joy in the journey

prior to the bishkek adventure, jenny kept up her own blog (for her photography and such) called the "joy in the journey". she has started to update it on a regular basis with her take of life in central asia. since she is such a better writer than me... i thought you should check it out.

christmas joy

as you know... we are heading back to the states for the holidays... and we are so excited. so much of my thinking has been fast forwarding to seeing the family in houston that i haven't take too much time to think about christmas here.

kyrgyzstan doesn't really celebrate christmas (being a muslim country and all) although there are some shops with decorations up (aimed at folks like us). no crazy day after thanksgiving shopping sprees, no christmas music playing in the stores, no lights going up around town.

so it has been easy to not get in the mood.

but my lovely wife is having none of that... and this weekend she bought a little plastic tree (thanks chinese factory workers!) and some (so cute) felt dolls that i fell in love with (already dreaming of putting them up in a future nursery).

it is starting to look a lot like christmas...

iving weekend is all about multiple meals (one with mom... another with dad). both of them make crazy amazing spreads.

thanksgiving in bishkek

because of my wanderlust... it feels like i have spent way too many thanksgivings away from home. it is also my favorite holiday so being away is sad and hard for a couple of reasons:

1. i love my family and holidays are a time meant to be spent together.
2. being from a standard american family (my mom and dad are married to other people)... the thanksgiving weekend is all about multiple meals (one with mom... another with dad). both of them make crazy amazing spreads.

so of course... being in bishkek for thanksgiving was sad and hard like so many of my past holidays... but not as sad because this year i was with "my" family... jennifer. as this was our first thanksgiving together as a married couple... we are starting our own traditions.

after school (can you believe it... we had work today!) we headed home for some last minute prep (i made a cake... jen made cream of corn, pumpkin risotto, and apple crisp) before heading over to our director's house for thanksgiving dinner (with turkey, mash potatoes and everything!).

although not the same as being home with our families... it was a wonderful evening spent with dear friends with lots to be thankful for.

travel plans for christmas break

we have finalize our travel plans for christmas break. we will be leaving bishkek on friday, december 12th for a long, long flight back to houston. turkish airline. layover in istanbul. non-stop istanbul to chicago. then united airlines from chicago to houston intercontinental airport. because of time difference... the 20 hour flight gets us in houston the same day (only a couple of hours later) that we leave bishkek.

we are scheduled to leave houston on december 31st. same flight plan on the way back home but this time with an extend five day layover in turkey. jen and i are going to explore istnabul for our honeymoon (we are still in that stage!).

our ticket to leave houston is open ended... so depending on family stuff (remember the prayers for my dad) we might stay in texas for a while (by taking a leave of absence from work).

while in houston we are so looking forward to spending some quality family time. and we can't tell you how excited to see boone... he will be with us 24 hours a day! we also are looking forward to spending time with friends. so if you are around... we can't wait to see you. not sure what we are going to do about a cell phone so we can get in touch with each other... but we will figure something out.

although we haven't bought her ticket yet... jen is planning on spending a week in california visiting her mom and brother.

we are counting the days...

weekend in review

we had a good weekend. friday was a teacher in service and as much as we like our kids... it was nice to have a day at work without them. i wonder if parents ever feel that way about their kids? jen and i will find out soon enough!

no... we are not with baby. yet...

while i was gone in poland, jen hung out with the mcbrides... the parents of one of her students. really good people and they have been really kind to jennifer. she was excited for me to meet them so we jumped at the chance to go over to their house for poker night.

jen and i are card players... we can play all night at nickles or set... but poker? no experience whatsoever. but a friendly game with another couple sounded like a good time.

so of course... we show up to a house full of people (almost all of them embassy folks) all waiting us (we got lost on the way over) to show up so they could begin. we were a bit taken back (there was a 1000 som buy in... that sounds like way more than it actually is) but we went for it.

we started at different tables (there were 13 people playing in total... all of them very serious about it) and as people explained the rules to us... we both started winning... and winning... and winning. after about an hour... most people were wiped out (broke) and they combined the tables. jen and i each had the most chips at that point. it was funny. we were laughing and not taking it serious while everyone else was so tense and questioning how we could both be doing so well.

i explained my success... i was playing with yahtzee rules and jen was just lucky.

well... the game calls for more than an understanding of yahtzee rules and jen's luck ran out. but we did come in fifth and fourth place out of 13 people. so pretty impressive.

after folks left... we hung around for a while chatting with the mcbrides. really good people. they both work at the us embassy and have been in bishkek for about a year. their experience with building communitys (a struggle at times... but that is a different post) is much like ours. and they have a very similar since of humor. we are hoping to hang out with them again.

of course... the highlight of the night came from my wife (oh how i love her). as were were being shown the door (so to speak... it was past midnight)... ann marie (the wife) had a plate of pizza that she was carrying with her as she was walking us out. kind of odd timing... offering a slice of pizza to someone who is leaving... but jen smiled and grabbed a piece. ann marie smiled back and said "the pizza is for the guard!". classic jennifer moment. of course... jenny has a very different version of the story... but i like mine better... and i think you will too. funny stuff. and true because as they walked us out, john (the husband) dropped the plate off with the guard at the front gate.

side note - all us embassy folks have really big nice houses. the houses all big yards (which is rare in bishkek) and they have generators for when the power goes out (which is daily). and the houses all have private security guards paid for by the embassy. so weird being let into someones house by a security guard.

saturday was a glorious sleeping in late day. we finally meandered outside of the house around 100pm and went to osh bazaar for christmas shopping (gifts for our loyal readers!). we also went to our favorite food bazaar for some ingredients to make plov. plov, as you will recall, is the local rice and meat dish. jennifer makes amazing plov! so amazing that i don't feel like i am missing out by not having married a local girl like all the other american boys seem to do.

sunday was more of the same. we slept in late. went to another bazaar... this time with our friend yassi from work. did some more shopping. i ended up dropping the girls off at a local plaza while i went to sunday night tennis.

sunday night tennis is a new tradition we are starting with a couple friend of ours. we started by playing at the clay courts across from our apartment... but those are closed due to winter. so we play at the indoor court (court... not "courts") at k2... a local "gym". the courts are nice but the dimensions of the court is just a bit big. great for my serve and baseline shots... but going to kill me when i get back on a regular sized court.

and that my friends...was our weekend.

(editors note... as we feel so far behind on our blog... we now feel obligated to make you sit through long winded non-exciting post like this one. we will try to return to our exciting life next weekend).

blog update galore

life is going great here in bishkek and we have been so busy the past month... that we haven't had the time to keep the blog updated. that has changed as we are (mostly) up to date!

follow the links below to our most recent posts or just scroll down...

the alpine fund dacha trip
seeking russian hot springs
fall break
halloween at the metro
trip to poland
outdoor adventure club trip to the dacha
jen's field trip to the coca-cola factory

jen's field trip to the coca-cola factory

jen tells the story much, much better than i ever could... so i will leave the telling to her. but here are some photos from a field trip her five year old class took to the local coca-cola factory...

outdoor adventure club trip to the dacha

on saturday, we took the bishkek international school outdoor adventure club on an overnight trip to the apline fund dacha. we left saturday morning and returned sunday around noon.

one of the amazing things about bishkek is our (really) close proximity to the mountains. it is an easy 45 minute drive from our apartment (and the school) to ala-archa national park which boast peaks over 4000 meters high (12,000 feet plus), some incredible glaciers, and all around loveliness. along the way we pace through some small villages (always with kids riding donkeys and sheep crossing the roads) and really big, interesting muslim cemetery.

after we arrived, we set up the cabin, made some lunch, and then immediately hiked up a nearby slope for some sledding. the kids were so much fun and really enjoyed themselves. we had one girl, laura, who is from australia, who had never been in snow. she ended up spending most of the day laying on her stomach slowly sliding down the hill while licking and eating snow directly from the ground into her mouth (look ma... no hands!). it was both kind of gross and amazingly funny at the same time.

we returned to the cabin to some amazing, twice burnt, chicken noodle soup. the night ended with with us making smoores outside around the fire.

yes... in the photos that is marshmallow on my face and snot running down my nose.

jen is so proud.

trip to poland

i went to poland for five days to attend an advanced placement (a fancy way of saying "honors") calculus conference. my wonderful director at bishkek international school, marykay, sent me on the trip.

funny thing though... i am horrible at math. true... i teach secondary math at bis... but i struggle my way through it and am nominally one step ahead of the kids. calculus... way out of my league.

and it was obvious at the conference (which was two eight hour days of sitting around and working calculus problems) that i was so out of my league!

so in that regard... the conference was not a good time.

but from the stand point of getting to travel. i LOVED poland! warsaw and krakow were the quintessential european cities with the old town squares and amazing architecture. because of my travel arrangements (i had a layover in istanbul!)... i was afforded a couple of days walking around and explore warsaw. pretty incredible.

the highlight of the trip though was the food. no... not the traditional polish fare... but american food! they have "american fast food" in poland (and the istanbul airport) and i went to burger king twice... mcdonalds once... and to kfc once. jen was so jealous... lol.