Mongolia

Jason and I went to Mongolia in May. My brother served a mission there, and we went to pick him up after he was finished. We were joined by my mom, dad, 2 sisters, grandma, aunt, and great-aunt. Cameron stayed with his Nana and Papa (Jason's parents) while we were gone. I have promised some people that I would post some of the Mongolia pictures we have. There are several... This is a picture of me, Jason, Krista, Grandma, my mom, and Austin. This is a big statue of Chinggis Khan that they are building. (Chinggis and Ghengis are the same person. Chinggis is the Mongolian way of saying his name.) And, yes, it snowed on us a couple times while we were there.A picture of one of their Buddha statues. There are several religions in Mongolia. The LDS church has only been there since the 90's, and it is growing like crazy.
Our group in front of the buddha statue: left-right Jason, Aunt Willi, Me, Grandma Moore, Mom, Great-Aunt Claudia, Austin, Dad, Krista, Miranda.
A view of Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. Mongolia has about 2 million people, and over half live in UB.This is at Sukhbaatar Square, which includes Mongolia's Parliament House.
We left the city for a couple days, and headed out into part of the country. These are the two camels that we got to ride. (My sister has the pics on her camera of us actually on them.)
Here is a yak. It was so big. It had a calf the day before, and we were looking at the calf, and I think she started to get nervous. We were all afraid she was going to charge us, but didn't.

These are some "gers" which are the nomadic Mongolian's houses. These are ones that were replicated to look like what Chinggis Khan's craftsmen/women stayed in. They are pretty roomy inside, and have a wood burning stove in the middle, which really kept it warm

This is a picture of my dad, Jason, and brother Austin. They were dressed up in replica clothing of Chinggis' guards. Pretty intimidating, huh?

Last of the pictures (at least for now) is one of Jason and me. We are sitting on a replica of Chinggis' throne.

So, those are the pics that I am posting for now. I will probably post some more later, ones with us on camels, and some with all of us dressed up in traditional clothes. We loved our trip to Mongolia. The people were awesome. The language is cool to hear. It's more like Russian than Chinese. The food was ok too. The shopping was pretty good. We had a suit tailor-made for Jason, and it cost about $50, which included the material, the seamstress, and a tip because she made it within a week. She is the one that all the missionaries use. Not too shabby. All in all, it was a great trip, and although we missed Cameron like crazy, I am glad we went. It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip. If anyone ever wants to go on a trip to a far-off land, I recommend Mongolia!!