Our Little World Traveler

I can hardly believe how well our little Ezra did on the trip to Mongolia. God was so kind in giving us such a calm and adaptable little baby. We had so many people on the plane say, "Wow, I didn't even know there was a baby on board", or "He was such a good baby". 

Ezra is a natural at making new friends. This is Steve. He was so sweet to Ezra and loved playing with him on our long flight to Beijing. Ezra was melting hearts left and right with his big smile.

We were blessed to have the seats with extra leg room and a little bassinet to put our little buddy in for the long flight. Unfortunately, he was a little big in the shoulders for this particular one so he only slept a couple hours in it. But he did get lots of naps on Mommy, which helped Mommy sleep, too.

It was nice to be able to get up and stretch from time to time. He had some sweet cuddle time with Daddy, too.

Here we are at the Beijing airport. He's peeking out of his new "car seat". He loves being close to Mommy and falls asleep whenever he's in it. You can see our sweet stroller on the right, too. That was a big help in toting all our carry-ons through the airports.

We had breakfast in Beijing at the Pizza Hut. Yes, Pizza Hut serves eggs and bacon at 6:30am! This is our second visit here for breakfast and becoming a new tradition.

Our final leg of the journey...hang in there, Buddy! This was definitely the hardest leg, simply because I think the whole being-stuck-in-an-airplane thing was getting a little old for Ezra. But he did get a little nap in before we landed. We used EarPlanes and fed him or used a pacifier during take off and landing and his ears seemed to be ok. On our first leg from MN to LA they might have bothered him a little because he fell asleep during the landing and once we landed and he woke up, he started crying because his ears weren't popped yet.

Here is Ezra's first look at Mongolia...the frozen tundra! They had just received a fresh coat of snow for his arrival...imagine that! The snow king strikes again.

Gerlee and Orna were so happy to finally meet him! 

He's already making the girls go crazy!

 He's made lots of new Mongolian friends! And we look forward to making lots more. Everyone that passes by on the street notices our little bundle under our coats. When they stop to look they say "Ямар хөөрхөн бэ?" which means "How cute!?". 

Thanks for all your love and prayers. We could tell many were praying for us. We're so happy to be here, even though it was so hard to leave our dear friends and family. 

We love you and miss you all!!

Farm Livin'...

It's been great living on the farm these past couple months. It's so quiet and peaceful and we've loved the extra time with family. We thought we'd give you a little taste of what we've been up to. Matt has loved his role as "Farm Boy" and I've equally loved taking care of the animals, the chores around the house, and helping with mealtime.

Here's Farm Boy next to one of the many tractors he's gotten to drive this summer. Just about every day he gets to drive some type of farm equipment like the tractor, grain truck, bobcat or 4-wheeler. 

Most of the time he's been helping my dad with their new addition. 

It's coming right along!

He's also had some side jobs to help make extra money. Here he is power-washing some mossy steps. Like he says, "Sometimes you gotta get a little on ya."

We spent a couple weeks in the Twin Cities working on staining a house, too. Here is a before and after section of the house. 

And of course, you have to meet the newest addition to the farm the two baby calves.

They are soo cute! I don't know if we will be able to eat them...we'll see. :) 

I think if I don't name them it will be easier.

And here is my buddy, Sugar. She keeps me company and helps me take baby for walks. She just can't help but need lots of love and attention, which I'm happy to dish out. :) She's a good dog.

A farm just isn't complete without kitties! These three musketeers are Judah, Mabel and Wilson (L to R). Judah is a boy and the other two are girls. There mom is all black, so don't know where their beautiful stripes came from. We have a few other momma cats running around, too. These guys were born right before we got back.

I've also been enjoying my time playing piano. I started taking piano lessons again and have been loving the challenge and accountability and learning new things (that I should have learned already!). I hope to brush up on my skills and maybe teach piano someday, maybe even in Mongolia.

Well, that's it for now. Hope you all had a great summer! We've been enjoying our time at home with friends and family. Just 13 more weeks until we get to meet our wee little lad! Time is flying by....

We love you all dearly and look forward to seeing you again soon!

Matt, Jess and Baby

To market, to market to buy...

Well, we don't exactly buy fat pigs here (they are too expensive), but we do get a variety of other things from the markets around town. This post is a tribute to my Mom. Sorry, it has taken me so long to show you what the markets looks like!! Soon we will be home and we'll have many pictures to share with you all in person, hopefully. :) 

First, I'll take you to the "Black Market". This is not the illegal kind that you think of, it's just what it is called. This is one of the first places we visited in UB. This stand is where we bought our white dishes and salt and pepper shaker.

The market is huge (about 2 football fields big) with row upon row of vendors selling just about anything from clothes to rugs to appliances, and even gold fish and puppies sometimes. :) And indoor markets to buy meat, veggies and fruit. This place is usually PACKED when it's nice out, but we happened to be there when it was -20 and windy so there weren't too many other brave souls looking for a good deal that day.

They love purses here! (Mom, you'd definitely be able to find one you like here!) Mongolians are very fashionable, so you will find many "designer" labels at the market (mostly from our neighbor to the south).

Next, we'll head to the meat market. Our good friend Odka takes us to the market very early in the morning when we need to get more meat to cut up (see one of our earlier posts to see that process!). This is one of the delivery trucks. It's about -20 outside so there's no problem keeping the meat cold. :)

And here's another delivery truck. Not quite sure what these lucky animals are, probably sheep. They eat a LOT of mutton here.

 So, once the meat is delivered and off-loaded, they bring it inside and cut it up and sell it. This picture is blurry because as I was taking it someone looked at me with a stern face and told me I can't take pictures here (don't really know why?). Here is Josh and Jennifer looking at some horse, I believe. The last time we were at the meat market we bought our first camel and some more horse, no beef. The beef is about twice the price as camel and horse, and we think they all taste about the same. (Of course, now that I'm pregnant, camel and horse haven't sounded as appetizing as they did before.)

Now, we'll head to Mercury, where we buy all our veggies, eggs, beans, and import goods (for the most part). There are two big rooms with individual vendors all around the room, selling mostly the same stuff: fruit, nuts, dry-goods, oil, peanut butter, etc. There isn't much you can't find here. Last week, I splurged and bought a package of pre-made hashbrown rounds (34 for $4). They are so yummy!

These are my olive oil (extra virgin, cold-pressed even!) and cheese ladies, they are mother and daughter. They are both very kind and generous, and always give me and my friends a good deal. The daughter knows a little English and likes to practice when I stop by.

The back room has all the veggies and meat (we buy our meat at the meat market above which is on the other side of town, but we do get our chicken here). Again, many vendors all selling mostly the same things.

Here is my veggie lady. She is also very sweet and kind and always has a huge smile on her face when she sees us. As you can see, she has many yummy veggies: spinach, cilantro, broccoli, cucumbers, cauliflower, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, lettuce, zucchini, garlic, onions, radishes, mushrooms, and usually if she doesn't have it and I ask her for something, she will go get it from a friend next door, like green beans, pumpkins, or spicy peppers. :) No shortage of good eats here, so come on over and I'll whip something up for ya!

And last, but not least, my fruit lady (she's on the left). I took this photo from our living room window. Her stand is right on the corner near the bus stop. So every time we catch a bus, she smiles and waves at us. She also knows a little English and often asks me how to say things. Earlier this same night, I bought a bunch of apples from her and went home and made my Grandma Mildred's apple crisp (and was it yummy!). I took a piece down to her once it was made and she was so excited to try some American food. I saw her later from the window, sharing with her friend next to her (it's the white box in front of the lady on the right). It's amazing to me how even though they are all selling the same thing, they don't seem to care if you buy something from them or their friend next door. They never seem to harbor any ill-intent towards their neighbor, but they are friends and work together and help each other. She is so sweet, just like her yummy fruit! I'm sad to be moving soon and not see her almost every day, but I know that He will bring me another fruit lady when we return to our new home in UB.

Hope you've enjoyed the tour of the UB markets!

We look forward to seeing you all soon and tasting some good home cooking!

Much love to you all,

Jess

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes! ...And Dust Gets Everywhere Else!

Ah, life in UB.  Most days you can see the beauty of the mountains and the ever-blue sky.  In fact, it's sunny here over two thirds of the time, but once winter starts rolling in (around September) it's often a little less than clear.  The major power plants take on the ger districts to see who can launch the most particulate into the air and sometimes the battle gets pretty intense!

Here's the view out our window to the East, overlooking Peace Avenue and the sinking Chinese knife blade looking building.  Pretty clear.  You can even see the mountains in the distance, around 10 miles away.  We've accumulated a few pictures over the year to show you some of the varying elements that "cloud" our vision.  :)

11/27/2009 - The first blanket to lay over the city was the coal smoke.  You may recall me mentioning that UB runs east-west between two beautiful mountain ranges.  It's wonderful in both its beautiful and its ability to trap the smoke from escaping.  It was always much worse in the morning as the gers were keeping their stoves pretty hot in the average -30 degree lows we had this winter.  This was a fairly smoky morning, probably not the worst, but smokier than most.  By the middle of the day the smoke would make its way out for the most part.

12/17/2009 - Not all the effects of the smoke were bad.  As you may have seen in other areas, smoke in the air can make some pretty beautiful sunrises and sunsets.  All fall we heard about the smoke that was coming, and all winter we heard about the spring dust storms.

5/1/2010 - We finally got one.  The winds had been picking up as soon as the temperatures began rising and are now blowing between about 12 and 25 mph every day.  The day started clear and then very quickly began to darken.  The winds must have really been gusting because all our old windows felt like they could have blown. 

This is the view out our south facing window on the afternoon of a sunny day!  It continued for part of the day and then almost completely cleared up.  Reminds me of the moment when the Lord was being put to death and the whole sky became black as night...in the middle of the day!  Not sure what exactly the Father did to bring that about but it must have been pretty terrifying.  Besides the fact that the ground was shaking, the temple was getting ripped up (or should I say "down") and people were coming out of their graves!  It's in there, go read it!  Anyway, the dust...:)

And then just like that it had passed.  It was really quite amazing!  I even heard that some of the dust from one of our storms in Mongolia made it all the way over to Arizona and even to the east coast.  It's like blowing you a little kiss from 7,000 miles away!!!  Bet you never thought you'd be eating Mongolia's dust, huh?!  :)

Thankfully they should be turning off our heat in about a week so that oughta reduce the smoke output considerably.  Too bad we'll be leaving just as the temperatures are nice and warm, the dust is gone, and the rains come.  Gets pretty green here in the summer.  Speaking of green, there are little pockets of grass/weeds that are growing in the city now and whenever we see them we pick a couple blades and inhale that fresh cut scent that I will never take for granted again!

New Life...

“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; 
blessed be the name of the Lord.” 
- Job 1:21b

Theresa Marie Pearson

As many of you know, we were back in the States a few weeks ago to see Matt’s Grandma. We were so blessed to be able to go see her, talk to her, and spend time with her before she went to be with our Father. It was a wonderful time with family, filled with sweet memories that we will never forget.

One memory that I will always cherish is when I got to tell Grandma that if we ever had a girl that we would name her after her. She welled up with tears at the thought and was very touched by that. It was one of the last conversations I had with Grandma. We were in the stage of “trying” to have a baby, so we were eagerly taking tests in hopes to tell Grandma and everyone in person, but they were all negative. We eventually had to return to Mongolia and Grandma was still with us, much to the surprise of everyone. :) About 3 days after we returned we decided to take one more test, because I had many symptoms that I might be pregnant, even though the other tests were negative. Turns out, we were pregnant and didn’t even know it while we were home!! We called Matt’s Mom right away to tell her the news so she could go tell Grandma. Well, we didn’t get to share the news with Mom at that moment because she was in the middle of making funeral arrangements because Grandma had just passed away that morning. So, within a half hour we found out that new life had begun and that Grandma’s new eternal life had begun. It was an amazing day of joys and sorrows, filled with tears of both kinds. So, in the same day the Lord gave us a new baby and had taken Grandma home to be with Him. His timing is perfect.

Today was one of the most amazing days of our lives thus far…we got to see our baby for the first time! I was a little nervous at first because up until this moment, I wasn’t sure if it was really true. I wanted it to be, especially since we had told everyone already, but just wasn’t sure.

 But sure enough! Here is our little Monkey. :)

Everything seems normal and we even got to see the heart beating! Check out the video and see for yourself (it’s not quite as clear as in person, but it’s still amazing!).

We are all doing fine…I’ve been a little nauseous, eating all the time to keep the “feels like I’m going to throw up” feeling at bay. I haven’t yet, but just feel like it most of the time. I’ve also been very tired and needing more sleep than usual. Matt has been very supportive and understanding about my crazy cravings and need for more sleep. We are all growing every day, and can hardly believe that we have the “Mom and Dad” title! Our Creator is so amazing.

Thank you for lifting us and our family up the last several weeks. We have been so abundantly blessed! And we are so very blessed to have all your love and support!