Dana's dad came this weekend to visit for 2 weeks. It has been SOOOOO great to get to see him and spend some good quality time with him. He came with some good friends of ours too. In the picture here at a massage place, he's the one with the peace sign! It's been a hoot hanging out with them so far. At the end of his time we are going to have some fun sight-seeing, eating, and shopping in the capital. The most exciting thing in that city is probably Starbucks. Sounds shallow? You try living without it for over 3 months. Instant coffee just isn't the same.

Along with Dana's dad came lots and lots of goodies, gifts, and awesomeness from loving family back home. My dad's back needed the good asian massage, and maybe another, for toting all the heavy gifts across the globe for us. Pictured left is Dana making-out with Rotel (which is time consuming to make from scratch and just not the same). Thanks for packing them mom - along with everything else! Pictured right is John having fun with his new Cities of Knights game (Dana really does think he has some type of OCD with this game).

Now that summer break is FINALLY here, we have had more time to fix up the house some. Dana has hemmed our bedroom drapes and made dinning room curtains out of bed sheets (you can see a little of those behind her picture kissing the Rotel). Our bathroom was one of the biggest projects. You see... we are lucky enough to have a shower... more like a shower head. There is no shower. The water simply sprays on the vinyl floor and heads to the other side of the bathroom under the sink to the drain. First, John put a shower cutain up to prevent splashing all over the toilet, sink, towels, what have you. Then we scrubbed the walls and floor - which didn't seem to help much. John did cover up some of the sickness with fresh calking - pictured here. After that he rigged a barrier so the water will flow behind the toilet to the drain. A channel if you will. Now Dana can do her hair and makeup while John showers without shower shoes and we can step out onto a dry rug! It's really the little things in life we should be thankful for, you know.

Dana's herb garden is procressing nicely. The main concern at the moment is her Rosemary plant. It is the tall skinny one in the middle. Does it look like a weed to anyone else?

For 4th of July we went to a distant park to play some wiffle ball with some other Americans here and eat some awesome brawts that were brought in by an American. It was a blast! We even shot off some fire works at the end of the night which was fun while it lasted. The funny thing about playing in this park (other than no grass to play on) was the different interruptions we had. As you can see in this picture, there is a bride and a groom walking right in the middle of our game. This would never happen in America, but I'm sure what we were doing was strange and foriegn to them. This was not the only bride and groom to pass through our infield. There was also several people who biked thru, children with golf carts, cleaning ladies, and children smashing ants with their palms - all unanticipated interuptions.

Summer Break

Summer is here and there is a lot of fun things happening here in the city. The picture of the guy cooking all the meat is a great place to hang out and order some "meat on a stick," that is what we call it (sorry Jusin and Sara I know you miss this). The summer time in the evenings are a lot of fun because people are out and the weather is nice. We do miss those New Mexico sunsets though! There's not many of those here.

John had to get his picture taken behind "Optimus Prime" and with the other transformers. We got to watch the new transformers movie here and it was in English!! We live right by the movie theater and we often check to see what the latest movies are and if they are showing any in English.

So you would be very suprised how cheap things cost here in our city. Can anyone guess how much these vegetables cost in this picture? See answer below!

It only costs about $1! There's a saying everythings bigger in Texas but we think some Texans should come visit our city. A good example is of this spinach leaf to the left in comparison to Dana's hand. We have also found some really good green chile here. A pound of green chile is only about 20 cents! There are definately pros and cons to living in this city and we've decided to do a top 5 list of both!

CONS

5. When there is a national holiday they shut the country down. Everything is closed. Even school, however, you have to make up the missed day on the weekend or evening.

4. Because were foreigners we get the "foreginer tax" and people up thier prices when we buy things.

3. The streets can be so congested at times that we have both have gotten in minor bike accidents (we're fine).

2. Bike theft and pocket picking happens VERY often so we have to always be on the lookout and watch our things extra carefully. (Even in restaurants Dana has to keep her purse on her lap.)

1. Everyone says Hello! and stares and says "wai-guo-ren" which means outsider. It stopped being cute a long time ago.

PROS

5. Local markets and storeoweners love and flock to us because were foreigners.

4. They have several import stores so we can buy things like crisco, corn flakes and sometimes cheese (the local cheese here is just not the same).

3. You can walk outside of your apartment, look to the left and see a bank, post office, 5 different resturaunts and a hardware store. Look to the right and see a fruit stand, supermarket, a park, and Mcdonalds all within 3 minutes of walking distance.

2. Everything is cheap and we mean everything and plus you can bargain for mostly anything too. (Bottled water - 15 cents, Bus ride to destination - 15 cents, average meal - $1-2)

1. We are homesick at this moment and had a hard time with culture shock this week, so we can't think of another pro! :)

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