Tennis and a BBQ lunch

Thought we'd take the opportunity of a public holiday a while back for a bible study outing. What better place than the Loja Tennis Club! We put together the BBQ we'd bought 2 years ago in Quito but hadn't yet used as the house we rented here ended up having a built in BBQ out the back. And then we lugged it plus tennis racquets and a badminton set up the hill to the club.

Poor tennis and badminton skills didn't impede our laughter, and the BBQ worked out a treat. The kids rode around the court on their scooters and hung out with the girls. Such a peaceful place to spend the morning!

To Quito for visa renewals

We took a trip to Quito in order to renew our visas. The original plan was to drive up, seeing as we need to drive 3 hours anyway to get to Cuenca as the Loja airport is currently closed. Sick kids and sick Karine the previous week put an end to that idea - 3 hours by bus suddenly sounded a lot more appealing than 12 hours in the car. But of course the 'Loja-Quito' flight left from Cuenca at 8.30am which meant catching the bus at 4am.
We were able to do what we needed to do for our visa renewal, and left the rest of the process in the hands of our lawyer. We then got out to enjoy some nice things about being in Quito. Like going to the English Fellowship Church, playing on the train ride in Parque Carolina, having fun on great play equipment, and hanging out at El Ristretto cafe for lunch.
Thankfully the 8am flight back home meant we only needed to get up at 6am!