Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Walking in January 2015, part 2

A continuation of this month's pictures.

Some street scenes in an old neighborhood.  Renovation and some real estate deals in process...














The City continues to upgrade and repair old sidewalks around town.  The repairs also give the opportunity to move overhead cables underground, which is great!












 
Our river has been mostly raging with all the rains.  This picture looks pretty tame, compared to other days.
One day we walked out from lunch and got drenched.  We found a store entry for sheltor and entertained ourselves taking these shots of the flooded streets.  We were lucky to get a taxi home.
 
 
 
Another pretty vertical garden in bloom.
Upcoming events.
 
It's a good start to a New Year. 

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Walking in January 2015 -- Cuenca

We've decided to continue our monthly walking series for the blog.  It gives us the framework to share pictures and little tidbits, sometimes all unrelated (except for the walking part and the month).  Never a dull or boring momento here, at least for us. 

We expect to post the walking pics toward the end of each month.  If there is an occasion/topic that deserves its own separate entry, we'll do that, too, so stay tuned.



Our regular readers will know our blog pictures are those subjects that catch our eye.  Pretty simple, mostly pics and less words.  We're not professional photographers/writers with fancy cameras and skills, but we're hoping our pics will give you the opportunity to see the season, the skies, flowers, street art, adorable animals and children, friends and often the quirkiness of our City and life here in Ecuador.  Nothing too complicated, just fun stuff.

We have lots of January pictures!  We'll be posting in 2 parts.  This is part 1.

A ballet studio in the neighborhood.  Seems to be popular for both children and adults.














More fun street art to share.


















Nice presentation of our lunch one day, with a real flower.  Delicious fresh salmon.










Parades related to the Christmas season are still happening!  We expect to see more until we hit our next big holiday, Carnaval, in February.  We love the animals and all the cute kids and bright colors.  You can see we took these at the end of the parade as everyone was resting.

















A birds eye view of a Sunday parade down Av Solano.











Part 2 for January 2015 is next.

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Fabian has a Birthday

We were delighted to be included in a birthday party celebration for Fabian and his nephew, Nelson, visiting from Italy.










Our pictures probably don't show how many folks attended (maybe 25-30?), but you can see it was multi-generational and multi-national.  Our pics also won't share all the music and dance steps!
But, be assured it was a lively time for all!

As we waited for the birthday guys....





We think we were all able to keep the surprise (or they faked it pretty good!)













A few presentations and speeches after a whole lot of delicious food!


















Dancing!!  Little girls all have the right moves.




















 
 









We got home late (for us). We left while the party was in full swing. We were in bed by 3am! and we were a little slow the next day...  us old folks bounce back slower than the young. 

What a fabulous time!  Thanks again to our gracious hosts.



Sunday, January 4, 2015

Happy New 2015!!

We celebrated our New Year's  in fun style.  Actually, our celebration began a day early.

Friends brought their dummy over to burn.  Out with the old, in with the new. 

















 
 
 
 
A fun time, full of laughter, dancing and loud music!














 
 


On NY's Eve, we celebrated again.  Good food, great company and more fun. 

We even walked at Uzhupud, admiring the flowers and beauty here in the Andes.  Enjoying those little moments of joy is sure to keep us going...there is something hopeful and peaceful about flowers in bloom.  A gift from Mama Nature.

Looking back on 2014, we think it was a pretty good year!  We traveled and experienced more of our beautiful Ecuador via the Train Cruise.  We loved Argentina and Uruguay, too!  We are grateful we are still here, in fairly good shape, mobile and happy. 

As with each New Year, we are optimistic, looking forward to all the delights and surprises life has to offer.  We are thankful we have each other! And, soooo thankful for wonderful friends and family.

Happy 2015 to all! 

 
May each of you have good health, peace, happiness, love, laughter and prosperity this year.