So long Leah!

So wonderful to catch up with old friends. It's been over ten years since I had seen Leah! But it didn't feel like it at all. We were able to pick up like no time had been lost. She spent a few days with us, then joined in on a Base tour to Cappadocia for a night before returning here and flying out on Monday morning. Thank you Leah for taking some time to catch up with an old friend. Can't wait to see you more during our time in Turkey.

Leah is here ...

... and my foot is "okay."

While I am still limping quite a bit and my foot is still quite swollen, I can at least gimp around a bit which is a relief! I have dealt with sprains many times and am quite comfortable with how this will heal. I was quite panicked yesterday that this was something more serious. Not only was the pain quite intense but the way it was sprained and swelling had both me and JB concerned about something more serious. PRAISE THE LORD! I am so relieved.

That chapter is now "closed" and my friend Leah has arrived in Turkey.

Leah and I were roommates for a year in college. She was actually there the night JB proposed to me. After college, she moved to Louisville, and I moved to Franklin, and we just sort of lost touch. I haven't talked to her in over a decade. But with the invention of Facebook, we found each other. She is working in Germany now and had to do some work in Istanbul -- so she decided to jump over and see us. She is a world traveller. One of these people who is a professional at flying and traveling. She speaks nearly fluent German and plans on making her life outside of the U.S. now.

We stayed up way too late last night talking. She is only here to Monday and plans to take the trip to Cappadocia this weekend with our Base Tour Group so we only have a few days to catch up. I'll make sure to put a few photos up of our time catching up. But we hope we can continue to catch up when I go to Germany in a few months.

My "second home"

I'm beginning to feel as if Tarsus is my second home. This was my fourth visit. I like to take all of our guests here which has meant a fairly frequent attendance in the town.

I left the boys with Veronica, and Becky and I navigated our way to Tarsus. I was very proud of myself. With Becky's help, I was able to successfully get us to Tarsus and to the sites we wanted to see (Cleopatra's gate, St. Paul's well, St. Paul's church, and the ancient road.) I then managed to take us to the beautiful local waterfall and get us back onto the Interstate for our return to Adana.

The only "mistake" I made was forgetting to fill up with gas before we left Base. We get gas on Base for the same costs at the USA. Off Base, gas is around $10 a gallon I believe! Yikes. Needless to say, I got the minimum amount (even stopped twice to be sure I didn't put too much in.) Wasn't happy about that mistake.

Here are some snaps (courtesy of Becky.)

A typical view on a city street in Tarsus.

The inside of St. Paul's church. This church does not date back to Paul's era. More like the 18th century. (Becky and I find it humorous that we don't consider that very old when traveling around here even though in the USA, that's about as old as you can find.) Either way, it is the only church in Tarsus which still bears his name. I have even heard they have been holding Christian services here (although I can't confirm that.) Very cool! It was gorgeous.

The entrance to St. Paul's church. They didn't have any English brochures so the guy gave me one in French. I almost told him that I'd rather have a Turkish flier than a French one. I can understand more Turkish than French. But apparently, he thought I'd get more of a French flier. Ha!

After that, we headed to St. Paul's well. I love coming here. It does cost money to get in (3TL -- roughly $2 USD) but I gladly pay it to read the Christian scriptures on the signs inside. It's one of the few places in Turkey that I feel a bit of Christ!

Becky at the well. While this well didn't technically belong to Paul, it is generally assumed he would have used this well regularly.

Here we are at the Roman road. This was only discovered in 1993 and dates back to the time of Caesar.

Here's Becky enjoying her first Turkish tea (chai) at the waterfall. I ordered our lunch and was told that I wasn't ordering enough. I am glad I trusted my gut, as yet again, there was more than enough to spare afterwards.

The waterfall.

So far, Becky's visit has gone as follows:

• Thursday evening -- flew in.
• Friday -- hung out at home.
• Saturday & Sunday -- Cappadocia
• Monday -- laid low at home; went to dinner with some friends in the evening
• Tuesday -- Tarsus
• Wednesday -- Dinner at Hatice's house -- yum!!!

What a wonderful time with an old friend. The boys absolutely adore Becky. She plays and interacts with them so well and has been so helpful to Veronica and me in holding down the fort while JB is gone! I am going to miss her terribly when she leaves, but I think the boys will miss her even more.

Tonight Elijah was talking to her about how Mommy "always comes back" after she leaves. He then said, "Beck come back?" What a tough question when you don't know when you will see someone again.

A bit more of Cappadocia

Becky got this picture of a typical Turkish breakfast. Not something we're quite accustomed to in the USA. Funny little story. A Turkish woman who worked at the hotel told Rana (in Turkish) that she planned to start eating Corn Flakes and Coco Puffs (the two things hotels put out to appease Americans at their buffets). She said she was going to start eating these cereals to lose weight. As Rana translated, we both nearly screamed at the same time "NOOOOOO!!!!" The woman thought that all Americans were very fit and trim since those are the ones she had seen at her hotel. I tried to explain that people who travelled to Turkey (or those who were there with the military) were not at all a fair representation of our obese country. Truly, in America, in a typical outing to the mall, I see more obese people in one day that I have seen in all of my time in Turkey thus far. I do not have a recollection of seeing one extremely obese person in all the months I have lived here. (Overweight, yes but extremely? No.) The picture above is probably much more how we should eat. And yet, I greatly miss a good ol' pancake breakfast.

Veronica edited this photo she took of my Isaac. I love this little boy. He has not been feeling so hot AND I think he really, really misses his Daddy. He's been quite snuggly and clingy (which is actually nice since this isn't in his usual character.) But we are ready for his Daddy to get home and him to start feeling better. (Thank you Dr. Linda for checking his ears this morning!)

Our dinner at the hotel was a wonderful affair (both in taste and entertainment.) Veronica watched the boys while Becky and I ate and then we switched so that we could all enjoy dinner uninterrupted. Dancing was on the agenda during dinner. Turkish dancing seems a lot easier to do than American I'll tell you what, and we all had a great time (as you can tell from my photo above.) We did all, however, have to cringe, when a tourist a table over asked the waiter if the guy could please sing in English!! Seriously?!

Another Veronica creation.

If you would like to view the pictures from our trip to Cappadocia, you can do so by clicking here. I really could go on all day with images from our trip. I actually "planned" this trip. We rented a bus from Outdoor Rec on Base and got a total of 20 people to go with us. It was fabulous. Such a great group of travelers and fun time was had. Simply without words for the beauty of God's creation and the depth of struggle Christians went to to live their faith in underground cities. Visit my Facebook album to see for yourself!

Back from Cappadocia!

We are back from Cappadocia. It was a whirlwind two day / one night trip. We are exhausted but so glad we went and Becky and Veronica got to see Cappadocia up-close-and-personal. Here are just a few photos. More details and pics to come, I promise!

View from our hotel.

Cappadocia -- breathtaking.

Becky in the Underground City.

The Open Air Museum in Goreme. Not good points for participation here.

Decorating Becky with stickers while on the bus.

Eating ice cream outside of the underground city

Becky is here!!!

My friend from Eglin, Becky, is here in Turkey!!! It's wonderful to have her here -- and even more wonderful that it just coincidentally timed with JB's trip out-of-town.

It's a very special friend to leave the USA for the very first time and come all the way to the Middle East. She was going to take the military rotator, but when she found out she didn't qualify (her husband had to fly with her for her to be able to take it), she bought a ticket all the way here. So amazingly cool.

She got it late on Thursday night but has handled the jet lag seemingly very well at this point. Today we even took some time to go to the park by the Mosque in Adana. We have other plans too: Cappadocia and Tarsus are at the top of that list.

I'm sure I'll have more pictures and more updates as the trip goes along. But for now, just enjoying some sweet time with a sweet friend in the months before they adopt their little one from South Korea.

More to come!

Istanbul: The Last of the "Stuff"

All right. At long last. The last of our pictures to Istanbul. Before our boarding our plane on the last day, we visited the Hagia Sophia. Hagia Sophia is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul. From the date of its dedication in 360 until 1453, it served as the cathedral of Constantinople.The building was a mosque from 1453 until 1934, when it was secularized. It was opened as a museum in 1935.

Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and is said to have "changed the history of architecture." It was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years, until Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520.

Enjoy these photos of this beautiful church/mosque/museum.

All five of the kiddos. What IS Elijah doing here? And Isaac fell in love with Noah/Rowan's umbrella. He loved carrying it around.

Istanbul, Saturday December 25

So, I am STILL trying to catch up on some blogs from Istanbul. Let's see. Christmas.

Christmas morning we met in our room -- the biggest and best one we thought! We each brought some small gifts for the kiddos. Here they are starting to open their presents:


The Stebbins' family contributed some bubbles! Those were very popular:

We also had some fun with a puppet show that told the nativity story while Sarah read it from a book. The kids seemed to really enjoy this:

Our puppet masters, Dan and Angelica: (And here's a video of the puppet show if you are interested in overkill.)

After the Christmas morning festivities, we took a cab to Taksim Square where we had the pleasure of attending a very large Catholic Church. Very few people were Turkish. It was mostly tourists and non-Turkish residents of the country. But it was still wonderful, despite none of the kids making it all the way through service, to worship with fellow Christians on a day of Christ's birth in a country that, as a whole, sees December 25 as just any other day.

After church, as we were heading back down the square, we heard music. We found the source. It was a Christian group of students playing music! Music we knew! Christian carols. And a man was passing out a copy of the book of John written in Turkish. How exciting. Click here to here a quick sampling of the music. It was so beautiful!

After church, we all walked together for awhile and then parted ways. We HAD to get Elijah back for a nap. And William was whipped too. So while we hit a KFC (yum!), the Yerringtons hung out some more at the Square before making their way home. Here is a pic we got near the church of our whole group:

On our way back from the square, we were hit by a taxi-driver who pulled a major con on Ryan. Ryan handed him a 100-dollar bill. However, while Ryan waited for change, the cab driver, switched the bill with a 20-dollar bill and then told Ryan he needed more money. (Our total was 35 lira.) Ryan immediately questioned the cab driver by saying, "I thought I gave you a 100." But the driver insisted it was only a 20. So Ryan added 10 more and while looking for 5, the driver said that 30 was adequate. (Our first sign that something was wrong.)

We only realized later, after Ryan and Sarah scoured their belongings for the missing 100, what happened. I had heard about this happening to another friend. We were reminded that we will be taken advantage of as foreigners and need to be on our guard. None of us will let this happen again. We have learned that ... when you give a bill, locals, if it is a large bill (which should try to avoid), say, "Bozuk var mi?" (Do you have change?) Then SAY what bill you are handing them. A lesson WE ALL learned, but Ryan and Sarah ... the hard way. I felt so badly for them! That just stinks!

After naps, we decided to lay low that evening. We found a beautiful park and let the kiddos play befoer hitting a British pub for dinner. At the pub, the waiter spoke very good English. I asked him if there were ever any Turks that frequented the restaurant. "Not many," he said. "And do we want them? No we do not." He was implying that the restaurant succeeds on foreigners, and that is what they strive for.

Anyways, pictures of our time at the park:

A totally different Christmas then I am used to. But one I will always remember!

Bosphorus (Saturday in Istanbul)

The Bosphorus or Bosporus, also known as the Istanbul Strait is a strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. Istanbul, to the west is Europe. And the rest of Turkey including Adana where we live, is to the East and is Asia.

It is impossible to summarize our boat ride only this strait in just a few photos. But I will do my best. Most of the tour group went upstairs on the boat but we opted to take our kiddos into the warmer downstairs.

We had fun playing with hats (love Isaac's smile in this one):


We also saw some amazing views:

Posed for some good pictures:

And took some nice naps:

While watching some more great views:

And enjoying some family time:

And relaxation:

Before docking and taking a cable car down a small mountain. Following this adventure would be Elijah's meltdown at McDonalds and naps back at the hotel. What a great day 3!