Post Holiday greetings from the Waters! As you can see, we have been blog entry deficient since our trip in October. I hope to be able to load photos from our activities since that time to the present (we have taken about 500-maybe more), however, it takes a considerable amount of time to do this. Please be patient and remember that loading the blog is an "extra curricular" activity. During the last few months, our free time has been rather limited to connecting with each other and with friends. Keep checking back-it will happen, eventually! We hope you have a very blessed and joyous holiday season as we anticipate new opportunities and a New Year!

WELCOME BACK! I am happy to say that we are once again able to display items on our blog. You may or may not know that last week it was blocked by those who have all our best interest in mind. I suppose that what you don't see on blogger can't effect your mind or decisions you make in the future. So, for now we are back (although, I admit that the thought of having one less thing to keep up with was a little freeing). If "they" determine that the open fields of blogger are too risky-then we will be unable to access it again. Sigh....so enjoy it while you can, this free flowing access may not last long!
The following posts are from our most recent trip with friends to Cappadocia. If I ever have the opportunity to go back there I will go in a heart beat! If you ever get the opportunity to go-don't hesitate! It is one of those places on the planet that escapes description. Our photos are sadly lacking in the incredible beauty of this region. We gladly share them with you and we hope you enjoy them as much as we did experiencing this trip.

First rest stop on the road! What a long night that was.

We arrived in Cappadocia at the exact moment the sun broke over the valleys. Words and photos can not describe how amazing it was! The "driving all night thing" was tough but SOOO worth it to arrive at that particular moment. Just think, if we hadn't made the right amount of stops along the way, we would have missed it altogether!!!!!

Balloons at sunrise. You have to get up pretty early to catch shots of these filling the sky. Fourtunately, we already were....sort of.

Another view of our hotel

The hotel had some original cave rooms that were once lived in by ancient inhabitants. Ours was not in one of the "cone" formations. But they were really neat.

Yeah for lunch! This was after having been awake for about 27 hours! Yikes!

Our cozy cave room-it really was a great place

The bathroom

in front of the "nunnery"

This is one of the larger cave churches. You had to pay an extra 8ytl to enter after we had already paid the 15. entry fee. Oh well, maybe next trip...

This painting was one of MANY inside one of the cave churches.
As you can see, thousands of years (and desecration)have taken a toll on the images.

This is a cave "nunnery". 7 floors where the nuns lived, and studied theology and worshiped. Unfortunately, it was closed because of interior structural safety hazards.

more cave homes

An Empty tomb! The stone "door" was much like the one I imagined covered Christ's tomb in the garden.

The only current inhabitants of these caves.

The wonders of this His hands are unending!

Awww...Posed, but a touching moment, none the less...

More cave dwellings..we got to climb up in some of them. It was REALLY cool!

Crazy guys commandeering the local's only mode of transportation!

We toured an underground cave that they believe to have been used by the early Christians fleeing invading armies. These tunnels and living spaces were a huge network of passages and deep containment spaces. There were several levels that you could go from one to the other but there were also holes cut out for communication and for transporting objects from one level to the next. It was really amazing how each tunnel was connected from living to cooking to storage and worship spaces. They even developed a plan to battle against oncoming invasions from behind the massive boulders that they used to close off passageways.
Steve got stuck in this hole-not really, but it was really funny.

This was the
best place for this motley crew!

I can't remember how many meters this "well" was but it served as venilation to the surface air also. One of the guides dropped a coin down in it and we never heard it hit the bottom.

Ancient Cave dwellers???

The 3 beautifuls..and they are really unique!!! The "tops" remained there after the water, wind etc... finished carving out these images.

Yes, there are people trying to get inside the "hole". Those people are some of our friends. One of them did get up in there. He said there was a "Bad smell". I can't imagine why....these were tombs at one time.

A larger than life "Gary" (Spongebob's pet snail)!

The guys -they tried to get on top but the police blew his whistle at them!

People actually used to live, work and worship in these caves!

I never knew camel's lips were floppy-funny what you learn at 40!

Our friend was the only person brave enough to try this. Kind of wish I had now....keske (if only)

All of us thought this was the funniest road sign! They need these in America, maybe then there wouldn't be so many turtles ending up as road kill.

Ahhhh...the beauty of a Masterful design!

My meal was cooked inside a clay pot and then broken upon being served. It was sooooo good and entertaining as well!

The last night there we shared a special supper together. This place was almost all open-air dining but it was really beautiful! We sat next to the fir pit so it wasn't all that cold.

Scenes from the long, LONG ride home. This country truly is beautiful! The ride gave us plenty of time to do crazy things among friends (mildly crazy things, that is!)

Since we are now one Facebook-we haven't kept up with the blog as well as we should have. We have also both added new students that we are teaching English to so our"free" time just got cut in half. Hopefully, we will have a weekend that we will be able to load some new photos from the Cappadocia trip. There are so many, I can't do them right away. Keep us in mind-things are really busy right now and it doesn't look like it will lighten up any time before Christmas. Thanks for visiting-check back for our photos and tales from the trip, or-join FaceBook and see what we have posted on our profile pages! :)

AHH! The joys of camping! Last weekend we got to take a camping trip with three of our local friends and a team member. We took a bus to a fishing village about an hour and 1/2 outside of our city. When we arrived, we trekked to the campground with all our stuff only to find it was locked and closed for the season. We then had to locate another place where we could set up camp over night.

Quaint, quiet, and uncrowded-great for a weekend venture!

Behind this "outdoor cafe" was our camping site.

This is what it looked like. (This was after we took the tents down the next day because I forgot to take pictures before we set up camp)

Here's Mandi taking a break! (This was also after we broke camp-she's catching up on the night of sleep she lost)