A short week of school and Christmas parties

Well I am working on getting over my cold! Yesterday I got sent home early from school. Today my teacher told me to lay on the floor and take a nap and tomorrow I plan on actually surviving the day! Haha It was a hard three day school week :)

On the positive side, I really got in the Christmas mood today. Tomorrow is our school Christmas party with the teachers. I made fudge and a delicious cream cheese dip.

Also, my students are featured on the FCAQ website doing their Thanksgiving craft that I taught! I'm in the photos too but they aren't so pretty :)Look under the Thanksgiving link.

http://www.fcaq.k12.ec/espanol/noticias/noticias.htm

I miss you all!
With love!
Katy

Getting nostalgic for Christmas!

I had the day off today due to Quito days. I got to sleep in and then Maggie and I watched movies. I decided to bake ginger banana bread. It feels more like Christmas with all of the baking I've been doing. I listened to Christmas music but the lack of snow makes it difficult!

Tomorrow we will hopefully be going out to celebrate the founding of Quito. However, Maggie and I are both sick so we will see what happens. Hope everyone is enjoying the snow back home!


Ginger Banana Bread
Adding ginger to this recipe for banana bread gives it a real kick. You can add more or less ginger according to your taste. I also like to add orange or lemon zest to this recipe to give it even more flavor!

PREP TIME: 20 Min
COOK TIME: 1 Hr
READY IN: 1 Hr 20 Min
SERVINGS: 12

INGREDIENTS

* 2 1/4 cups of plain flour
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 1/2 cup melted butter
* 2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup plain yogurt
* 3 ripe mashed bananas
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon allspice
* 1-2 tablespoons of freshly grated ginger

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease and flour a small loaf pan.

2. Mix the butter and brown sugar together and add the yogurt and mashed up bananas.

3. Sieve the flour into a separate mixing bowl and add baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice and grated ginger.

4. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well.

5. Bake in the oven at 350F for about 1 hour and test by putting a toothpick in the middle to check if it is cooked all the way through. The toothpick should come out clean.

6. Allow to cool in the loaf pan for 10-15 minutes then place on a cooling rack to cook fully.

I'll tell you how it turns out :)

At Christmas, all roads lead home. ~Marjorie Holmes

Con amor,
Katy

Cheering for the bulls...

Sooooooo...... we went to the bull fights. We are officially celebrating Fiesta de Quito right now. It is a celebration of the founding of Quito. They celebrate with parties and dancing and parades and bull fights. Turns out I do not like bull fights. The arena was beautiful and so were the horses and the costumes. However, when they started stabbing the bull, I was done! We watched 3 bulls and then left at the middle with 4 more bulls to go. It was upsetting and we kept discussing how this would NOT fly in the states. PETA anyone?


Video of the Bull fight when the bull attacked the horse!

Viaje a Baños

Omgoodness! So much to share about Baños. Maggie and I got up early in the morning on Friday Nov 25th and took a 45 min taxi ride to south Quito. There we met up with the rest of the group and we took a 3 hour bus to Baños. We had a hostel reserved called Plantas y Blanco. It was a fantastic hostel! We had private rooms and it cost us 11.50 per night per person!

We did not want to waste anytime. We went down the road and found a place that had dune buggies. We rented two buggies and Kyle road a motorcycle. We drove for about an hour and a half through the mountains. We stopped along the way and saw several waterfalls. It was amazing! Afterward we went to the Swiss Bistro. The food was amazing and cheap just like most of Ecuador. Maggie and I split a meat fondue and it cost each of us 12 dollars. Then we went to a bar that played American music. We asked for hip hop and they gave us Will Smith and Jennifer Lopez! We went home and went right to sleep after all of that fun!

On Saturday we went white water rafting. We learned all of the commands, we learned how to fall out of the raft and how to rescue. It was awesome! We were on an Amazonian tributary and they told us if we wanted to go to Brazil we could get out of the boat and float there. We spent an hour and a half on the river and then we went and had lunch in a tiny town. It was a class 3 rapid... now I need to find a class 4!

When we got back from white water rafting we went to see the Waterfall that was near our hotel. Then we went shopping for a bit. After shopping we ate dinner at Casa Hood. The owner was from Michigan which was very cool! That night we rode a Chiva (a big open sided bus with flashing lights and loud music) we went to the top of Tungurahua volcano. We couldn't really see anything because it was cloudy. It was very boring. However, 4 hours after we left on Sunday it erupted and everyone was evacuated!

The city of Baños from the top of the mountain.





On Sunday morning we got up and ate breakfast on the rooftop of our hostel. I ate pancakes with peanut butter and cheese. It cost me less than 2 dollars! Before we went to breakfast we went to the Baños termales (hot springs). We sat in what looked like dirty water but was actually mineral water straight from the earth. You could also shower in water straight from the waterfall... it was freezing and
amazing! We went shopping a little more and then checked out of our hostel. We took a bus to Ambato and then had to take a taxi and another bus to Quisapincha. In Quisapincha there are tons of leather shops. There were soooo many beautiful cheap things. I really wanted a real leather jacket but my arms were too long and nothing fit! Maggie bought a beautiful 100 percent leather hand made jacket for 60 dollars! We took a bus and taxi back to Ambato and then took another bus back to Quito. We arrived at 8:10. After taking a horrible taxi back to Quito we arrived at 9:30 at home. I was sooooooo tired!

Overall the trip was amazing and I would love to do it again. I wouldn't change anything! (except maybe the last taxi driver).

Vero has decorated the house for Christmas but it just doesn't feel like it could be close! It is hot in the sun. That is not possible during Christmas time!


Le extraño todo!

Katy

Decide how you want to feel, and go wherever it takes to feel that way.
— Andy Hayes, Travel Writer

Accion de Gracias

Omygoodness! We had the most wonderful Thanksgiving last night! We ate everything that we would normally eat in the states except there was no stuffing :( I made two pumpkin pies and pumpkin rolls and green bean casserole. It was interesting because they don't have all the supplies that we have in the states. I had to make the pumpkin pie in a casserole dish because pies are not typical here. Also there was no pumpkin pie filling. I had to buy chopped up pumpkin, boil it, mash it and puree it! When it came to the green bean casserole I had trouble. They really don't have canned soup here. Instead I had to buy a package of powdered/ freeze dried cream of mushroom soup and go from there. They don't have frozen green beans but I didn't really mind using fresh. Also they don't have the crispy onion things for the top so I used shoestring fried potatoes. It turned out really good! It is so much easier to eat natural and organic here. Many times there is not another choice! Most things don't have any added preservatives...

Everyone came to our house. Maggie and her host family (Vero's daughters family) Carol and her family (other daughter) and then friends came as well. Many people don't celebrate Thanksgiving here so friends came because they had nowhere else to celebrate. Their families don't celebrate it of course. We celebrated because Vero and her daughters had lived in the states for 9 years and they fell in love with the tradition.

We ate everything, drank wine, played with the kids and gave thanks. I think I'm still full! Hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving!!!

ps.. there is no Black Friday here. Sad but probably a good thing ;)

Con amor!

Katy




Forever on Thanksgiving Day, the heart will find the pathway home.
~Wilbur D. Nesbit

Making Turkeys! Happy Thanksgiving

I taught a lesson on Thanksgiving in the United States today. We made awesome pinecone turkeys. :) On each feather we wrote what we were thankful for!

con amor!
katy

1st day of teaching at Colegio Americano!!

Today I had my first day teaching at Colegio Americano! It went really really well! My kids paid attention... we will see tomorrow how the homework turns out :) I taught a lesson on using mental images and the 5 senses when reading.

Making my pine cone turkey and getting ready for my lesson tomorrow! Teaching about Thanksgiving in the United States.

Con amor!
Katy