Victory Hill

My dad got to come with us as well to help pass out backpacks to these kids.  They were all definitely pretty excited!

Birthday Party

Yes we are getting old!  But never too old to have a party with a fun cake made by my friend and decorated by me!

The table is ready for our guests.

Can you guess how old I am?  That's last year's 28 candles with one more extra!

So thankful to have these wonderful friends with me for the special celebration.

Many people wrote me words of encouragement and blessed me with thoughtful gifts.

And then we got to speak with a good friend over skype who lives in Florida.

The kids had fun too.

And after it was all over we were all quite happy and worn out.

Lunch with a friend

We are thankful for the wonderful hospitality that our lawyer friend always shows to us whenever we visit her.  We pray for healing for her eyes.

End of Summer Fun

Well I know that summer has been over for quite a while but I wanted to share these pictures with you all.  We went to visit our duck again and her new owners has bought her five babies to look after.  It was so cute to see them following after her in a line and eating whenever she ate.

I don't know how many of you know these guys but they are Dupont and Dupond (in Turkish) who are funny characters in the TinTin books that I used to read when I was a kid.  I've read several here in Turkish too and they are just as fun.

And a fun day at the mall wouldn't be complete without a delicious waffle with chocolate sauce, fruit, and whip cream on top.  But now we have our own waffle machine at home, thanks so my mom's early birthday present, so we can enjoy this wonderfulness more often!

Getting ready for winter by preparing green beans to be cooked, bagged and frozen for quick and easy meals.  We also prepared tomatoes in jars, green peppers and fried eggplant.

Pickling

 Here we are washing and stabbing the veggies to get them ready for pickling.

 I love how pretty they look in the big jars.  We pickled small melons, cucumbers, some other type of light green cucumber-like thing, and green tomatoes.

 Our friend from Victory Hill came over to help us get the ingredients right since it was our first time doing it.  It was a good time to get to chat with her a bit more.

You add rock salt, garlic, vinegar and water and then wait for several weeks for them to turn.  It will be fun to see how they turn out.

Blessing

Here is one of the packets we prepared to take to Iranians.  May God bless each family as we were also blessed.

Sunset Beauty

 Every night we watched the beautiful sunset.

While spending some time at the beach I had the chance to see many reminders of God's faithfulness and love in nature.

Psalm 136:3-9

Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.

⁴ to him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever.
⁵ who by his understanding made the heavens,
His love endures forever.
⁶ who spread out the earth upon the waters,
His love endures forever.
⁷ who made the great lights—
His love endures forever.
⁸ the sun to govern the day,
His love endures forever.
⁹ the moon and stars to govern the night;
His love endures forever.

I was sitting on the beach one day and playing with sand in my hands and thinking about this verse:

Psalm 139: 17-18 NLT

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
    They cannot be numbered!
¹⁸ I can’t even count them;
    they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
    you are still with me!

As I looked at the different grains of sand and all the colors I thought about how God is always thinking about us and it was like with each grain He was saying, "I love you because of who you are. I love how you serve me. I love your talents. I love your personality. I love your quirks. I know how many hairs are on your head. I made this world for you..." And with every grain there was something new He was saying to me.  And it never ends.  I can't count all the ways that God tells me He loves me.  And every one is different and unique.

And then there were the sparrows that were flitting around the beach.  And I thought of the verse in Matthew 10:31 that says  "So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." Everywhere I looked it was like He was saying, "I love you. You are important to me."

We had lots of fun with God's other creations that were everywhere just waiting to be caught!

My city-born friends couldn't believe that I would hold the frogs like this but I thought they were a lot of fun.

And here's what our guys caught off the dock with some fishing line and shrimp.

Off to Camp

 On the way to take my friend's son to camp we helped this guy get across the road and when we came back he was still nearby in a bush.

 It was real camping for the boys in tents in the forest!

 Then we had a picnic with tea and ...

 cows!

Little Princess

We went to visit our friend while her mom was a work and played hair stylist and dress up.

Vacation

 Mountains, forest, beach, and sea!

 A wonderful pool

 Our hotel's area was like a forest which was quiet and beautiful!

My friend's son went paint-balling and I found this cute kitten there.

There was a roasted lamb one evening.

And carved watermelons

And fancy cakes that were also delicious

Our ocean-side table

Trying our hand at archery

The awesome waterslides!

A cute visitor

Enjoying some wedding punch that we made by mixing sprite, cherry juice and adding ice cream on top!

Sad because we have to leave.  The wrestler statue was the founder of this place.