We are out of Jumla for a little R&R these days. My parents have been here for 6 weeks and they leave in 2 more, so we are enroute to KTM to send them off. We chose to take the road, so we are slowly making our way across the country. We are currently in Pokhara (a major tourist destination) and enjoying good food and bathrooms with toilets and showers. Here are a few pictures of the girls and our activities in Jumla.


This is our barley harvest. Growing grains by hand is alot of work (each plant gets personally touched about 5 times, not including the threshing and grinding) but we hope it will be worth the effort. The grains ripen in the monsoons, but need several days of sun to dry after they are threshed. We didn't get that much sun before we left, so after we return to Jumla, we'll dry them and grind them, and finally get to eat our barley pancakes!

Didi and I digging up grass in what was the mustard field, so we can plant buckwheat. It was almost 2 days of squatting and digging with a small hoe-like tool. You can see I am cheating by sitting on a log.

Andrew has been doing lots of bee work. He and Nick (Mariah's dad) successfully make three hives out of one hive and Andrew has been moving his bees from old fashioned hives to "modern" hives like the ones used in North America. The bees seem happy in their new homes.

This is Didi harvesting barley. All the grains are cut by hand, like she is doing.

The girls are over 8 months now, and seeing places other than Jumla for the first time (at least that they can comprehend. It is fun to see them explore new surroundings.

We have about 15 pictures attempting to get a cute one of them eating rice crackers. None of them were successful, but this one is pretty funny.

Maya showing off her new skills. Both girls are standing and doing a bit of furniture walking.

Elise sitting on the potty and looking adorable.

Both girls standing in our livingroom. For awhile, this was our only piece of furniture, but now we also have a bed/couch that they can move along.

Elise wearing the headlamp and drooling (and again, looking adorable.) That's my mom in the background.