Mountains and Food...Always Food :)

Blog About September 2021

Doug made a trip up north to the mountains to visit with the owner of a resort so he could help an NGO organize a retreat they wanted to have. Doug was with the resort manager and his assistants for most of the day. Doug said he had one cup of coffee, two glasses of tea and lots of conversation. They also told him they had recently built a zip line, and they wanted him to try it. The day was a success, and he was able to secure the resort at quite a discounted rate for the NGO and also get some business for his tourism company.

This is at the top of the zip line.

I guess he made it to the bottom because he came home later that night.

September 22, 2021

Besides Doug's tourism business (KeyTreks), Doug has another job. This last week, two of the men at work arranged a barbeque for all of the employees and their families. Caleb and I joined in, and we were glad we did. The food was amazing. Most of the teachers speak and teach a different language from the one I am learning, so I didn't do much communicating, but the ladies were sweet to make hand gestures and let me know what they were laughing about. 

September 27, 2021  

Doug made a couple of trips to the mountains this month to meet with friends. 

On the first trip, the men cooked fish up in the mountains and had a meal while they visited. You can see them sitting in a circle behind the smoke. On the second visit, they invited some new people and had tea over an open flame and their conversations were full. 

September 25, 2021

February Happenings

Blog Post About February 2021

How many men does it take to hang curtains?

I'm just kidding, of course. I was so thankful Doug hired these guys!

They hung curtain rods in 6 rooms, and in two of the rooms, they added custom curtains and/or blinds.

These (and the kitchen blinds) are the only two sets we bought from their store.

They weren't too impressed with the curtains we already had for each of our other rooms, but they faithfully hung them anyway, and it was nice to get a little privacy.

February 17, 2021

February also means the time of the year when we have to renew our visas. 

I think this was the last year we will have to drive two hours north to get our particular visas.

They are building a new highway, which makes the drive faster and smoother, but I must say it was a little frightening to drive on it.

Can you see the arrows facing us?

There were cars coming from the other side (since our side wasn't complete and we had to drive on the wrong side of the partition). Some cars obviously didn't know they were on a highway with two-way traffic, and we had one or two incidents where we had to swerve to miss oncoming traffic. 

That evening we travelled that same road back in the DARK!

I'm always SO glad that Doug drives us :)

February 23, 2021

We also visited a coffee shop up north and discovered they had "Prmkin" spiced lattes. 

My boy's first shave :)

February 26, 2021

Karis teaching one of her ballet classes :)

Last Days in the Land of Christmas Markets

On our last full day, the older kids and I woke early to go see the sunrise from Charles Bridge. Doug volunteered to stay behind with Keira while she slept.

Depending on the lighting, the bridge can look like an historic backdrop, or

a creepy setting for a movie.

Funny enough, these three attend an online school whose "thing" it is that when you see/meet another student from that school, you are supposed to touch elbows, take a picture, and send it in to the school.  I never sent this in to the school, but it is so funny looking at it now, because it no longer looks like a Northstar Academy picture, it looks like a social distancing picture during Covid, even though it was taken three months before lockdown.

After Keira got up, I took her and Caleb ice skating while Doug took the older girls off to explore more places in the city.

Caleb was a patient teacher.

Later that evening, I took Caleb, Keira and another friend with us to the Gallery of Steel Figures. There were tons of sculptures inspired by movies, cartoons, history, and legends, and they were all made with recycled metal parts.

She really does love him.

While the Emperor was battling with Darth Vader, Doug and the girls were out having a good time in the city.

And then we all met up for brick oven pizza for dinner.  We were so hungry!

The next morning, we all walked through one of the markets to catch a bus to the airport.  

Vacay over, but SO many memories made!

 

Praising Him in the Mountains

Well, the weather continued to be so amazing (and cold), that our fellowship group decided to go back to the mountain for our study time together.

We warned everyone that it would be cold. 

A couple of people did not bring coats, and I think they were pretty sorry.  

The hike down into the valley and back up again warmed some people up, but once we got still, it was harder to keep warm.

I don't like to be cold, so I had on all kinds of layers :)

Before the sun started setting, everyone decided to drive back so they could get to the city before dark, but our crew wanted to stay, so we got out our coffee thermos and enjoyed the God-show.

November 1, 2019

We thought we would make it back up here before it got too cold, but soon after this, snow started falling in the mountains, and we knew it would get harder to drive up and more difficult to concentrate on school or reading if we were so cold.

We looked forward to Spring, but never would we have guessed that the four to six weeks of beautiful weather that this country is allowed in the Spring, we would be inside our homes, stationary, with the rest of the world.

Mountains and Other Notable Things in October

Shortly after her birthday, Keira wanted to get a haircut.


October 28, 2019

Check✔

Where's Waldo Caleb?

October 26, 2019

One afternoon, everyone except Caleb decided to get out of town and take homeschool, reading, dolls, etc to the mountains. 

The older girls downloaded all the things they needed for homeschool.  Doug and I took books and music, and Keira didn't want to be left out, so she drew a computer on a piece of cardboard and pretended to type along with the girls.



She also enjoyed walking around, discovering nature and talking to herself.

She also made time to take care of her baby, which she has named "Kathryn." 💗

As the sun was setting, the girls took this beautiful picture.

It wasn't long before they were photobombed.

And the "third party" kept getting closer to the camera.

She's was really thinking about something.

Then they lost control.

October 30, 2019

It was the best day of homeschool! 

We had blankets, sweaters, a big thermos of hot coffee, and an amazing sunset. 😁

I wish we had more time to have days like this.