just trying to...

chase the sun..this is what dad told me while i had an amazing qt right at sunset on the beach. Dad told me, “matt, chase me. That’s all you need to do in this life. Just chase after me. Chase my son." here are some pics from this wonderful time...

mi fruta presentacion...

hey again.. last week at my language school all of the students were given a fruit to research and then on friday we all got together and presented our findings...in spanish. here are some pictures from it... and against my discretion i even posted some video of me!! so bear with me, im still learning...i hope you all need a good laugh..heh..




here is the table of all the fruit we had..



here is my fruit...its called a taxo, its similiar to a passion fruit.




and the end of all the presentations, the teachers played some music, and one at a time they called out our fruits and we had to join the kongo line and dance... ya.. interesting. we didn't do it once, or twice,but about 4 times!

more las penas...

hey all! here are some more pictures from last weekend at the beach...










some kids out early in the morning fishing... as you can imagine, there were a lot fishermen..




this is a pic of a stream that i found. as you can see it flowed into the ocean, and right at the point where it met up with the ocean the water was warm..it was like a natural hot spring.. i spent a lot of time here just relaxing and hanging out.


this was kinda random so i thought i would post it! this is the same stream...

Las Penas Fotos!

Hey all! This past weekend I went to Las Penas, which is a little beach town about 5 hours away from Quito. It was a lot of fun... i spent a lot of time by myself prayer walking the beach..it was an awesome time. it was also good to get out of the highly polluted city and be able to breathe some fresh air! anways...here are some pics.. i'll have more coming soon..


one of the cars in our group had some car troubles on the way there...


guess where this is...Las Penas?? nope! this is at a gas station on the way there...


ronaldo y yo a la playa..


our lovely hotel.. theres a reason this place is a "secret"...


this is where we had dinner our first night.


all the restaurants on the beach look like these...


The mosquitos were so nasty..this was my first time having to sleep with a mosquito net..kinda comforting knowing that none of the many spiders could get me while i was asleep too!


this is a typical coastal breakfast here in ecuador..acutally, this is a pretty typical meal in general (fish and fried bananas)...tons of pescado! (and i ate it all, aren't you proud mama?!)


one of the main streets in Las Penas..


some of the shops selling random cosas...


im not sure what these are, but they reminded me of churros from disneyland!

fotos, otra vez...

Hey all...more pics from my little bro's last week here. these are all from Teleferiqo, which in Spanish means 'cable cars.' this is a popular tourist attraction here in quito, as the cable cars take you up the volcano Pichincha.


this is an amusement park called 'volcano park.' its the entrance to teleferiqo.


this is mery... she was luke's spanish teacher.


this is what the cable cars look like.


this is the view out of the cable car as it leaves the boarding area...


view from the top of teleferiqo, on pichincha..




just the two of us!...ahhh...how sweet...


the thinking man...something he doesn't do all that often...j/k


our favorite movie store that we visited frequentemente...


just thought i'd throw this one in here.. this is a picture of my house. my room is the window with the american flag...(that was there before i moved in!)

mas fotos...

As promised, more pics from my brothers stay here in ecuador. there are some random ones, and a few from Plaza Grande, which is in central Quito.


this is right after Luke and I were playing this soccer game we invented in my front yard... ya, it was raining a little bit.


doing some homework at one of our frequently visited spots..


these are two security guards in plaza grande. i thought it was really random this guy had a sword..


this is some sort of government building. i think maybe congress... ya that sounds right!


a cool church, not sure the name of it.. its also in plaza grande.


i do know this one! this is the presidential palace. if you look closely you can see protestors in the back. im not sure what they were protesting, but it was very interesting to see...


not sure again on this one..sorry!! im so bad at this. but, underneath this building there are shops and cafes. pretty cool. this is also where luke went in to use the el bano, and forgot to pay the required .25! im pretty sure he didn't know what was going on, but the look on this ladies face was pricless, she had her hand out....but he just walked on by! i guess maybe i should have paid it...oops!


the same church in plaza grande...


walking down a road near plaza grande...


this is iglesia compania. it s beautiful church in centro historico. inside everything is gold plated.. its very cool. we weren't supposed to take any pictures inside (not sure why) but my heathen brother attempted to take one, but he rushed it (you know how if you shake/move the camera as it takes, it comes out all blurry??) and it didn't turn out..

some pics...

Hey all! Over the next few days I'm going to be posting pictures from my little brother's last two weeks here.. These pictures are from 3 weeks ago. Luke and I were invited to a house church one sunday out in carapunga. (which is about a 45 min bus ride from my house). Upon arriving, we found out the baptistry needed to be filled up bc a man wanted to be baptized that day (usually the church knows before hand and has plenty of time to fill it up, but this guy just came ready this sunday without telling anyone...) So these are pics of luke and I trying desperately to help fill the baptistry in time.














This is on the wall outside of the house church...