Roadblock

Today as the kids and I headed into the city we quickly came upon a roadblock. By quickly I mean the end of our street and one of the only two ways to get of our "subdivision". As I approached the end of the road a man stood motioning that the road was closed. I rolled down the window and continued in his direction. As I continue toward him he begins yelling for me to turn the car off and to back up. I wasn't sure how I could do both of those things at the same time so I continued driving toward him. He continued his shouting that the road was closed. Since I was going to be late to the Fitness Center if he didn't let me pass I felt a need to be persistent. He told me the president was coming through and that I'd have to wait about 10 minutes. I begin to ask about other ways to get our of town. He apparently didn't appreciate my asking questions as he continued to shout. When shouted at I seem to lose the ability to speak Azerbaijani. I wanted to ask the unpleasant fellow to speak kindly and calmly so I could figure out what I needed to do. Hannah told me later that in my frustration I asked him to speak sweetly to me instead of kindly. We had a little laugh about that later. Long story short our day begin with frustration as they had actually closed both exits to our road and instead of a 10 minute wait for the president to pass it ended up being over an hour. The picture I've added is a picture of our road and if you look real close you can see the man that refused to talk sweetly this morning. I guess the the moral of this story is don't be in a hurry when the president is coming.

David's Monthly Chore

This picture is about two years old but since David did this chore today I thought I'd put it up for you. About once a month, sometimes more often, David has to empty our sewer. Our sewer is not directly connected with the local sewer system. He has to use a big "fire hose" to empty it out. Over the last two years he has gotten better at it and is not quite as stinky after he is finished as he used to be. One of the benefits of doing this is that our kids can't get away with anything. Last year for Christmas we had some peppermint patties sent to us by David's sister, Tara. Luke loved them. We try to give them sweets sparingly so we put them up and just gave them a piece occasionally. Well Luke decided we weren't given them frequently enough and hid in the bathroom and ate them. We found this out as David emptied the sewer because of all the peppermint patty wrappers that he found. Apparently Luke thought he could hide the evidence by flushing the wrappers down the toilet. He failed to realize that nothing gets past us parents, especially when dad has this as a monthly chore.

Just a Beginning

I've thought of writing a blog for a while but seems like there's just never enough time. I wanted to write to allow our friends and family that live far away to experience day to day life with us. I wanted to do this both for them and for us. Many people ask what our days are like living in a foreign country and honestly sometimes it's just difficult to explain. I thought a blog might help bridge the gap for us. So this is a beginning and we'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll be consistent, maybe I won't. Anyway I'm gonna give it a try!