this is my life!

doesn't this look fake? this is near a city called dukhan...this is the ice cold river...no joke, apparently the only cold thing...i don't really get why it doesn't ever warm up, i mean i realize it is mountain run-off...but still it is blazing hot here...so it was a nice change.
we loaded up all the white people and stuck them all in rafts and away they went downriver. it was fun for them...but we had to drive them there and then drive back to the stop where they got off. it was a lot of twisty, turny driving.
but then we got to play in the river when we got there and there was even a little kids raft. the boys were loving it.
so after we played in the water, we had an awesome picnic with great food. you don't mess around with picnics here, we had huge rugs spread out and a pit and we roasted amazing chicken on it and it was the bomb! then the kids played around and got absolutely filthy and while they were sitting on this rock, over the hill comes a shepherd and all his sheep and goats...they all look like sheep, but if you look close tail up is goat, tail down is sheep. anyway, the kids got surrounded on all sides by these guys. they were loving it! it was straight out of the old testament...felt like an odyssey trip! gotta love that about this country!
so i have been worried about doing laundry here, but it hasn't been so bad...however i let it build up while we have been moving because i haven't had a washer or a place to hang clothes, so last night i was finally able to do 2 of the 4 loads and this is what my hallway looked like. i still really miss having a dryer and downey for that matter, but i feel like i have really worked hard after i have done the laundry. i think the worst thing is having crunchy socks and stretched out underwear. boo.

so i thought it might be fun to state the top 5 things we see here that you don't see in america...i wish i had pics of all of these, but you will have to use the good ol' imagination. maybe sometime i will have the camera at the right time.

5. cars that still have the manufacturing protective tape on them, except they have been driven around for months or years even and it is all peeling off and brown, but apparently if you leave it on, everyone will notice that you have a new car and think you are so cool! they also leave the tape on their bikes and even on the inside of the car on the seats and steering wheel.
4. a trash can next to the toilet full of your dirty toilet paper...you can't flush it here...but the kurds actually don't use it, they use water and their hands...not sure which is worse.
3. stray donkeys and random cows in the street. today we saw a boy being pulled by a cow down the street. the boy was no match or the cow.
2. overcast skies, but not from clouds, DUST! the other day the sun set and it looked like the moon was rising because it was so obscured behind a thick layer of dust.
1. water tanks and satellites on every roof. power switches in your house to switch from city power and community power or no power sometimes...you just never know when.

i am still not unpacked all the way...but it is looking much more like a house. everything takes much longer here...when there is no walmart to go get everything at one place, it takes forever. we have had so many little missing parts to things that we think we have all set up and then it doesn't work or we can't get it all set up, so it is just a slow process...maybe i will finally be cured from my need for instant gratification! i will post pics of the house all set up...soon...inshallah!

cleaning and jesse's bday

this is the kids' bedroom...and this is the man who came to help us "clean"...as you can see he brought his hose and a lot of water. they flooded the house...which was frightening
and we all squeegeed the water out the door!
our kids were outside the entire time collecting trash, playing in the water and the dirt...this is jesse after crying several times and wiping his filthy hands all over his face! i think he will look like this most days. i hope we get water often so i can at least wash him off every night.
today was his big 3 year old birthday! so i made him a spiderman birthday cake...it's a little ghetto...or "village" as they say here, but if you can't tell it's a building with spiderman on top! it's a very appetizing gray color...but he LOVED it so that is all i care about!
here he is blowing out the candle all by himself...i think the previous two years an older sibling always "helped"...so hooray for Jesse!

the mountains and visits

here we all are standing on top of our mountain pass that walls the north eastern side of our city. just behind us in our new hometown. so from this vantage point, you can see our town one way and then just over the other side is a totally different landscape that you can scroll down and see in the next two pics. it really is beautiful and on top of the mountain is really windy and cooler. i love it. you can see snow-capped mountains in the distance from the other direction.
these are all the people we work with here. paul and erin in the middle and carol on the outside right. awesome new friends! you can also see how much greener it is on this side of the mountain.
toby is throwing a rock over the edge. you can just see it in the air if you look real closely.
this is jesse and his new little friend "Peri" she is so sweet. she and jesse were holding hands and sharing toys all night. an interesting note about the culture here...the kids here go to bed when the adults do which is around midnight or 1 in the morning. they come for visits around 8 pm...which is our bedtime. if they have kids, we let our kids stay up, but if they don't we let them say hi and then put them down. it's crazy. i mean it makes sense for their way of life, they all sleep in the same room, so no point in anyone going to bed earlier. they also all take naps in the heat of the day. not sure how we are going to balance our family life that way, but we may just have to decide for visits that we have one or two nights that we go Kurdi schedule and the rest of the time stay american in our life.
tim managed to figure out getting our Wii hooked up here and the kids have enjoyed playing it when there is full power here. toby gets very frustrated when it unexpectedly shuts off in the middle of his game, but he is getting used to it too. if ever a room is dark they always say, "power's off..." just like it's what they have always done. they are so adaptable. they have not complained once about being here or said anything about wanting to go back. they are here and ready to start life here...i am sure they are thankful it includes a Wii still. today we made granola and granola bars. i think this will become a new weekly tradition for us. it was hot in the kitchen but worth the end result. we are also going to try our hand at baking bread.

new car and pics

this is an opel and the model is zafria or something like that. it's kind of like a cross between a minivan and a station wagon...it has a hatch back with a 3rd row of seats that can pop up.
the kids in the car...annie is complaining about being hot i believe.
here is jesse's big debut out into the streets with the boys. he was loving the attention.
this is annie trying out the dolma which is the traditional food here. it is rice with grape leaves wrapped around it...kind of vinegary tasting.

this is what it looks like.

new house

so this is the bathroom which is yes lime green or pistachio "as you like"...as they like to say in English in the bazaar. it's actually really big and will have both a western and eastern toilet in it, a sink, a shower (pictured on the far left) and the washing machine will also go in here. it's great because it is all in one room...in most Kurdish homes, the bathroom is all separated.
this is actually the basement room. there is a whole welcome room, bedroom and bathroom with a little kitchen sink area too. so it's big enough for friends or family to come stay for a nice long visit.
this is the kitchen...you can't really tell, but there is a stellar view out this window. probably the best feature of the house. the walls are completely tiled in this textured yellow stripy tile. i like it.
this is taken after coming in the front door. you can get the layout. you have three options of doorways (only two pictured) on the right is the kitchen and on the left is the welcome room which leads out to a hallway and 3 more bedrooms and the bathroom...if you look closely at the end of the hall are a set of stairs that go down to the basement.
this is the outside of the house. upstairs our new neighbors are also americans, but do not work for the same company. although we do have the same Boss. so the bummer thing about this house is no private roof access, but i am sure we can get up there if we want just by asking our friends. there is a driveway up the middle and then Himdad will put in a garden for us on either side. up on the left is a little patio of sorts, we will hang our hammock from guatemala there. can't wait! there is also a narrow walkway that goes all the way around both sides and the back of the house, which gives lots of running space and plenty of great hiding spots for the kids. in the morning we will be able to watch the sun rise from our kitchen or welcome room. it is a great location, we get a lot of morning sun, but then it is off to the side in the afternoon, so it is ideal. there is still quite a bit of work to be done. we imagine it will be a week or two, hopefully not more, but there is no telling around here, so we must be patient.

a few stories

this is a picture from the first restaurant we have been to. they serve basically the same thing...rice and chicken with yummy, fresh naan. the kids all ate it and all loved it! this is through the window in the background of the kabab man putting raw meat on.
this is annie with himdad's daughter, soma. she is 8 and speaks good english. himdad has been very kind to us in helping us find a house and a car and getting us all set up. hopefully we can go play with soma again.
here is another wildflower picture. this was taken alongside the road to the big city. we had to stop because our suitcases on top of the car were about to flop off, they had to be retied. so i took the opportunity to take pictures of flowers, but then i got scared of snakes and scorpions and ran back to the car. so far we haven't seen any scorpions or encountered any weird bugs...yet.

oh i wish i had pictures for this story...but then again some of you might never read my blog again. yesterday i attempted to walk with the kids to the bazaar for the first time. it is a little over half a mile from where we are staying. you have to walk down narrow, windy streets which are all unmarked of course and full of trash and interesting smells. some of the buildings are so old and some are newer. it is so interesting. we finally emerged onto the main road at the bazaar and our first shop that we saw was the chicken shop. it had low doorways and 3 different doors all adjacent to one another. the first door was full of live chickens running around a small room. there were a few women standing outside the doorway pointing and talking. the man inside grabbed a chicken for a woman and handed it to her by the wings, it was squawking and going crazy. she then carried it to the next doorway and handed it to the man. without any ado he pinned the chicken to the floor and chopped its head off with a giant knife. i guess we knew this was going to happen, but it all happened so fast i didn't really prepare my kids for it. they just watched in stunned silence. then the man took the chicken and shoved it neck down into a plastic jug of sorts on a stand to steady it. the now dead chicken flapped and ran in the air upside down. the kids just watched and said nothing. i asked them if they were okay and they said they were fine. of course annie told tim ("ba-ba" is kurdish for daddy, they have taken to calling him that occasionally...so sweet) all about it when he got home. she thought it was a little freaky, but she also found the humor in it. i haven't taken them past the lamb and cow butcher shops yet...those freak me out still. i was so proud of the kids though, they walked the entire way without complaining and went with us to 3 different shops and even each carried a bag all the way home and up the hill to paul and erin's house.

some pics...

okay...this is Kurdistan! isn't it amazing?? see the mountains i have been talking about? just beyond the fence are red poppies and then in the foreground is some kind of flowering heather like plant...you can also make out some bunch flower type that looks like queen anne's lace. we are so thankful it has not been too hot here. the green is sticking around for us a little longer. hopefully until we find a house. we found a potential today, but then they decided not to move out at the end of the day...sigh...so now we are talking about our runner up choices. both are not on great streets...one has lots of room and is move in ready, but not a great yard and the other has an amazing yard but only 2 rooms...we can make either work...we just aren't sure if either of these are THE one!
this is Jesse and Toby with "Ben's" brother. he shined our shoes at dinner the other night and took a shine to toby too and took him out and showed him the family business. =) he was such a sweet boy...full of smiles.
this is annie with all the girls on the street. Delvine is the one on annie's left with the pink and orange. she speaks really good english and is 13. she has been so sweet to us. annie gave her a rock from her rock collection, which if you know annie she doesn't usually just give them away, she lends them out. so this was a pretty big gift. today Delvine showed up at the gate with a necklace for annie, the letter "D" with gems on it and a beautiful pink rose for me. so many people have beautiful roses blooming all over. i LOVE it! the little one with her back to the picture and her hands on Delvine's knees is her little sister who is annie's age, but since they can't communicate they are both very shy. their mother is a teacher and their family has really struck a chord in my heart.
this is toby with all his new friends on the street we are staying on. he is the one with the ball. all the boys LOVE him. toby has been so brave...stepping out there and getting into the mix of it all. they were chanting..."toby! toby! toby!" today!
this one is of us with our uhaul trailer getting ready to head out to the airport. we had such a great send off. we are so thankful for our family in texas! we ended up with 14 trunks and 5 suitcases of checked luggage. we also each had a roll-on as our carry-on and tim and i carried a backpack. to say the least...we have everything we need and more. but i feel like we did a really good job still.

we are here...

well...we are here! i can't post pics yet because it will take hours to get them on here, but i will try soon. at night is a bad time. it took me 10 minutes just to get to this page...so you will just have to use your good old fashioned imaginations...gasp!
i am totally going to write stream of consciousness, but then again, i always do...so these are my first thoughts.
our flights were all really great! the hardest part was waiting in the airports in different lines and trying to contain the kids, but on the actual flights, the kids pretty much sacked out or watched tv. they were super great! we got here at 2 am on saturday, which was friday night for you guys. the kids were so excited and chatted the whole hour and a half drive back to our new hometown. they were so funny! we then slept until 10 or so and then got up and spent the rest of the day looking at a couple of houses and tooting around town. can i just say though that it is beautiful here?! i know you all don't believe me. but there are wildflowers (red poppies, gladiolus, white ones, yellow ones, purple ones...it is my goal to learn everything that grows here...it could be a good homeschool project) all over the place right now and the hills are green. the mountains that surround us are amazing...breathtaking really! i LOVE them and i am trying to find a house with a view...pretty much every house has a view from their roof top, but it would be nice to have one from our bedroom or from the kitchen.
we are so impressed with our kids...they have been amazing! they have been at their peak behavior...which includes several melt-downs, but we were gearing up for more, so we feel like we can at least call off the high alert for now. even annie has not had any anxiety. she was nervous when we got off the plane and saw they were checking everyone's temp for swine flu and then nervous when she saw the first gun, but since then we have been through multiple check points and she has not batted an eye. toby though is the one we are so impressed with. the very first day, he pulled out his soccer socks, which are tim's and VERY baggy on him and his cool Nike's that he got from our friend John Russell back home and headed out the gate into the street with boys ranging in age from 4 to 13. he got right into the thick of things and had a blast with his funny little transitional lense glasses! he comes back, red, sweaty, thirsty and so happy! he just talks to them in english and they talk right back to him in Kurdish! i love it! jesse however, hangs on the fringes and says they don't like him and won't go play. isn't that so surprising?? we totally thought it would be the other way around. annie has met several girls and has sat down with them to try to write out and learn a few new words. mostly she does her own thing though and just gets really silly around them. i think it is a 6 year old thing. she is feeling confident enough already to start insisting that i don't need to homeschool her next year, that she is ready for school. i however am way to excited about home schooling and feel it is in all of our best interests to stick to the plan...not to mention the $800 we spent on the curriculum...she is a fickle pickle!
so we are house hunting like crazy. we have seen several houses but haven't found the one yet. however we have 3 to go see tomorrow which tim has already seen and feels that one of these ones could really work. the main things we are looking for are: a large "hosha" or courtyard, on a street that the kids can play and be with other kids and me with moms, and of course room for all of us...which means 2 or 3 bedrooms. we have seen at least one house that kind of met these standards, but there are weird things in each house that kind of make you cringe like the bathroom in the kitchen or really uneven stairs with no railing...that would mean the death of my kids and probably me at least once a day...so we press on in the search and are hoping we walk into "the" house and just know it.
today we went to the big city and tried to register ourselves, we are through step 1 of a 4 step process...we had to wait in many lines and annie got her first exposure to try to use a squatty potty. she was thoroughly disgusted. it was pretty funny...but she found the humor in it all as we realized that we forgot our little toilet paper sachet and had to drip dry...
we have found that they sell really cool ice cream for less than a quarter for the kids...so far we have seen "ninja" (a teenage mutant ninja turtle head on a stick) and superman, spiderman and a variety of others. the kids are super excited about that. today they tried out the "swifty" one which was basically watermelon on a stick. i loved it, however tim and annie couldn't get it down.
so far we have only had a few moments of....oh no...what are we doing here? for the most part, my only complaint is that i am ready to learn the language and dig into the culture and it just takes time. we are so excited to be here and love it already!

Saying Goodbye is HARD to do...

these people in this picture, are the MOST amazing couples EVER! Greg and Laura, Ryan and Megan(who wasn't there...we missed you and LOVE you heaps and tons girl) Zach and Vanessa (also not there...out changing the world...we love you) Jenny and Josh and Dan and Amy. These guys came faithfully to our house this last year every Sunday night after we put our kids to bed to sit and talk about marriage and life and fighting and sex and everything and anything! we laughed, cried and even watched some fights sometimes with this group. Each of these amazing couples have been married for about a year and they poured SO much into our lives! They thought we were supposed to be encouraging them, but really they helped us and we know our marriage is stronger for it. we will miss these people dearly...until they join us! =)
the two BEST baby sitters in the world! these girls Christine and Alissa watched our kids while we were in the training school. they put our kids to bed, they fed them, they bathed them, they jumped on the trampoline with them, they played dog and owner with them, they cleaned our house, did our dishes, kissed boo-boos, they LOVED our kids! Thank you Lord for these amazing girls! We will miss you until you come to teach next year!! =)
Mr. Shawn's game...get every pillow in the house, pile them up and then jump off the coffee table until you are so crazy wound up and sweaty and thirsty you fall over out of sheer exhaustion. this is at the house of the friends we have been staying with in TX. they are amazing and so gracious to share their space with us and be so laid back and care free to let the wild games begin!
this is Lauren and I and her daughter Mackenzie...we are riding wiggle racers down their driveway into the street....it was pretty much the best time! i had to stop myself from wanting to hog the toy away from the kids and be really selfish! but i would just like to point out, i was totally winning! =) these guys are great, they are passionate for Jesus and were in our lifegroup! we are excited to see how God uses them and changes them for his glory!

this has been one of the hardest good-byes yet...this is our church praying over us...i soaked in the prayer on sunday and the WORSHIP! James Mark rocks and the Spirit there is even better! Not having corporate worship will be really hard! we are so thankful for our church and the people in it who have poured into our lives and molded us and shaped us over the last almost 2 years! we got to go up front for two services. the first service...jesse yelled out in the middle of the prayer..."stop touching me" because he had so many hands on him. in the second service several people cheered as we stood up and jesse let out his own really loud, "woo-hoo!" it was pretty funny! one of the sweetest prayers prayed over us was offered up by elise...another sweet girl annie's age that came and laid her hands on annie. thank you jesus!

Texas...home??

We love Waco...who would have ever thought we would say that? we are so thankful to be back in Waco and grateful to our great friends Shawn and Connie for taking us in...even after Toby jumped on Josh and knocked him back into his headboard, causing an inch long gash that needed 3 staples...good grief and that was only the first day we were there, but this is josh and toby only an hour or two after the staples went in...tough kid! he got toby back though later on in the week after throwing some dirt at Toby, Toby ended up with a twig in his eye all day long, causing the whole top of toby's eye to hemorrage and burst just about every blood vessel in his eye. we aren't really sure why toby never complained...apparently he and josh have WAY too much fun together!
jesse, josh, tim and toby all in their soccer jerseys. my boys jerseys are from guatemala and josh's is from mexico...i think. this was taken while we were watching all three of the Dunn kids and our kids of course, for 2 days. see how excited tim is about that?? we had a great time though and everyone survived!
annie and sister friends Maddie and Mackenzie...from our lifegroup! Annie and Mackenzie became friends. Mackenzie is such a sweet girl.
the two annies! they have had some adventures together. this is after putting on their own make up. They thought they were so beautiful! these two love each other SO much and yet they have fought like crazy this week. not sure why...maybe they are emotional girls. but someone is always bossing the other around and one is always getting their feelings hurt about it. but they prayed about it the other morning and asked God to help them not be selfish and i don't think they have had a fight since then. sweet girls!

this is the moment our van finally went into the six digits. it was exciting...since we drove it from 90,000 to 100,000 in less than 3 months. in our two month trip we went almost 9,000 miles! incredible! we went through 20 different states and stayed in 8 of them! we saw hundreds of people and reconnected with so many great old friends and met some wonderful new friends! we feel so blessed to have been able to take this trip of a lifetime and we are so grateful for all the people that have chosen to be a part of this part of God's story with us! we are 3 days away from taking off now and we are so excited. I told my friend Jamie on the phone tonight, that i am so excited about the big picture of what God has called us to do, but i still haven't really processed the day to day of it. that will just have to come once i get there. right now i am just trying to get my bags packed and make sure i have all i need, but not too much! i am up to 13 trunks, 5 suitcases and 5 carry on suitcases and 2 backpacks! i have stored about 10 rubbermaids worth of stuff along with a rocking chair and a cradle and that is ALL i own in this world! it feels great! i got rid of a TON of stuff in February and since i have been back i have gotten rid of another 100 plus pounds worth of stuff that i thought i wanted to take with us, but in the end there is just not enough room for it. my goal was 10 trunks and 5 suitcases, but i haven't been able to narrow down that far. if you are in the area...please come pilfer through my final rejects! =) the next time i blog, i will probably be sitting in some airport either in germany or turkey...what?? wow! i can't wait to share the next adventures!