Feliz dia, Mamita!!

Mother's Day is a BIG DEAL in Ecuador!  There are flowers and cakes for sale in many stores.  Roses are one of Ecuador's main exports and they and other flowers are for sale everywhere.
We started our mother's day celebrations on Friday night at the ward party in Guayaquil.  What a party!!  There was an hour and a half of tributes to mothers in song, prose, dance, by young and old.  I was especially impressed by the teenage boys performing a dance for their mothers.  I don't EVER think I would see that at home.

The dance was to the song "Un pollito dicen"  (a song about little chicks).  Note chicken hats.  Like I said, no teenage boy I know would dance to a song about little chicks in front of the whole ward!! But they did here, just for their moms.

 We also had a mariachi band, which is what ever GOOD mother's day party has.  I guess I have never been to a good mother's day party before!

There were very good, but only stayed long enough to get the party really rolling

We got dinner, mom's before everyone else.  Also important to a great party is a dance.  The party was very well attended, and the dance floor was packed with young and old.  There were several young men who made a point of dancing with us old mom's, and one of them that I got to dance with was kind enough to teach me some salsa.

I loved dancing. 

It was a fun party!!  Maybe we should have some dancing at our parties in Salt Lake to liven things up a bit!

So that was our party in Guayquil.  Today started with a sweet video from Alison, and a short but nice e-mail from Shawn.  Church was amazing!!  There were the talks about mothers in Sacrament meeting.  Relief society was best, however.  We had barbecue beef sandwiches, plus tributes to mothers from the young men & women and primary children, songs included.  They also gave us sweet handmade fomi gifts, and lots of hugs.  I met a sweet 5 year old girl named Annie to remind me of my Annie at home.  She LOVED being in pictures, and we had too look at my camera repeatedly to count the pictures taken of her (12!!)

Annie was the one on the right.  This is about picture 5.  Check out that great sweater I bought yesterday in the market.  Hecho a mano.  100% Algodon. (Made by hand--100% cotton)

We went on a walk to the cascadas (falls) about four km from town later on in the afternoon.  The park was filled with families, babies to the very old, making it a very family oriented day.  The cascadas were beautiful too!!

That is Sondra, the other BYU professor, and I in front of the falls.  Note the rainbow in the picture--it was a beautiful day.

Back at the hotel I got to Skype with four of my own kids, and got to see the sweetest video tribute ever on You tube that the kids had made for me. I found an e-card in my e-mail from Ruth, sent from my own mother's account as Mike, Sam and Ruth spent the weekend in Idaho with her.  I also got lots of hugs from students, as well as a card and even a song.  It has been a wonderful Mother's Day.