We rent a small cottage in the mountains; in the photo above you can see the view from our veranda. The place is called Charvak and it is at the river Ugam. When it is 110F in Tashkent, our little place in the mountains is much cooler. Besides, we have two swimming pools there, and our kids literally live in the water while we are there.
This is my sister, 23 years younger than myself. She is a strong, healthy and brave girl; talk of late children being weak and prone to illnesses!
And this is my daughter who turned 7 in June. She is the funniest girl, with a fantastic sense of humor and many other merits. She is not as strong and brave as our Katherine, but she is learning.
Jager, my Malinois, enjoyed vacation with us. In the photo below, I kick water with my right leg, standing on the left one; my left hand is grabbing a fence so that I do not fall in the water, and right hand is taking photos. Even though my Nikon D70 is 8 years old, I would not like to drop in the pool with it. But it was fun, and Jager looks like... my friend called him "an awful prehistoric fish", but I think he is an awesome prehistoric fish!
These are all of the kids: my sister, my daughter, our dog and my sister's friend who we took with us. They are a great team: you would not believe the level of noise they can produce together!
And this is just a bush of wild blackberry close to our place. It is delicious but very difficult to pick, alas. Its thorns are like fishing hooks: you get your hand into the bush easily, but then it is quite difficult to take it out undamaged.
We have had a great vacation, and it is great to be back in town after four weeks of leisure. We have been missing our Etsy shop and our other assignments. Now we are back with new ideas and tons of new ikat silk and rugs for scarves and pillows!
