Recent Photos

Hannah with our dear friend's granddaughter and daughter who got married while we were in the states. The little girls are trying on her "bride hats" or "toqees." Traditionally when you go to visit a new bride, she changes her outfit multiple times, showing the guests the beautiful dresses that her in-laws gave her as part of her dowry. She wears a veil and bows over and over again showing that she's always ready to serve. Because we were with good friends, she got most of the bowing done quickly and we could just visit.

Can you tell these are cacti? We've made a ruling in our house, however. In our house, they are cactuses. Hannah told me, "Mommy, I just REALLY don't like 'cacti'. Saying 'cactuses' is much better." I agree with her. We'll probably refer to octopi as octopuses too.

Hannah is thrilled to have a couple places to climb in our new yard. As you can see, there's a designated space for some animals but we won't be putting anything other than our little monkeys in there for now.

Emmett has lots of room to ride his car. He likes that the driveway slants a bit.

Watching a line of ants bring crumbs to their colony. It just never gets old. I wonder where the crumbs came from :)

They've discovered a bunch of vegetables growing in the yard. Here they are digging out carrots.

Who can resist a fresh batch of play-dough - especially with all the fun tools we brought from America! Hannah made a coral reef (also a subject that never gets old) and Emmett is in a maze phase. He's constantly asking us to make mazes for his cars to go through. Fortunately, his sister is patient (more patient than his mom) and is generally happy to make them for him. It seems that when I make them - they are either way too hard or way too easy and then a lot of whining ensues. The previous phase was building tunnels - Hannah was also better at this too. At least someone around here can get it right :)

Back in the swing of things

They made paper snakes and held them above a heater while learning about how heat rises. The snakes turned around and around - they loved it.

Already green grass growing in the mountains. I even found some mint. The kids love getting out like this.

A walkway in our neighborhood. Perfect for Emmett to drive his car on. His sister does a good job of keeping an eye on him.

We've been back in our home in Tajikistan for three weeks now. Jet-lag is a distant memory (thankfully) and we've got a decent schedule going. The weather has been really mild for winter. We've had just as many days in the 60s as we've had in the 40s and pretty good electricity to boot. Hannah enjoys making mud cakes outside as often as she can and Emmett is perfectly happy riding his "car" around. He's funny - he can't stand his hands getting messy or his shirt getting wet but he'll tear through mud puddles on that car, totally disregarding how muddy his pants and feet get.
We've been doing school for the last two weeks and Hannah really loves it. Even Emmett likes to be part of some of the reading, the science and memorizing scripture - otherwise he stays close by, building train tracks and mazes for his cars to go through.
I'm enjoying home-schooling too. I really like the curriculum (Sonlight). It has a lot of reading involved in it and explores all the people of the world. She's already been learning about Ancient Egypt and can find it on the map and sees where things are in relationship to our two homes: Seattle and Tajikistan. After one of the stories we read about two girls returning to India to volunteer, we were supposed to talk about what it's like to go to another country and think about anyone we know who maybe went to another country. Well, I obviously had to modify that discussion subject so that it would be more relevant to her. I asked her what she thinks about going to other countries, if it's scary or exciting or what. She said she liked going to other countries and that it's not scary at all. We talked about what's good about going to other countries and she was quick to point out that we get to learn some other languages when we go somewhere else. I informed her that not every kid her age has been to other countries. She looked confused. I told her, "certainly many of your Tajik friends haven't been to another country but even some of your friends from preschool in America haven't been to another country." Her response was shock, "No! That's IMPOSSIBLE!" I left out the tidbit about it being generally difficult to travel with small children and that most people in their right mind save that for when the kids are a bit older.
Rees presses on with the opening of the new business, Trade 41. This name comes from the well-known Tajik proverb: "Forty skills/trades for a man is still few." They got official permission from the Ministry of Education to begin classes after many months of hard work figuring things out by our coworkers who have been in the country this fall - way to go guys! They start their English classes on Monday and hope to add other classes like Russian, German, accounting, computers, sewing, etc to the mix as they go. Our local friends and acquaintances are still adjusting to the fact that Trade 41 is a totally different business. At this point, there is no option for reduced tuition and stuff like that and the cost for classes, though still a great price, is more expensive than it was when offered by a non-profit. When people ask us why Millenium is gone, we frequently refer to the Chinese Bazaar that had been here for years. It was a huge area of freight containers lined up in rows where textiles were sold - not as crazy and crowded as the big bazaar. It was run primarily by Uyghurs (from Western China) and Uzbeks and, of course, some Tajiks. Well apparently it was still there, business as usual, one day during the fall and suddenly the next day - it was totally gone. Freight cars and all. There's a new bazaar just on the way out of town and there's been all kinds of scandals surrounding getting people to move their business from the old bazaar and Chinese bazaar to the new one (which is owned by a family member of the president). I explain Millenium's closure to the moving of the Chinese Bazaar. "You know how it is, it was there one day and the next it wasn't. If someone with power wants something to be moved or closed, it will be." People immediately understand that. They don't understand the court-case and all that, but they do understand how people in power get to decide how things work (or don't). Another example is the huge, black SUV I saw zooming (totally wrecklessly) up and down the middle of one of the main roads that goes by our apartment. There were some young men driving in it and they'd zip right past a group of four policemen each time. The policemen did nothing. I was out on the sidewalk talking to a neighbor and mentioned that those boys could kill someone and that they were zooming right past a whole group of policemen and why didn't they at least tell them to slow down. She said (translated), "Oh they won't stop a car like that. They know someone important must own it." And so that's they way things go, but I digress...
Our biggest news is that we found a house we'll be moving into in the next few weeks. It's in a great location and we were surprised to find it so quickly. Actually, our handyman found it for us and helped negotiate our lease. We'll post pictures once we take some.
As for me and the bun in the oven - we are doing well. I can't believe how uncomfortable I've gotten so early. This kid is taking up plenty of room inside already and I already have to heave myself up from wherever I'm sitting with some effort. On the positive side - I'm not swollen at all and though I wouldn't say I have a lot of energy - I have energy sufficient for each day. We still plan to go to Chiang Mai, Thailand in early May and have this baby (due June 3rd) there.
Thanks for your faithful prayers, thoughts and encouragement. We love to hear from you too. 

Sumaya

There are moments in life that you feel the air around you deflate and an otherwise happy or at least neutral moment gets crushed under the weight of reality. They happen to everyone everywhere but I sure feel like they happen a lot more frequently here. Tragedy is just easier to come by in poor countries.
Today we had one of those moments - the kind that will prick sadness inside us whenever we remember. We have been back in Tajikistan for a week now and we headed out to the village to see our Tajik family. For those who are new to this blog - we lived with a local family who knew no English for one month when we first got here. They have become like family to us and we refer to their village as "our village" when we talk about it. They have been so patient with us from the get-go with learning Tajik and learning cultural do's and don'ts. They've also been a great source of counsel when we've needed local advice about situations that have come up in the neighborhood. In our Tajik family's house there is our Tajik mom and dad. We call our mom "Khola-jon" and our dad "Muallim-jon." The kids call them "Moma" and "Bobo" which means grandma and grandpa respectively. We have 5 brothers - the oldest is Rees' age and all except the youngest have kids. The youngest is getting married this spring. There are also two sisters but they live with their husbands and mother-in-laws. The brother Rees is closest with is named Jamshed and he's been a great help with language since we got to Tajikistan, not to mention someone that Rees generally just enjoys hanging out with. His wife's name is Sanovbar and she grew up across the street and hoped she would someday marry Jamshed - isn't that cute? In this household, there are nine kids - not to mention the random nieces and nephews and other grand kids that are over on any given day. When we left for the states - we had four little nieces and nephews that were just barely a year old. We were excited to see all the kids when we arrived today. We knew they'd all grown and I really couldn't wait to see Jamshed's daughter, Sumaya. She's so much like him already - always moving, always taking in her surroundings and just a wiry little thing. I figured she'd probably seem like she'd grown the most and she'd be running around everywhere (she had barely taken her first step when we left). We walked into the gate and kissed all the kids and family and I quickly scanned the ground to see which little ones were running around. I saw the littlest boy, Yakub, and he was walking around no problem. I turned to Sanovbar - still with a smile on my face, happy to see them all again - and asked, "Where's Sumaya? Is she so big now? Is she running around?" and it was like the air froze over.  Sanovbar couldn't say anything and my other sister-in-law said "she left" and made a sign like washing her hands over her face - a sign people make at the end of a prayer and when referring to someone who died. Sanovbar just stood next to me with tears streaming down her face and everyone was frozen - there were no other words to say. All I could do was hold Sanovbar and say, "Oooooooh noooooooo" - I know, no magical, soothing words here, but what can you say when you realize someone's 1 1/2 year old just died? Apparently back in September she got sick like a cold but her mouth turned white and was covered with sores and the cold wouldn't improve. They went to the doctor who gave them a salve for her mouth that helped but told them they needed to have her blood tested. The tests came back showing abnormalities in her white blood cells consistent with leukemia. They took her to the main hospital in Dushanbe (the capital city) and they confirmed the diagnosis and offered some treatment but more or less told them that they just didn't have anything that would cure her. They told them that in America and other countries they are able to do more research and at least offer clinical trials and stuff like that but that there's really nothing much that can be done. The brothers were insistent that there must be a mistake and so they took Sumaya to multiple different doctors but all came back with the same terrible news. They took her home and Moma and Bobo slept right by her all the time. She slowly stopped being able to walk and they kept spoon feeding her water and a little bit of food but she slowly stopped taking it til one day she was just gone. That was just a month ago. There is, as expected, still a great cloud of sadness that hangs over our family and, of course, Rees and I are just now processing all of this. I worked in oncology for 7 years before coming here so I'm acquainted with worst-case-scenarios that happen to good people who are too young, or in their prime, or have just gotten a second chance at life somehow or who are newly retired after working so hard their whole lives and are ready to pursue some new dreams. It's always awful when these things happen and I have to say that you just never get accustomed to it. It's always desperately sad.
I always liked the name "Sumaya" (Soo-mai-YAH) and I remember sitting around talking to my sister-in-laws one day (before Sanovbar was even pregnant with her) and they were asking me what Tajik names I like. I told them for a girl I really like "Sumaya" and for whatever reason they really liked that I liked that name. When she was born, Sanovbar and Jamshed asked the oldest sister-in-law what she should be named and she said, "Sumaya." I definitely didn't hide my approval of that name :). Every child is precious - it's not just a cliche. Sanovbar was so excited to have a daughter and I thought I'd post some pictures of Sumaya here.

Sumaya and her mom, Sanovbar. She was a tiny, fussy, baby - you know the kind that needed to be held and bounced and all that. She was so little, though, that your arms rarely got tired.

I'm trying to get her to fall asleep in my lap so her mom can get some stuff done. This is one of the first times that Hannah came over and kissed a baby just because she wanted to - not because anyone encouraged her too.

Finally starting to fall asleep.

She's just turned one and is still a tiny girl but she's active and makes us all work to get smiles. Holding her made Rees start to want another baby girl.

Emmett holds her every chance he gets. I have another picture where her head is lower than her feet while he's holding her and you can tell she remembers how this guy operates and is unsure.

Traveling by grace

Just try to wake these two up. This is what jet-lag looks like for us :)

I've heard "grace" defined as "unmerited favor." I'm not going to go into any theological discourse on grace and traveling but we feel so fortunate to have experienced great grace during our travels back to Tajikistan. To those of you who prayed, THANK YOU. I don't know why some travels go so smoothly and some don't but this long journey went really well and we are thankful to be back.
It is amazing how much stuff we travel with when we come here from the U.S. We've been to Germany and Thailand (and Rees has been to Turkey) since living here but we are never worried about "overages" in our luggage and we don't pack our carry-ons too ridiculously full when we return from those places. Coming back from the states is another story. There are just so many things that are so nice to have here - spices, crafts, big containers of medicine (this is so American but we love the huge bottles of Ibuprofen, TUMS and the like that you can get at Costco - you just can't find quantities like this anywhere else), decent clothes for the kids (Target clothes look like designer digs compared to what we can usually find here), games and on and on. We are at a stage where homeschool curriculum is going to be taking up more and more room too. This time around it composed about 70lbs of our checked-in luggage weight. I'm hoping that that will become less as tablets and Kindles and such are owned by more people.
With the help of my sister, her new hubby (just aside - we are so happy to welcome Josh into the family!), my brother and my mom, we got all our 7 bags checked in and then took off with our carry-ons full of rocks through security. We made it to our gate while the plane was boarding and the kids sat happily with their Leap Pads while we flew to Las Vegas (weird place for an international connection, huh?). We had plenty of time while in Las Vegas to let the kids run off some steam - they never get tired of those people mover things - and then got on our flight for Frankfurt. About 4 hours into the flight I was thinking, "ugh, this is when I start feeling like this will never end!" but Rees, me and the kids ended up sleeping off and on for 3-4 hours and the rest of the flight just zipped by. We got to Frankfurt and were greeted by Rees' cousin Luci and her husband Uli. They helped us find our shuttle to the hotel and get ourselves and our bags all situated. We ended up being able to keep our luggage in a luggage locker instead of hauling up to our room and Luci & Uli kept us awake (thank you!) and helped us find an inexpensive deli close by. Rees made it til about 6pm and then conked out and the kids and I made it til 7. Hannah woke up at about 11:30 and was wide awake so we gave her a snack and sat her down with her DVD player and Jake and the Neverland Pirates (a favorite in our house these days). Emmett slept til 2:30am and then he needed a snack and such. He was able to fall back asleep by 5 and Hannah by 6 and we all slept until 9 or 10 - not too bad for jet lag. The hotel (which had been completely booked for a few nights) was able to get us a late check out so we took the kids for a swim and got showered and ate breakfast at a leisurely pace and then headed back to the airport (without any surprise charges at the hotel - always a bonus!). We were delighted to find that the Somon Air counter was already open and there was no line. We were dreading having to pay for our 80kg of extra weight in our luggage but were thrilled when the lady checking us in announced that we were over by 11kg and only charged us for that - amazing. We had time to eat lunch and get to the plane (which took off on time - 3 out of 3 planes left on time) which was only about 1/3 full. We had room to stretch out and snooze which is always appreciated. It turns out that there was a huge ice storm in Frankfurt the following day so good thing our plane left on Saturday. We had the most uneventful time getting through passport control in Dushanbe and found that all of our luggage had safely made it. Some of the local workers at the airport even helped us get our bags checked out (an interesting process we've only run in to in the Dushanbe airport) and we were out of the airport within 30 minutes of landing - a record for sure! Our friend picked us up in another friends car and we were somehow able to fit all our bags in and got back to our town, KT, by 5:30am. The kids were thrilled to see the toys and books they had left behind. Hannah had visitors through the day and got right to work making her mud pies with some of the other little girls. They were so excited they couldn't sleep and ended up falling asleep for the night at 4pm (they slept straight through til 4am). We're still in the midst of jet-lag (so you'll have to forgive anything in this post that makes no sense) but have already enjoyed seeing some friends and getting unpacked. To top it all off, we've had really good electricity so far - only a few couple hour cuts. Oh, and though we had some grumpy moments - we were able to not bite each other's heads off - also appreciated :)

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So now it's on to winterizing our place, looking for a house to move into, getting into homeschooling, Rees getting up to speed on the new business all the while trying to be sure to rest. We'll keep you updated on how that's going.

Winter get-away

Rees and I got to spend 3 days in the Cascades, just fifteen miles outside of Leavenworth - just the two of us - recently. It was so much fun! It was the first time we've spent that much time away from the kids (with the exception of Rees' hospitalization in Dushanbe - but I wouldn't call that a get-away or enjoyable). We got to the B&B just in time for a major storm to hit. We ended up getting 2 1/2 - 3 ft (close to a meter) of snow within the first 36 hours we were there. The B&B, Pine River Ranch, provided us with snow shoes and we shuffled through the property while it snowed. I had three inches of snow on my hat by the time we returned. Ironically, the power went out the second day we were there and remained out til we left. Much like our "normal" life in Tajikistan. We instinctively located the candles, lantern and filled the bath tub with water (thinking that in such a remote place, the water may come up via a pump that wouldn't work without power). Thankfully, the gas fireplace still worked. The owner was wondering to himself how they were going to flush all the toilets (because, indeed the water wasn't working). Rees told him that we were leaving a bathtub full of water and he said, "how did you know to do that?" Oh how to explain?
 We are accustomed to shamelessly looking for places to charge our phone and computer so we brought our electronics with us wherever we went and managed to almost watch a whole movie before our computer died. We charged it more in the morning when we went to breakfast and finished the movie in the truck in the Safeway parking lot :)
Suffice it to say, Rees and I still really like each other. Getting away is such a good reminder of that.
Thanks to Nan for watching the kids while we were away. No easy task but she was still on two feet with a smile on her face when we got home.

Leavenworth. I've loved seeing this little Bavarian town dressed up for Christmas since I was a kid.

We saw how hard it was snowing but we were a little surprised at how quickly our truck ended up like this.

After no more than an hour of snow-shoeing.

I've always loved driving on highway 2 in the winter. So beautiful.

We managed to return home with a truck-bed still full of snow. The kids built snowmen in it.

Pics of what we've been up to

We loved spending some time at Lake Chelan in August.

In typical Hannah fashion, she decided one day (when we'd all gotten out of the water and were heading home for dinner) that she was ready to swim without water wings. She was determined and I wasn't going to fight it. So she jumped off the side of the pool and just started swimming. Here she is swimming in the lake.

Rees couldn't wait to get up in the hills and start looking for deer.

The kids were excited to get up in the hills and look for deer with daddy.

Plenty of baths for the cousins. Evan is on the left.

First harvest: a bear. He had jalapeno pepperoni made out of this one and Nan had the hide made into a rug.

We got to visit with some dear friends in Portland just before they moved to Minneapolis. We are so proud of how well they are all doing.

Rees' first deer of the season. From NE Oregon.

He wasn't alone for this one. His devoted wife helped him pack this guy out until 1am.

Rees was excited to give the kids hooves to play with just like his dad had done for him when he was a kid. These Bettinger men are a little odd, but they are on to something. The kids loved them.

Hannah and Brooklyn (daughter of good friends of ours from the Portland days) dressed up like princesses.

Me with some of my childhood friends: Meela, Malaika and Rhea. We actually got away together for a whole weekend! AMAZING!

Hannah and Emmett love preschool. They really enjoyed the field trip to the Salmon Hatchery.

With sun and warm temperatures lasting into October, we got to spend lots of time at parks. This is Lake Washington.

They always have a wonderful time at Laurel, aka: Grandma Peace's, house in Portland.

Strong effort hunting in Chelan but the deer remained safe from these guys this year.

Nanu threw a harvest party for the grandkids.

They bobbed for apples whole-heartedly.

They took daddy's lead and just plunged their whole head into the bucket to get an apple.

Preschool has been a huge blessing. The kids LOVE it. Of course, Emmett's favorite thing to do at preschool is play with cars and trains. He just has more friends to do it with at preschool.

Well, I'll have to post more pics later. Rees was also successful in his Oregon elk hunt (actually, every member of his hunting party was - five guys got five elk and they worked hard for them). Rees had been saying that he just wanted to fill his mom's freezer with meat before we left and I'd say he was pretty successful at that.

Advent in the U.S.

I wasn't sure what I'd think about all the glitz, kitsch, lights, consumerism and hustle-bustle of Christmas time in the states after spending three Christmases in a poor country that doesn't even celebrate Christmas. Turns out, I'm loving all the lights, the Christmas music everywhere, the red and green advertisements in store windows, the decorations everywhere, how easy it is to buy Christmas presents and find baking ingredients and all that stuff. There are some things that I knew I would enjoy - being with family and friends (duh), having ridiculously predictable electricity and water and how easy that makes baking holiday treats (not to mention cooking dinner, heating a house and bathing children), store-bought eggnog, access to any ingredient I so desire, ease of finding gifts for loved-ones (give my creativity a break!) and the feeling that the culture around me is anticipating the same thing. In the Pacific NW in particular, we may each celebrate Christmas differently and for different reasons, but there's still the feeling that most of the people around you are getting ready for Dec. 25th for some reason or another. I'm LOVING being able to go to church during advent. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally a believer in the church is people not a building, but there are people gathered at so many buildings called churches here and it's so wonderful to be able to worship together and be in an environment where there are a lot of people meditating on the coming of Jesus. I just have to put a plug in here for John Piper's poems on the Desiring God website. Really moving. Here's a link to one about the innkeeper of the "no room in the inn" inn in case you've never heard it.
 http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/poems/the-innkeeper-original-1986
The kids are loving Christmas-time here too. Everywhere we go Emmett says, "look mommy! Christmas things!" Costco is one of his favorite places right now because of all the decorations that are out. He doesn't realize that they're all for sale. He's just enjoying what he's seeing. I guess that's what I'm doing too. Sure, there's plenty of criticism for the "over-done-ness" of the holidays in the U.S. but why focus on that? We're just going to keep enjoying what we see and hear and make the most of our holiday season here.