and then a bunch stairs.  This doesn’t sound too terrible, right?  We didn’t think so either or we at least thought that we would be in shape by this point in our trip…but no we still breath hard every time we walk up this way.  It’s all worth it though because the view from our bedroom it amazing!  We can practically see the majority of Cuenca with all of the mountains that surround the city!  At night it even looks neat because of all the lights and whatnot.

This is a view from the top of the stairs!

 

Alright, time for a house tour!  There should be a description beneath each picture to describe what part of the house it is!  Here we go…
 

~A view of our house from the outside~

~Living room - this room is a quiet room the house &
our family doesn't seem to spend much time here...I
really like to do homework in this room~



~Dining room - we don't eat at this table, but our dad does
a lot of his "office" or computer work here~



~Kitchen ~ just like any kitchen in the states, this is where we
eat most of our meals...there are usually dishes all over
the place, partically because a lof of the food that's
made takes quite a bit of preparation~



~Laundry room - this little room is right off of the
kitchen...our family does have both a washer
& dryer; most families in Ecuador either have
just a washer or nothing at all...our family is a
little less traditional than most families~



~Family room - this is the first room at the top of the stairs; our
brother & sister who live at home with us tend to be in this
room most of the time~



~Parent's bedroom - this room is right next to the family room;
we have found that the whole famlily spends a lot of time in
here together, which is quite different from what we're used
to at home!~



~Our brothers bedroom - down the hall from the
family room is where the rest of the bedrooms are
located~



~Our litte sister's bedroom - she has a lot of toys in
her room and loves the color pink!~

 

~ OuR bEdRoOm - Laura and I each have our own beds; there is
also a large closet where we keep all of our clothes and other stuff;
we also have our own bathroom that is connected to our room,
which has been super convenient!~



~The view from the top floor - the middle of the house is open
on all three floors, which is pretty neat!~



~Stairs leading to the basement~

~Basement - this part of the house is absolutely HUGE; our
family has quite a few "fiestas" down here with kareoke~



~Another part of the basement - on the left is the bar & to
the right of the bar there is more seating~




~The bar area - the actual bar table top is a beautiful
oak wood~



~Haha I thought this was so funny; there
is a popular alcohol called "Grants" &
most of the glass cups within
our house have this label~



~This is the outside room that is off of our
basement - this is also where wet laundry
is hung...oh yes, and our mommy!~

Thanks for taking the time to learn about my host family and see pictures of our house!  We are truly blessed to have such a wonderful family!  It will be exciting to come home to see our own families, yet very sad to leave our host family!  Hopefully we will somehow be able to keep in touch with them once we return to the United States!

We are down to 18 days until I get home!  I’m starting to get really excited to see everyone!  I hope all is well at home and that it’s not getting too cold yet!  Love, love, love! <3

XO,

Aimee