Road Trip: Ancient City (part II)

 After seeing the theater, we walked across the street and found more ruins. It was basically a little tomato-growing and sheep-herding village built upon an ancient town.

 No exploration here would be complete without the appearance of some sheep and goats. Firstborn  made friends with one goat that the shepherdess had tied up to keep from wandering.

 We saw a very rudimentary sign in Turkish that showed there had been two churches found amid the ruins. That's, of course, what we wanted to find. The problem was that one of them was somewhere on top of the huge mountain behind us. The other was across a big stream. I stayed back with the Turks and let CC take the older girls to try to cross it. CC has much longer legs than Miss Middler. He told her to jump, she tackled the jump with gusto, and promptly fell in the water and temporarily lost her shoe. She waited until he came back from exploring and hopped on his back. He rolled up his pants and carried her across. Here she is navigating which stone to jump to make her way back across.

If you've read my blog for any length of time, you know I enjoy spotting crosses spread throughout this beautiful country. Here Twinkle Toes and I found one on a big old stone. She's pointing to the center, do you see it?

 And this is perhaps my all-time favorite photo from 2011. As we left, two little old village ladies entered to help with the flock of sheep. We talked for a bit (boy, their Turkish sounds different than you hear in the city!). They asked me the question that I get almost daily, especially in a place like this. "Are all of these children yours?" I replied, "Yes, I have 4 girls, and the last is a little boy." Then they of course bless me and tell me they want Allah to protect them. I had a thought after we talked and they began to walk away. I told Sweet Cheeks to run and give them a hug and kiss and ask if we could take their picture. She's a sure bet, she'll always do it. And what happens so often to reward her bravery, the little auntie dug down inside her pants to find an inner pocket with candy in it. I love this photo. May God bless this beautiful village!