Christmas Eve

So Christmas Eve has been slightly different this year. :)  Normally I'll be running around making deserts for Christmas Day, and finishing up (read starting and then finishing) my shopping and wrapping and then going to church for the Christmas Eve service.  Now for this year...

First of all, I'm not in a part of the world where there are seasons, so my body waiting for it to get cold to tell me that it's getting close to Christmas didn't happen this year.  I can walk outside in a tee shirt and Monday was swimming in the river!  Yesterday I drove with the administrator and his wife to Cuenca to visit his family.  Since I have no family in Ecuador, they invited me to join them for Christmas.  It was very entertaining traveling with 2 little boys, a 5 year old and a 3 year old!  Of course they slept much of the way, but when they were awake, life was NOT boring. :)  I love hanging out with those two, so I had a lot of fun with them in the car.  Today, instead of running around shopping and baking, I went with their family to some Incan ruins about an hour from Cuenca, called Ingapirca.  I loved it there!!!  It was built a little bit before the Conquistadores came to Ecuador, right after the Incas conquered the people here in Cuenca.  Such a difference from Salem, where the oldest buildings were built in the late 1800s!  I took far more pictures than I needed to, but the countryside was soooo pretty and I loved the ruins that I kept taking pictures of things I saw, so I'll add as many pictures as I can and when I get back to Macas, I'll put more pictures on Facebook and link to it.  The first couple are of our drive to Cuenca and then after that from Ingapirca.