Happy Birthday Michael

 We have a nine year old boy in the house! Here is Michael's birthday breakfast- homemade donuts! We had special visitors, Papa and Bibi, who brought Suzy Q, the puppet shown here. Suzy Q travels with Bibi to show the grand kids where all they get to travel.

 Will enjoying his donut from the standing position. This chair, and the boy standing in it, causes us all kinds of trouble at meal times!

 

We went to the lake to swim to celebrate!

 

So thankful to be able to have Bibi and Papa with us!

 

Michael wanted Grammy Gloria's chocolate pie for dessert. Thankfully, it turned out yummy.

 Michael with his birthday present, a very cool spiderman skateboard.

 We love you Michael!

Happy Eid

 After 30 days of fasting, our Muslim neighbors celebrate the ending of the fast with a holiday. The holiday, Eid, is celebrated differently in different places, so this year we learning how it is celebrated here. The day night before Eid begins, neighbors exchange treats. I made some friend bread things and osh, the national dish, to trade. We got lots of treats from our neighbors, some in exchange from the osh I made (which didn't turn out that great, but the way!) and some from their own initiation. Michael and Katie are enjoying fried bread with mashed potatoes inside.

 

Here, Scott is holding halwa. My friend told me that you make it from 1 kilo of flour, 1 kilo of sugar, and 1 kilo of oil. She said it is hard work to make because you have to stir and stir. It is really yummy with bread. We were thankful to our neighbor who brought it over.

 

 The first morning of Eid, the kids got up early and got all dressed up. Then, they went around the neighborhood and got treats from all the neighbors (kinda like Halloween) Our kids were happy to participate in this tradition! Here is Katie, all dressed up and ready to go! The girls popped out of bed at 6:00am and their friend came and got them at about 6:45 am!

 Michael went around with this crew of kids.

 Later in the day, the girls and I went and visited a neighbor friend who asked me to come and visit.  Many people lay out a tablecloth full of treats for the holiday. In our neighborhood, people mostly visit households who have a new bride or have had a death in the family that year. They also visit family and sometimes neighbors and friends as well.

The boys joined us for this picture.  They are more dressed for the summer heat.

Here are 2 of my friend's sons and her lovely tablecloth.

She had made lots of treats for the occasion.

In the evening, the kids and I went and visited another neighbor who had invited us to dinner. They have 4 girls and the oldest speaks English very well.  They are happy to have friends to help practice English with.

Sports and sun

 One of the other ex-pat families organized a junior Olympics. The kids ran, wrestled, threw, jumped, and had lots of fun. Here is Katie landing her long jump.

 Michael finishing his race. They ran around the track three times and woke up this morning with very sore legs!

 Michael got the silver medal over all. There were around 10 kids who participated. 

 After the Olympics, we went with another family to the lake. There are lots of beautiful places to hike, swim, and rest here. We rented this little boat for an hour and the kids had a blast! Here is Michael (the one not looking) with some friends.

 Will also enjoyed the water. He fell asleep in my arms in the lake. We sat on a wooden platform that sat out on the lake.

 After we came home, Will emptied this cabinet and crawled in. He is showing his mischievous smile as he pulls on the fan cord.

Then he played peek-a-boo out of the window. We put screens up so that he couldn't fall out.

Swinging and other new things

 I was thrilled to find this swing on our travels. It is amazing what you can find in this part of the world! Now,  we hope to find a kiddie pool and swings for the big kids......

I heard Scott and the kids opening the box and a while later I ran outside when I heard my baby giggling. This is what I found. I think he likes it!!  This mom thinks this is one adorable little guy!

 This picture captures some of the summer fun for these 3 kids. Books and kittens!! The older 2 have been reading like crazy since Dad was able to ship some books here from our old home. There are also plenty for Katie and Will to enjoy too!  Katie is also reading really well. We are thrilled!
Michael must not have wanted to be distracted from reading to take this picture....

This picture is from the day of our party. "What is going on around here anyway?"

A week away

 We had an unexpected week away last week in order to get new visas and we had a really nice time. The city we visited had lots of fun things to do including public pools! The place we went had several big pools and slides and such but the highlight for Will was this little baby pool. His first "swim!"

 We had fun at several places including a park with lots of rides and these bumper cars!

Crash!

 

How to host a lavish party.....

This week, we hosted a party for our neighbors. We moved into our house in late May, and since we moved close to where we lived before, we know some of our new neighbors. Others, we wanted to meet and so we invited them, too.

In order to throw the party, there was lots of planning and things to do in advance......

• Decide how many people to invite and then go around house to house to invite everyone the day before the event
• Find someone to make osh- the national dish that is always served to guests
• Work with a friend to make sure she could come and make the other dishes, which are for the women guests: salads, soup, meat pastries, etc.
• Do LOTS of shopping to gather all the necessary foods and other things necessary to throw a party.
• Borrow LOTS of dishes from your neighbors so that you have plenty for the big day
• Clean your house! We have a smaller guest room where we can normally host people and welcome visitors, but for this big day we need the biggest room in the house, which is the kid's room. So, we emptied it of the kids' stuff and set it up with a  big tablecloth surrounded by mats for our guests to sit on.

We had a great party. Here's some pics from the big day!

The men came at 7:00 am to eat! We were up late the night before getting ready and the osh cooker arrived at 4:00am to get started.  We were pleased that around 25 men came

 The osh was cooked outside in a huge pot over a fire. Here is the cook with a few of our guests eating their osh outside. Osh is made with lots of oil, onions, meat, carrots, and rice. It is yummy (though rather oily!).

 Here I am while the men eat getting more goodies on plates for the women. The women require much more food and stay longer than the men. We added homemade juice, a huge cake, lots of homemade goodies, 2 kinds of salad,  and cauliflower coated in egg and fried to the tablecloth before the women arrived.

 Here is the tablecloth before the arrival. We're ready!

 And thankfully, lots of lovely ladies came! They arrive at around 9:30 am. They each brought something, homemade bread or cake or some other treat, or money. Some of the ladies brought potatoes or cucumbers fresh from their gardens.

I enjoyed myself. My friend Rachel and I had a weekly English club with some of these ladies kids this month and we had the kids come in and say their English greetings and some proverbs that they had learned.  I was happy to see faces that I recognized and ladies that I was meeting for the first time.

While they ate, we put bread, treats, and a small gifts into the bags the ladies had brought.  We also had bags ready to prepare  for the ladies that brought money. All of this is part of Central Asian hospitality!! We served the ladies a bowl of soup, then osh, and then we cut up the huge cake and served that as well. 

This picture is of my helpers! I sure am glad they were there to help. After the guests left, the clean up began.

Now our fridge is full of leftovers and our heart are full of thankfulness everything went smoothly and our neighbors came.