The big wall

We are continuing on building our dream space and today we are sharing the construction of our big wall; to support the swimming pool area,It took few men and few weeks for this nice workmanship to be build.
I really appreciate the skills and creativity of Ecuadorian.
Then we added a structure that hold some of the solar panel and make a little space for the garden tools; and some flowers and vegetables beds.

big wall!

Our goods arrived!

Yes FINALLY! After more than a year we've been really patient and had a lot of stress with that; without counting the money we have lost with that moving company (we are few families around the world that experienced this unfortunate event!) but it's here, everything is here... It's almost unbelievable!

And weird at the same time to have to unpack your moving boxes more than a year after.
It's kind of like Christmas in July!

we removed everything from the living room to receive our boxes.

Now time to unpack! 

for the full story, why it took so long:

first we needed a visa that allowed us to send our goods, it took us 6 months to do so.

when we had the visa the Ecuadorian mover told us that we had 6 months to send our goods and we were 2 days over! The solution was to go to Peru to have a new entrance date in the passport which we did.

Then the first company that we hired did some monkey business, they had sent our goods to another company in Vancouver and they did not pay them (while they cashed our money and overcharged us), and finally after weeks of lies they informed us that they were closing their business for bankruptcy, ... they even told us that we had a month to go get our stuffs or they will be sold by a bailiff!

we ended up hiring another international mover and they did a good job.

there was no problem with the custom, everything was fine.

we are so glad that this story came to an end.

A year un Ecuador!

Yes, it's been a year That we arrived in Ecuador!
Very interesting and challenging year!
Since January here is an update:
With the rainy season the vegetation had grown so much; the garden was a jungle with very tall grass;
We hired a gardener to help us and he was able to clean it beautifully.
Things have grown by themselves; we harvested a one pound and a half carrot that was very tasty!
Raspberries, lemons, melon dew etc...
I love to see the little pineapple growing!
We have plenty of papaya trees that we have grown from seeds.
It's so nice to be able to garden all year long.

Here is a little video from the garden:

Garden 2014

About our big project... Yes, it's finally done!
It took way more time than expected but it was interesting...
So I've made few videos of the construction of our natural swimming pool:
We have a main pool with little stairs and a ladder, a pool for the baby and a pool at the upper level with plants to filter the water.
There is also a pump that pump the water from the main pool to the very top of the waterfall or to the plants's pool.
And two wonderful waterfalls.
We are waiting for the solar panels that will be use to heat the water.
Here are 6 short videos to show you the process:

pool construction part 1

pool construction part 2

pool construction part 3

swimming pool construction part 4

swimming pool part 5

swimming pool

An unfortunate story about our goods is that the company that we hired went bankrupt; it was (and still is a bit) stressful!
We had to hire and pay another company; they shipped our goods almost a month ago (we are able to follow the boat online and we can't wait for it to arrive)... We have been really patient with that!

2014... in Ecuador...

If a year ago someone told me that we would start this year in Ecuador, I wouldn't have believed it!
Life is full with surprises! and it's so good to live with the flow.
We had a quiet Holidays Season, enjoying the nice weather and beautiful surrounding nature (green landscape, flowers, nice temperatures, wildlife, singing birds every morning...); It's a bliss everyday!

Then we went to Cuenca (Big City - 4 hours drive); to get our Cedula (ID card); We had prepared the list of papers they required but needed only half of them and had to go to the notary to make a declaration (it took us about an hour and $40 for the 4 of us).
When we arrived in the morning there was a huge line up but we found an express line for foreigners! (what a blessing!)...
When we came back in the afternoon, it was almost the closing time but they accepted us and made our cards right away (as I was pregnant and coming for a long distance);
Unfortunately there was some mistakes on hubby's papers, so he had to ask the government in Machala to correct them and he had to go back a week later (now, it's done and we all have our precious card!).

As we received our permanent visa (Dec 20th), we contacted our transporter to get our container;
We received a message from the Ecuadorian transporter stated that we had 6 months to ship our goods!
So they waited us to get the visa and now they count the entry date in Ecuador as the opening date!
We enter on June 22d and we had till December 22d to be able to ship them tax-free...
They say, there is still a way...It's to go to the border and get the passport stamped with a new date!
Then go back to the 'immigration police' to have the updated paper...
So today hubby made the trip to Peru for that...What a story!
He took some pictures at the Peru border as it was a very interesting different landscape: straight roads with kind of desert land and some very green trees. Also some rice cultures

The garden is blooming and we have an abundance of organic tomatoes in the green house:

We still enjoying Kale, lettuces, cucumbers, herbs and we have few little honey dew melon, watermelon, lemons who are coming as well as the raspberries.

Our big project is taking shape!... We are enjoying the process; It's pretty interesting....Maybe one more month of hard work...

Thank you for stopping by and following our story in Ecuador!