Update

Well, we’re down to only about a week before we head back to the states and of course, life is quite busy. This week’s main task is trying to sell as much stuff as we can before giving away the rest. I didn’t factor in any money for selling our stuff in our budget so anything we make will be a nice little bonus and if we don’t sell it, big deal! It will go to help those who have far less resources than we do.

We finally got our final shipment of books from the US just in time for me to sort through and pull out the homeschooling books we’ll need this year before sending them right back to the post office to go back the other way. In case you’re wondering, it took three months for the books to get here and we decided to go back about two months ago. C’est le vie!

We’ve done a bit of sight seeing and hope to do at least a little more before we leave but that depends on how long it takes to get everything else pulled together. I think I’ll have to wait until after we return before I post any pictures since I’m still busy with packing and because we sold our computer table, the computer is not as easily accessible during the day as it was before. Gotta keep Reza away. We haven’t done any exit shopping yet, and I have no idea when we’ll be able to fit that in but I’ve already promised to get some things so it’ll get done soon I hope.

I’ll likely be without a computer starting within the next few days and lasting who knows how long. So, in the mean time I leave you with some wonderful blogs to check out in case you haven’t yet. Except for Patty’s blog, I’ve only recently discovered these blogs that are rich in knowledge, insight and a fresh perspective on life. You may not agree with everything that is written on each site but, please, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. There’s plenty to be gained by looking around.

Patty http://www.morningramble.blogspot.com/

Amy at http://amidchaos.blogspot.com

http://www.homeliving.blogspot.com/

Mrs. Plain and Simple at http://echofromthegreenhills.blogspot.com/

Lisa http://www.crazycowcountryfarm.com/blog.html

Peggy http://www.hiddenhavenhomestead.blogspot.com/ 

Moms for Modesty

There is an internet petition that I can really agree with. It is called Moms and Dads for Modesty. The goal is to get retailers and children’s clothing manufactures to offer clothing for little girls that is not suggestive or rude but modest and actually looks like little girls’ clothes and not just sized down teenage girls’ clothes.

If you don’t have daughters or your daughters are grown you might not realize how very hard it is to find decent, well priced clothes for girls. Girls’ clothes are now full of attitude and sexual innuendos. What’s up with printing messages across the butt of a child’s pair of jeans? Before coming to Iran, I tried finding pants that were not skin tight and/or designed to accentuate the rear end for both my girls. You would think that since they were just 3 and 5 that it wouldn’t be a problem, right? WRONG! I went through some many different pairs of pants for each girl from several different stores and ended up buying the boys’ pants! How sad is that?

Another problem with what’s called fashion in the US is that those styles get copied all over the world. When we went to Dubai I had just as much difficultly finding girls’ pants. Worse still, we were in a pediatric dentist’s office a couple of weeks ago and one 7 or 8 year old girl came out wearing a shirt that was completely bare across the middle in front except for a few strips of fabric holding the two halves together. I never, ever would have thought I’d see something like that here!
http://www.everydaymommy.net/everyday-mommy/2006/9/5/moms-for-modesty.html 

Swiss Family Robinson vs. Jenny Montross

I've recently finished reading The Swiss Family Robinson and if you haven't read it already, I highly recommend it. It's a fairly fun and easy read but it has a lot of value to it as well. But be forewarned, this post will be a bit of a spoiler to the book.

When we came here, just about everything was already set up for us. My MIL and SIL had found us a rental house, had it completely cleaned and furnished it and add some decorative touches as well as ordering a new car from the factory, all before we got here. (Think they were excited or what?!?) All we had to do is get a few things like fridge (There was one here which we had bought last time we came for a visit but it was small for our present needs.), washer, oven and a few odds and ends here and there. In comparison, we arrived here very much like the Swiss Family Robinson arrived on their little island paradise. Their wrecked ship contained everything they could possibly need materials and livestock wise. Heck, they even had decorative items for the many homes they built.

By contrast, Jenny Montross was the lone survivor of her ship wreck to land on the island and managed to survive on her own for three years without much more to work with than a change of men’s clothes and some knives. Now, she had survival skills!

Our return to the US will not be quite as dramatic as Jenny’s story but we’ll be going back without a place to live or a car or much of anything else unless it fits in our 10 suitcases (and probably a few boxes of books shipped back the other way :D ). Friends will pick us up from the airport, we’ll probably stay in a hotel for a bit until we find an apartment or more likely a townhouse to rent short term while looking for a house and renting a van while looking for one to buy. DH has his job still so no worries there but we’ll pretty much be starting over from scratch. On the plus, we’re better off than many people who have been struck by tragedy such as losing everything in a fire or natural disaster so, I can’t really complain. I just find the contrast interesting. Also on the plus side, I get to make lots of fun purchases to set up housekeeping again and I’m wiser now to know what I really need and don’t need and what I like and don’t like.

The girls

I've posted a few pics of the boys lately so here is one of the girls, showing off their loose teeth. Yes, even my little 4 year old has a loose tooth!

Clearer picture

Some months ago, I compared my experiences in Iran to the movie Castaway, not so much because of the isolation or (preceived) primitive conditions but because of my need to adapt and change to the new environment. Now I know that lots of people have this notion that Iran is backward and primitive because of this status as a Third World country, but that's image is far from the truth. All of the latest, greatest technology is available if you've got the money from cell phones to big screen tvs to video screens for your car. There's been a huge increase in the last 10 years in the number of new cars on the road.

The difference it seems to me is not so much what's available but who sells it. There are very few places here that could be compared to the big box retailers in the US. Most places here are single stores run by individuals or families; which means that the products offered depend on the preferences of the owners and their customers or what they decide to stock up on at any given time. So, if you’re looking for something specific you may have to go more than one or two places to find it. Often having the stores run by individuals or families results in them being more customer-oriented.

A great example of this happened a few weeks ago. Here, the government subsidizes milk production but limits the number of liters sold to each store. Milk is delivered daily except on Fridays so if you don’t pick up milk by Thursday afternoon, you’re usually out of luck until Saturday. Now, you can stock up a bit but the milk here isn’t as heavily homogenized as in the US so the fat starts to separate after a couple of days, which the kids hate. One Thursday night after visiting the in-laws I realized we needed milk. There are four small grocers in my in-laws neighborhood, two of which are very friendly. We stopped at my dh’s favorite and he asked if they had any milk left. This was about 10 p.m. so of course they were out but the owner told dh to wait a minute and went a got 2 liters of milk from his own house for us since we’ve “got kids”. Now, how often do you think that would happen anywhere else?

Homeschoolers' quiz

This is just a cute little quiz that’s fun for homeschoolers but also gives non-homeschoolers an idea of the diversity in the homeschooling community based on the multiple choice answers available.

And in case you’re wondering, eclectic is exactly how we homeschool. A little of this, a little of that but all pretty relaxed.

http://quizilla.com/users/guiltfree/quizzes/What%20Type%20of%20Homeschooler%20Are%20You

Mr. Potato Head You have your ideal of how things should look, but you’re flexible enough to allow for change. You are not bothered by changing methods, mid-course if necessary. You use an eclectic combination of curriculum sources.

Hafiz's tomb

One of the tourist sites here is Shiraz is the tomb of one of Iran's world famous poets, Hafiz. The marble tomb is under that circular canopy. On the underside of the canopy is tile work similar to that seen throughout Iran. Quite beautiful and very intricate. An interesting part of the "tourist" experience is the 2 or 3 men that hang around outside the entrance with little birds that pull out small colored sheets of paper from little tins. They're a bit like fortune cookies. On the papers are a snippet of Hafiz's poetryand sometimes a verse from the Quran. Between the two they give some vague indication of what your future may hold.

We're looking to be back in the states around the end of Sep. but may wait a week or so more as it would mean about $500 in saving on airline tickets during "low season." The downfall of this possiblity is that we would be traveling during Ramadan. Since we would be traveling, we wouldn't be fasting but would have to make up the day later. I was hoping for a couple of days to get settled before the beginning of Ramadan but we'll be doing everything at once this year.

For those that don't know-Ramadan is the month of fasting. From sunrise to sunset during 1 lunar month, muslims don't eat or drink anything, they are supposed to watch what they say and see (no lies or gossiping, not watching or listening to anything bad). The point behind Ramadan is to help you set aside worldly concerns and renew your spiritual side while reminding you first hand the hardships that far too many people on this planet endure everyday because of poverty or famine. The lunar calendar is 11 days shorter than the Roman calendar so Ramadan moves up a bit each year. When I first started fasting 11 years ago, Ramadan was in Feb.; this year it begins at the end of Sep. Young children, people who are sick or travelling and women who are pregnant or nursing are not required to fast. The beginning and ending of the month of Ramadan are determined by the sighting of the new moon. The end of Ramadan is marked by a celebration called Eid al-Fitr. On Eid, everyone gathers at the mosque for special prayers. (It looks alot like a church service during Christmas or Easter, where there are many new faces that are rarely ever seen during the rest of the year.) The kids all get gifts and most people wear new clothes and just generally celebrate. In bigger communities, there are usually festivals set up at convention centers or other large locations where there is a bazaar, games and rides for kids and plenty of food. 

My sneaky little boy

Being the clever little boy that he is, Reza spotted an unattended box of bakery goodies, put it off the table and dug in! At least these are better than some of the things he's sampled from around the house. ;)

Real Estate

I've been spending much of my free time and nearly all of my internet time lately looking for a house to buy and a place to rent (for between when we get there and when we can actually close on a house) that's why I've been quiet lately. The housing market in Northern VA is expensive! For a 3 BR single family house the prices START at $450,000 and that is for houses built nearly 40 years ago on less than a quarter acre! We're considering moving further out but that would mean at least a 2 hour commute for dh each day, one way! Fortunately, he can work from home up to 2 days a week but still. I know that would be really hard on him. Not sure that a newer, somewhat bigger house on a bit of land is worth it for him to have to do that. (Although there are alot of people that he works with that have insane commutes. One guy drives all the way from Pennsylvania!)

I haven't finished June's blue mini or started on July's purple. It looks like both will have to wait. The heat (similar to what much of the US is experiences according to everyone's blogs) and the impending move have sucked away my drive to get much sewing done. Couple that with getting Mustafa working through some 2nd grade work so that next year's homeschooling will be easier and I just don't have much extra time. He repeated 1st grade here because we were worried it would be hard on him to jump into 2nd grade with his limited Farsi so now he gets to do 2 years in one. No big deal though since he was well above grade level in everything except language arts so we're really not doing that much catch up work.

So, instead of any interesting quilt pictures I thought I'd show pictures from the property that we bought here a month or so ago. The first is the property itself, then views to the right and in front of it. That's Mustafa trying to duck out of the picture. He hates to have his picture taken, hates to talk on the phone or write a letter but sit down with him and he'll explain all about solar systems, dinosaurs, air planes, or just about anything to do with science. And his Farsi is getting good enough to explain in either language. Ok, enough bragging.I'll try to post again soon as I'm hoping to hit more of the "tourist" sites before we leave and I'll try to get some pics to share. (Now, if only the heat would let up.)

Note: The morning we took these pictures, I thought we were getting up and out SO early, before 6:15 but wouldn't ya know as we were driving over to meet dh's parents we saw tons of people already out enjoying picnic breakfasts, many obviously having already been there for quite a while! 

Mother's Day

Today was Mother's Day here. I got these lovely flowers and a shirt.
Sarah wrote about her daughter's recent black eye so I thought I'd share a pic of Reza's shiner. This is a picture take a few hours after it happened. So far in my parenting life I've only been truly concerned when something has happened to one of the kids a handful of times and this ranks right up there at the top. Reza tripped on the edge of the carpet and hit his eye on the edge of our marble window sill. In less than 30 seconds the area around his left eyebrow swelled to the size of a walnut! Amazingly, he only cried for a couple of minutes. We got stuck in traffic trying to take him to a doctor, gave up when we couldn't find the office and instead took him to an eye hospital close to our house. We were in traffic for an hour when we could have been to the hospital in just about 10 min! DH had suggested the hospital first but it was his sister who insisted we take him to the opthamalogist instead. Fortunately, the doc at the hospital said it really wasn't that serious despite how it looked. It swelled almost shut during the night but was almost completely back to normal by the evening, except of course for the lovely colors. The really bizarre part of it all is that this was the third kid to get a black eye in less than a month! (None of our kids have ever had a black eye before.) Zahra was first; she fell on the stairs when she was goofing around because she was excited about going out to ride bikes. Less than a week later, Mustafa and Zahra were bugging each other in the backseat while waiting for DH to come back from the bakery and Mustafa pushed Zahra just hard enough that she hit Safiya in the face with her head. Fortunately, neither one of them was seriously hurt, just a little bit more colorful for a few days. :)

Note: I've been trying to post this for almost a week but blogger wasn't behaving. Reza is now back to normal. 

Flying Fish

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Mustafa wanted to make fish to decorate the house. Well, Safiya got into the act as well and here is the result of their collaboration.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while but Bloggers not playing nice. 

Changes

Well, it seems there's never a dull moment around here.

It looks like we will be heading back to the states in the next 2-3 months. It's funny how life keeps you guessing. I figured we would be here for a good bit longer. The court hearing for the apartment resulted in another court date in a couple of weeks which will probably lead to another court date, so that's unresolved. My fil is not doing well mentally, and is now experiencing more frequent bouts of confusion. Despite various efforts, I never did get any more students. (I've actually lost one. Not a great loss since mom never managed to pick her up on time so I was often stuck "babysitting" for 30 min. or more.)

Despite all of this, I felt pretty sure that this was where we were supposed to be, at least for the sake of the kids. DH has actually been the one going back and forth about whether or not to stay. His indecision caused me to question my feelings as well. We decided that since we couldn't come to any conclusions on our own, it was time to ask what God's will for us is and that lead us to the decision to return. I'm a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of moving and starting over again. We'll be heading back to northern VA where we were before and where are friends are but we're still on the fence about buying v. renting and where exactly. I suppose the housing market will decide that for us.

Wish us luck!

The picture has nothing o do with the post. It's the view of the rooftops across the street from our hotel room in Dubai.

Start 'em early

Hey, it's never too early to get kids helping around the house. ;) This is the same little boy who would cry and make me carry him every time I vacuumed just a couple of months ago. Now he chases after me and tries to "help". He also has started to help clean up after meals by trying to drag is high chair back to the kitchen, hands over his dishes and cup when he's all done and he even took out a tissue and "cleaned" the tablecloth after dinner one night. :)

I haven't posted much lately since there's just not alot going on. After finishing my May Project Spectrum I thought about finishing my blue one for my birthday, instead, I ended up not sewing anything for about 3 weeks. When I got around to pulling blues for the project, I realized I don't have nearly as many bright blues as I thought so it kinda took the steam out of getting anywhere with that. I've finally got the pieces cut and am sewing on it a little each day, but I haven't put that much time into it so it's no where near done. Oh, well, maybe by the end of the week.

I've gotten sucked in to watching the World Cup games. I'm not normally much of a sports watcher but watching these games has been quite interesting. At least on the international field, soccer players behave much better than other sports players I've seen both on and off the field. They also work alot harder. Can you imaging running back and forth over the length of a football field for 90 min. with only one 10 min. break in the middle. No time outs, no huddling, no waiting for commercial breaks. And the collisions that happen! I'm not pulling for any team though I was pulling for Ghana after watching them play their first game. Those guys just try so hard! They actually made it to the second round but ended up losing to Germany I think. I can't really remember now. It all kinda blurs together after the first few games. It's fun to watch though.

Other than soccer, the kids are keeping me busy just keeping up after them. Mustafa loves to make "stuff" so he's constantly roaming the house looking for usable materials for his next project. He even tried making a catapult after seeing one of the models that was made for "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King". But he gets frustrated easily too and just couldn't understand why his made with straws, thread and popsickle sticks didn't work the "first" time! He hasn't quite got his head around the whole trial and error concept. So we had a little discussion about how long it takes to get things right where we talked about Edison inventing the light bulb after more than 400 tries. Amazingly a few days later there was a cartoon that included Edison. It was one of the old Tennesse Tuxedo cartoons.

Safiya and Zahra hate to be left out of the mess making, er, crafting so they each made tissue box aquariums yesterday complete with hanging fish and sea horses. Mustafa decided he'd much rather make bigger fish and hang them from the ceiling...All over the house! I told him if he wants to decorate with fish then they stay in his room only.

Dh bought a lot a couple of weeks ago for an insane price. The lot's only about 1 1/2 times as big as our townhouse lot in VA. On a per acre comparison, it would have cost around $245,000/acre!!! But it's in a development where there is already water, sewer and electricity, paved roads, trees that are a couple of years old and even some playground equipment installed even though there are very few houses built. Right across the street from our lot will be a park, so that's another perk and future selling point.

If you got through all of this, thanks for reading. I'll try to post more often so that the posts will be shorter. 

Birthdays

It seems that I have more in common with other Bloggers than I already knew. Many of us have June birthdays. My 32nd was on the 4th. I had asked dh to pick up some cakes from a bakery the day before. He usually forgets my birthday or remembers late in the day so I didn't tell him why I wanted the cakes. I just said since he was heading that way on an errand he could pick up some cakes from this awesome bakery. :) Cake here is usually sold as slices by the kilogram. They also sell whole cakes but we usually just get the pre-sliced, that way you get more variety. Most bakeries sell rollete, which is a cream-filled jelly roll type or cream-filled two layer slices with various toppings. This bakery tops their cakes with fresh fruit slices trapped in flavored gelatin. It sounds odd but is really very tasty. Dh brought home a 2 kilo box filled with strawberry-topped cake, rollete and a flaky Danish type pastry that tastes a lot like doughnuts. And he remembered my birthday.

We didn't really have any plans for the day since it's a holiday here and we didn't expect much to be opened. We ended up going out to look at various pieces of land we are considering buying as an investment. Land here is not as cheap as you might think. Most of what we saw was about 40 minutes outside of the city with almost nothing on it except one plot that was part of a development that has 40 newly planted trees with drip irrigation on a 1/2 acre plot. That one we could get for the low, low price of about $11,000. Note that is without anything else on the plot, i.e. no electricity, no water, no phone, no nothin' except an excellent view! Most of what we've seen here runs about $10, ooo or more per acre. Just for a comparison, a couple of years ago, my mom bought 15 acres about 20 min. from Memphis for a whopping $3,000 an acre! Just recently, DH found a 3 1/2 acre plot, again with nothing on it but it does have access to water, electricity and phone. We're hoping the owners will take about $30K for it but we'll just have to wait and see.

Happy Birthday to all of the bloggers and loved ones out there.

And in honor of National Ice Cream month (whenever it is) here are some tips for enhancing this summertime treat.
Instead of tossing out the crumbs when you finish a package of cookies, put them in a baggie in the freezer for instant ice cream topping. I also use brownie crumbs. Cake crumbs could probably work too. I just put them all in one bag so there's lots of variety in every bowl.

Ever try making your own chocolate syrup? It's super easy and only takes about 5-10 min.

Stir together 1/2 c. cocoa and 1 c. sugar in a small saucepan until all mixed up. Stir in 1/2 c. cold water. Heat medium until it boils. If you want thin syrup, take it off now. If you want it thicker, let it boil up to about 2 min. I stir it occasional during this time. Let cool. Add 1 tsp. vanilla (optional). Pour into a clean, dry jelly jar and store in the fridge. Mine keeps very well for more than 2 weeks.

Enjoy! 

Waterfall trip

This is a bad picture of us but a pretty good shot of the falls. If you look just to the right of the falls there is a little cave like opening that people kept hiking up to to sit in a watch the water and the people below.

On June 5th, we head out at about 7 a.m. for a trip to a waterfall about 2 hours from us. Mohsen's mom, two of his sisters, a brother-in-law and two year old niece came along too. Because there's not always a lot on the road between one town and the next, people often go on trips with two cars just in case. Although, from what I've seen on our trips, there are plenty of other cars on the road with usually very helpful and handy occupants. We left early since 1) it was a holiday and we expected it to be crowded and 2) SIL said her car doesn't have ac so they didn't want to travel in the heat of the day.

The drive up was very pretty and cool since we traveled through the mountains. When we got close to the waterfall we had to go up a side street which cut through an older, poorer part of the nearby town to get there. Here, a lot of the houses were make-do affairs made with field stones and stripped limbs. It really makes you appreciate what you have. This road, like many side streets was narrow with barely enough room for two cars to pass. As we got closer to the waterfall, there were places where the road seemed even more narrow with a rock retaining wall on one side and the mountain's valley falling away to the other side and no guard rails.

We got to a point where it was clear that we couldn't drive any further since cars were parked on one side of the road and people leaving the falls were taking up the rest of the road so we pulled close to the valley edge of the road and got ready to walk the rest of the way. This was about 9:30ish. Mohsen's family hadn't eatten breakfast yet so that had an impromptu breakfast of cucumber and cheese sandwiches with tea next to the car. The kids and I ate before we left but lately they seem to have turned into hobbits and wanted "Second breakfast". We had brought food for a picnic lunch but decided it wouldn't be worth it to haul it up with us since we didn't know exactly how far we had to walk.

We wove our way through on-coming (though slow-moving) traffic, parked cars and other pedestrians, many of whom were loaded down with baskets and bags for their own picnics. It took us about 15 minutes to get from our car to the official parking lot for the waterfall. From the parking lot, you can see the top of the waterfall off in the distance over the tree tops but it is impossible to judge the distance. The path leading up to the waterfall was much like the road, narrow without guardrails despite a few precarious spots where someone could easy go over the edge and have a nasty fall. This fact didn't seem to bother anyone else though and certainly didn't bother the many people who had set up picnic sites off the trail close to the river complete with tents and even bedding in many places. At one point, the trail leads to steps carved out of the rock which were a bit steep. My MIL had bad knees so she opted to sit off to the side in the shade and wait for us to return. It's a good thing she did because the steps would have been quite difficult for her but the kids loved it. I think it lent the journey an added sense of adventure. On the way up stairs, one man was coming down carrying a complete Iranian twin size bed roll with blanket and pillow on his shoulders. (The mattresses are like tri-folded futon mattresses and pretty heavy.) We also passed other camp sites close to the river/mountain stream. The trail leads you right into the base of the waterfall where you have to pick your way across the rocks unless you want to get your feet wet. My kids were in heaven. If she thought she could get away with it, I'm sure Zahra would have tried to go for a swim in the icy water or at least splashed and jumped around enough until she was soaked from head to foot. She is most definitely a little waterbaby. :) I tried to stay relatively dry at first but gave up when Mohsen wanted to get a picture of us and I ended up standing right in the stream. This, of course, made it ok for everyone else to at least get their feet soaked by standing in the ankle deep water. It was very cool and refreshing with the canopy of trees shading us from the sun quite nicely. It was quite crowded with people climbing just about everywhere, enjoying themselves thoroughly. It reminded me of one trip we made to a waterfall in MD years before where a bunch of kids had made their way to the top of the falls, although this waterfall was much taller.

After about 15 or 20 minutes, we decided it was time to head back down. The trip down the stairs made me appreciate just how steep they were in some spots. A mountain goat probably would have felt quite at home there if not for so many visitors. After a potty and juice break, we started back to the cars. We didn't go very far before DH and BIL decided it would be better to go get the cars and have us wait with the kids where we were. DH had carried Reza most of the time and I think his shoulders were getting tired. We stayed in the shade while the kids entertained themselves by throwing rocks in a little stream just off the road.

Once DH and BIL returned with the cars, the real adventure began. Getting down from the waterfall was a major test of patience and logistics. Remember this is a narrow road with more people coming every minute. It turns out that at one point, not far from where we had parked, people had taken it into their heads to park on BOTH sides of the road! In a way, I can't blame them since their other options would be trying to get by the cars coming down or directing everyone behind them to go in reverse down the road until they could find a spot. At one point we seemed absolutely stuck with cars on each side of the road and a few more trying to come up. There was one spot where no one had parked so we were eyeing that until a carload of guys swooped in to park there. Then two of them hop out and start directing us to just come on through. The space here was so narrow that I could (and did) touch the car parked next to me with my forearm resting on my car door and I'm sure dh could do the same! I'm still not sure how we made it but I praised dh profusely for his excellent driving skills. I probably would have just parked myself right there in the middle of the road and refused to move until the other cars did. This was probably around 11:30-12. We thought it was crowded when we got there but by the time we left people were parked all the way down the road, probably a mile or more away from the falls with plenty of others trying to make their way up the road. Now, before you go getting the wrong idea, I've heard that places like the Grand Canyon are like this too during the summer months. Bumper to bumper and going no where fast.

We thought we'd try and find a place to have our picnic lunch somewhere on the way back but as I've said before, Iranians love to picnic and anywhere there was even a remotely suitable spot was already occupied. So, after trying several different spots we decided just to head back home. We ended up not getting home until just before 3:30. We had eaten some snacks in the car but it was a good thing we had the picnic food ready to go because everyone was hungry. I just had to pull it all out and set it up inside.

It was a nice day but I'm not sure we'll be making that trip again. The road up the falls was just too crazy for my taste and stressful for dh too. I think we'll leave it to the more adventurous souls.

Picture redo

Here are the two pictures I blogged about before but didn't show up in the posts. The first is from the mountain road we were on coming home from the waterfall and the second is us at the waterfall.
 

Waterfall teaser

I don't have time at the moment to write about our adventurous trip to visit a waterfall last week but thought I'd post a teaser photo, if Blogger cooperates this time. The kids are begging for breakfast so I have to keep this short. The picture is of me, Mustafa and Reza standing in the water at the bottom of Morgan waterfall about 2 hours north of Shiraz. You can't see our feet but trust me, we were in the water. My feet were purple/black for most of the week because the dye ran when my shoes got soaked. :D

Making blogger behave

It seems that sometimes Blogger behaves better if I post directly from Blogger every now and then so here is a boring little message and a picture of the mountains we were driving through on June 5.

Mountain traffic 2

Here is a little bit better shot with the shepard looking pointedly at us to get moving already! What's not that uncommon in this shot is that cars had to go single file to pass this particular road obstruction. You tend to come up on quite a few places where only one car can go at a time. I'll write more about our adventurous trip to the waterfall tomorrow to explain what I'm talking about. 

Mountain traffic

I thought you might all enjoy a picture of the traffic we encountered on a trip to visit a famous waterfall here. Now, to be confused. This is a rather unusual sight which is why I took the picture though we did encounter a herd blocking the road both going and coming back. (This is coming back.) We were way up on mountain roads seemingly in the middle of no where but saw these sheep as well as other herds grazing on distant hills, farmers plowing fields with yolks of oxen, and lots of boxes of bee hives set up along hills and valleys.

I'm sorry the picture's not better. It's a bit difficult to get a good picture from inside the car with a sleeping baby in your arms. (Carseats are a rarity here.) I don't know if you can tell but there are about half a dozen babies in the back of the herd. The shepard on the donkey was an older man and apparently a bit annoyed with us that we wouldn't just go around like everyone else, but hey, I had to get the shot! :) I'm grateful for:
the abundance we've been blessed with
cool mornings with the windows and front door open
getting my morning started with a fun walk accompanied by music from Sting