Holidays

Recently we celebrated the founding of our host country. We got to attend the parade not from our house. It was a bit different than our independence day parade back home. It started with an hour of presentations, special music, and cultural dancing by some local school children. This was all on one street intersection. After it finished, there was over an hour of the local high schools marching (not in bands, just the students marching), a horde of bicyclists, a mass of motorcycles, military vehicles, vintage cars, and finally the public works trucks and ambulances with sirens blaring. The noisy ending part was just like the town parade back home.

 It was fairly warm, so I'm not sure how these kids did it with all those layers!

 Love these "bad guys"...interestingly, many wore jackets that said "freedom riders" in English but had a picture of the local flag.

 Lu's reaction to all those sirens.

Moo loving that there was a tow truck as the last "float"!! He even posed for a picture.

A new Sunday night tradition?

I heard recently about a few families that do popcorn for dinner on Sunday nights, because "Momma don't cook on Sundays" and other more spiritual reasons. I thought that sounded like an amazing idea except I think Lu is maybe still too young for popcorn. So, this new desire for tradition plus an attempt to get the kids to adjust to daylight savings time meant our first "Early bath and ice cream in pajamas in front of the Sunday night family movie" night. This week's feature? Nim's Island. Thanks Gorneys!! Moo loves it! (He also instructs us when to fast forward through the scary parts.) Lu just likes doing everything everybody else is doing. And she also likes turning the subtitles on and off and whatever else she can manage on our remote control.

Notable quotables

Cuddling in bed the other morning, Moo asked Mom and Dad, "When are you gonna have another baby?" Oye vay.

In the midst of the kids banging on our electronic keyboard tonight, Mom said, "Okay, Mom's turn to play a song." As she started to play, Moo said, "Why aren't you singin'? With your face?" Is that how they're doing it these days?

Start of October??

So, we just returned from a week of fun in the sun in October!! It has been so hot here, and I am beginning to wonder if Fall will be arriving at Thanksgiving again. We got to attend two really great conferences last week along the Mediterranean! The first conference was about educating your children in a foreign country - how to choose between the local schools, homeschooling, an international school, or a combination of the above. It was a lot of really good information for me to think about as we look at the future here for our kiddos. The lecturers were all very experienced and very encouraging. The kids got to go to 'camp' while I went to the seminars. They had a great time doing crafts, reading stories, playing games, learning songs, and just hanging out with other English-speaking kids.

At the end of the week, Rick joined us for a retreat away that some friends back home blessed us with. It also included kids' camp, a marriage seminar, and R&R. The best part was the beautiful location! When the kids were hungry, there was always somewhere that had food. When they wanted to play, there were water slides, indoor and outdoor pools, the beach (full of sand toys!), an indoor and outdoor playground, and more. When they were ready to konk out, we could put Lu in a pack-n-play in the bathroom and Moo in his bed, and "the adults" could chill on the balcony. It was such a good time for us to have fun as a family and really rest away from all the stresses of living cross-culturally. Thank you to our friends!

 

Kid-sized water slides! 

 Lu loves all types of slides - dry or wet.

 Moo was psyched to go down and not "go under". He did the slides again and again until he was purple, wrinkly, and shivery-quivery. Then we wrapped him in a towel and laid him in the sun to dry.

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 The indoor Chuckee-Cheese style playground.

 Woah - check out this kids' restaurant...opening before the adult restaurant so the kids  could eat at little tables with kid-friendly food, cartoons playing, and a slide in the corner. Fun! Lu couldn't really handle eating in such an exciting environment, but Moo loved it and didn't want to leave. Lu was much more successful strapped into a high chair in the dining hall.

 Sweet girl.

Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
    your faithfulness to the skies.

Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
    your justice like the great deep.
    You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.
How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!    People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. ^{- Psalm 36:5-7}

 Completely tuckered out...on the last day...falling asleep on the floor!

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul. ^{- Psalm 23:1-3}

^{Certainly this was a week for being refreshed. What a blessing.}

Back in the Saddle Again

We're all finally back at home in our own beds after two months of travel and guests. There's no place like home, truly. Even when it is far from many of our loved ones, it is so nice to be back in our own space with our regular routines.

Moo started back to pre-school this week and we're all excited that he has switched to afternoons. This means he gets to participate in the birthday parties and class field trips that always take place after lunch. Already on day two he got to eat cake and wear a party hat. And, surprisingly, he has jumped right into speaking the local language! His brain must have really benefited from a two month hiatus amongst English-speakers. He hugged his teachers and bus driver the first day back. He likes his routine too.

Lu loves having her own room again, although she is not so sure about napping all by herself. She napped in her stroller with kids running all around when we were at conferences last week. She loves having such a plethora of "new toys" to choose from again...which are really just her old toys that she hasn't seen for months. Both kids are driving trains all day long, each on their own track of course. Lu loves to say "Peece!" meaning "please"...for trains, food, drink, books, everything.

I went to the non-profit this week and took mental notes on how their cooking class runs. I'll be officially in charge in two weeks! If you have any great ideas or recipes for 'american meals' that I can teach the ladies here, I welcome the suggestions! 

Rick is back at his language learning and enjoying his routine of heading to work each morning. 

That's us in a nutshell....now, on to the photo montage!

Sightseeing

With my sister-in-law, her hubby, and their friend visiting, I was pretty excited to participate in one of Rick's famed tours of our fine city. Usually Rick takes visitors around while I hold down the fort at home. We decided to risk a full day without naps and see what we could see. It was super hot, but well worth the trip to see these fantastic ancient sites. Rick has a gift for holding onto vast quantities of historic info in his head. It was really nice to see him doing what he does so well - teaching and sharing about the history and current culture of our home city. Moo loved spending the day doing anything with Aunt Julie. And Lu loves everything, so a fine day had by all.

 Tile mosaics from the Ishtar Gate - one of the gates to the ancient city of Babylon - 575 BC

 Not sure where this lion was from, but I got one kid to sit still in front of something old and called it an accomplishment.

 Basilica Cisterns - built by Constantine and enlarged by Justinian (6th century AD) -  stored water under the city in case of war. Moo and I liked walking on the boardwalks through this mysterious place - especially watching the fish swim in the water below.

 

 Includes an upside down medusa head - no idea why.

 After hours of Dad's tour guiding, Lu crashed. She skipped the cisterns.

 Egyptian pillar - 1500 B.C. - was placed in the middle of the hippodrome - a horse-racing track. Still looks like new!

 Blue Mosque - tourists visits this mosque to see the beautiful blue tiles from Iznik (ancient Nicaea) inside.

 A fountain in the courtyard - can you see the rainbow? And my kids making chalk drawings? Waiting for our relatives to see the Hagia Sophia. That is the one tourist place I had seen previously.  Rick has seen it a bunch of times, so we waited outside in the shade.

Streams of people enter the Blue Mosque during the holy month of Ramazan. Prayers and Qur'an readings occur throughout the day. The plaza felt a bit like the festivals I used to go to in Chicago - tons of people and different vendors.

waking up from naps

A new phase of napping has begun - just one a day, really. It seems obscenely soon for her to be going to only one nap, but c'est la vie. This is how she sometimes greets me after nap....face smashed against the bars, legs hanging out.