2010, Bring It On!

January has arrived and we feel as if we are about to plunge into the rabbit hole that is a Mongolian winter.  Already within the past week the temperature has dropped 20 degrees and past winters indicate the mercury will drop another 30 or so within the next 6 weeks.  Yikes.

Not to worry too much, though.  Ashlee and I have plenty of warm clothes (including my epic hand-knitted socks that I wear every night), maintaining the fire is pretty much second nature to me now, just yesterday we invested in a camel-wool blanket for our beds, and we have a trip back to California in June to look forward to.  I hope I didn't announce this trip too prematurely -- we don't exactly have the details worked out beyond the fact that we want to visit for 2 weeks with an arrival date sometime in mid-June.  We'll let you know more as it develops.

In other news, I'm trying my best to make good on the resolutions I made for the New Year.  Twenty of my 11th grade students have expressed interest in my afternoon tutoring sessions, I teach my first English lesson for teachers on Wednesday, and I started teaching English to Bahtgul's family this past Sunday.  Like I said earlier, I'm feeling good about the next six months.

Now, just because I know you like 'em, here's some more pictures.

 

 

This was our Charlie Brown-esque Christmas tree.  We bought it from our hashaa parents, who operates a stall at the local market.  We also bought our camel wool blanket from them.

 

Yes, the cows and sheep outside our window still keep us entertained.  Ashlee was sitting at home the other day when she heard a large rumble outside the window that scared her.  It turned out it was just Cow #2 passing a little (or a lot of) gas. 

 

Shawn and Kay sent us an excellent care package filled with lots of goodies.

 

 

One of the things they sent was a large packet of pancake mix.  To save space, Kay took the mix out of it's cardboard box.  When I opened the package for customs, I was worried they would think the pancake mix was cocaine.  I used my stunted Kazakh to assure them it was ingredients for making cookies.

 

 Delicious.