How I have been blessed today

• It's so warm today that I turned off the heat and opened the windows. I love the smell of the fresh air!
  
• I got a 12 page letter from a long lost friend. How awesome is that?
  
• God enabling me to remain remarkably calm during Ms. Boo's peeing on the floor incident AND her spilling-hot-chocolate-on-coffee-table-and-carpet-while- attempting-to-transfer-it-from-one-mug-to-another incident. (Calm is not my normal reaction.)
  
• Someone at church asked me to do a presentation tonight about my mission trip to Baku in 1998. I pulled out all the old photos, souveniers, and my journal. Wow. It was like I had forgotten what an amazing trip that was. It has been great to go back and remember. I think I have mentioned before that I wanted to post some pics, so here they are. It was hard to choose which to share. Among my favorites that are missing (for lack of decent pics) are: Aytakin - one of the sweetest Azeri girls I met; the Nizami Museum; and the Maiden Tower - built in the second century.

Please note: I cannot figure out how to post more than one pic in the same post, so I had to post them separately. I posted everything in reverse order, so it should "flow" as if those pics were part of this post... and what's up w/ flickr.com? It was taking like 16 years to upload... no thanks.