Where Do I Begin?!

SO much has happened since my last post that I don't even know where to begin. And the reason it has taken so long to post something new is because so much has happened! I have been in complete survival-mode for the last 8 weeks and blogging isn't necessary for survival so it was put on the back-burner.

But now Amelia is in preschool and Chase is napping, so I'm taking this hour of peace to fill you all in. Here's a summary of our recent days here in Turkey.

AMELIA

• Birthday Girl! Amelia turned 4 on August 9th and has embraced being more grown up since all she wants to do is grow up to be a mommy. But she still hangs onto her youth by saying, "I'm just a little bigger, but not too much." Let's keep it that way.

She woke up to a decorated kitchen and a few presents and later went to lunch with Mommy and Chase to get her favorite meal - hamburger and french fries (but of course, she only eats the fries). And then we did her favorite activity - swim!

Amelia was so excited to see the Happy Birthday sign and presents when she woke up

Matt was out of town on her birthday, so we celebrated again that weekend with our American friends - The Reynolds' and The Donadieu's. We had a fun dinner then played at the pool before having cake, ice cream and presents.

• Accident Prone. Our little Amelia, bless her soul, loves to run and spin and twirl and leap, but doesn't always watch where she's going and is CONSTANTLY falling down and bumping into walls or chairs or whatever else might be in her way. One night she decided to spin in our kitchen and fell and hit her face on the sharp handle of a drawer and all I could see for an hour was blood gushing from inside her lip. Once she calmed down (thanks to Chase acting silly while I held a ice-cold cloth tightly to her mouth), I was finally able to see that she had a major gash in her mouth and it looked as though she had pierced through the skin into her nasal cavity. I knew we needed to go to the ER, but I was in denial. It was 9pm and once again, Matt was out of town, so I lugged the kids to the ER not knowing what was in store for us.

Fortunately, I knew where the hospital was (from my own experience I'll tell later) which was only 5 minutes away. The receptionist quickly found someone to speak English with me and soon there was an English-speaking doctor ready to take a look at the damage. A nurse and I had to pin Amelia down so the doctor could look inside her mouth. Amelia was SCREAMING so Chase started SCREAMING. The doctor stopped and asked if there was "anyone else" to watch Chase. I replied, "nope there's no one else." I almost started sobbing right there. The doctor said she would need to see a plastic surgeon and have him stitch it up that night, but after calling the surgeon, he said to wait until morning. They gave me a prescription for an antibiotic and gave me a list of pharmacy (eczane) addresses - which was worthless since I don't know where any streets are. Luckily I knew where some pharmacy's were, but unlike 24-hour Walgreens, they all close at 5pm and it was now 10:30pm. Both kids fell asleep on the home.

We saw the plastic surgeon the following morning and he looked at her very swollen mouth and saw that she had severed her frenulum. (Again, both kids screaming). The doctor said surgery wasn't necessary and to just keep her mouth as clean as possible to prevent infection. He saw her again a few days later and things were healing fine. Her smile is a bit different now that the inside of her lip hangs down a bit more than before, but fortunately it turned out OK and that's all that matters.

• Preschool! Amelia started school this week at Eden's Garden International Preschool. The teachers there are fabulous and Amelia loves it! A far cry from her experience at her 3-year-old preschool, where the mere mention of school brought her to tears. Now she excitedly gets dressed and happily trots off to school and only cries when she has to leave! I love it. She goes from 8:30-12:30 everyday with the option of extending to 4pm if she loves it enough. We'll see.

Amelia needed some "indoor" shoes for school and these were all I could find.

I think they're darling, but Matt disagrees since they are Puma shoes.

He was seriously upset that I bought them.

• Cute Sayings. Amelia is always saying funny things and asking TONS of questions - what are you talking about? Why is her name x? Why is this red? Can I have a snack? And on and on and on...

And here are a couple of funny conversations that come to mind:

Amelia: Dad, don't drive so fast so Chase won't get sick.

Matt: OK. Thanks for looking out for your brother.

Amelia: But I'm not looking at my brother. I'm looking out the window.

****

Amelia: Mom, can I have more raspberries?

Angie: No. It's time to go to school and they will feed you breakfast there.

Amelia: But they don't feed me breakfast. I feed myself.

I love my little girl :)

• Things Amelia LOVES to do: puzzles, "reading" books, writing words she sees in her books, not sleeping, playing with her princess dolls, spinning and leaping, playing Old Maid, Candyland and HiHo Cherry-O, playing hide and seek (she always hides under the covers of my bed), SWIMMING!, anything with Winx on it, and playing in the water-fountains in our yard.

playdough and pastries - a couple of faves

CHASE

• Two words: Tazmanian Devil. Chase is into EVERYTHING!! Still!! He goes from drawer to cupboard to fridge to garbage to toilet to lotion to gum to knives to...whatever is within his reach! It's exhausting. I can hardly keep up. Just this morning he came up to me with a bottle of lotion and said "here [you] go" and there were a dozen wooden beads squished into the lotion. Classic.

But of course, he is still the sweetest, cutest thing ever. I love him so much. He is saying more words like "thank you, book, moo-moo (movie), eggs, cheese, juice, here you go, cookie, drink, baba, hey sis" but not much more than that. For nearly everything else, he reaches out and says "nuh this?" and many times I don't know what he wants so he'll lay on the floor and cry.

Chase loves: spinning in circles, chasing his sister, carrying around as many bottles as his hands and mouth with hold, eating - he eats all of his dinner and then finishes Amelia's, swimming, playing hide and seek (he covers his eyes and counts to 10 - or at least makes sounds that resemble the numbers), and singing songs like itsy-bitsy spider, ABCs, and movie theme songs - his particular favorites are Word World and Dora the Explorer. He used to love reading books, but now he won't sit still long enough to read the title and instead just pulls all the books off the shelves and rips them apart.

The kid is always eating and recently fell on a table and gashed the side of his eye

He doesn't like it when I take a shower or go to the bathroom. He stands outside the shower or bathroom door and cries until I'm done. He is a total momma's boy. It can be annoying, but deep-down I love it.

He is the cuddliest, happiest kid who is a fabulous sleeper and laughs hysterically with the slightest tickle. Just thinking of his huge, open-mouth smile makes me smile.

MATT

• The Hard-Working Traveler. In the last 8 weeks, Matt has traveled almost everyweek and is gone from 24-hour to 5 days. While away he will call home as I've just finished cleaning Chase's poo out of the shower and tell me he is eating fresh fish on the Mediterranean in Cyprus. Uh yeah, so not fair. It has been hard having him gone so much, but I know that this is all part of his job and this is what we are here for. He travels mostly within Turkey to visit the Nike stores throughout the country and meet with the owners of the stores. He has also been on fun work retreats on chartered yachts in the Mediterranean, river rafting, 4-wheeling, going to soccer and basketball games, and dining along the Black and Aegean Seas. Not bad, eh?

That's quite a job. Making and selling gozleme to people out on their boats.

But along with all this seemingly fun stuff, comes a lot of work. Matt has been overwhelmed learning everything he needs to learn, dealing with all our housing issues and getting us settled here, and working 12-hour days and still having to do work at home. This transition hasn't been easy on any of us, but we'll slowly get on top of everything, right?

• Date Nights: Thanks to our housekeeper and nearby friends, Matt and I have been able to go out on a couple of dates. Back in July, we were invited to the American Consulate for their Independence Day celebration. We gorged on American fast food - Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Burger King, Krispy Kreme, Chili's, Sbarro, and more. I was seriously sick for 3 days afterward, but we had a great time.

We went dinner and a movie at the Istinye Park Mall. We saw "Inception" which was really good. When it was over, it took me a while to figure out where I was! I looked around and had to figure out if I was at the Layton Hills Theatre in Utah? No. I was in Istanbul. It was a really weird feeling. And it made me kinda sad.

Matt and I also celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary on August 22nd. We ate at a fabulous Italian restaurant on the Bosphorus called Mia Mensa. Matt got a braised lamb shank with mushroom risotto and I got the lobster and sea bass lasagna. It was one of the best meals I've ever had. And of course we got dessert. A chocolate crepe filled with vanilla ice cream and topped with chocolate fudge and chopped pistachios. Yum! A special thanks to Noah and Kendra for watching our kids.

Yes, that is a big chunk of lobster on top. Yum!

ANGIE

• Exhausted Homemaker. Yep, that's me. Motherhood is exhausting by itself and add to that training for a marathon and living in a mentally exhausting foreign country with a husband who's out of town a lot and it makes for a VERY tired mom. But I'm hanging in there. I've had a few melt-downs and times when I feel like moving here hasn't been worth it, but I know that this is where we are supposed to be and that gets me through the down times. Fortunately, we are having a great week and Matt hasn't had to travel, so we are all in good spirits.

Things I've been doing:

• Marathon Training. The Istanbul Marathon is on October 17th - 6 weeks away! So I've been busy running and running and running. I run about 40 miles and do yoga twice a week plus 2 days of rest. If I add any more running or any less yoga or rest, my hips and knees start to hurt. So this is my strict training regime. This requires that I wake up at 5am and makes me exhausted by 8:30pm. I seriously go to bed right after the kids do. But I am loving it. And since all this training is happening on the treadmill, I am keeping up on Gossip Girl, Smallville, Rachel Ray, Martha Stewart and The Tonight Show. It's nice having some American TV to watch during my long runs to take my mind off the monotony. And the bonus of all this running is that I can eat - A LOT! We've been going out to lots of great restaurants and cafe's and I've been having a blast eating loads of yummy food and trying new things.

• Making LOTS of things from "scratch." I have been making so many things from scratch lately. Some are comfort foods I miss from home, some are foods I can't find here, and some are foods that are so full of preservatives and nasty chemicals that I've decided to make them myself. Here is a list of the things I've made in the last few weeks:

granola bars, pretzels, crackers, challah buns, different bread/rolls, nutella,

almond butter cookies, ketchup, mayo, BBQ sauce, ranch dressing, various

salad dressings (the only dressing you get at restaurants is lemon and oil - yuk), fish broth, chicken broth, lamb broth, birthday cake, sugar cookies with frosting, pizza dough, pita bread...I think that's it :)

We live near a fabulous Bazaar (Pazar) that has an Organik market, fresh fish and beef markets, and great produce. It's been fun to make all of these things from quality ingredients. But there are still LOTS of things I miss from America...

• Things I miss. Peanut butter, sprouted-grain breads, brown rice, Trader Joes corn salsa and BBQ sauce, cheddar cheese!!!! (the cheese's here are like mozzarella or feta and that's it), mexican food, Rice Chips, Extra gum, Clif bars, Dreyers ice cream (the stuff here is gummy), and good pizza (like Pier 49).

Pretty much everything you can get at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Costco, Target and Craft stores/party stores are also sorely missed. American stores are so convenient. Here, you can't go to a grocery store and just buy Tylenol. You have to go to a pharmacy and ask someone to get it for you from behind the counter which requires you too find out how to say what you want in Turkish and hope they have it. WAY too much work. Oh, and I also miss having a garbage disposal :)

• Acting Primary President. JoAnne Dillard is the Primary President, but she went to America for 6 weeks this summer, so I took over that role. But with so many people gone during the summer on vacations, there were usually only 4 kids in primary and 2 of them were my own. Quite different than what we are used to in the states. But now that more families are back in town, we have a grand total of 11 kids in primary - which is actually a lot for our teeny "meeting house" apartment. Sunday's are quite chaotic. It's hard to be reverent when your meeting in a small office full of "stuff" and practically sitting on top of each other. We are hoping to get a new meeting place soon. We shall see...

• Root canal. A few weeks ago I had a major toothache and after a few days of pain getting to the point where I completely lost my appetite (which NEVER happens), I went to a dentist. It turns out a root canal I had done YEARS ago had a third root (two is normal) that had gotten inflamed. It took 5 trips to the dentist, but it is now fixed. The dentist was charming and spoke English pretty well, but often forgot words trying to explain things. I've played LOTS of charades trying to communicate with people.

• Fender-bender. Just yesterday I was trying to squeeze our car past some construction poles being painted at the entrance to our parking garage - THE worse place for them to paint! - when I hit the side of the car against the edge of the wall. It scraped and dented the car a bit and even though there were 10 workers out there to witness it, I just kept driving and parked the car. I later called the manager and he said it was no problem and had the construction people move those poles. The car is in the shop and we are hoping we don't have to pay too much to have it fixed...I hate it when stuff like this happens. I was a completely paranoid driver today as I navigated the narrow streets full of drivers going way too fast and coming within an inch of the car. Ugh.

• Speaking of our apartment complex, this has been a sore spot for me. We had some issues when we first moved in, but things are constantly going wrong. One of the biggest issues is mold. Matt went down to our storage unit to get some luggage for his trip and EVERYTHING in there was covered in mold. Our shelves, luggage, strollers, extra bedding...everything. They've tried to ventilate it more and yada, yada, yada, they've done nothing to help us. So we have boxes of things in our apartment that we want to put in storage, but we can't and some of our belongings are ruined. Not to mention the fact that now we have to scrub all our stuff down to make them usable (luckily I now have a housekeeper that can do that for me :) Anyway, that has been a major annoyance and hopefully they will take care of the problem.

• Housekeeper. I have a fabulous Philipino housekeeper, Irene, who comes on Mondays to clean our apartment. I don't know what I would do without her! Well, I guess I do know what I'd do, I'd clean the apartment myself, but it is beyond wonderful to not have to vacuum, scrub floors, clean bathrooms and wash windows. Of course, I still have to do the day-to-day cleaning - laundry, dishes, picking up toys, but at least I don't have to do the weekly cleaning. It's wonderful.

FUN WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Living here has been stressful and eventful, but we've also had a lot of fun. We've made some incredible friends that have helped keep me from getting on a plane back to America. The Dillards (from Reno, NV) - Shane and JoAnne and their 3 kids - Kaylee (11), Justin (8) and Allison (3), The Reynolds (from Washington) - Ryan and Angi and their 4 kids - Thys (12), Mia (10), Jake (6) and Josie (3), and the newest addition, The Donadieu's (from D.C.) - Noah and Kendra and their 2 kids - Porter (5) and Ronan (3). By the way, are the "diplomats" that got the apartment we wanted at Istinye Park. Small world, eh?

As you can see, there are lots of little ones for Amelia and Chase to play with and some of the greatest parents I've ever met. It's amazing that we are all here at the same time and have such a fun time together. I don't think I could live here without them. I feel so blessed.

We celebrated the 4th of July at our place with food, games and swimming.

Went to Uzunya Beach on the Black Sea

We've driven out to the country-side to play with the Reynolds.

Spontaneous trips to the park when it's not too hot.

Several fun play-dates.

And just random fun.

We call this the "Chasie Sandwich" He doesn't like it very much, but we do :)

Amelia begged to make a these puppets in on of my Parenting magazines. She loved them and even played with them for 5 minutes before realizing they were boring :)

Victory Day. Apparently Turkey won something and they decorated all their buildings to show their pride. I thought it was really cool.