Mom & Dad's Visit, Part 2

(Joni) Click here to read the first part, then read on for the rest of our adventures with my parents.

On Saturday, we went to one of the huge shopping centers (Anatolium mall & Nata Vega Outlets) that also has a super-cool aquarium which we had never visited.

Forgive me that this picture looks a little off-kilter. It's a printed photo that I just took a picture of... Still lets you see how cute we are!

On Sunday, we took Mom & Dad to visit the international, English-speaking fellowship, and that was fun for them to see. Then, we went out to lunch with some of our dearest friends here.

Then that afternoon we visited our favorite park in the city.

We rode the Ferris Wheel too!

On Monday, Justin was surprised to get the afternoon off, so he took me out on a date while Grandma & Grandpa kept Elias! That was a win for everybody! (Here, American movies are played in English with Turkish subtitles, so we greatly enjoyed The Bourne Legacy!) While we were out, Elias had a great time with Grandma & Grandpa. Grandma snapped this picture of Elias & Grandpa playing on Grandpa's iPhone.

They called it the Turkish-English game. Really it was just the Google Translate app, but Elias thought it was hilarious when Grandpa's phone spoke in Turkish!

Then on Tuesday, we visited Anıtkabir, the mausoleum and museum of Turkey's founder and hero, Atatürk.

It's built on a high hill, so there is an amazing view of the city every way you look!

There is a cool walk leading up to the mausoleum with stone lions on either side, and Elias thought it was funny to put his hand in their mouths. Chomp!

Then Wednesday it was time for them to leave again. We had so much fun together that Elias tried to stow away in Grandma's suitcase!

We are blessed and grateful beyond measure to not only live in such a neat place as this, but also to have family who loves us so much to come visit and enjoy it with us! We had such a great time with them!

Mom & Dad's Visit, Part 1

(Joni) My parents came in from Kentucky for their first visit to Turkey, and we had a STELLAR time with them! Rather than doing a huge blog series with all the pictures, I thought I'd just do a 2-part overview of the highlights.

We gave them a great overview of life in Turkey, including the delicious Turkish food!

We had dinner at our favorite restaurant in our neighborhood, just around the corner from our house. They got the full treatment with several courses and delicious food!

Dad is a coffee-lover, so Justin took him to try Turkish coffee. Wow, that stuff is strong! I think Dad enjoyed the home-brewed coffee from our French press more.

Trying Turkish maraş ice cream. Yum! Elias definitely comes by his love of ice cream honestly... from Grandma!

We even discovered a new dessert while they were here! We thought we were ordering plain ice cream, but instead we got Dondurmali Irmik Helvasi. Once we adjusted our expectations, it was tasty!

And public transportation!

They were troopers to stand in the overcrowded mini-buses!

When we all squeezed into a taxi, Elias always wanted to sit on Grandma's lap!

My Turkish language tutor and a friend of hers offered to take us on a tour of the city's castle and adjoining Anatolian Civilizations Museum. Those things were neat, but we had the most fun just visiting with the two Turkish girls!

After the tour, we stopped at a cafe, and we had the best time just hanging out together!

Click here to read Part 2!

A Picnic in the Woods

(Justin) If you live in Çankaya and don't have a car you can easily visit lots of neat parks, but it seems like actual wild nature is discouragingly out-of-reach. But luckily we live on the edge of town where a steep valley with walking trails, a woods with a couple of springs, and a great view of the valley and lake below is just a short walk from our apartment. One of the entrances is just outside Elias' Turkish preschool so I explored it a bit before today, but then decided to bring the whole family on a picnic to the woods. It's nice because even though the city is just a couple hundred yards away you can't hear it and you can breathe plenty of fresh air and the smell of pine trees.

View from up on the road. The tall trees in the middle are where our picnic was.

The city has made it a picnic/camping area by piping up some of the springs

Elias splashing in the spring water.

Elias thinks peanut butter & jelly sandwiches are great no matter where we are.

There are lots of quartz rocks to find, and plenty of turtles on the roads.

The roads have been dug and grated for cars, but it's not clear where there's any entrance or exit for them. Some of the roads are just dead ends on the side of the cliff. This is a view of the lake below. On the other side of the valley you can see shepherds tending sheep. It's quite steep.

Unfortunately, some of the nicer spots are littered with trash, part of life here. But there are plenty of green trees, fresh air, and wild flowers.

Not terribly far by taxi there is another larger woods and lake that's more touristy that we hope to explore next week when Joni's parents come for a visit.

Special Delivery: Present from New School

(Joni) This morning we had an unexpected knock on the door. I don't usually answer the door when Justin isn't home, because I probably won't have the language to talk to the person on the other side. However, through the peephole I could see this was a deliveryman with a small box, so I opened the door. It was a small present addressed to Elias, and the crest on the envelope was from his new English school, which he will start on Thursday!

Elias was VERY excited to get a present, and he eagerly opened it up!

It was a cute inflatable penguin that you put water in the bottom section so when you hit it it stands back up! There was also a sweet note from the principal saying how much they were looking forward to having him in their school this year.

What's really funny is Justin had found a toy like this for Elias last week, so he already had a tiger. Now his tiger has a friend!

Elias loves them both and is excited to have them "play" together. In celebration of his new penguin friend, we put in the Go, Diego, Go! episode about Pepito the Emperor Penguin, and Elias put his two friends on the couch with him to watch the episode together!

I thought that was such a sweet gesture from his new school, and we're looking forward to him going there and benefiting from their care!