Beauty all around...

ON VACATION!

 Beautiful village

 Incredible hospitality

Summer garden salad

This summer the kids are enjoying lots of time with friends. Anna has learned to make a yummy new salad from her girl friends. Yes, this salad does include fried foods. But, I figure that it  somewhat substitutes for an oily dressing....

Here's how to make it:

Ingredients:
oil
salt
potatoes
eggplant
tomatoes
cucumbers
cabbage 

You can include more or less of what you like most. Pictured above is what we made: 3-4 small eggplants, a small chunk of cabbage (adds some crunchyness), 7 small potatoes, 2 big tomatoes, and 4 small cucumbers.  Next time, I would use more tomatoes and cucumbers or less potatoes..

Chop eggplant into small, narrow pieces.
 

Fry eggplant in oil until crispy.

 Chop cabbage into small pieces and cut up the cucumbers and tomatoes into small pieces.Also pictured above is the eggplant after frying. Remove from oil when done and set aside.

Chop potatoes and fry until crispy, like the eggplant.

Remove the potatoes from the oil and mix everything together, adding salt to taste.

 ENJOY!

Summer Update

I was thinking this morning about sending an update to some family and to Lissie, who left a couple weeks ago after finishing a great school year teaching our kids! Then, I thought I would post the update here for others too....

 This week we began trying to establish a summer routine. We are doing a few school things, and though the first day back at Math was a little painful, they are all back on track! The neighbor kids are all out of school too, and the kids are enjoying lots of time with them. One of Anna's friends starting doing beadwork (on hats) and so now Anna is back at it. I guess it is a summer past time. Our kids are eager to join the kids for night time playing which starts around 8:30 pm or so, when our kids are headed to bed. I'm not sure what they are doing, but we do hear a lot of laughter and shouts after dark!

This week, 12 kids came to our English lesson.  We will see if they all continue through the summer.  We are also planning an activity time with some of the girls on our street once a week to play some games and do an art/ craft project together. My girls are excited about it! Hopefully, local language lessons for the kids will also start up next week.

The fruit in our yard is getting ripe. This week, we picked sour cherries, apricots, a few rasberries, apples, and little round black berries. Summer canning also began and we have our first round of jam and compote in the cellar.  We also started washing carpets this week (which means taking them outside to the concrete and scrubbing!)

We went for a beautiful mountain hike. We went to a new place which followed a river and we roasted hot dogs and played in the freezing water which feeds into the river.

A mama cat decided to bring her 4 tiny kittens into our yard. Much to my relief, she took them somewhere else after a couple of days. Our own mischievous cat is back to his old self after being sick for awhile. He is constantly trying to sneak his way into the house!

Will got into nail polish and drew on the wallpaper this week! He is finally enjoying bath time and playing in water again. He is in the early stages of potty training..... hopefully he will make some progress this summer.

We are making plans for a vacation in late July and in the meantime are acquiring more things!  From beds to a bread machine that Scott bought me this morning at a yard sale......

Big Bash

Here I am ready for our guests to arrive! I decided to throw myself a birthday party this year and invite my neighbors. Here, the one having the birthday throws the party. As you can see, it is important to cover the tablecloth with food, food, and more food. We had 3 kinds of salads, cakes, other sweets, nuts and raisins, a birthday cake, drinks, various fruits, bread, meat pastries...... Once everyone arrived we served a soup made with stuffed green peppers. The highlight of the party were some party games. Grown women do not play games here, but my guests laughed a LOT and we had fun.
 

After the games, we served another course, the national rice dish. THEN, we served cake. My guests wanted me to blow out candles so here is Anna lighting them.

Guests also bring food, so we had a least 4  MORE cakes and sweet to put on the table....  Here I am serving the cake.
 

2 days later and I haven't needed to cook anything! Now, we only have CAKE left. (That won't be true for long....)
 

The Zoo!

The zoo here isn't especially impressive- but we were eager to take Will and see his enthusiasm for "Julias." After having a dog named Julia, he now refers to all animals and bugs and anything that remotely resembles a living creature "Julia." We were not disappointed and had a great time visiting the zoo while my mom and dad were here.

New Bride

 

Last week I went to a neighbor's house to see a new bride.  The new husband's family invited family and neighbors to their home for a big meal. I was told to come to "see the bride." While we ate, the bride came in 4 different times, each time dressed in a new, very beautiful outfit. Some of the bride's new clothes were hanging up around the room as decoration and to show everyone her beautiful dresses.

As we were leaving, I asked the mother-in-law if I could take pictures. The bride happily changed into each of her elaborate dresses so that I could take her picture. I plan to put them on a disc for her and take it over soon.

What this Mom loves to wake up to!