Christmas 2022

 Merry Christmas from Ankara, Turkey! We had a low-key Christmas Eve and Christmas and it was very enjoyable. We got back from the hotel on Christmas Eve late morning, so instead of cooking Christmas Eve dinner, we opted to order Chinese food and I cooked on Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve, we decorated cookies, the kids played outside, we watched Christmas Eve service online while eating dinner, gave the kids their annual Christmas PJs, and watched the Christmas Story. Three kiddos excited for Christmas the next day!

They all love sleep masks, so this year we got them each a new mask to go with their PJs. They also love being goofy :).

This year we built a Christmas village for the advent calendar. Each day of the month we would read from the Bible, then afterwards the kids would build part of the village. Here’s the final product, the kids did a great job and enjoyed it.

Everyone is asleep and we are ready for Christmas morning.

This year we got the kids each a small rug from Turkey, as a memory from our time here. 

Reading Christmas books to his sister while waiting for breakfast.

On Christmas morning, our tradition is to have Nathan’s mom’s sausage, egg, and cheese casserole, cinnamon rolls, bacon, and fruit for breakfast, read the Bible together, then open gifts. 

The kids open their stockings first, then we all take turns playing Santa and handing out gifts. They laughed at all the random things in their stocking this year, from the normal toothbrushes and pens, to giant chocolate coins and chocolate money, to axe body spray that the boys have been stealing from Nathan and now have their own, and new combs and brushes.

The kids received many nice gifts from family and say thank you very much!

The kids enjoy gifting each other during the holidays, it is sweet. Caleb got Eliza a dentist playdoh set she wanted.

The boys got each other the final books of the ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ series that they both like, and Eliza got Benjamin new colored pencils for drawing.

Eliza got Caleb a lego set.

I had a painting made for Nathan of a photo he took in the forest across the street from our house, where he likes to go hiking and take walks. Nathan always gets me nice jewelry for Christmas and this year got me a pretty necklace and Eliza and I bracelets, and he gave me some much needed shirts.

Eliza got her own kindle and kitty head phones.

After opening gifts, Nathan and I took a little snooze on the couch while the kids played.

Eliza like to dress up and was excited to get a set of shoes, crown, and some jewelry, and some new clothes.

She really enjoys arts and crafts and did a great job making this stained glass sticker butterfly 

Caleb loves to read, especially comic books. My good friend introduced me to this educational and funny comic called ‘The Awkard Yeti,’ which Caleb loves. The characters are personified body organs, and Caleb thinks the comics are hilarious. We got him a calendar and comic book and he loves it.

He also had been asking for virtual reality googles for a long time, and he was excited to get them for Christmas, with a Zelda game that he can play with the googles. It is pretty neat, and funny to watch him use them.

Benjamin has been interested in learning how to carpet weave, after visiting a carpet weaving school on a recent trip to Van. We got him a starter kit with a basketball pattern and he loves it and has spent time each day working on it. We will show the final product when he is done.

The kids are also enjoying their new game, Just Dance. Benjamin especially loves dancing to this song and let me video him :).

Nathan hung the picture in our kitchen where he can see it from where he sits at the table :)

For Christmas dinner, we had our traditional ham, sweet mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, and rolls. I made a pumpkin pie, but we were so full we skipped dessert. We at for the first time on our new dishes we bought last year on our trip of Western Turkey, from a town called Iznik, which is famous for their handmade ceramics.

I fell asleep very early that evening and the kids and Nathan watched Home Alone 3, another Christmas favorite. This month we enjoyed reading about the coming of Christ and his birth, family time together, and another year of memories. We even had snow flurries throughout Christmas day. It didn’t stick, but guess technically we had a white Christmas. Merry Christmas to our family and friends around the world!

Mini Staycation Dec 2022

 One of my goals for 2023 is to stay on top of blogging. So starting now, I will blog what is current and hope to catch up with the backlog, which is currently in July, as time permits. 

We realized about a week ago that we had a couple night stay in a hotel that had to be used by the end of the year, so we made a last minute plan for a staycation at the Marriott in Ankara. The first night we all stayed at the hotel and the kids enjoyed lots of pool time, and the second night Nathan and I stayed at the hotel, and our nanny Kadem and her older daughter Ezgi stayed with the kids at our house. The hotel was decorated very nicely for the holidays. Turks do not celebrate Christmas, but they have big New Year’s celebrations and there are “New Years” trees and Santa figures everywhere. In the store they sell them as New Years trees too, it is funny!

The kids liked the ginger bread houses and chocolate sculptures around the hotel lobby.

These kids love to swim. They had the pool almost entirely to themselves. 

My little cuddle buddy Eliza.

The kids swam for a few hours on Friday, then went home midday and Nathan joined me after work. We went to the hamaam (which he did not love), and I got a massage, then we went to the steak restaurant in the hotel for dinner. 

We had been wanting to try this restaurant for a while and it was good. 

The kids had fun at home. They enjoyed watching a movie, staying up a little later than usual, and having a sleepover together in Caleb’s room. We enjoyed a nice day and date and sleeping in the next morning. A good time was had by all.

Eliza goes to pre-school!

 In July, Eliza started going to a local Turkish preschool near our house called Minik Devler, which means Little Giants. We waited a while to start her, and once she went she was ready and loved it starting from day one. She rides a bus to and from school with a few other kids from our neighborhood. Her school is an old youth sports facility and it has great amenities. At school she takes swimming lessons, gymnastics, ballet, has gym, language, math, science, arts and crafts, and music class. They feed her breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack too. She has made many new friends and has learned so much Turkish in the few months she has attended. The class curriculum is in English, so Turkish kids can learn, but the special classes are in Turkish, and because most of the kids and teachers are Turkish, she has picked up so much day-to-day. Her school often sends photos and videos of activities they do at school. We are thankful it has been such a positive experience for her! Enjoy the photos and videos.

Morning of first day of school. So excited to go!

Her braids got loose and she wanted pigtails instead. 

The first week they phase the kids into school, going just a couple hours a day. By the 3rd day they said she can come all day, she is so happy and doesn’t want to leave early!

They have a nice outdoor play area at school.

She comes home with many nice crafts. They do lots of painting, coloring, and drawing. She also comes home with really cute hair dos many days. Her teacher, Miss Rachel, does a great job with her hair (probably because it’s messy most days, haha)!

The kids all go down for the bus together. Eliza’s bus usually comes 5-10 minutes after the boys’ and there is a little boy in our building that also rides with her.

Swimming lessons. She is in the green swim cap in the middle. She is getting more confident in the water and can swim a little by herself. It’s also  neat to hear her take instruction in Turkish.

Eliza turned 4 in August and we sent in cupcakes for her birthday. Parents are not allowed in the school, but they send us lots of photos and videos of our kids.

August 30th is a Turkish holiday called Victory Day, celebrating the victory in the Battle of Dumlpinar, the last battle in the Greco-Turkish War, ending the Greek presence in Anatolia. Turkish nationalism is very strong, and on the national holidays the city are lined with giant Turkish flags and photos of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. It’s a really neat sight to see.

Summer semester ended and in September, the official ‘school year’ started. This is when they started more traditional classes, in addition to all the fun activities. 

They have been working on learning to recognize and write their numbers and letters with fun activities. Eliza is very attentive and loves learning, and will tell us all about what she learned when she comes home.

 

Glad she feels this way!

Ballet started too. It’s precious to watch these little ones. 

One day her class took a field trip to the zoo and had a great time.

On 10 November, Turkey commemorates the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. On this day, at 9:05, which was the time of his passing in 1938, everyone and everything stops for a moment of silence. The first year we were here, I was homeschooling the kids at Starbucks that day, and at 9:05 traffic stopped, everyone got out, and paid honor to Ataturk.

Eliza’s class did a commemoration dance. She is in the back center in the long sleeve black shirt and white pants.

Her school does a great job making learning fun. While learning about the color red, they had a Karpuz Şenlik, which means watermelon festival. Everyone wore red and they enjoyed watermelon that day.

Eliza loves singing and dancing and all things music. They had someone play the cello for them and let the kids try it. As you can see she enjoyed it.

More ballet cuteness.

This last video is of a Turkish kids song Eliza loves, called ‘Arkadaşım Eşek,’ which means my friend is a donkey. 

We are so thankful for Eliza’s wonderful school, the teachers, and little friends she has made.

Greece Part 3: Rhodes

 After leaving Athens, we spent the last 10 days in Rhodes, which is the largest island in Greece, in the Aegean Sea and very close to Turkey. The theme of this part of the trip was beach! We explored many beaches, returned to a couple of them, visited the old city of Rhodes, and went to a water theme park. We stayed in an AirBnB 200 meters from a small beach, and the house had a big fenced in yard for the kids to play and a jacuzzi for us to enjoy in the evenings. It was a perfect way to relax. 

We cooked at the house and ate outside most evenings.

The house had a very big yard and they had soccer goals and balls for the kids to play with.

The first beach we visited was St.Anthony’s Quinn Bay. This is a famous beach, which got it’s name when the actor, Anthony Quinn, purchased this part of the island when filming the movie, “The Guns of Navarene.” It was a beautiful bay with crystal clear water and rocky shores. To get to the beach, you walk down into the cove.

The water was a bit chilly but the kids didn’t mind.

Benjamin doing what he does best…living life!

Our turn for a photo :)

This was another beautiful beach, but we didn’t end up going to it. When we got down to the cove, all the seats were reserved, but nobody was there. It was odd, but we figured if it was all reserved it was probably not a good beach for us to be at anyway :).  

This was our signature dish for most of the trip. Chicken gyro wrap, they were so delicious!

Another day we visited the old city. It’s on the northern tip of the island, about 30 minutes from where we were staying.

Entering the walled city.

The main attraction inside the city was the Street of Knights, which was a very long street with 7 inns that were constructed in the 16th century, representing the 7 countries that the Knights of the Order of St. John were originated from, and all of the inns are still functional today. 

Afterwards, we walked through the streets of the city, then found a place to eat lunch and head back. It was a fun way to spend a few hours.

Love this picture of Nathan and the kids :)

Another day we went to a water park. I didn’t get many photos because our phones were in a locker most the day, but we all had fun riding water slides, playing in wave pools, and enjoying slushies at the end of a long, hot day.

Another day we went to Tsambikas beach, which was one of our favorites beaches and we returned to it multiple times. All the beaches were set up great for families, with ample lounge chairs with umbrellas, beachfront cafes, and rest rooms. But this beach had 2 ocean play areas too, which were a huge hit with Caleb and Benjamin. In this picture they were trying to pass the ball back and forth 100 times, to win an ice cream…and they did it. The enjoyed playing on this sea playground for a couple hours that afternoon. 

Going for round two of the ball pass for afternoon ice cream. Doesn’t get much better for Eliza. Beach, unicorn floatie, and pails to dig in the in sand.

The kids also enjoyed collecting hermit crabs!

This little girl took long naps at the beach most days.

We stopped at this cute restaurant on the way home from the beach and ate….chicken gyros!

One evening we went to the beach that was walking distance to our house. It was a really rocky beach, but it had a really pretty cove at the end.

Another day we went back to Anthony Quinn’s Bay. This day we got there early in the morning and had the beach to ourselves for a while. Nathan and Caleb went for a hike up the cove to take some pictures of the bay. The pictures don’t do this place justice, these were some of the most beautiful beaches we have seen. 

Meanwhile on shore, we were the only people there (around 8:30am) and nice to be there with no crowds. Last time, this rock seemed to have a constant wave of people posing for social media photos, but because we arrived early, we had it to ourselves.

More fun jumping in the water

Don’t worry, Nathan jumped behind the rock.

This was another beach called Lindos Beach. Benjamin and I went kayaking here too.

The kids enjoyed burying each other in the sand. 

Another day we went back to Tsambikas beach and the boys tried the other sea playground. Eliza liked playing in the sand and floating with her unicorn in the sea.

We enjoyed afternoons at the house relaxing, hanging out in the jacuzzi, and enjoying the yard past sunset most nights. 

We all gave Rhodes two thumbs up! Then we headed back to Ankara after almost 3 weeks away. It was a relaxing and fun trip and we are thankful for the opportunity to visit these new and beautiful places.