Summertime '18

While we were traveling this summer, we turned off all fans and swamp coolers in our house, so it was just a huge cinder block structure soaking up heat.

Let's not talk about the cucumbers I accidentally left in our fridge 😬 (thankfully, no pictures were taken of that), but I did photograph this sweet potato that was left in our hot box known as a house.  Remember the pictures of candles I sent you from last summer.

It's quite a shame, too, because sweet potatoes can rarely be found here.  In fact, since we came back, I haven't been able to find any.

 Summer sunset in the dessert.

It was so hot in August that this Mercedes Benz business put umbrellas over all of their small bushes.  I have NEVER seen anything like this.

Doug and I went on a double date with our teammates, and they took us to the 21st floor of a fancy hotel in town, because they had been to the lookout platform before, and they wanted to share it with us.  

It was stinkin' hot, which you can't tell from the picture, but there was a hot breeze blowing.  And I remembered something about perspective...a different perspective is often helpful.

The city looked so beautiful and clean from up here.  

Unfortunately, I know what it looks like at ground-level.

 At the end of the summer, we had a guest come from America.  The weekend before the girls were supposed to start online school, we took everyone, including our guest, to a lake two hours from here for a kayaking/swimming adventure.

Only our guide had a camera, so I have no pictures from the day.  However, our guide (the groom in this post) sent us these two of Caleb.

It was Keira's and my first time to go, and we loved it.

Everyone did a lot of swimming.
Doug, Caleb, and Keira let little fish eat on their feet while they laughed.
Doug, the older kids, and even our guest, jumped off some small cliffs.
We stayed all day, and ate lunch in the cleft of some rocks.

The wind picked up a lot by the end of the day, and it was really windy when we started back.  Instead of the 45 minutes it took to paddle to the site, it took an hour and a half to paddle back!

It was a good, cool end to the summer.

Overnight at the Lake

In the fall, Caleb and Doug joined some other people for another trip out to the lake that they had previously kayaked on.  This time, they decided to kayak, camp overnight, and spend the next day hiking.

I have yet to see this lake in person, but this sunset picture makes me want to go.

They texted me this picture after they got in their tent and bundled up for a cold night.

The next morning, they were ready to climb.

I love the pictures Doug took of these rock formations.

They even ran across some people (probably shepherds) that live in these hills.

They had a good, fun day and came back tired.

I think Caleb's favorite finds were a handful of expended bullets and two mortar shells that he found while climbing.  He brought them all home as treasures.

I couldn't believe how heavy the mortar shells were.  Caleb couldn't climb with them, so he put them some place safe on the mountain, and when he came back down, he picked them back up again.

Interesting souvenirs! 

Last Day of Summer

The Saturday before school started on Sunday, Doug, Caleb, and Karis went on a trip with some people to a lake about three hours from here.  Kylie had to teach dance, and since we weren't sure about everything involved, we didn't let Keira go, so I stayed with her.

Doug had a good partner for kayaking.  Karis.

They took a break for lunch across the lake.

 Some of them went for a swim.  (This is Karis and Caleb).

They had a great day.  Karis said it was her favorite day in this country so far.

I'd say that's a good way to end the summer.