Autumn Crafts...

Here's our latest fall project. Can you tell which one of our kids is getting old enough to glue his own pieces?

Disney on Ice

Last night we got to take the older kids to see Disney on Ice! It was great! As Zeke said on the way home, "We had a lot of fun on our family date today!" Both the kids loved it, clapping along at some of the parts. Zeke started ice skating lessons last Monday. I asked him if he was going to learn to do spins like the characters were doing. He said maybe when he's an adult. We both agreed that maybe he should just learn how to stand on the ice for now!

During intermission . . .

Kaiyah's favorite part was Donald Duck. The "bad guys" took Donald and Minnie Mouse. Kaiyah kept asking, "Where Donald go?"

Geocaching again!!!

Well, it seems that the last few posts have dealt with geocaching, but geocaching takes us to some really neat places. Today's journey was to an old castle, not well-known to tourists, on the outskirts of Istanbul, where the Black Sea meets the Bosphorus straight. It was a really nice day for it, though slightly chilly. It took us about an hour to get out there and about an hour and a half to get back, as we hit rush hour on the way home. Definitely worth the drive, though. It was a great site. Here are some pictures. More are here.

Shooting a Videoer...

The other day, I was meeting friend and we found ourselves on a really crowded street at a conference with the local national basketball team. I was taking pictures, and got a few, but I really like this one. He saw me taking his picture, so he decided to take my video. (-:

And while we're on the topic of taking pictures, I took these out our living room window over the last couple of days. We've had some cool clouds hanging around.

Geocaching Adventures...

We had quite an adventure on this one, from locking ourselves out of the house on the way out, to driving the wrong way up a steep hill where we couldn't turn around, to breaking a side mirror off backing down the steep hill, but it was a fun trip and a great cache! We took the whole family and a friend with us on this one. We took a couple of toys for Zeke and Kaiyah and put in a doggy and a coin. We also exchanged some trackable stuff. Fun times. TFTC! Enjoy the pictures:

Zeke and Kaiyah at the Cache Site

The Whole Family

Catie with the Cache

In and Out

The View from a Cafe near the SiteWhere We ParkedWhat We had to Back Down
Why We Didn't Want to Back Down the HillDuct Tape to the Rescue!All Fixed Up

TFTC...

...means Thanks For The Cache...

Zeke and Dan have a new hobby. It's geocaching. If you don't know about it and you have a GPS that does coordinates, go to www.geocaching.com and check it out. People hide little things around the world and you go and find them using global coordinates. There are even quite a few where we live. The boys (and Kaiyah, though she wasn't as excited about it as Zeke) went today and found two of them. Both were just a little camera film case with a list inside to sign. It was fun and to Zeke, it's as if he's treasure hunting. Here are a couple of pictures from today's outing...

Zeke holding the list.

A few other things that were inside the container, along with my dirty hand.

Date Night

While Renee was here, she offered to keep the kids and let Dan and I go out for the evening. We had a great time! We went and walked (briefly, it was really hot) along the boardwalk by the sea. Yes, we're pretty cool with our shadow art.We walked through a little park beside the sea in an area we had never been to before. They had all these leaning trees. We're not sure why they were leaning, but it made for a good photo op.Then we headed to a mall we hadn't been to before and ate dinner.
We got a 3 minute massage in one of the massage chairs sitting around the mall.
Then we ended the evening watching "Knight and Day". We both enjoyed it. During the night Dan mentioned that when they were young, his parents would go on a date ever month on the day of their anniversary. We realized that it was the 15th of the month which is our anniversary. It's sometimes hard to get away on a date when you have 3 little kids and live a million miles away from free babysitters in the form of Grandparents. We just may have to adopt this tradition to make sure too much time doesn't pass before we have another one of these nights!

Toilet Paper

We needed toilet paper the other day and Dan came home with this:

I'm so proud :)

Introducing Sierra

We have a bad case of the 3rd child over here. Sierra turned 3 weeks old on Friday and we've yet to post a blog about her! So, allow me to introduce Sierra Nicole! She is a precious baby and we have loved every minute over these past few weeks. When she cries, you know there is a problem. She's an amazing sleeper. Since birth she has frequently slept 5 hours at a time at night. Last night she went 7 hours. There is something to be said for having a big baby! She is very laid back. Loves to be held and cuddled, but is fine just laying in her bed looking around. Zeke and Kaiyah love her. They've both been sick this week and have been very sad that they haven't been allowed to kiss and love on her as much. We're so thankful to God for blessing our family with our sweet baby girl.

Current Happenings . . .

Tami is now the most pregnant she has ever been, and not all that appreciative of the experience. At our last doctor's appointment (on Thursday) the doctor indicated that he is planning to deliver the baby this coming week. No day was mentioned, but Tami's mom gets here Thursday morning, so we're thinking if Sierra doesn't choose to come before then, Friday morning might be a good day to have a baby. On a side note, if she is born on Friday, she'll share a birthday with her cousin Averi!

Dan is enjoying the world cup. He has a friend coming over to watch the USA vs. England game tonight. He has been having a friendly banter about the game with a British guy who's villa we are renting in September for our FIRST REAL family vacation! We've taken several 1-2 night trips before, and of course trips to visit family which we love, but we've never just gotten away for an entire week! We're pretty excited. This place is a 4 bedroom villa with a BBQ grill (which is a real treat for us). There is a big swimming pool, plus 3 different beaches all close by. Also, we'll only be 30 minutes from Ephesus which Tami and the kids have still never been to! Very exciting!

The kids are doing great. Last night they were watching TV together and Tami looked over to see Zeke laying there stroking Kaiyah's hair. Too sweet. Hopefully a little video clip will follow sometime soon. Also the other day Dan took the kids to the park and for ice cream. Kaiyah ended up dropping her ice cream on the ground and started to cry. Zeke said, "Don't cry Kaiyah, you can share mine." We love this sibling relationship and pray that the addition of Sierra will just continue to strengthen this.

Shower

Last week some sweet friends threw a surprise baby shower for Sierra. With it being a surprise, I didn't have my camera, but some of the others at the shower took a couple of pictures. Even though we don't need a lot with still having all of Kaiyah's things to use, it was really nice just to have a little celebration of this sweet baby's up-and-coming birth! Plus, they made a diaper cake. I've never had a diaper cake and I think they are pretty cool!

Thank goodness for technology . . .

At the end of your pregnancy here you do these test to monitor if you're having contractions and how the baby is handling them (or at least that is what we think they monitor!). Anyways, you have to be strapped to a machine for 20 minutes, so we've been allowing the kids to watch their cartoons on our ipods. This is a picture from Tuesday's appointment. Today we only had one ipod with us so they shared. It was cute and Dan took a picture, but, alas, his camera is out with him today! Tuesday I was apparently having regular, light contractions. Today there was nothing. So, I guess we wait a little longer . . .

Misadventures

We don't tend to be a family full of excitement and misadventure, but we seem to have gotten our fair share in the past 24 hours. Tami was getting ready to head out the door to meet some friends when there was a shriek from Kaiyah in the back room. In the midst of the crying we heard Zeke say, "I'm so sorry Kaiyah." 2 seconds later we hear Zeke began to cry hysterically. Dan ran to the back room and quickly started yelling for Tami. Zeke had sprayed an air freshener first into Kaiyah's eyes and then into his own. We quickly rinsed their eyes out with water, and all seems to be okay.

Tami went on to her friend's home. This particular friend lives on the 12th floor of an apartment building. 5 ladies jumped in the elevator to head to lunch. 3 of the ladies are as pregnant as Tami. Some how, the elevator broke on the way down. They aren't sure how far they actually fell, as it all happened quickly, but they landed somewhere between the 2nd and 1st floor. After being stuck there for a few minutes, someone came to the rescue and helped them crawl out of the elevator. Everyone was fine, just some stiff necks and sore backs and a little shaky from the experience.

THEN, Kaiyah was jumping on the trampoline and fell off and hit her head on the radiator. There was a huge bump that immediately appeared on the back of her head. We kept her up from her nap for an hour and she appears to be okay. Hopefully the next 24 hours will be a little more peaceful.

Children's Day Parade

A few weeks ago they celebrated Children's Day here. All the school kids get a day off school, many of the shops hand out little treats to the kids, and there are parades all over the city. Early that morning, our neighbors came by and asked if we wanted to go with them to a parade. 20 minutes later we were on our way. We got there about 30 minutes after the parade was supposed to start. There were many different groups of school children standing on the stadium field waiting to perform. An hour later, they finally started marching around the outside of the field. Our neighbor turned to us and said, "It's all the same, are you ready to leave!" Zeke wasn't so ready to leave, since there was finally something to watch, but lunch and playing at a park quickly made up for it!

Play Place

This is blog catch up time. Several weeks ago, some friends invited us to go to this play place they had found out about. It's across the bridge, so not very close to where we live, but the kids had a great time. We'll have to make the trek out there from time to time.

Warm Weather Fun

Spring is finally here . . . we think. The weather has tricked us several times already, but yesterday we were able to get out and enjoy the sunshine at a park with some beautiful flowers! We thought we were going to have the park to ourselves, but about the time we all climbed out of the car, bus after bus of school children showed up to have a picnic! We still had a good time, Zeke and Kaiyah just got a little more help on the playground then they would have preferred!