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The last of the cold, the firsts of the Spring…
We would call it a mild Winter and Spring has come gently and happily with signs of new life…
Blossoms are magical and hopeful all at once
He sat like this for the longest time with this 2 day old goat
Dubai + a roomful of awesome women = somehow I emerged with bling on my toes!
One afternoon, hot cocoa in a thermos, we went in search of snow and found it
Birthday outing: a well-preserved old castle
Birthday treats eaten on one of Jeremy’s first carpentry ventures…
Hollow trees call for headlamps!
This anemone bravely peeked out her head in the last of the wind and cold rain…
New Settings on the Washing Machine
Dozens of reasons to try out some new settings on the washing machine around here….lots of needed rain means lots of mud and staying out of it is not an option. There are walks to take, khubeza to forage for lunch, treasures to find, dirt hills to climb, markers to test out as tattoo instruments, neighbors to help with the goats, and so many other moments that make me feel like the richest lady in the world…
Advent Season
This is our 6th Christmas in our little desert town and, though we miss family (every year, I just listen to this song and get some tears out), we have found joys all around us here. One nice thing about living in a place where Christmas is not a generally celebrated holiday as that you can make it what you want as a family: keeping our homemade Advent calendar, learning about Dutch Sinterklaas, making family traditions and baking and songs a part of our own family, making snow for local little ones to play with…
Last week, in a large store in the capitol, Caleb saw a large cut-out of Santa Claus. “Who’s that guy?” he asked. It was a “Wow, he is having a really different childhood from ours” moment indeed. We spent the day learning all about Santa…
Sleigh rides!
What to do about school?
Caleb is reaching school age and it is a chance to take in a lot of ideas and learn as we go about helping him discover his world. I don’t have a background in education or a strong sense of how we’re going to do this in an international setting so we’re on an adventure. We’ve always been learning a bit at home but now we get to partner with some other mothers for learning and I find it is stretching me and making me think in good ways.
We have a small preschool co-op with little ones including Caleb’s best friend Elias and other kids he loves to be with. Evan joins us too. We do crafts (a stretch for Caleb!), lots of reading and discovering outdoors, a bit of music and drama…I am finding it fun to think of lessons. Thank you Pinterest for existing at this time! The boys also attended a co-op in the capital each week for 2 months. Caleb loved his music class and I got to join Evan’s preschool class and teach “sensory play” which usually meant making a big mess with wiggly kiddos. We are all doing a lot of learning through this. I think it is good.
Five
Caleb turned 5 in November and we had the joy of having Omi and Opa here to celebrate with us. Caleb is ever our wholehearted one – just try to catch him slowing down! As he grows, we see a wonderful set of strengths and weakness and a very unique character all his own: a huge heart and care for people, bravery, a deep and ever-present laugh, a love for stories and songs, a love for the outdoors and the things we can make and find there. For his birthday, friends joined us for games, a scavenger hunt, and a rocket cake!
Harvest
Olive harvest comes each winter here and it means weeks of Bedouin neighbors raking trees for olives, the olives falling onto tarps. We love the way they stop for a picnic tea in the midst of the work. The burlap sacks of green and black olives are weighed and taken to be made into oil (we buy it in huge canisters and use it for our food and on our skin and occasionally for soap). Caleb wanted to try helping the harvesters this year so we joined them for a bit, appreciating the chance to learn something new from them. My neighbor talked me through the process of making my own olives, which I tried in a small batch. She has a tradition of giving the olives a shallow slice and soaking them for 4 days to remove the bitterness before canning them in saltwater, lemons, and sealing the top of the jar with olive oil.
Omi and Opa Visit
What a gift to have our beloved Omi and Opa here. Much has changed since their last visit here together. More laughter, more playing and reading, more mischief, more cuddles, more listening. We sure love you…
Autumn Fruits
Exploring our space means Autumn fruits like apples and figs and pomegranates and 
the great things we can do with them. Caleb proudly “harvests” them and Evan is rarely seen without an apple he’s gnawing as he rides his bike, climbs dirt piles, runs with the goats… Clean? No. Happy? Yes.
A New Home
5 Christmases. 2 sweet babies’ homecomings from the hospital. countless meals and cups of coffee. tears and illness. dancing and music and laughter.
We said goodbye to the apartment above the tire shop and hello to an apartment a few miles away on a small farm at the edge of olive orchards. The landlords are like Arab grandparent to our boys and we are so thankful for the space for their awesome male energy to run and bike and build and dig. It feels like a nice deep breath of fresh air for all of us.
Somewhere very green
We love the project of finding beauty in a rough place. But recently, numerous acts of generosity converged to take us to a place where beauty was all there was; from the old wood to the alpine springs to the lakes to the cows on the green hillsides. We soaked it in, thankful and amazed.
In From Uganda
It means so much to have loved ones visit…but having super fun, accommodating, listening, adventurous, delicious-meal-making, play-on-the-floor-with-little-boys, go-anywhere loved ones fly in from Uganda is unforgettable. Thank you for a beautiful visit, dear Ryan and Lisa…
Favorite Eid Moment
The Eid (Celebrating the end of the month of fasting where we live) is usually celebrated with lots of visiting. While we didn’t do much visiting ourselves this year, one little visit kept me smiling all day…
Bedouin elderly women are one of my favorite things about living here. Usually they have had a good dozen children, tended a lot of sheep, weathered a lot of dust storms and difficulty, and have come through it with so much spunk and humor and affection. On the day of Eid Il Fitr, I was briefly visiting an elderly Bedouin woman who has been sick. She was enjoying a visit from her family and, as I leaned into kiss her a greeting, she took the fly swatter in her hand and whacked me with it, a laugh playing on her lips. I grabbed the fly swatter from her hand and swatted her right back. “Swat her harder!” laughed her delighted family. She pulled me in for a kiss on both cheeks. Where else can you have so much fun with sick old ladies?
The Quiet Passing of Fasting Days
We passed a good part of the month of fasting filling in for friends in a quiet village. Again, we enjoyed the majestic wadi view, some exploration, and regular walks to feed dogs and pigeons (neighbors keep them here as a hobby) and also a few visits to village neighbors peppered in…
Super Daddies…
Super daddies…
Read by head lamp to feverish grandsons…
Inspire grandsons to silly luchador mask-making fun by always finding ways to play, even from far away…
Involve their sons in gardening, worship, sword fighting, fort making, adventure taking…
Cheerfully take on all kinds of mundane fathering tasks…
Remain faithful presences, leaving a legacy for great-grandsons…
Hold down the fort so that their wives can travel to say goodbye to a beloved grandfather and great grandfather….
Thank you, daddies in our lives, for being the real deal.
2 Came so Fast
Evan is a study in efficient packaging: incredible amounts of spunk and energy and language and strength of conviction in such a little guy. He has a sparkle in his eye and a quiet sense of humor that keeps us laughing and shaking our heads. He loves to meet new people and try to use the words he hears them using, whatever the language. Evan is now two and we celebrated a few weeks ago with Grandpa when he was here, then again with Bedouin friends born on the same day. And we finished the day off with pool time, pizza, and mud pie – Evan joining us in his birthday song. You are a gift, Evan BoBo.
Chickpeas by the roadside
Chickpeas/Garbanzo beans (called “Hummus” in Arabic) are a big part of life here. Of course, we all know and most of us love hummus spread (“yummus” my brother calls it). Our family gets felafel regularly and occasionally makes our own (it’s made of chickpea flour and such great kid food.) But we had never thought about how these legumes grow. This year, chickpeas are being sold by the roadside, green and fresh from the field. While we had loved ones here, we picked some up and boiled them for about 2 minutes in lightly salted water as a local friend had recommended. Yum! They reminded us of edamame. Friends also eat them raw from the pod and we have heard of charring them and even roasting them to use as a coffee substitute…
Three Weeks with Loved Ones
We had the gift of a three week visit from Grandma and Grandpa all the way from Montana. It was enough time for them to get a good variety of experiences alongside our family: potty mishaps, water issues, illness and cultural constraints. And then all the fun stuff too:making new friends, exploring ruins and historical sites and seeing ancient mosaics, swimming, hiking, camping in a favorite wadi, and sampling local foods. And, of course, catching up and being together…over coffee of course.
On Fridays
Friday mornings present a unique quiet in our usually-busy town as it is a religious day and neighbors tend to sleep in. A good friend and I have used this opportunity to enjoy a weekly walk with our little ones for the past couple of years. We usually stop to watch some soccer, visit the banana man and the yogurt man, then walk until we stop at one of the lots in our neighborhood and let the children explore and play. They emerge filthy, wielding found treasures like rocks and plants and trash. The lots might be full of trash but our kids love discovering in them. We were feeling badly that they don’t play on a playground until we read this article, which made us feel like our walks are all the more special. My dear friend is moving to the capital soon and I will miss her so we took some photos on a recent walk to help us remember our stumbled-apon weekly ritual..
A Treasure Hunt
After two snows, we have some Spring peaking out and it seemed like a great time for Jeremy and a friend to hike through a wadi. They didn’t find the treasure that is said to have been hidden in a cave there, but they had a great time seeing the sights in this wild wadi…
On Our Walks
People here don’t often do things alone. It is such a communal culture. So, when we go to take a walk in nature somewhere outside our town, we are often welcomed into someone’s circle along the way….coffee by a family fire in the rain, a family walk, children using tiles (rubbed with soap to make them slippery) to slide down the village hill. We love watching the boys engage new friends and feel a little richer after these encounters. We just keep learning more new things from the innovation and open arms of our neighbors.
