Shopping in Istanbul

Istanbul has the Grand Bazaar and the Egyptian Spice Bazaar, and a carpet seller on every corner. These places are really interesting for their history, and exciting for shopping. The Grand Bazaar is one of the largest buildings, with little shops crammed in spaces, little walkways between. They sell the sames things, carpets, kilum, scarves, leather, shoes, dishes, turkish delight. The spice market sells SPICE! and cheese, tea, olive oil, plants, belly dance costumes.
I love the fruit tea that I brought home, I haven't dared get out any spices yet, Ron hasn't gotten over the smells yet.
I bought a sunflower collage, it is made of old tent material, with the original dyes, and sewed together.
I planned on buying a carpet, everyone is supposed to buy a carpet in Turkey, but they sell used carpets, not really antiques, but old, I just couldn't get into bringing home an old carpet for my floor. The new carpets, sold by goverment sponsored stores, gauranteed to be hand made, natural dyes, were $4000, I couldn't get into that either.
Oh yeah, there are cats all over the city! Everywhere!

Working in Istanbul

The Chamber of Commerce arranged these meetings with manufacturers from across Turkey. We met in the Chamber's offices. They made small offices for us to meet with the representatives. We were the only company from the US, and the only people there who did not speak at least two languages. English was the common demoninator for most of these people. We had dinner with all the representatives, they all spoke English when speaking with someone outside their group, then would speak their native language with their coworkers. It was very interesting to meet so many people from other countries.

Ron's Happy Meal

Ron was so disgusted by the food in Istanbul, something about the spices made him sick, when we found this McDonalds, he was very happy.

Last Night

This was our last night in Istanbul. We had the roof top cafe to ourselves. We watched the sun set over the Sea Of Marmara.

St Sophia

This is a mosaic of Christ in St Sophia, this was a church that was converted to a mosque by one of the rulers. Sadly, there is so much history here, but it was lost on me.

You have to picture this!

We babysat the boys Saturday night.
Jackson put on one of my garden hats, he picked up my watering can and went around the kitchen watering my plants. The hat was white with a bow. His Poppa was not pleased with the hat.
Later in the evening, Jackson was trying to lift the piano lid, the one that covers the keys. He is straining really hard, making grunting noises and the whole bit. Tucker is standing by him, not touching the piano, but straining really hard right along with Jackson, even pushing up with his little hands.
Those boys are hilarious!

Dancing in the Streets

Veronkia, Alexia, and a little of Caleb dancing in the streets of New Orleans!

Visit to Baton Rouge

Andrea, Steve, Veronika, Ron and I all went to Baton Rouge for the Labor Day Weekend. Saturday we visited downtown Baton Rouge, shopped and ate at that special Italian place, DeAngelo's. Sunday we visited New Orleans. We went to the Children's Museum, Aquarium, and the French Market. The kids really enjoyed the museum and aquarium, actually we adults did too.

We had a short tour of the Katrina damage areas. We didn't even see the worst, it got too late. What we saw were beautiful houses still damaged, boared up, next to houses repaired, blocks after block.

The best part of the trip was spending time with family. Veronika and Alexia had so much fun together. Veronika talked nonstop all weekend, but funny thing, she was so quite all the way home. We had so much fun catching up. Caleb was so much fun to watch. And Austin was his usaul fun self, he even played the saxophone for us.

Thank you Ann and Daniel for hosting us, cooking for us, and showing us such a good time.

As an added bonus, that store in Lake Village was open, so I got to shop some more before going home!!!

Visit with Mother

We four girls visited with Mother last Saturday. We gave her the works, a hair cut, manicure and pedicure while we visited. She is doing pretty well all things considered. She spends time with her friends in the dining room and TV room. We left her so she could go play bingo.

Then we visited with Aunt Marion at her new place. And spent the day taking care of business.

We finished out the day at Jackson's none birthday party parts. Or as I liked to call it, his 2nd 2nd birthday party. He was so excited!! We had great company and great food.

2nd Chance Gardening

We have had a terrible drought, no rain for 30 days. And my yard and garden have suffered, and it has made me sad.

I came home one evening and spotted this clematis vine blooming!The vine had to be cut back because of our house falling down around it, LITERALLY!!

And we had raked the weeds out of the garden with the tractor. I replanted some sunflower seeds. I may have a second round of flowers for the fall.

Surprise blooms cheer me up!

Happy Birthday to Me!

My 52nd Birthday was Sunday, Tuesday night I cooked dinner for the family. Actually, I cooked the vegtables, Steve cooked some great steaks on the grill, Paula made the cake.

Tuesday morning, I went to the River Market to pick up some fresh vegtables and the steaks at the meat market. I also picked up the sunflowers. I love the fresh corn on the cob, squash and mixed vegtables.

Paula made birthday cake. The boys little outfits and the cake coordinated. We all enjoyed it, Tucker really enjoyed it. Jackson sang "Happy Birthday" several times, and blew out the candles over and over.

The steaks were possibly the best ever. I bought a second grill, because mine was too small to cook 8 steaks.

I had a great birthday party! Thanks everyone!

Little Visitor and Morning Glories!

Would you believe I work in my yard in flip flops, even when it's getting a little dark, and then this thing shows up in our yard. I think he was on his way to feast on my morning glories, or maybe "lily". Maybe wanting a swim.

I was literally ripping plants out of my weed infested vegtable garden about 12 hours earlier!

It's a "logger head" turtle, with giant snapping jaws!

We transported it down to the creek, lucky we had an old dog cage out back to use to move him in. I hope he enjoys the creek!

Veronika

I have this cool new phone, an iphone, it takes great pictures of beautiful grandchildren. I can program it to have a picture and a ringtone show for the caller. It's my funnest new toy.

Icky Bugs

I have three drawf alberta spruce trees. They all developed these little coocon things hanging from them with some defoliation. Then I noticed the coocons were moving, little bugs came out of them. Wouldn't you know I would get some nasty worm, not some lovely caterpillar out of my coocons.

Vaction Bible School

We have had Vacation Bible School this week. I am teaching the two year olds. I have always liked that age, but especially like them with Jackson in the class now.

Andrea, Steve and Paula have helped all week. Steve taught the elementary school age kids last night. They have brought Kalyssa, and Paula brings Tucker.

We have had so much fun. Veronika is in her 5 year old class, and has enjoyed the week. Amanda and Josh have helped part of the week. I pulled in all the family to help. And thank the Lord they have all been there. The kids are a handfull! It takes all of us to keep them somewhat safe, happy and directed to the current activity.

The theme is "Real Heros Love God" with a sports theme. Two year olds are so eager to learn. They learn hand motions with the songs, repeat Bible verses, make learning projects.

We put their hand prints on the aprons! We made jelly sandwiches and cut heart and star shapes. Painted a clay pot and planted it with vincas, decorated a bag, glued lots of stuff, and made lots of messes.

The most important activity of the week is to let them learn that Jesus loves them! I feel so blessed to be able to be part of their spritual learning.

4th of July

We had a fun day for the 4th!

Ron and I spent the morning cleaning and cooking.

After a dinner of ribs, brisket, and the fixins, the kids swam in the pool. We even made homemade ice cream.
Everyone brought desserts, so we had 4th of July jello, patriotic cake, homemade chocolate cookies and the ice cream.

After dinner and dessert, we had our own private fireworks show.

Brad, Paula and the boys, Josh, Amanda and Josh's parents, Andrea, Steve, Veronika and Veronika's little sister all joined us for some fun!

I can't wait until next year!

More Birthday Party (and Sunflower)

These are Amanda's pictures, so I had to sneak in the sunflower picture that she took.

Veronika's Birthday!

We celebrated Veronika's 5th Birthday, Saturday with a pool party. It was a beautiful day. She had friends and family to celebrate with. Andrea and Steve made a really cute Princess Ariel Party, with a lady like pinata, you pull ribbons to get the candy, rather than hit it with a stick! The lunch was delicious, hot dogs, chips and dip, watermelon and a really cute Princess Cake. It was a really fun event.

Father's Day

We celebrated Father's Day at Cock of the Walk, same place we went for Mother's Day. I wanted to go back so we could have the group picture, this time with Veronika. It's a nice place to go with children.

The kids get to feed the ducks and catfish after we feed ourselves. But this time there was a copperhead sunning on the rocks. Yuck! I am so afraid of snakes.

Happy Fathers Day to Ron, Brad and Steve. Happy Fathers Day to all you other guys too!

Babysitting and Swimming!

Brad and Paula celebrated their anniversary and let us babysit the boys overnight.
They were so much fun! We swam before dinner and after dinner.
Ron and I swam with the boys before dinner. Then Andrea, Steve and Veronika came over, so we swam again.
Tucker tried to fall asleep in the pool, so Poppa gave him a warm bath. Then he went to sleep on the footstool while Poppa was getting his pajamas on. He slept all night, from 8:00 pm to 7:00 am. And woke up happy.

Jackson loves the water and didn't want to get out after swimming twice. Veronika went from being a little scared of the water to going under water in less than a week. Jackson watched her and is about ready to try going under.
I can't wait to watch them swim at Veronika's Birthday Party. Kids learn so much from each other.

Silver Dollar City

Our first visit to Silver Dollar City, Andrea was 6 weeks old. We still love going there! I don't have pictures of the big kids soaking each other, but they had fun too.

Memorial Day Weekend

We spent the weekend at Branson! We all went up Friday night and stayed at a lodge at Stonebridge. We had a 4 bedroom, 4 bath lodge, with a screened in porch out back.

I was so happy, the whole family was able to come. It was great to be able to spend time together.

Saturday, we relaxed, had a late breakfast, went swimming with the kids. Then went to Dixie Stampede. In all the trips we have had to Branson, this was our first trip to Dixie Stampede. They have pig races, ostrich race, horses and buffalo, it was good entertainment and pretty good food. I loved watching the faces of the little ones during the action.

Sunday we all went to Silver Dollar City. I enjoyed walking around and enjoying the plants and foilage, but really enjoyed watching the kids enoy the park. And I rode WILDFIRE and kept my eyes open this time.

They have a BBQ Festival, the BBQ was really good. I didn't get a roasted corn though! It's my favorite. Or maybe the kettle corn is my favorite, I did get that. I found out that the grandkids LOVE kettle corn.

They have a great water play area for the kids, Gyser Gulch. I think maybe the kids enjoyed that most. There are little play areas where water squirts out of the ground. And there are water guns, the big kids, Brad, Josh, Steve and Amanda left the little kids behind and played with the water guns, they were soaked!

We stayed at the park from open till close, the weather was a little overcast, I think that kept us from getting tired. And the kids were still happy when we left!

It was pretty much a great weekend!