A Mistake to Only Make Once

"I can breath where there is green.  Green grows hope.  

It keeps my heart beating and helps me remember who I am." 

- Courtney M. Privett, Faelost

While Doug and the girls were gone, an old gentleman knocked on our gate for work.  He told me he could cut our grass, and since we don't have a mower, I thought it would be a great gift for Doug on his return. 

I did not; however, know HOW he would cut the grass.

He kept asking me for a knife, but I didn't want him using my kitchen knives in the yard, and he wasn't satisfied with the one old one I brought out, so he turned and left, looking a little perturbed at me.

He returned about 10 minutes later with a shabby, short, sharp knife, and then he started "cutting."

Can you imagine cutting your yard like this???

Oh my goodness!

However, he cut it so close to the roots it ended up burning all the grass, and it died before summer even arrived.

April 5, 2019

Yep, that's a mistake I'll only make once.

He's come back three more times this year and tried to physically force his way into our gate, and we have to kind of push him out, declining as politely as we can at the same time.  🙅

I did manage to do some good things while they were gone, believe it or not.  Caleb (back left, behind the ball-handler) got to his soccer game and practices.

April 6, 2019

And I "inspired" Keira to clean her room,

April 9, 2019

so not a total loss, right?

(Merry Christmas, by the way!)

Travelling to Learn

"Traveling - it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller." - Ibn Battuta

Doug and the two older girls traveled to southern Turkey at the beginning of April for a conference.  They went a few days early so that Doug could take them a couple of places, including the ancient city of Ephesus.

The quote above makes me smile, because it was true about this trip for them.

They had some breath-taking moments that left them speechless, 

But when they came home, they were full of stories, adventures, and funny happenings.

One funny thing was Doug's coffee cup labeled by a barista. 

We have a long-standing joke about all the names Doug has been called overseas (and in America), because people just can't seem to get it right.

He's been called Duck, Dog, Con (that's true), DuGlass, Duklas, Dugs, Duks, and now Doyc!

The girls had a great time exploring and seeing new things together, and they also loved the conference they attended and the people they got to meet.

I know they will miss each other next year when Kylie goes to college.

Reading Pauls' letter to the Ephesians in the place where he might have spoken to the crowds.

The façade of the ancient library at Ephesus.

My amazing husband who took them on this memorable journey.  Thank you, Doyc :)

A Pretty Decent Locale

We had a week-long conference in Greece during the last week of Ramadan, so I don’t have any amazing stories about the end of Ramadan because we were out of the country. 

It was a nice blessing to actually be able to get out of the country, since the airport had been closed from the end of September to March.

We left on June 10^th at 2:55am after Kylie finished her online school for the year a few hours earlier on June 9^th at around 10pm.  That’s called “cutting it close.”

The conference was refreshing, and we had opportunities to meet some more people who work in our region of the world.  The kids had a great time, too, and since it was such a small gathering, 6^th-12^th graders were all together, so my older three were in one class together.

Check out the size of the feta in this Greek salad!  

 And, of course, we had a serving or two of pork.

On our way to the conference, the bus stopped for a bathroom break at a souvenir shop in Corinth.

We took this picture of the man-made canal there that cuts through the narrow isthmus of Corinth.  The canal is 4 miles in length, but it's very narrow, so most modern ships can't pass through.

It took 12 years to dig and was finished in 1893.  That is a lot of rock cutting done without modern-day tools!

Our first night at the conference, the kids wanted to rush down to the water, so I thought I'd get a picture of Keira's first time to ever touch the ocean.

But within 30 mintues, like all kids, she ended up preferring the sand to the water.

While Kylie and Caleb preferred seeing who could knock each other off the floatie first.

Keira loves the water, however, she has always been a little timid of getting her face wet and trying the pool without floaties.  But she wants you to know that she went swimming with her class at the conference, and when she saw that other kids could swim, she decided she could, too.

Off came the floaties, and down she went.  She taught herself to swim and go underwater in a few hours time.

One day, our schedule allowed us a free afternoon to see some of the local sites.  Many people took a boat or a ferry to neighboring islands, and we did as well.  It was quite beautiful, and it refreshed all of us.

The conference was a few hours north of Athens, and it was nice to be out of a city atmosphere.

The weather was beautiful, and my only complaint was that the week was too short.  It was such a blessing to be with other people who work in our area of the world, share stories and gain encouragement from each other, and the meeting place was in a pretty decent locale, too.