9 Blogs to Someone You Know

Thanks to the world wide web and blogs, the world is getting smaller everyday, thus making it easier to find friends, no matter where they are. In our spare time this morning, we realized that many of our family and friends have blogs and most of those blogs have links that take you to their families' and friends' blogs. We then discovered that you can start from any blog in the world and eventually find your way to someone you know. In fact we think it can be done in less than 10 blogs. This morning we started in Dallas, TX and made our way through blogs in College Station, TX; Louisville, KY; Hong Kong; and Thailand, before making our way to friends in India. We traveled around the world meeting people we will never see and looking at pictures of people we don't know, but it was pretty cool when we finally got to familiar faces. I know you are probably thinking that we must have been really bored, but you've either thought about it or will try it soon. We are so sure that this will become the hottest game of the year that we are going to add a few more links to our blog to make it a little easier for all those blogologist that come through our page. We are also sure that blogging is a phase that will be obsolete by 2010, so get in while you can before it's gone.

Touring Turkey

We just returned from traveling through the Turkish countryside as we visited interesting and historic places such as Çatalhöyük, the oldest known settlement currently under exploration in the world. It is 9500 years old so that would make its inhabitants date back to 7500 years before Christ. From there we went to Iconium, modern day Konya. It is a quiant little city of one million plus and a place that some of our teammates are moving to in about a year. It is well known for the Mevlanna museam, which houses the founder of Sufi Islam, which is famous for the whirling dervishes. These people would dance-spin themselves around in a circle until they spun themselves into a trance. All this was a way of trying to achieve a closer connection with God.

The next stop on our trip was one of the most interesting places I have ever seen. It is Cappadocia and it is famous for it's chimney style rock formations. Out of these tall rock structures, people carved out caves for houses and churches. Many of these caves are still evident and available to the public, just depending on how brave you are, as some are upwards of 50 feet high. We even had the opportunity to spend the night in a cave hotel. Our last stop was to an underground city where early believers would hide out when persecution was approaching. It had 12 floors underground with all kinds of tunnels and secret passageways. People could camp out there for up to 6 months before coming back above ground. Here are a few of the pics, but most of it you will have to see for yourself or talk to Dr. and Mrs. Dobbs as they were troopers and didn't want to miss anything.

Then and Now

Thanks to moms that save all things from their children's childhood, we have pictures below that remind us some people don't change much in 20 years. Notice the expression, hair, eyes, and most importantly, the fashion agility. Maybe the next 20 years will be as kind, but something tells me that the previous post will have a lot to do with that.

Meet Baby Yates!

We had our first real doctors visit today and it went well. We were able to see the baby and its heart beat. He/She looks very healthy and was moving all around, waving its arms and legs at us. We are tracking right on schedule and the baby is measuring 2.4 cm!

Flying Ninjas

No, it's not the title of the new Jackie Chan movie. It's better than that. Before Greece we spent a week in the mountains for our annual get together with other team members. It was great to escape the heat and get together with friends for lots of fun in the mountain sun. We even got to see rain, something we haven't seen in over 4 months. Since the hotel is a ski resort in the winter there are obviously ski lifts that take people up the mountain. Even though it was summer, they opened the lifts for us to go to the top on one of non-rainy days. However, by the time we got to the top we were surrounded by a cloud and so we weren't able to see anything below us. This was a big let down and we thought a waste of time and money, but God had something better in store. As we got back on the ski lift to head down the mountain we saw something ahead that caught our attention. Something all black ,coming our way. Was it the mafia? Or the militia? Coming to trap us while we were stuck on the mountain top. Thankfully not. It's was just a Middle Eastern man with his two children, followed by his 5 wives, all covered head-to-toe in their black ninja outfits. It's a sight we never thought we'd see, a ninja on a ski lift. I guess I've officially seen it all.
*author's note: Ninja is not a derogatory term. It's the only word used to describe all-covered-in-black women. Even the newspapers use it, and we know you can always trust the newspaper:)

Greece

Other than the lackluster experience with the train to and from Greece, our time there was wonderful. Our friends Mike and Beckie were great hosts and they took us all around their little city in the country as well as to historic places like Thessaloniki, Philippi and Berea. We got to see incredible artifacts from Paul's day and even dipped our feet into the same river where he baptized Lydia. One of our favorite parts was of course eating the great food, as well as meeting Mike and Beckie's friends and neighbors. The Greek language provided somewhat of a barrier as our knowledge is limited to fraternity and sorority letters; which made us ever more thankful for the little Turkish we've learned over the last 8 months. The last day, Beckie took us to the grocery store where we were able to stock up on items that are unavailable here. Essentials like Heinz ketchap, French's mustard, Helmann's mayonnaise, cheddar chesse and even ham. Hopefully these goodies will last us for a couple of months.

Midnight Train to Greece

This past week the Curtis's and us took an overnight train from Istanbul to Thessaloniki, Greece. We thought the idea of riding in a sleeper car for 12 hours sounded like a fun and the most effecient way to get there. At least one of those was correct. It really was an experience we will never forget and one that we will likely only experience once. First of all, the 12 hour ride turned into 15, with no way to contact the people picking us up to let them know we would be late. Second, we knew the train stopped at the border at 12am for customs, but we didn't know it also stopped every 30 minutes thereafter. This provided for a somewhat restless night of sleep and defeated the purpose of riding in the sleeper car. Thirdly, the rooms (which included two single beds big enough for a 5 year old) were extremely close quarters and provided plenty of opportunity to inhale each other's body odor which continued to rise due to the faintness of A/C.
For our return trip, we were on a different train. And thankfully it exceeded 30 miles an hour and managed to get us to Istanbul in time to make our return flight. It even came with a club car! However, the air didn't work at all on this train, causing us to keep the windows open and take in the sweet smell of diesel fuel all night. All and all we made it to Greece and back, but we decided we may be too old for a backpacking trip across Europe.