Around the neighborhood

 So, I was on my way home from the market the other day when I saw this all-to-frequent and yet still-oh-so-scary occurrence. I was thankful I had my camera with me, because it has gotten to be burdensome with all the other kid-gear. So....check out the fourth floor where a lady is washing the outsides of her windows by sitting/squatting on the 5 inch deep ledge. YIKES!!!

 My windows continue to be dirty.

Happy 4th of July! (Belated)

We celebrated this year with our red, white, and blue at the beach. We had a great picnic dinner with some friends and then the kids did a little swimming with the dads. We let the kids stay out until the sky was thinking about being dark. :) The kids loved having balloon races and red, white, and blue cupcakes. We topped the night off with sparklers! The bakeries actually put sparklers on birthday cakes here, so they sell them in all the bakery supply stores and dollar stores. They are as common as birthday candles. Moo was thrilled with fire. Lu liked sitting with Dad best for her fire spectacular. A great night all around. 

After scrambling for a better 4 year old description, I just decided to tell Moo that we were celebrating America's birthday. He thought a minute, then replied, "If America has a birthday, there will be two Americas: one on either side of the "bosforus" bridge."  There you have it.

Wow.....long time no post

Yikes! Apparently, it has been 3 months since I last posted! How to catch up?? Well....I'll just start where we are. 9 years of wedded bliss today! :) We're celebrating by not celebrating. We have a house guest. But we have the promise of friends staying with our kids overnight one night in the coming weeks such that we can go out on the town. We anxiously anticipate our night away.

Here's what the kids are saying....

Lu's top two phrases:
"I want to ____________ all by MYSELF"
and "I don't want to _____________ ANYMORE"

The filled-in-blanks range from totally understandable to completely ridiculous. I will have to write down the next one so I can report it.

Moo, on his first week of official summer vacation...
"Today is a stay at home day? Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!"
"When will (such and such) happen?" (Mom replies, "tomorrow") Moo: "You mean the next day? Okay"
"Lydia can't sing happy birthday to dad because it has to snow first and be my birthday!"


M:   "Lydia, do you remember when you hadn't popped out of Mom yet?"
L:     "Yep. We went to the park."

We are going to the park or beach nightly to cool off from our hot summer days which are currently in the 80s. I'll post photos when I can find them. :)

Happy July all!

Emergency!!!

Well, an unexpected twist arrived to our Saturday when our biggest monkey slipped while jumping on the couch....he fell off and bumped his head...wide open on the coffee table!! He was a super-trooper though! He cried at first, but stopped as Mom prayed....and then never cried again (about this particular accident). Upon discovering our taxi stand was devoid of taxis, Dad walked Moo out to the main road, caught a mini-bus to the nearest hospital (about a 5-10 minute ride depending on traffic) and stepped right into the ER. While the doctor worked, Moo & Dad told stories under his "surgery-tent" and then headed back home via mini-bus. He walked in the front door as happy as could be, as if his momma's heart had not stopped beating 2 hours earlier. So here he is, with his "happy mac-n-cheese home from the hospital" meal...ready for Easter the next day.

St. Patrick's Day

Another fun day of our favorite green holiday - Moo talks about green milk all year long in anticipation.

We started the day with our traditional breakfast: green milk and green waffles.  We had dinner with rainbow water (ice cubes). The drinks were a bit cold for these "European-Americans"....but they liked those colors!

Aquarium

 Last weekend we had a rainy Saturday and a desperate need to get out of our apartment. We traveled across the city and found a gorgeous aquarium with different rooms/exhibits for all the surrounding waterways. Mom & Dad loved it and the kids liked the stairs and touch screen interactive computers.

The last room was a tropical rain forest with humidity and everything. It was just like being back in Africa. A fun trip out.

Rainy days or not

 Hide-n-go-seek in Mom and Dad's closets!

And fishing off the top-bunk....what better catch than sleepdog???