6 months old

I can't believe it, but our little boy is 6 months old! Where has the time gone?!
I thought you might like to know what he's up to these days.

rolling around

trying to sit up on his own - still a little wobbly though


eating a few solid foods


making all sorts of fun sounds with his mouth

scooting around in his walker - well, mostly going backwards

laughing a lot - although whenever the camera comes out he's so interested in trying to snatch the camera he forgets to laugh. this makes it a little difficult to get his laughs on video - sorry!

which brings me to one of the newest challenges - he's trying to grab everything in sight (especially technological devices), and it all goes straight to his mouth

peeking around the corner to see what's going on - he's very curious!
(or maybe just plain nosy)

Things he really likes . . .

putting things over his face, moving his hands away, and kicking his legs - silly!
bathtime

trying to get mommy's glasses

listening to music

watching people clap their hands

trying to "help" daddy play football on the playstation
gotta start 'em young, right?!


playing with anything that makes a "crinkly" sound
(even if it's trash)
Look at him go with this candy bar wrapper!

First Family Vacation

Well, we're back home from what's sure to go down as a trip with quite a few unforgettable moments! Nathan just fell asleep, Mark's taking a nap, and I just finished off a pack of some of my favorite cookies. So I thought I'd share a bit about our first family vacation.

We've traveled quite a bit with Nathan over his short 6 months of life, even staying in quite a few hotels with him, but on all of those trips we were either working or with other friends/family. This time it was just the three of us.

Here's a few interesting things we did/saw . . .

I saw broccoli on the breakfast buffet - and actually ate some!

We saw a little boy squatting in a not so private place to relieve himself - as they say around here, BIG potty - gross!

A guy told us about an olive festival in his village and invited us to go. We asked for the details, and he told us it would only be for that day. After about 2 hours of driving through olive trees for as far as the eye could see on a little dirt tractor path, turning around to start down another road, and winding through a couple of random villages (getting weird looks the whole time), we finally found a real road again. That wasn't the right road either, so we turned around to give up and head back to the hotel. After we turned around we saw the sign for the village. So off we went AGAIN in search of this festival. Guess what we found when we made it to the village . . . a sign that clearly stated "Olive Festival Fri., Oct. 9" We went on Wed.!

where we came from
the view from the road
nothing but olive tress for as far as the eye could see

where we were headed to
that's the village way up on the hill

Nathan got to play in the swimming pool for the first time. It was indoors, so it wasn't cold. But it was chilly enough that it took a while for him to relax. Once he got used to it, he was splashing his hands and squealing in delight.

We drove around looking for an old castle and ended up on another tractor path in the middle of olive trees. We drove so far only to find that the road became impassable. On the same day we tried to get to an old monastery, and the same thing happened. We had to turn around before we got to it because the road was impassable. Sounds like a pretty desolate place, huh? It was, but it was sooooo beautiful!

in our search for the monastery we couldn't get to we found this one

We searched and searched for Mark's favorite national meal and sweet treat - never did find either!

We learned that Nathan, like his big brother Titus, can be kept occupied for a long time with plastic bottles and any kind of food wrapper that makes noise.


I got to enjoy a nice, relaxing aroma therapy massage at the hotel.

We found cinnamon sticks and dried cranberries at the local bazaar - those are rare finds, and I was thrilled!

Also at the bazaar, we walked through the shoe section. In our city, shoes get strung up on lines that hang from one side of the street to the other. At this bazaar, the shoes were stacked so neatly in boxes and displayed so professionally, it was like walking into Rack Room Shoes!

We also got to visit some ancient ruins. The view was spectacular!





We had a few bumps along the way, but it was great to have some quality time as a family!!

Recent Happenings

Well, folks, it's been a while since we last posted anything here. Here's some snippets of life for us lately . . .

Nathan is rolling over both ways now and scooting backwards in the walker. He's also just started eating some solid foods.

We got to visit a 600 year old tree with some friends. It was fun to sit under the huge limbs and drink tea and eat some delicious food!

We learned that if it looks like it's raining too hard to get out and about, it probably is! In order to get to a new coffee/pizza place so we could have a "homework date" we ended up in the middle of the rainstorm of all rainstorms. We were so wet you would have thought we just stood fully clothed under a faucet. It was terrible! Later in the day we found out that there had been lots of flooding downtown where we had been. If we had waited much longer to get home we would have had a very hard time getting back. After all of that we didn't even get our coffee. We ended up back at home drinking Nescafe (instant flavored cofee).

The pizza/coffee place mentioned above is a new place. Their specialties are pizza, coffee, and cheesecake. You can also get a steak and cheese sandwich - philly cheese steak-ish with corn! It's actually quite good, even with the corn. :-) We hope this place will get lots of business because the handful of foreign families living here LOVE it! Mark and I went for a date one night, and I ate an entire small pizza, a piece of cheesecake, and drank a huge mug of hot chocolate. (Gotta love all the calories my body is burning from nursing our little hungry hippo!) I felt so sick after all that!

Mark got bitten by a very long and scary looking centipede. Didn't know they bite? We didn't either . . . Didn't know they could get into your house, crawl up into your furniture, and sneak into your covers at night looking for a snack? We didn't either . . . but we saw it with our own eyes! He's OK, but he said it's the most painful "bug" bite he's ever felt. We tried to take a picture of the creepy thing, but he got away (we thought he was dead, but I guess we were wrong). Just so you know, those things can run fast!!!

I realized, after we got caught in such a terrible rainstorm that led to some serious and unexpected flooding, how much I miss really good weather forecasting! Yes, while living in the States I was a news-a-holic! I LOVED to watch the weather especially. Here, you're lucky if you find out what the temperature will be in a city an hour or so away. After that bad rain system came through, there were a couple of forecasting centers set up with some special forecasting equipment. It was like going back in time! People here were saying they've never seen rain like we had that day, and I guess since it's so unusual for it to rain that hard no one was prepared or really knew what to do in such a storm. No kidding, there was rain, wind, thunder, and lightning for a full 24 hours! It was like a tropical system in a place that's far from tropical!

I'll leave you with a few recent pictures of Nathan. Good night!

our future fisherman

It was a really long day!

getting ready for his first solid food meal
Can you tell he likes to eat?!

"Where's the TV remote?"

What will the neighbors say?

The other night, Mark and I were both up with Nathan in the middle of the night. He was so restless, crying, fussy, and both of us were walking around a little dazed and confused and at our wit's end trying to figure out what else to do with this unhappy baby. I had the bright idea that I was going to try to go back to sleep while Mark sat with him for a little while. But in our little apartment there was no getting away from the crying. I got back up, and Mark was headed out the door with Nathan. It was about 4 in the morning. A hundred questions were going through my head, but I was so out of it by that point I didn't even ask. I honestly thought he was going to just go sit in the car with Nathan.

A little while later, I heard the door unlock, and here comes Mark pushing Nathan (who was bright-eyed and very happy) in the stroller. I was relieved to know that they hadn't been just sitting in the car because I kept thinking, "What will the neighbors say if they see them in the car like that?" Then Mark explained this story to me . . .

As soon as he got Nathan outside he immediately stopped crying. Mark remembered that the stroller was in the trunk of the car, so he decided to stroll him around the neighborhood for a little while. (Remember: 4 AM) He noticed some older women sitting on the balcony eating breakfast (they eat before sunrise because of their fasting right now). Then he saw how quickly they all popped up out of their seats to watch this man pushing a stroller around the street in the middle of the night. So much for the relief I felt when I realized they hadn't been sitting in the car. Now the neighbors had even better ammunition - we had our baby in the cold night air! And what would they have thought if they had seen he was only wearing a onesie with no pants, socks, or blanket?!

Somehow we finally managed to get him back to sleep, and amazingly, I've heard no whispers of the crazy foreigners who take their baby out for a stroll in the middle of the night! Of course, I can imagine that some of those women watching Mark have done some even stranger things to get a baby to sleep! Oh, to hear the stories they could tell!!!

Our feast

Tonight we hosted some local friends for a large evening meal. They are fasting each day from sun-up to sundown, and the meal that breaks the fast in the evenings is often eaten together with family or friends. Since we aren't fasting, and the preparations for such a large meal when you aren't even supposed to taste test anything, can be difficult, we're trying to bless a few friends by preparing the meal for them and giving them a break.

Here's what we had to eat:
dried dates (traditionally used to break the fast along with a glass of room temperature water)
rice stuffed grape leaves (I bought these ready made at the grocery store - yahoo!)
tomato soup (homemade and not too shabby)
salad
pickled veggies (out of a store bought jar)
bread (right out of the baker's oven - piping hot - mmm, mmm good!)
a vegetable medley (potatoes, tomatoes, green/red peppers, eggplant, zucchini, garlic that's all fried/sauteed first then all placed together and stewed. Yummy!)
bulgur pilav
a local version of chicken stir fry (with onions, garlic, peppers, and tomatoes)

And after all that, our guests were too stuffed to eat the dessert I made, so we just sat on the balcony and chatted while we drank our tea. (I didn't think the dessert turned out all that great anyway. It's these bland little cookie things that are soaked in a sugar syrup and serve cold with cream or coconut.)

We had a great time with our friends, and if I must say so myself, "It was delicious!" I will also tell you that I've never chopped so many veggies before in my life! There is a reason no one cooks like this every day of the year!!!

More Good News

I'm wearing my bracelet! And it only cost about 3 dollars to have it fixed.

Good News

My bracelet has been found! Now to get to the shop and pick it up before it gets lost on that very dirty and crowded work table again!!!

(For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, please read the previous post.)