Happy Birthday Maria!

Well, here is the long awaited update. Maria and I are very happy to be back in Ecuador. We are having lots of fun and spending lots of time with her family. There is an awesome ecuadorian card game we play just about every night called Cuarenta (forty). There are stores here where they sell all the newest movies at about a buck each...and OH MY, any computer program you can imagine at about $3 per. I have all the newest cads, vista, adobe premier pro cs4, anything and everything :) A couple days ago I was pulled over by the police and after telling me that it was a $120 fine for not wearing a seat belt he said OK fine, twenty for a coke. haha I would have given it to him but we didn't have twenty dollars. After we told him that he asked us then how much do we have. haha $0, nothing...then he said ok...just make sure you wear your seat belt the next time.

Maria turned 24 on December 7, we had a small celebration with the family and friends. She is a happy girl with her new 2009 Pascualina diary, a baby magazine, a french manicure set and some of her favorite Baci chocolates. Here are a few pictures:

(Just the two of us.)

(Blowing out the candles with her nephew Ezequiel.)

(With trick candles Ezequiel is ready for round two.)

(Maria has several iguanas that live in her backyard.)

(They especially like the plant that grows next to the back door.)

You might have guessed by reading above that Mi Amore Maria is pregnant! We are both really excited about having a baby. It's funny though how Maria used to want seven kids and already is saying that one is enough:) It's been really nice being able to spend 24/7 together...especially after having worked so many hours in California.

(At 12 weeks the Gino says that it looks like a boy

but can't confirm until our next appt on the 20th of December.)

Today, the baby is exactly 14 weeks along. Our first doctor appointment was on October 22 when we found out that there was a Subchorionic Hematoma putting the pregnancy at risk. Doctor Harry Collazo gave Maria some pills to treat it and orders to rest AMAP. We were pretty worried but the Hematoma disappeared after about a week. Since then we haven't had any problems. The nice thing about the clinics here is that they are very inexpensive and very available. Each doc visit is $8 and each ultrasound is $16. We can have an ultrasound performed at any moment if we feel anything is wrong. Our doctor gave us his personal number and actually encouraged us to call him at any time, day or night, if we have any questions. There are no waiting weeks to see your doctor and he doesn't try to push us out to get on with the next patient...he actually talks with us for about 30 mins answering all of our questions. We can walk in on any given day and see him. I'm very happy and impressed with the medical care here. The doctors actually care about their patients and they have an ultrasound machine with 4d...our doc. in the states didn't even have that. Anyways...as you can see I'm still upset about what happened in California. On our last visit, about two weeks ago, we decided to record the ultrasound onto a DVD. Here it is...enjoy :)