10 years!

10 years ago today we were married!

Urban is 1 !

Urban turned 1 today. Hard to believe a year has gone by already. We celebrated his birthday a couple different times when we were home with family. He knew right what to do with the cake today. He had plenty of practice the last few weeks. :)


Happy Birthday, Urban!

Favorite Spot

For some reason this particular cupboard where we keep our water has been a favorite for both of our boys. Asher is now too tall to stand in it, but he still likes to squeeze himself in every so often.

Here was Asher at about 12 months old:

Yesterday I found Urban in this same location. He now can open cupboards (which causes all sorts of trouble), so he had climbed on in.

Sometimes I wonder why we even bother with toys! This cupboard has provided much entertainment for my boys. :)

Cotton Candy

Who needs an amusement park or fair to get cotton candy? The cotton candy man was right outside our apartment today. My first thought was, "Does he really think he is going to sell this?" Well, yes! Within a few minutes there were several children running out to buy some. Always something interesting going on here!

Zip Zip

A few weeks ago, we spent a weekend with our friends in their village. One of their relatives ran a "Zip Zip", which we would call a trampoline. They are all over our area in very random places. You pay a small fee to jump for 15 minutes. Because we were friends of the owner's family Asher got to jump all afternoon.

Here is Asher with some of his friends he made that weekend. They are all relatives of our friends.


Asher had a blast jumping and falling down.

Since that weekend, Asher has requested going to the "zip zip" several times now. Reed took him again today with some friends.

School Program

Our neighbors invited us a few weeks ago to their 8 year old daughter's end of year school program. Our neighbor's daugther, Cemre, goes to a really good private school in our city. The theme of the program was "English Night". So all of the songs and skits were in English. It was interesting as native English speakers to listen to the English that they were being taught. Some was understandable and some we couldn't understand due to their pronunciation. Their parents wouldn't have understood any of it though, because most adults do not speak English here.

We had a lot of fun watching the kids perform. Asher and Urban were enthralled with the lights and music and did amazingly well , considering they were up past their bedtime.

Cemre, (our neighbor's daughter), is on the very end on the right side of the picture. This particular dance ended the show and was a traditional dance of this culture here.

Aqua Park

A few months ago, we got a new indoor swimming pool in our city. This was big, exciting news for us. One of the requirements to be able to swim there was children had to be potty trained. Well, now that Asher is potty trained it was time to go to the pool. Reed took him this morning. It was a father/son event because men and women swim separately here. There are men's hours and women's hours. A reminder of how different this culture is from mine. They do not offer family hours. At first, this was a huge disappointment to me. I've come to terms with it now, and was insistent that I still wanted Reed to take Asher even if Urban and I couldn't go with.

Asher had a blast. Reed said he was pretty scared at first, which is typical for Asher when trying something new. He went down the water slide with Reed, blew bubbles in the water and loved to splash around.

Here is Asher: (another pool requirment: swim caps!)





I don't know how often we'll use this pool, but I am thankful that its here and Asher can get some experience in the water. Some good news is that a worker there today informed Reed that I could bring Asher sometime on a women's day since he is so young. So I may take a turn and go with Asher sometime.

Urban

A few random photos of Urban. Love this sweet and fiesty little guy!

Stretching my Culinary Skills

I had my first experience with gutting and de-boneing fish last week. Reed's language helper brought us a bag of fish for us to try. The fish is native to our city and is the only fish that lives in the lake here.

I was quite scared to clean these things and a bit grossed out. We used to by salmon from Fareway all the time, but that came nicely packaged without the head, tail, fins, and insides still there. The next day my language helper gave me a quick tutorial on how to clean out a fish.

Here I am with quite a mess on my hands.

My technique wasn't as great as my language tutor's, but I managed to get it cleaned and bones removed.

I fried the fish and we did enjoy it. I'm not sure that I'll be making much effort on my own to do it again. It takes a lot of time to clean the fish and it really leaves quite the smell in the house, but it was more about the experience, I guess!

Asher's New Wheels

It has been awhile since I've updated our blog. Today Asher got a new set of wheels. We don't have much for Asher to do around our apartment so we thought maybe having a tricycle to ride around on in our parking lot would be fun for him. He was so excited today. He still hasn't quite gotten the hang of pedaling, but I think it will come.



We enjoyed watching Asher ride around. Reed pretty much had to push from behind the whole time, but Asher is catching on.


Asher wasn't ready to be done when we went inside. We told him he couldn't ride it in the house, so he has been sitting on it in the entryway most of the evening.


And here is Urban. He is a determined little guy. He is pulling himself up on his own and getting into everything these days. He wants to keep up with his older brother!