Hola from Ecuador!! 2 days ago we celebrated my birthday and Anna and the girls made it a blast :) I woke up and Anna had made me chocolate pancakes and eggs (yum) and then I got to spend the whole day with my party people at Milagros. I taught Laurita how to whip her hair back and forth (jadynn smith style)and then after we went and got dinner and Anna had made skor cake! Tradition has it over here that everytime it is someones birthday over here they get there face shoved in the cake. Needless to say they got me good and I couldn't open my eyes for like 5 min hahah all in all it was a good day. I did get a little homesick but maybe that's cause everytime I call my family they are boating or doing something like that... Haha (there arent supposed to be any fun things without me hahah) Last night we did a talent show at HML and my girl Anna Irish danced! She only usually does it for select groups so it was a pretty big deal :) some girls sang the song Temporary Home by Carrie underwood (youtube it) and of course cause I'm a baby I started crying. Isabel was sitting on my lap ad she just turned around and started wiping my tears and telling me not to cry. It was just so ironic that considering the circumstances she was sitting there comforting me. These kids are insanely amazing! Ive realized lately that every time I talk about my family here I always can´t help but get the biggest smile. (other than when im talking about them doing fun things) I love you all alot!!! Nicole

Holler from ecqui!!! All the ladies in the house have boyfriends so we got shafted out of phone time tonight so here we are blogging.. hahah We have boyfriends but they are all just under the age of 10.. and have bed times of about 6:30. Serious note: we are 23 days away from being home and it is really starting to freak us out!! For all of you lovely people who have never seen the video clip on youtube from one of Uchtdorf's talks called the tender moments (or something close to that) go look it up!!!! Tonight that was what our devotional was on and it was awesome. Nicole's heartbreak experience of the day: having Leidy start bawling when I had to leave after shift.. Anna's heartbreak experience of the day: having to walk into a room that smells like poop and having all the kids smiling and just knowing that I was the only person there for them that day. Anna's happy moment of the day: there was a bunch of people in Leidy's casa today and having her come to me to hold her hand when she was overwhelmed. Nicole's happy moment of the day: reading scriptures and saying prayers with Martin/Cristian/Marcelo and looking over and seeing Laurita in the corner by herself saying her prayers without even being asked too... these kids just keep surprising us by teaching us more and more everyday and showing us that we have more love in our hearts than we thought possible! We dread the day when they have to become memories but we know we will see them again in heaven:) To our mom's: fire up the rice cooker for when we get home...hang up the laundry lines... and put a bunk bed in nicole's room because we are going to have a hard time not waking up to each other's faces every morning. ahaha we love you all!!!! ps.. we are throwing a throwback dance party for our friend jenni's birthday in t minus 5 minutes so wish us the best of luck... it's about to get cray.We aren't making a big deal about it or anything but we did put some fliers up around the house... ahaha lovin life! xoxo Nicole and Anna

Giron Ecuador

anna babe

serious face

Ecuador is lovelier than ever!! The other morning I was pumped because I got to feed Camilla (one of the new premie babies) I feed her the whole bottle... She proceeds to throw up the entire thing all over me.. Literally a projectile motion ahahah next thing that happened that morning was me and Anna were in the sala playing with the itty bitties and one of the babies kind of looks like a troll and cause she is always laying on her back she has these nasty side mullets so I decided I had had enough so I decided to give her her first haircut haha! Anna stood guard and I just went at it. I know it probably seems like I'm always breaking rules but I justify it by saying it's for the child's benefit :) Today we got to drive 4 hours to the Guayaquil temple! Sooo amazing and it made us realize how lucky we are to have so many temples so close to us. The workers were grateful that we were there and it was funny cause they couldn't pronounce McMillin so they kept saying Micano or something weird like that hahah Guayaquil is like the Vegas of Ecuador and you should have seen how stoked some of the girls were over seeing a  Mcdonalds...  hahah We have all been craving American food like crazy. Things like peanut butter and American candy are basically like gold these days!! Besides wanting American food, you should also see how 15 girls in a house together act when they haven't even been able to hardly look at boys for over a month hahah crazy stuff. Sorry for the side tangent haha but after the temple today we went to this iguana park and  there were just tons of the creatures roaming all over. Surprise surprise nature woman Anna was scared to death:) We are also proud to say we ate from our first sketchy street stand last night as well and our stomaches so far have weathered the storm hahah it was meat on a stick and it was actually really good! When in Ecuador right? The heart break moment of the week was when I was playing with Marcelo and he asked me if I was going to be his "amiga para siempre" (friend forever/friend for always). He is at the age where he understands that people are always walking in and out of his life. Such a hard thing! Also... If anyone wants to adopt my baby Orvie until I am 25 and married I would be forever grateful hahah kinda serious. Haha! Fun fact of the day: KFC is the largest American company in Ecuador. Xoxoxo Nicole

Walk in my room and see a girl laying in my bed... hahah never a dull moment with 15 girls in a house.

All the girls from the May group

Buenos Dias familia y amigos! Soooo Yesterday Rosa asked me to take her home with me to the states.... It's awkward sometimes in those situations first because I have mastered the art of speaking Spanglish and rosa doesn't speak that.. Haha and also even if I knew Spanish better what would I say? She is so funny and sweet and it's sometimes hard seeing that side of things.The music scene is also pretty amusing here. They go wild for One Direction and Pit Bull but yet Rosa doesn´t know who Nicki Minaj is... needless to say that kind of upsets me.. hahah just kidding. I have also started dreaming about taking some of the kids home with me.. Last night I dreamed I smuggled Marcelo home and the CIA was after me hahah the kids are amazing and we love them sooo much it's insane. Me and Anna have really learned that we have more love in our hearts for them than we even thought possible! They teach us new things every day :) Today at azogus me and Suzanne were feeling ambitious so we decided to clean both the bathrooms and the kitchen... Without gloves. As sick and twisted as it sounds as we were cleaning we looked up and noticed that the roof was made of cardboard boxes in that area of the house..the spirit came so strong and we both thought of the hymn Because I Have Been Given Much. A lot of times here I have gotten almost angry at how good of living conditions we have at home. Why am I blessed to live the way I do? is a question I'm still trying to figure out. There is a special needs boy Brayan who sits in his crib all day  at azogus so today i decided I was going to chance it and take him outside with me and deal with the consequences. He just cuddled up and was so sweet. Once again... These kids are amazing!! Today has been pretty hard because Rosa dropped the bomb on me that it was her last day working for OSSO and also Linnea and Kylee are leaving. Sometimes living in a house with about 16 girls can get pretty crazy but we have all gotten really close so it´s hard to constantly be having to say goodbye to people when they leave. I was curious before I left what the things I would miss most about home would be (besides people) and I have finally decided.. here is the list in order...: 1. my own shower!!! the idea of being able to take a shower and not have it turn off or turn cold when someone flushes or turns on a sink seems like a dream. 2. Cafe Rio.. weird that we crave it like crazy??? 3. privacy.. if I had a dollar for every time Ive been walked in on indecent... and that´s all I can think of right now. Last night we decided to have a sleepover with a bunch of us in my room and we managed to fit 5 girls on 2 queen size beds. Pretty exciting!! hahah love you all!! and shout out to my poppy!! haha I have no doubt the best dad in the whole world and I hope you have the best Father´s Day ever! I had an experience the other week where I was skyping my dad and there were other girls in the room and when I got off they were all saying things like "oh I wish my Dad acted like yours", or "that´s so cool you and your dad have that good of a relationship". One of those things where I don´t know how I got so lucky to have him! Not to mention he gives the best advice in the whole world and has a way of making me always feel like everything is going to be okay! Love you a lot!!!! Nicole

whats up people of our blogging community! so last friday on the 8th of june i was lucky enough to celebrate my 19 birthday here! also i was lucky enough to have the most wonderful best friend here to make sure it was amazing! So that morning i woke up to the familiar ballad of happy birthday and found my self waking up to all the girls in the house singing to me and nicole holding a plate of waffles, a beautifully cut kiwi, and a smear of ecuadorian peanut butter must say one of the best breakfasts ive ever had! i had an off for the morning so mostly just read and talked to cute jenni who also had an off with me. then for afternoon shift i went to my homeland cunas and fate finally brought me and nicole together for a shift ha after having a crazy dancing party with us and the kids were fed them and got them ready for bed. as i am changing one of the kids the worker, marta, got out her phone and started playing music which was a little strange but i didnt think anything of it then to my surprise the second song to come on was happy birthday and hermana jessica came in and started dancing with me and so i can officially say i danced with a nun and then marta gave me a piece of chocolate which was bomb by the way. as i am changing the last kid who was giving me quite the rough time and making sure i was sweating a little while changing him linnea who was working in the other casa came a grabbed me and whisked my away to the kitchen and as i am walking into the kitchen the lights were off and all the casa kids were staring at me and what do you know in the middle of the table a scoop of ice cream with seven candles burning bright was waiting for me. they sang me happy birthday, but in spanish of course, and hermana jessica had the biggest smile and all the kids were loving it so thanks to nicole and linnea i got danced with and sang to by a nun, two workers, and six ninos, quite the day at the orphanage! then we proceeded home and went out to tutto freddos (a restaurant in town) and weirdly the whole town came out to celebrate my birthday, as well as a corpus kristi which is a holiday celebrating sweets and stuff like that, but we went to dinner ate some dang good american ecuadorian food and then headed out into the party. so if nicole or i have not told you yet americans here are celebs so saying that everyone was staring at us like we were aliens is an understatement but its cool i enjoyed it as well as nicole. haha. as we were wandering they had some strange towers of wood looking material that was covered with paper and ish like that, that they said they light on fire and its really cool but unfortunately we did not see them actually light it on fire but i am sure it was pretty sweet! also we watched some strange street dance group that had quite the crowd around them but werent really doing anything beside dressed in womans clothing and fake fighting/dancing... definitely one of the weirder things ive seen here. then rising into the night sky we saw paper lanterns so we weaved our way through the crowd to where they were and some how nicole and i got to light one off which i am pretty confident to say was the most magical moment in both of our lives... and then we galloped off into the sunset... just kidding but it was a defining moment for my birthday! while we were setting off the lanterns some ecuadorian girls were next to us and had some sashes on so i am thinking they were royalty of something but they ended up pulling me and a couple other girls into a picture with them... pretty cool haha. there was music playing so we all were dancing and just having such a good time until we needed to head home so we caught a taxi and returned home. nicole still had one more surprise for me she made homemade peanut butter cups. needless to say they were super amazing and the perfect ending to a great day! dont know what i would do with out nicole because she made this birthday one of the best ever! love her to death! hope all of you are doing good and thanks for putting up with my joking manner of writing. love you all! <3 anna

Eating our treats at the park:)

Giron, Ecuador

What a week it has been :) first it started out by Anna falling asleep in my bed with me and hearing me sleep talk in Spanish... Needless to say I was stoked!! Then, reading scriptures with Martin and having him get mad at me for not opening with a prayer..having him proceed to give the sweetest prayer I've ever heard even though it just sounded like mumbles:) Today we drove 2 hours to the city of Giron and went on a hour and a half hike to the 3rd largest waterfall in South America. We had a few yes man moments...like on the way there when the bus driver asked us if we wanted to ride on top of the bus it took me and anna less than 2 minutes to climb up :) (dont worry mom and dad we didn't die hahah ) then when we got to the waterfall it was freezing and windy and the guide asked us who wanted to jump in first and without even thinking I just yelled me!!!! They tied a rope around my waste told me to watch out for rocks and said I had less than 10 seconds to get to shore after I jumped.( once again I lived:)) Words can't even describe how amazing today was!!  There are certain things that happen here that you can't describe. Like the feeling you get after a orphan asks you if you have parents and you have to look them in the eye and say you do or when you hear a child pray that some day he will get a mommy and a daddy.  Xoxoxo Nicole

It has been an eventful couple of days!! Friday was Kids Day here (yes it´s a for real holiday) and in the morning we got to take the kids horseback riding at the naval base then in the afternoon we got to walk to the park with all of the kids. It was a super fun day and nice to have a change from the normal schedule. I was lucky because somehow I was managing to push Laurita´s wheel chair and hold Christian´s hand as we walked haha now I understand why mom´s always say they need a few more arms. Yesterday me and Kylee had an off in the morning and it was a blast! We slept in, then made breakfast and we got 3 new short term volunteers so we walked into town with them. They were going on their city tour so we kind of separated because we were going to run errands. There was a big parade going on and we realized it was for Kids Day the day before. I feel like there are always fiestas and things going on in town and I think Ecuadorians really know how to have a good time!! haha After we hung out there for awhile we went and picked up my glasses for school and driving and now when I wear them my IQ raises a few notches... haha but now here is the best part of all... we saw the other girls across the street so I lifted up my arms all excited and full on  hit a guy in the face... chances are good that I might have broken his nose.... ahahah I just said "lo siento" and his wife looked like she was going to fight me and he was just holding his nose in pain so I basically just turned the other way, grabbed Kylee and ran. hahah whoops!! We ended the morning off right by buying ourselves some roses for 6 dollars!! Yes it´s pathetic to buy yourself roses but we just thought it would be cool to say we bought flowers from a flower market in Ecuador hahah There was also the big Ecuador v. Argentina futbol game last night and during shift at Milagros in the afternoon all the kids were PUMPED. Christian, Martin, and Marcelo were all in their jerseys and we were doing a countdown the whole time. When I told Martin there was 30 minutes till game time he started yelling and waving his bib around in the air, it was awesome haha! They get really into it over here and even all the nuns were watching the game. On a more sad note we got another baby on Friday and I found out that it is Marcelós sister.. he already has two at OSSO and I guess the social worker found out his mom was pregnant again so she basically hunted her down and once the baby was born had to get her to bring it to the orphanage (for reasons I don´t know) It was the first time in a year since the rest were dropped off and she was just bawling. The whole thing was just a sad situation but they are better off at OSSO. Things are great here and insane that it has already been a month??? yep! Fun fact of the day: both eggs and milk are not refrigerated here. love you all!!! Nicole