Attitude... Adjusted!!

I woke up this morning and decided, FORGET IT!!!  It is too hot for anything and I live 30 minutes from the beach.  So, I told the kids to put away their books and get their swimsuits on.

  

Time for some fun!!

Thanks to Ramadan we practically had the beach to ourselves!  The weather was perfect, sunny, not too hot, and a nice breeze.   We had the best time.  We ended up staying all day long until the sun was setting!

the beautiful Black Sea

We practically had the beach to ourselves!

My beach babes

The waves were pretty big, so it was extra fun for all of us!

The kids played in the water all day.
Not one of them complained about being bored and I didn't have to referee one fight!!
(Can I get a Hallelujah?!)

 I could hardly get Noah out of the water for even a few minutes to even eat lunch!

Thank you, Lord, so much for this fantastic day!  

It was just what we all needed!  Please forgive me for my grumbling and complaining!

The kids and I came back cool and refreshed, and I really did come back with a better attitude!

Praise the Lord!!

Visiting

The weird thing about Ramadan is that is sort of turns everyones' schedules around.  Here's today's example...

A few weeks ago, while Mindy, the kids, and I were living the hard life down on the Mediterranean Sea, my friend's daughter had a baby.  I have mentioned this girl in the past.  Three years ago she babysat for my kids during the summer while I was in language school.  Just last year, with only a week left until she finished high school, she ran off and eloped.  Obviously, the summer and fall were very difficult for everyone even remotely close to the family as they dealt with this tragedy.  Anyhow, come late fall she announced that she was pregnant, and slowly through the Lord's grace the family began to forgive and reunite.  This family don't believe in Jesus yet, but I do think they are close to the Kingdom, especially when I see them have the ability to forgive.  Forgiveness is so not a part of this culture and so I know it must be from Him.

So, enough of the back story...

The baby was born while I was away, and once I returned to the city Ramadan had begun.  Last week I asked in our circle of friends if I should just wait until the end of Ramadan to visit even though I was dying to get a good wiff of a newborn.  But the new mom asked us to visit tonight.  So we three (the girl's mom and 2 other mutual friends) set out after iftar, the fast-break meal that occurs at sundown, to visit.  It was 10:00 pm when we arrived.  Can you imagine visiting a first time mother and her new baby at 10 o'clock at night?!

Of course, the baby is precious.  I was quite selfish and hogged him for most of the time!  Eventually, I had to put him down so I could be a proper guest and drink tea- 5 cups!  We were there until about midnight, and then it was time to head home.  When I dropped one of my friends off, she headed over to visit a different friend.  What would you do if a friend showed up to hang out at 12:30 at night?  I mean, for Pete's sake, we're not in college any more!

I am quite the night owl, so I don't really mind this topsy-turvy schedule.  The only thing that is hard for me is trying to sleep after sitting around drinking tea for a few hours!  It takes me forever to finally settle in and fall asleep!

More Complaining

I am SO trying to have a good attitude.  But I honestly feel pushed to my limit!

It is so hot.  No one in our family is sleeping well.  We are all tired and grumpy and hot!  During the day we hardly have any energy.  We just sort of sit around and stare at each other like zombies.

Of course, the kids will get bursts of energy.  They use them to be naughty, fight, and see if they can tip me right over the edge to combustion.  I'm quite certain it will happen soon!

To top it off, the government keeps cutting the water and electricity.  It is completely unpredictable and always seems to happen just when I need that particular utility!  I feel like I live in a third world country!

Finally, homeschooling is not going so well.  I think we are all just too hot to even think!  We have to press on since summer is our only catch up time.  But, how on earth do you teach a full school year's worth of language arts in 8 weeks?!

Lord, help us to be full of joy even when our circumstances are less than joyful!!  And please help my attitude to change!!

911

I realize that I have fallen into the terrible habit of always catching up on my blog.  It's a great journal of our lives, but makes for boring reading, I'm sure!  So, in an effort to keep things current, I am going to share about yesterday...

The kids and I had finished lunch and were desperately trying to finish up our homeschooling (triple UGH!!)  Noah and Callie turned in their last bits and each called friends to go outside (into the sweltering heat) to play.  As Lucy and I were working on her reading we heard the drummer coming.

Now, it's Ramadan here.  Pretty much everyone, devout or not, fasts from sunup to sundown.  They don't intake anything- no water, nothing!  It's quite a difficult time, especially in this heat.  The drummer comes around banging his drum at about 2:50 am to wake everyone up so that they have plenty of time to gorge on food and water before the sun comes up.

As you may be able to guess, I HATE the drummer!!

So when I heard him coming in the afternoon, I ran to get my shotgun!  Unfortunately, I don't have a shotgun.

I knew that he was coming around to ask everyone for money for his drumming service.  Maybe you can guess that I did not contribute to his coffers!

Anyhow, Lucy and I ran to the balcony when we first heard the noise.  It was then that I saw my neighbor sitting outside on her patio practically doubled over in pain.  She has had a terrible problem with her gall bladder.  But, she cannot have the operation to have it removed because she smokes too much and the doctors are afraid that the anesthesia would kill her.

Anyhow, I called down to her to see if she was ok and if I could help her.  Of course it was her gall bladder again, but she said she wanted to wait a bit to see if the pain would stop.

About 30 minutes later she called me and asked me to take her to the hospital.  At this point, Noah was off at a friend's house and not due home for an hour, Callie had just come up from outside, and poor Lucy had finished her reading and was ready to go outside to play.

I left Callie at home to wait on Noah and Justin, who was also due home soon, told Lucy to get ready to go, threw some decent clothes on, and headed out the door.

We loaded my friend up and off we went.

To say that the locals are more than dramatic would be an understatement.  So the whole time we were driving to the state hospital, my friend was writhing around, moaning, and the like.  I was completely stressed out.

The good news is that I used the opportunity to lay my hands on her and pray boldly out loud for her in Jesus name.

At the hospital I just had to sort of drop her off at the emergency room entrance while I ran to park the car.  We parked and Lucy and I ran to find her.

After a quick examination the doctor sent her for tests.  Now, erase anything you think about hospitals or the medical field.  Then imagine what medicine might have been like in 1910.  This is roughly how the state medical system goes.  The hospital itself looks like some huge old mental institution from horror films!

After a 2 second glance, the doctor agreed that my friend needed to be seen.  First, you have to go back to the registration and show them that the doctor will indeed see you.  Then you have to show your identification and get the different stickers and barcodes that will be affixed to the various specimens, lab sheets, x-rays, etc.  Next, my poor friend had to walk from lab to lab to do the various tests.  Then, take the specimens to other places for testing.  I got to take her blood vials to their intended destination, but I drew the line at the urine!  She also did an ultrasound and an X-ray. The results take various amounts of time and have to be collected by the patient or their advocate as well.

After all that nonsense she finally got to go to the observation room.  It was a big, room with 6 beds.  Luckily there was an empty bed for us!  I got my friend settled in and helped track down someone to start her IV and fluids.

Shortly thereafter my friends' daughter was able to get off of work and come to the hospital.  She and I are really close friends so it was really good to be able to sit with her, too!  The friend that brought her doesn't live too far from us, so he agreed to take Lucy and drop her off at home with Justin.

Now, I know it is abnormal, but I LOVE all things medical- the grosser the better.  So the big room of pain was fantastic for me!  As I was holding my friend's hand, comforting her, and praying for her I got to watch some seriously crazy stuff going on in the beds around us.

I have to say, Americans value privacy way too much!  Who needs curtains in the medical setting?  Just lay it all out there for the world to see!!

I have about eleventy-million too many stories from the 6 hours that I sat with my friend to share, especially since this post is really dragging on!  But, I just wanted to share a little slice of why life here is seldom boring and why it's hardly worth making a plan for the day!

My Current Complaints...

1.  It is so very hot.

2. Everyone is fasting so you can't eat or even drink in public.  So, you basically can't go anywhere because it's too hot not to be drinking water constantly.

3. It's supposed to get even hotter.

4. We have had random water and electricity cuts for the past week.  

A girl who sweats too much + a toilet that 5 people share + water cuts = mega UGH!!!

5. My back has been bothering me.

6. Everyone is too hot and too tired to do anything.

7. We have to do several hours of homeschool each day.

8. My hair has chosen this time to become enormous, frizzy, and completely unruly!

9. The kids can't come in and out by themselves.  They have to ring the bell, then I have to buzz them up.  Then I have to stand there at our door (which can only be opened from the outside with a key) and wait for our very slow elevator to go down to get them and then bring them up.  Multiply that times 50 and you have a picture of my day.  Up, buzz, wait, down.  Up, buzz, wait, down.  Occasionally the kids just want to say hello or something like that to me on the intercom.  That's fun! :/

10. I'm too fat to subsist on ice cream alone!  :(

Clearly I need an attitude adjustment!!

Bloggy Friends

Times are changin'!  

It used to be that meeting people over the internet was scary and creepy.  But, the world is getting smaller.  Of course, you still have to exercise good judgement, but I've heard of some great friendships and even romances that have started completely over the internet.  Now, I'm in that number!

I have my first friend through the internet, yall!  

This sweet friend and I sort of realized (through another blog that we both read) that we live on two different coasts of the Black Sea.  So we began corresponding a bit.

She emailed me to tell me that they would be in our city over the weekend.  Unfortunately it fell right at the time when Max and Isaiah were here and when we were headed to Cappadocia.  So I told her that we wouldn't get to meet.

But, as it turned out, I misunderstood exactly when they would be here.  Their first day in the city was actually the day that Max and Isaiah were in Ephesus without us.  So we did get to meet for dinner.

It was so fun to meet this sweet family and share our stories.  They live an amazing life working in the oil and gas industry in Russia.  You can check out her blog here.  

Max and Isaiah's Visit: The Last Day

Looking back on Max and Isaiah's visit, I realize that it was really important to me to show them as much of our world as possible.  Unfortunately for them, that meant that I ended up really over-booking all of us!  I kept them running!

Part of it is that I feel like if you've spent so much time and money to get here, it is my job to make it worth your while.  Another part of it is that I am a total tourist and I LOVE to tour around, even if it's a place I've been lots of times before!  

I just need to memorize some key facts, and I could hire myself out as a tour guide!

We wanted to take them over to the old city one last time before they left.  Justin got to show them some things early on in their visit, and today was my turn to tour them around.  The places that I took Max and Isaiah to are typically the first places that any tourist to this city would visit.

We started at the huge Sultan's palace on the water.
This is Isaiah and I in the Haram.
This palace is full of incredible tile work, ornate wood work, and hand-painted dome ceilings.

There is no lack of decoration, color, or fanciness in general!

Isaiah posing in front of the beautiful tile in the circumcision room.

Unfortunately, the palace was really crowded with tourists.  So, we ended up skipping a few things- the main one being the treasure rooms.  When Max and Isaiah come back, that will be the first place we go, because the gold, diamonds, gems, relics, etc. in that part of the palace are really amazing.

After the palace we headed to an enormous cathedral, turned mosque, turned museum.  You can read about it here if you are interested.

Ever since we first visited this country in 2006 the main dome has been under renovation.  The renovation has finally finished.  So, I was so excited to get to see the full cathedral without any scaffolding.

Looking out the cathedral window towards the largest mosque in this country.

The irony never escapes me:
The ancient Christian mosaics were covered over, replaced, and/or flanked by the Muslim symbols.

reading the historical information

Finally a view without the scaffolding!
You used to not be able to see from one side to the other.  And the beautiful domed ceiling was completely covered.
Unfortunately the dome is too huge that I couldn't get a decent shot, even with my wide-angle lens.

That's Jesus with the Emperor Justinian (the guy who had this place built) sitting next to him.

We had gözleme for lunch.  It's a few layers of really thin dough with filling of cheese, potatoes, or meat.
I guess it's sort of the local version of a quesadilla.
Then we had local coffee served in these fancy little cups.

After a quick walk through the country's largest mosque it was time to go shopping.  Poor Max, he hates to shop, but Isaiah and I were loving it!  Shopping in the bazaars here is quite the cultural experience!

Some local yummies!

It was a bit of a whirlwind day.  I was trying to cram in as much as possible, but still give them time in the late afternoon and evening to pack and to pray with us.  So, we headed home exhausted and ordered pizza for dinner.  I felt bad about giving them food that they could eat back home, but it was easier for everyone.  Plus, the pizza toppings here can count as a cultural experience!  HA!

I cannot say enough about Max and Isaiah's visit.  It was such a blessing on so many levels!  It was a great chance to just laugh with people who are like us, but more than that it was such an encouragement.  We really need to push them to make it a yearly thing!!

Max and Isaiah's Visit Day 7

We had to leave our beloved Cappadocia on Wednesday morning.  :(  We had the best time, and it was such a fascinating place to visit!

Max and Isaiah loved that you often times here you can board and deplane
from the front and the back!  Makes things quicker!

We arrived home by early afternoon.  I gave everyone a short break and then it was off to hop on a boat to cruise the big Straight that divides our city.

My sweet girls playing on the boat

Under the first bridge

Coming up to the second bridge

After the 1 hour boat ride we took Max and Isaiah to one of our favorite restaurants.  They serve kebabs by the meter- that's about 3 feet for you Americans- HA!  There is no menu.  They just bring all sorts of different foods to the table.  It is a great place to take people and let them get a taste of many types of local cuisine!  And to fill them so full that they could explode!

First, they bring out about 17 different plates with appetizer samplers.
You have to force yourself to go slow and just barely taste the appetizers because
the main course is huge, and then there is dessert!

When you've finished the appetizers, they put this sort of long stand on the table.

The stand holds fresh bread equal to the length of your kebab.

Then the chef brings out your kebab on a huge skewer.
The waiters help him place the kebab on top of the bread and then dramatically yank the skewer out!
Disclaimer: I copied this picture from the restaurant's website.

This is what the main entree looks like!
I've only been to the restaurant with smaller groups so we've had a 1 meter kebab.
But, the first time we went to that restaurant there was a big group.
Their kebab was 4 meters long!  That's about a 12 foot kebab- in one piece!!
Disclaimer: I copied this picture from the restaurant's website.

After the amazing main course they bring out all sorts of plates of seasonal fruit and desserts.  I think we were all about to explode!!  Max just looked at the food and started popping antacids!  It was so fun and a bit painful!

**** This is my 1,000 post!!  I'm sure no one is surprised that I have that much to say!****

It is amazing to look back through this blog and see the amazing journey that the Lord has taken us on!

Max and Isaiah's Visit: Day 6

Today was another full day of touring.  Unfortunately, we didn't start the days ith a hot air balloon ride again. :(

We started off by going up to a beautiful hill overlooking one of the valleys that have a lot of rock formations.  I know I sound like a broken record, but I was just in awe the whole day!  What a creative and amazing God we serve!  He has made such an interesting world for us to explore!!

Then we went down into the valley to hike through it.

The kids, Noah especially, loved this because they could climb all over the rocks.

Noah scaling his way up some rocks.

Callie said this rock looked like a frog.

A soldier and his horse

Hiking through the valley

At the end of our hike, our guide showed us this famous formation called "the camel"

 Then we went to explore an old settlement.  It was full of all sorts of cave houses, churches, and other buildings from regular city life.

You can see where the ladder up to something used to be.
Over time it has eroded a bit.

Isaiah thought this may be the bathroom!

Noah and I went into one of the houses.
He managed to climb way up onto the third floor!

This is the outside of the house that Noah scaled his way up into.
He was in that very top part!

A millstone

Looking towards the city from a bit far back

Max looking out from the mosque window

The mosques looked like a newer addition to the city!

fairy chimneys

Even little Lucy had fun climbing around and exploring the intricate houses. 

You can still see some of the ancient paintings and wall decorations.

Then we went to a pottery demonstration.  This region has a special type of clay that they use to make pottery.  Also, they still have a few designs that have been used to decorate the pottery since the Hittite times!

This man explained that his family has been making pottery in this region for hundreds of years.
They even had a special family design that they painted on some of the pottery.

I loved watching these artisans work.  They go so quickly, yet they do such fine and beautiful work!

Then we got to watch a potter demonstrate how to make a wine holder.
He turned the potter's wheel with his foot just like they had done for hundreds of years.

After the demonstration they asked if any volunteers wanted to try it out.
Noah gave it a spin!

He made a cup.
I wish we could have kept it.  But, of course, it had to be fired in the kiln.

Then we had lunch at a place around the corner.  It was pretty standard.  Nothing to get excited about.

After lunch we went to see Üçhısar.  It is a well know fortress.

It looks like it is the highest point in the region, so it makes sense that it was a fortress.

These ladies were selling their handicrafts at the place where we stopped.
I couldn't resist snapping a few pictures of them!

We stopped at another overlook for tea and to shop a little bit.

To be honest, things started to run together a bit, so I can't tell you where this is!  HA!

 

The last stop on our tour was Pigeon Valley.

This place was called Pigeon Valley because of the many pigeons that live there.
You can bet it wasn't my favorite place!

Each night as we walked down the hill from our hotel to find a restaurant for dinner we passed these ladies.
On the first night I politely said hello to them.  So, from then on, we chatted a tiny bit as I passed by.
So, since this was our last night, I asked them if I could get my picture with them.
I think they are just the quintessential village ladies!