time actually has FLOWN by -- HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I cannot believe I am back in Quito already after spending a month in Loja doing my ISP. I literally am in SHOCK. I seems like these past 3 1/2 months have gone by in a flash. I remember sitting in the Atlanta airport with Jenny saying how weird it was that we were leaving.
I am super sad to have left Loja. I didn´t realize how much of a home it felt to me until we landed in Quito (blah). Loja is so much prettier, so much cleaner, is actually safe, is small enough that you can walk places or take a $1 cab (instead of $5), and has men that respect women a tad bit more than normal Ecuadorian men do. In Quito, after we grabbed a taxi, the cabbee tried to jip us on the price. Then we went to breakfast and everything cost a lot more. Pretty much, I miss Loja.
It might also be because I loved the family I lived with in Loja. Well, the grandma Haydee definitely liked to make fun of my spanish and that pissed me off, but other than her, I loved the people. I don´t think I´ve informed you exactly who I lived with or where. I lived with Haydee, an 70-ish year old woman who just retired a few months ago from teaching Castallano (which apparently is VERY different than Spanish) in Catamayo. Her daughter, Verónica, lives below her with her husband, Julio, and their 2 1/2 year old son, Bryan. (Her daughter is the same Verónica that I worked with). Vero pretty much acted like an older sister to me and I´m going to miss her SOO much. In general, I spent a ton of time with Veronica´s family. She is a sibling of 6 in total. Her sister Paulina has two kids who came over a lot. Another sister has two sons, Juan (23 yrs. old) and Christian (10 yrs. old), who came over a lot too. I hung out with Juan and his friends quite a few times. Having friends definitely made the experience much more fun.
Everyone in the family keeps asking when I´m coming back and obviously I have NO IDEA whatsoever. Apparently festival occurs in february here and I´m supposed to come for that. For some reason, the people here in Ecuador think it´s really easy to just hop on a plane and come to Ecuador for a few days... I wish.
Anyways, I´m practically done with my ISP, but I still have to go through it again to make gramatical changes (my grammar SUCKS a lot) and to write my personal reflections. It´s currently 28 pages (without the personal reflections), but three or four of those pages are made up of photos I took during the project. I also have to figure out what I´m going to present to the group for 15-ish minutes (fyi I have NO IDEA what I´m going to do for this). We start presentations on Sunday afternoon, so I have until then (well I can push it til Monday or Tuesday morning if I really want, but I don´t so I need to finish it earlier). I´m definitely a little stressed out but mostly just have a ton of stuff running through my head.
Tonight about 11 of us from the group are meeting up to have thanksgiving dinner at Leonore´s house. I´m soo glad that we are doing this because it´s definitely weird not to be home today. Sadly, we are having chicken instead of turkey because we have no idea whatsoever where to find turkey haha. It should be interesting.
GREAT NEWS (since I know all of you care): we found a house in Denver for Stacey, Sagan, Becca and me to live in!!! YAY! It´s a five bedroom house (apparently the 5th room is for when mom visits haha) and looks nice with a definite feel of a college house. I´m SOOOO excited to decorate it. yay! It´s on Lafayette about 1/2 mile away (not as bad as GILLIAN´s house haha jk) which is a good exercise (and a GREAT EXCUSE for new hats, coats and boots, not that I would ever be so materialistic). I saw snow today on some of the mountains we flew by and it made me so excited to get back to denver to ski and to see my friends.
I hope Pat is having a great time in Hawaii and I hope Mom and Dad arrive safely and then have a great time as well. Thanks to uncle larry and fam for taking care of my precious Al (I saw the video... SO CUTE!). Miss you all soo much and can´t wait to see you! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!