WE ARE HEEERRRREEE!!!

WE ARE HEEERRRREEE!!! We made it to Istanbul! It still doesn't seem real that we will be living here for the next two years. Let the adventures begin!!!

As you can see, I've decided to start blogging again after an 18-month hiatus. Facebook is a lot easier and faster and I don't think anyone is really going to read this, but if anything, it is a journal to remember this incredible adventure our family is on in Istanbul, Turkey.

We moved out of our house on May 6th and stayed in a hotel in Portland for a week as we tied up loose ends and sold our cars. Amelia thought the hotel was "California" (since the only other time we stayed in a hotel was in California). The week went by so fast! We were so busy getting ready to move, saying goodbye to friends and family, and caring for our sick little boy that before we knew it, it was time to leave!

We woke up at 3am to get ready and finish packing before our driver picked us up at 4am. Chase didn't open his eyes until he was already dressed, but then smiled and said "Hay-ee!" (his version of "hi"). Such a happy kid. I rubbed Amelia's head to get her to wake up and whispered that it was time to go on the airplane to Turkey. Here eye's popped open and the first words to come out of her mouth were, "Where's my crown?" (Her crown is a sparkly, pink headband that does not come off her head unless it happens to fall off while she is sleeping).

At the airport we checked 2 huge Britax car seats and 8 dufflebags of clothes, shoes, toys, diapers, and food you can't get in Turkey (powdered sugar, brown sugar, chocolate chips, peanut butter, syrup...). And still had 4 carryons and 4 personal items, full of snacks, coloring books, books, and DVD player/DVDs. Having all this stuff would have been fine if Amelia and Chase could have carried something, but Matt (the pack-mule) lugged 3 huge carryons, his Nike work bag and camera backpack, while I toted Chase in a front carrier, the diaper bag on my back, a purse overflowing with stuff I didn't need (like I'd have time to read books on the flight!), and an insulated bag with bottles and snacks - all while pushing Amelia in a stroller. We WAY overpacked and were in a total sweat going through terminals, narrow airplane aisles, and visa and passport control lines. But in the words of Dora the Explorer, "We did it!"

This is just our carry-on stuff...

As the flight took off, Amelia was giddy watching the airplane leave the ground and kept waiting to see turkey's out the window ("I don't see any turkeys!"). She was extremely happy during the 5-hour flight as she ate Pringles and skittles while watching movies and playing on her new Leapster - all starting at 6am. Chase loved watching movies, climbing in the seats and charming all the passengers around him.



After a brief stop in the JFK terminal, we boarded the plane to Istanbul. We were in the very last row of the airplane - did they do this on purpose knowing we had 2 children?? We waited and waited for our plane to take-off, but nothing happened. Rumors of fog delay went around, but we were finally told there was a mechanical issue and we may need to change planes and/or terminals! We were dying at the thought of lugging all our stuff off then plane, to another terminal, and onto another plane. Luckily, the issue was fixed and we were able to take off 2 1/2 hours after our scheduled departure.

The first couple of hours were great. Amelia and I had a blast making silly faces and playing rhyming games, while Chase played with a little girl in the seat next to us. After 3 hours, the kids started feeling the tiredness. Both kids struggled to get comfortable (and rightfully so), but soon fell asleep - Chase sprawled in Matt's lap and Amelia in mine. They slept on and off for most of the flight, but Matt and I hardly slept a wink. Economy class with 2 kids was a far cry from First Class with no kids as our previous flights had been :)
We arrived in Istanbul at noon local time, but 2am Portland time. Like zombies, we once again lugged our load through a mile of moving walk-ways and endless passport lines. Amelia was so exhausted and hot (you could feel the humidity), she slithered along on the dirty airport floor whining to take her clothes off. We finally made it through, got our bags, and loaded the Mercedes van waiting to pick us up. As the driver struggled to close the door with everything crammed in as tightly as possible, we realized we had forgotten the car seats. Matt had to go back into the airport, finagle his way back to the baggage claim to get them. All the while, we were sweating in the car, tired and thirsty and wanting to get "home."

We finally got to our temporary living complex - The Akmerkez Residence - where we will stay until we finalize our permanent housing and wait for our goods to arrive. It's a posh place - way too nice for us and our children, but we will happily stay here for a few weeks :) When Matt asked Amelia if she liked living in Turkey, she said, "Yeah, a little bit, but not too much."

I got the kids bathed (Chase pooped in the tub - par for the course) and did just enough bottle-washing and unpacking as necessary then went right to bed. Next thing I know, Matt is waking me up at 9:15pm - I had slept for 6 hours! I really needed it. Both kids were asleep and I asked Matt what they had had for dinner since there is very little food in the house. Matt said they had bread, jam, and fruit - which luckily the residence had provided in the refrigerator. Chase eating a packet of cream cheese with a spoon

After I had the same blah dinner and everyone else being asleep, I happily settled on the couch to check email and sit in this nice, quiet place to resume blogging. Within an hour, Amelia woke up at 11pm alert, in her ballet dress, and ready to play. Soon after, Chase awoke ready to do the same (sans the ballet dress). It is now 1am, both kids are playing and having snacks while Matt sleeps. I wonder when we'll get used to this time difference!! We'll try to get more on track tomorrow...

Anyway, both kids are now in my lap, so I must go. I will try to keep up on this blog to record our adventures and hopefully I'll have some readers to make it seem worth the effort :)

Goodbye family and friends in America and hello future friends in Istanbul! Gule gule!

Great Holiday Break

Wow. What a WONDERFUL holiday break we had!! I wish Matt could ALWAYS be home and that we could have parties every day and sleep in until 10am like I did several days in a row - ah, that was the life. Now we're back to reality, which is still great, but there are no parties, no sleeping in, and no Matt during the day to hang out with. Thank heavens we at least get vacations to renew ourselves and spend time together as a family.

Christmas was great. Matt told the nativity story on Christmas Eve using our miniature nativity. Amelia LOVED this set and played with it daily.
Santa brought us more than we needed, but it made for a great Christmas. Amelia got a play kitchen and she loves it - she had been pretending to make food for a few months so I knew she would love to have her very own kitchen.
The princess tea set was also a huge hit. She has hosted daily tea parties ever since - if only she didn't want real water in the tea pot - it makes a big water mess, but it's worth it since it brings her so much joy.
Chase got a lot of books and a set of blocks that I'm not sure he really likes :)
I had a migraine most of the day so we missed Christmas dinner with our friends. Matt and Amelia went to Burger King for Christmas dinner as they were picking me up some drugs. It was quite a memorable holiday.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

We hosted a party with 4 of our friends and their families. We had great food, fun activities, and rang in the New Year with a special countdown at 8:30pm so the kids could get to bed at a decent hour. We all had a blast. It was great to have a home with enough space to finally have a party! There were 15 little kids running around and I loved every second of it.


We went after-Christmas shopping over the break and Amelia spotted a princess bed and didn't ever want to leave it! She snuggled in tight with Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Belle. The girl is obsessed. I love it!
Amelia loved playing in the car with her daddy. She saw a fire truck today while we were at the park and she wanted to drive it really badly. She said "drive fire truck" about 20 times on the way home from the park. I think she believes that it will happen if she says it enough. She has been saying phrases over and over again like "go Bella's house" "see doggie?" "momma get it?" Matt and I have wondered if it's an OCD thing and tried to determine if she says it a specific number of times, but there's no magic number :)
Daddy got to spend lots of time with his little boy.

Now we're back to our daily life. Amelia is so incredibly fun. She loves playing pretend and mimicking everything we say and do. Here she is taking a picture of her doggy with her "camera" which is the play phone from her kitchen.


Yesterday she came up to me and said:
"take-a shirt off?"
why? is it wet?
"no"
then why do you want your shirt off?
"I wanna be naked" :)

Once her shirt comes off, the rest comes off too. She then put on her hat and boots and wanted to play outside in the rain. I swear this kid never feels cold.
She loves to make "big towers" by stacking boggle cubes. She counts how many "squares" are in the tower by saying "1, 3, 5, 6!" She can count to 14 but when she's actually counting something she says the same 1, 3, 5, 6! Then she says all the letter she sees in the tower. She's getting pretty good with her letters and tower-building skills :)


Amelia LOVES to play with her little brother. She always says "baby lay down on blanket" so she can play with him. She gives him her toys to play with, but I try not to leave him unattended for too long because this is what I will find:



But at least she likes to share her toys :) We'll see how she feels when he can actually play with them. I wanted to post this picture of Chase in his cousin Jonah's hand-me-down jammies. I totally remember Jonah wearing these EIGHT years ago! Thanks Jonah :)
Chase is such an amazing little boy. I've said that SO many times, but it's true. He is content almost all the time. On Sunday, I put him in his swing in the den thinking he would fall asleep while I was being visit taught in the other room. 40 minutes later he was still wide awake in his swing and didn't make a single peep - he just stared out the window. He's starting to get on a schedule which is really nice and only wakes up once or twice in the night. He now weighs 12.5 lbs and is growing so fast! Amelia is only twice his weight at 26 lbs. He's going to pass her up by the time he's 1! He is smiling and gooing and getting cuter every day. We love our little boy.


Smiling for the camera!
He has the best sad face :(
Here are a couple of video clips. The first is of Chase smiling and gooing. The second is Amelia playing with Chase on Amelia's favorite white blanket. This shows Amelia's new favorite thing to do - talk gibberish while dancing. She then plays peekaboo with Chase. She loves her little brother.

Arctic Blast 2008!!

We've had an unusual couple of weeks here in Portland. 10 consecutive days of snow and nearly a foot on the ground - the most snow on Christmas Eve EVER! Church and school have been canceled for 2 weeks and Nike shut down this week. It's been AWESOME!!! We've had a blast playing in the snow and have loved having Matt home since last Friday! Plus we will have a white Christmas!!

To enjoy the snow, Matt and Amelia went sledding with the neighbors. Here's a video clip showing how much Amelia enjoyed watching Matt have a snowball fight with 4-year-old, Sam. It makes me laugh every time I watch it :) Amelia had to wear her rain boots which she called her "reindeer boots" :)

Eating a bowl of snow - her favorite meal these days

Making an indoor snowman - it was too cold outside :)

Playing Connect-4 in front of the fireplace - our daily activity

The Ward Christmas party was last Friday and everyone was glad it wasn't canceled - the roads were better that day. It was a fun party. Amelia loved the food and music and Chase slept the entire time.

Amelia DOES NOT like Santa! When I told her Santa was going to come tonight she said "No, no, no" in a terrified voice and hugged me to "save" her from the idea of Santa

Since church was canceled for the Christmas program, the 4 Mormon families on our neighborhood got together to have a sacrament service. It was so fun. I will always remember this day. A high chair served as a pulpit, the Jensen family conducted and played the music, Stan gave a wonderful talk on the meaning of Christmas, and Amelia didn't hold still for one second :) Just like regular church. We had a nice lunch afterward and was able to hang out with friends after so many days of being cooped up. It was nice. If only every Sunday could be so fun.


Chase has been a hungry boy at night and instead of nursing him from 8pm-11pm while I watch Greys Anatomy (as I have been doing for the last few of weeks), I've been giving him a bottle of breastmilk I have stored in the freezer - now he falls right asleep and sleeps for 5-6 hours! Amelia wanted to help feed her "baby bruver some boobie milk baba" as opposed to the "cow milk babas" she gets.


Just some random pictures:

Chase stared at his reflection for a long time - it was cute - I love how happy his daddy is too. Matt loves his little boy.

I loved the look on Chase's face in this picture - click on it to see it up close

Just hangin' out

Amelis loves watching Pooh bear on our new TV. We finally got cable after 6 months without it. It's nice to have, but I realized I don't really like TV.

I just love it when Amelia keeps a ponytail in her hair - this is a rare picture of her without her hair in her face - but notice she's topless - I can't get both clothes and hair at the same time.