My love for the exotics might be rubbing off on Veta

She seriously could not keep her eyes off of it.  When she kept pointing I knew she wanted me to take her picture with it.  The owner of the car was working on his 65' Yacht in the background.

Blessed be His name!

Encouragement goes a long way.

As I write this post I can't help but laugh to myself about the timing of it... Just two days ago I was joking around about the mistakes that I have made in the language.  I made the comment that you have to be able to laugh at yourself in order to "keep it real."

Well, the truth is that I feel like all I am doing is making mistakes, laughing at myself, and not getting any better.  I hit the wall today...I got pretty bummed at our circumstances and about the uncertainties that our family has found ourselves in.  I feel like we're not being as effective as we should be, especially not being able to talk to anyone in a meaningful way.

All those feelings changed with a Skype call today.  After dinner tonight, we had some dear friends call.  It was refreshing to see familiar faces, talk about our kids, and share our challenges with them.  When we were concluding the call, my brother prayed a special prayer for us.  A prayer that reached me right where I was today.  What an encouragement they were to us.  God is so faithful to take care of our every need, even when we are undeserving.  

The humor in learning a new language.

Adam to Taxi Driver:
"Hang a butter here" instead of hang a right here

Adam to Stephanie:
"The bathroom doesn't have any breakfast" instead of the bathroom doesn't have any towels

Adam to Turkish teacher in response to a question:
"Ayna washes out her dirty underwear" instead of Ayna washes laundry

This can be so frustrating (but funny, if you can laugh at yourself)!  So, why can a remember trivial things about cars, but i can't remember things I need to survive?

Stop and listen to the Crickets, Frogs, and Whippoorwills for us

The other night we were discussing things that we miss from home.  One of the things mentioned was night-sounds.  As interesting as it is to listen to cats mating and horns honking while trying to drift off to sleep; the soothing sound of crickets, frogs croaking and whippoorwills is uncomparable.  Later on in the week I found an App with different nature sounds that we listen to now.  "There's an App for everything."

Easter 2012

When it gets quiet in our house the first place we look is the tent

We knew something was up!

This was 5 minutes later...

Easter Egg Dying...

Veta had a great time dying eggs (and her hand)!
Happy Easter to everyone, He has Risen!

The MURSE

Have you ever shopped at TJ Max and wondered who in the world buys all those Murses (male-purses)?  And further, so many that a "leftover/ reject" store would have so many in stock?  Apparently, they come from Turkey, because the Murse is alive and well here in Istanbul!
As for me...I'm sticking with the backpack!