The petting zoo came to Anna and Evan last month.  They thought this was way cool--sheep in our front yard.  The woman in the picture lives just around the corner from us.  The last time the sheep vistited, our dog nearly bit one.  She ran out and nipped at them, getting a mouthful of wool before we got her back inside our gate.

A happy (international) women's day to all the women reading.  Sorry I'm a day late in posting this (it's celebrated March 8).  This is actually a big holiday here.  Universities are closed and many people have the day off of work.  Men are supposed to do all the housework and cooking and childcare for the day, and bring the women in their lives flowers and cake. 

I had two nice things happen on the day before women's day.  I was stopped by the traffic police on Wednesday, which happens not infrequently to me, although I usually only have to pay a $1.30 fine when I've actually done something wrong.  Sometimes they are just checking documents.  (I'll have to post about documents later--they are of utmost importance here.  If you don't have the right document for your house/car/travel or the right official stamp on the right document, things can be bad for you.)  Anyway, I grabbed my documents and got out of the car, as is the custom here.  As the two policemen came over to me, I noticed a man with a videocamera, and was curious.  The policemen were wearing dressy uniforms, too.  I couldn't understand what they were saying at first, but then one of them pulled out a red carnation from behind his back and wished me a happy women's day.  It was really a nice surprise.  I was smiling for an hour afterwards.  My language teacher told me today that her mom saw me on the news, so that explains the camera.

The second happy surprise was when the plumber came to fix a large water leak outside our house.  He had worked for the family who lived in our house before and many of the international community have also used him and his son.  Anyway he fixed our problem, and then told me there was no charge, that it was a gift.

We also celebrated on Women's Day with a big group of people we know--the men had cooked a beautiful meal for the ladies.  They also showed us a chick flick while they were preparing the meal, and gave us each a flower.  I think this should be a universal holiday