Nowroz!

bust out your baggy pants and put on your dancing shoes...it's Nowroz! it's the biggest holiday around here and very exciting. it entails picnics that start first thing in the morning and last all day long and into the evening. it means putting on your traditional "jili kurdi" and shaking your shoulders to the loud music blasted from the nearest car. it means driving around for an hour trying to find the perfect place and really just ending up pulled off the side of the road along with EVERYONE else in the country!

the day before Nowroz i decided my boys MUST have jili kurdis, so we ran to the bazaar with Kak Umed, our neighbor, and found the perfect ones for our boys. They love them too! i really think they are so cute on...am i totally losing my cultural awareness? jesse has even started sitting like a kurd, perched cross legged on a sofa...or squatting in front of his food or toys.

Reshwan, Toby and Jesse...they are best friends! the boys say their best part of every day is Reshwan. He has kind of a crazy laugh and when we first got here, i was not enjoying his influence on the boys, but lately as we have enforced our boundaries on him and even put him in time out a few times he has started becoming much more obedient and we are learning to love him more and more.

see...Kak Umed is sitting just like Jesse was in that first picture. he is trying to help toby readjust his waist and yes...you are supposed to wear them up high...

best buds drinkin' to the good life

it was a little chilly at first, so annie, much to her chagrin had to cover up her sparkly turquoise vest!

toby has really been the one to really adjust to the culture. in fact, he loves to give kisses on the cheeks when we greet people and loves to recline against the men. i know God is using his big, tender and sweet heart to touch many lives!

the jili kurdi is cute on the boys...but i prefer tim in a pair of jeans still...this made him look about 100 pounds overweight...we were seriously cracking up as we were getting ready at how huge his rear end looked when he bent over!

Jesse reveling in the fact that he got to drink a lot of pop on this holiday, because they kept handing him one and there was nothin' momma could do about it!

see mom...mmmm...hopefully his teeth don't all rot out like Reshwan's!

man...i wish they would just smile. they really love to laugh and smile all the time, but as soon as the camera turns on, it's all serious! i guess they must think i look really cheesy all the time! Fairoz is on my right and her daughter Jacow on my left! These two have really grown a place in my heart too. At first they were not super endearing, but now i really do love them and am thankful for all the ways they love us, like bringing us bread and eggs in the morning and letting us tag along on their big holiday...i am not sure if the tables were turned that it would be the same. we just don't invite neighbors to Christmas dinner typically!

we brought along a few games and the boys tried each one for about 30 seconds each....leaving a nice little mess for me to clean up.

the other americans were also picnicking nearby and stopped over for a photo shoot!

Annie and Naza...a cousin of our neighbors

the feast...which included the WORST thing yet! i am not entirely sure what it was actually...i think it was stomach or intestine stuffed with rice and maybe cinnamon or something and then sewed up and boiled all together. amounting to large sewn together sickly white lumps of flesh on a platter. oh they looked awful and then of course they dumped one of my plate and insisted i eat it. i didn't even know how to start. finally Fairoz opened it for me. apparently you just grab a piece of the thread and jerk it around in the air a few times until it plops open and then you can devour the rice inside. i managed to bury a few spoonfuls of the rice in bread and swallow them whole, but then i just couldn't do it anymore. i contributed a pasta salad to the festivities to which i am sure they were all a little horrified by. in general i haven't seen many dishes that are mixed together with lots of ingredients...nor served cold! so it didn't get touched much, but that's okay, all the more for leftovers for us for lunch. it sure beats PB and J!

now see...this is a good look! the shirt $2, the pants $5....the look on his face....PRICELESS!

UNO ended up being a big hit among the men! can you find Tim in the crowd? it was funny yesterday to be wearing the same thing as everyone else. i of course am obviously NOT Kurdish, not only is my skin pale, my hair is "blond" (according to them anyway) but i am super tall too! so we got so many stares yesterday and you could almost see on their faces what they were thinking, "what? who is that? wait...are they kurdish? he looks kurdish. not her though. is she foreign? oh my...i think she is. oh wow...now let's just openly stare for 10 minutes!"

mom...please stop taking pictures of us!

well...once the meal is over, you can always take the dishes down to the little stream to wash them...but watch out for the old women peeing next to the creek...oh wait...not peeing...the other one. right next to the water...maybe in it. no problem...we will still wash our dishes here. i was gagging the whole time!

this is trying to capture the mass amount of people and cars spread out throughout any available field to picnic in. we all picnicked about 10 feet apart. no one seemed to mind though!

inside this blanket is a baby...they were trying to rock him to sleep. poor guy...the babies here...no schedule for sure...i mean it's not in their culture...but they were so blitzed out by the end of the day. but i guess they will learn soon enough to adapt.

this is my favorite picture of the day...i did not take this picture. in fact i don't know who did. i guess i left my camera unattended and i got a bunch of random pictures, but this was my favorite for sure! Meet GIAR...16 and fabulous in a tight white shirt that says "LONDON" on it and satin black pants! no he is not gay, far from it. this is what the young men wear here! it's crazy! i am not sure why he decided i might want this picture on my camera...but thank you GIAR...you are stunning!

these next few pics are from today...yesterday we were out for 9 hours and today for 5 hours. we went to 3 different picnics this time. first we had cake and tea. then at the next one we had tea and cake and some really salty, really nasty meat...not sure what it was. don't want to know either in fact. then we ended up with this awesome family. we have eaten with this family several times and they LOVE to laugh!

we had a great time playing and chatting

then it started getting COLD and we bundled up in blankets together as the sun went down!

the boys in this family are so caring and played with our kids so well...he was trying to teach toby to "head" the ball! (then my camera died) we ended up staying until well after dark and walking back to the car that was parked a mile away....thanks a lot Carol! only kind of followed by a few random guys. tim was gone at a soccer game at this point. but we made it home and we were warmer for the walk!