This week we experienced some cultural firsts. One of those was a swim meet. Our friend was competing and he was excited that Regan and I came to watch his race. He placed 2nd and 3rd (two different races) It was a little caotic, but fun.
This is our friend. On the way home from the race, Regan had the camera and took lots of random pictures, but I thought this one was pretty good. Regan and Jackie must have liked the Ritz crackers that I bought because they ate ALL of them! That's ok. That's what they were for anyways :)
After we got home from the race, we ate a quick lunch then the older three kiddos and I ran off to meet some different friends. We originally thought we were going to a movie, but ended up at this park. The kids had fun. We walked in through the entrance of the park and there ws this HUGE stone wall that was carved. I couldn't even get it all in the picture.
It was pretty elaborate. It was a hot day, but this park had many shaded places to walk and enjoy the view. The kids found many ways to entertain themselves.
The kids all posing for a picture. There were all kinds of petrified wood and big stones set up as displays. Benjamin enjoyed trying to find how each stone could hold his coke bottle.
I found this really commical. I thought these things were for the elderly...but I guess not. The kids were begging me to rent one to ride around in the park. I don't think so. We walked just fine :)
It was a really hot and susnny day so my pictures were not the best. If I had known we were coming to this type of place, I may have brought my good camera, but at least I got a few decent shots. Benjamin has always liked ties, but just recently he has decided to wear them with everything again. The lady that took us asked if I made him wear the tie or if he did it himself. She was amazed that he wanted to wear it.
Here's some of the stone "artwork" that I was talking about earlier. It literally was just one after another throughout the park.
I asked my friend about this tree in the park. It was filled with red cloths. She said that people would pay for the cloth, write a prayer on it, and hang it in the tree in hopes that one of the gods might see it and answer their prayer. It was really sad to see the tree filled with so much red.At the end of our day, our friend had her friend come pick us all up to take us home (he had a van) So, on the way home they asked if we wanted to go shopping. I did not care so I said that was fine. We went to a place that reminded me of Sam's Club. We were walking around and they kept trying to get me to put stuff in my shopping cart. I told them I was just looking but I eventually found some things and they were very happy. This man that we had never met before saw that the kids got excited to see chocolate on one of the aisles and he preceded to buy them lots of VERY expensive chocolate. After all of the shopping was done, we all went to checkout and (again this man that we have just met) pays for all of our groceries! I tried really hard to NOT let him, but I was unsuccesful. After that he took us all out to eat to a really nice restraunt. It was quite the cultural experience....even at dinner when he insisted on buying MORE food for us to take home to Jonathan and Lauren. I did win that one because I said, "Really! It's after 8:00. They are already sleeping and ate a long time ago." Well, Jonathan was probably not sleeping, but Lauren would have been :) So needless to say, I was very tired that evening. I was literally out all day long.
This is one of Lauren's little friends. They are about the same age. They were both concentrating so hard on their artwork!
But Lauren could not help but look at his paper. She was just too curious what he was drawing. He never noticed and she went back to drawing her own picture.
