We made it to Ankara!

Last picture in Jordan, literally as the van was pulling up to take us to the airport around 7:30pm.

We are thankful that Tes is coming with us, and that she was able to travel with us, instead of meet us several months later like she did in Jordan. COVID made returning to the Philippines difficult, as their airport was still closed. With a lot of luck, we were able to get her work visa in Jordan.

Between 3 adults and 3 kids, we had 12 suitcases/duffles, 6 carry-ons (only small backpack/laptop sized bags allowed), a carseat, 2 booster seats, and a stroller. It was a lot of stuff, but we have 2 weeks of quarantine ahead so I wanted to prepare with more toys, books, medicine then I would usually take.

Here we go...

It's was a quick 2 hour flight from Amman to Istanbul, then we were driven to Ankara because the domestic flights in Turkey have been unreliable due to COVID. 

Traveling was weird with all the COVID rules in the airport and on the plane, but things went very smoothly and the kids all did great. Eliza and Benjamin slept most of the flight and Caleb watched movies and fell asleep towards the end of the flight. The adults dozed on and off.

It was a challenge to initially wake the kids up at 2:30am, but they were excited to arrive and everyone was pretty awake, even Eliza. The airport was empty. Istanbul airport is one of the largest airports in the world, and we were 1 of 2 flights that had arrived that night. It was a strange feeling. The porters were happy to help us with all of our stuff and bring us to the van that awaited us.

The van was massive, but we could all spread out and everyone slept for the first part of the drive. It took about 5 hours, with stops and the scenery was beautiful. At times we said it reminded us of driving through national parks in Virginia/West Virginia.

We made it around 10am! This is our living room and a view of the forrest across the street. 

View from our bedroom window at sunset. This is all our neighborhood.

View of our side room window at sunrise. We love all the windows and natural light. The neighborhood extends on the other side to the tall buildings. It is really big.

They boys favorite room is the TV room. We haven't had a TV in almost 5 years, and we have one now, so it's a novelty and a treat. Eventually the boys all fell asleep for a couple hours.

View from near our front door looking into the dining room and living room. The kitchen is to the right and side room is to the left. Behind us is a long hallway with Tes and the boys room to the left, and Eliza and our room to the right. It's a neat layout and really functional.

Side room. TV room is to the left and living room is behind me..

View from the kitchen.

I love the kitchen. It's long and open and lots of windows to let in light. It will be fun to cook here. Speaking of food, our sponsors, who were friends from Jordan, are taking great care of us. They stocked our fridge with lots of food, left us cash so we could order food, and offered to get items when we need because we have 2 weeks of quarantine. 

Our second night in town, Benjamin lost three top teeth. Good thing the tooth fairy found him and knew the conversion between Turkish Lira and USD. He was excited to have 25 Lira in the morning, which is about 3 USD.

Four days into quarantine, we learned from an Embassy virtual checkin meeting, that we could go out for walks in our neighborhood. It has been great to get out everyday for walks and we are taking advantage of being able to explore the neighborhood, keeping our distance from people. The crazy thing is we came from Jordan, with virtually no COVID, to a place with a lot more COVID, but we are following the rules and it won't be too long before we can get out and explore the area.

Here is the the start of new adventures for our family!

Twix

Another sad goodbye we had to say was to Twix.  We were not able to take her with us, and we are thankful that a sweet lady we know adopted her. Twix is 17.5 years old, and I have had her since she was 6 weeks old. In graduate school in 2003, I got her from a downstairs neighbor,  who's cat had a litter of kittens. Twix has been a great cat over the years. She loves (still to the day) being around people, we used to call her our kitty dog because she was always at the door to greet us. She is very slow and old now, but her temperament is the same, she is a sweet cat.

Twix has traveled the world. She lived in Florida for 2 years, Virginia for 8 years, Maryland for a few months, Kuwait for 2 years, and Jordan for 5 years, where she will stay. I was trying to find more pictures of her, but found a few cute ones from when we lived in Virgina. The first is when Caleb was just a few days old. We laughed because Twix was longer and more than twice as heavy as him.

This pictures was a couple of weeks after Benjamin was born.

Here is Benjamin and Twix. She looked and felt so big compared to him too.

This was when we moved from Virginia to Maryland for a few months, before moving to Kuwait.

Eliza around 6 months old and Twix in Jordan. 

All of us in Jordan. While we are sad, we know it is better for her to stay in Jordan. She has a very nice lady who lives alone that will care for her and give her lots of attention. We love you Twix, thank you for being a special part of our family for the past 17.5 years.

 

Sweet Farewells

Our last week in Jordan, we said lots of see you agains...One day, our office had a really sweet going away lunch for us at Nadine's house. All the the families were there, and they ordered food from our favorite Lebanese restaurant Faroujna and kanafeh from Habibah. It was low-key and a very nice way to spend time with everyone. Nadine is a special friend and like a sister to me, and and we love her and her family dearly.

Her wonderful husband Joe and our friend Lisa...and the amazing spread of food!

Reed, Angie, and their oldest son, Jonah.

You know those two guys on the left, and Sean and his wife Jadyn.

The trampoline was a big hit, especially for Eliza. She spent most of the afternoon in there jumping, if she wasn't busy climbing stairs.

Nadine and Joe's eldest daughter, Eve. Our kids are good friends.

Their younger daughter, Elle. They also have a newborn baby brother Milo. The girls got plenty of baby practice with Eliza this past year, in preparation for his arrival.

Nadine gifted me this beautiful necklace! And Caleb and the boys gifted all the parents with a big muddy mess by the end of the afternoon :).

Benjamin playing with Reed and Angie's youngest son, Mailon. 

I'm not sure how many homemade donuts baked by Angie, that Benjamin ate that day. Angie is a very talented baker and one of many benefits of being their across the street neighbors, was receiving lots of baked treats over the past 2 years!

Elle and their youngest daughter, Mary.

These boys. Benjamin with Mailon and Ethan. This was at the end of the day and as you can see the water in the pools turned into a muddy mess. Yes, that is the water they were squirting each other with...

Benjamin loves dogs. I wish we could get him one, I know he would take good care of it, but for now he can enjoy others' dogs. This is Canaan, Reed and Angie's foster puppy.

In Arabic, this shirt says, 'kween wow' meaning Queen W...the 'w' stands for wasta, which is an Arabic word that roughly means using your connections to get what you want. In the Arab world, it's all about who you know. Some people use their familial or social status to get their way, but this woman does it 100% with her niceness and can somehow talk anyone into doing anything. She freely shared this gift with the entire office, and all of her friends, so if we ever needed anything we couldn't do on our own, Nadine got it done. This shirt is so appropriate for her, and she loved it so much she said she is going to get more made!

Benjamin was with the dog most of the day, it was really sweet.

Remember his cast...it got really nasty, cracked, and the duck tape holding it together was falling apart. Benjamin was basically running on it, so Nathan performed surgery and took it off. He was scheduled to go to the doctor in a couple days anyway, and the cast and crutches were not slowing him down. 

It was a really fun day and we are so thankful for the amazing co-workers and friends who have been family to us over the years. We love them all and will miss them!

The boys had a few really good friends that they enjoyed spending time with . Norah and Ilyas are our neighbors, and David lived down the street and had class with Benjamin this past year. They got to hang out all summer in camp too. The Friday before we left, we made one more trip to the Embassy pool.

We will miss the lifeguards, Mahmoud and Tamer. They always say our kids are like their little brothers and it is sweet how they have always watched out for them.

I got lots of good Arabic practice speaking with them over the years, since they don't speak much English.

The boys also love David's dog, Louey. They want 10 Louey's!

These boys were sweet friends and it was fun for them to have 1st grade and the summer together.

We are thankful for our great neighbors this past almost year. The kids played together all the time, and their mom is wonderful. We will miss them and I think the feeling is mutual. They played most of the day until we left and there were lots of tears with Caleb and Ilyas.

And of course, their dog, Petra. The boys wanted to see Petra every day. Benjamin cried a lot of tears too, but it was for all the dogs!!

Another evening, we went to Sean and Jadyn's house for pizza and to visit their kitties. One of their cats was too skittish, but their newest kitten loved the kids.

Sean and Jadyn arrived just about a year ago. Sean was a great co-worker and friend and they are such  nice couple. We are glad we had the year to get to know them, and they say they will come to Turkey for travel, so we hope we will see them again soon!

The day before leaving, we took a walk to our neighborhood park, Jounia park. We love this park and have spent many hours playing, bike riding, scootering, and kicking balls over the years.

Eliza is a daddy's girl!

Bye, bye park, thank you for all the fun memories :).

On the way home from the park, we usually stopped at this market for treats.

Eliza made a friend she played with often the last few weeks, and it turns out we are friendly with his parents. Tes and their nanny met recently, we wish it was sooner because they were good play mates.

That evening, we went to our our neighbors across the street, Angie and Reed. Reed has been a great co-worker and their family has been really nice friends these past 2 years. We will miss having them across the street (and the delicious baking), and we hope to see them again! 

This family. We love them so much and have been so thankful for their friendship the past 4 years! They are moving to Bahrain in a couple of months and said they will come to Turkey. We know we will be seeing them again.

It was a really sweet week to visit with our favorite people before heading out. We are thankful for each one of their family's friendships over the years. They have supported and loved our family, and we look forward to the next time we can visit again!