And the Winner Is....

The Flag

For all of our blog faithful out there, the day really has come for us to reveal our first onward post assignment overseas!! To start you off we wanted to give you a little taste of our new adventure, and see if you can guess where we are going! I apologize as well that this day take me just over 24 hours to post since we have received the news, but life got in the way. So without further ado:

- It is home to some historical and amazing seafood restaurants, and some beautiful seaside resorts of the Princes' Islands and Sile

-Has one of the oldest book markets in the world where on might find some very rare books! It has been continuously active in the same location since the late Roman Empire.

-Home to multiple fun sports teams, hosting the 2005 UEFA Champions League Final and the 2009 UEFA Cup Final

-One of the largest historical museums of it's kind is located here, with more than 1 million artifacts from some of the earliest human settlements

-A religiously diverse community, with many beautiful churches and mosques including the Hagia Sophia-one of the largest in the world.

-A hop, skip and/or a jump from Greece, Western Europe, Jerusalem, and Cairo to name a few cool places!! (We hope to be doing some great traveling while here)

-Thousands of years of history here, including the official founding of the city in 667 B.C.

-The only city in the world located on two continents!!

-Has a temperate climate (which we as a family prefer) with four seasons, that is actually pretty similar to the D.C. area. Highs of average 82 degrees F in the summer and lows of average 41 degrees F in winter, with some good humidity because of proximity to large bodies of water.

-Has an impressive public transportation system with metro/light rail/ and trams.

-Been the capital city of four different empires

-Home to some amazing shopping including the Historic Grand Bazaar (active since 1461) and multiple new large award winning shopping malls.

-it has multiple American fast food chains (which let's be honest, is always a nice touch of home) and movie theaters!!

- Has been known through history by two other names: Byzantium and Constantinople.

- Spans the Bosporus Strait

-The creator of the wonderfully relaxing Turkish Bath tradition.

-Will be the best place on earth to feast on perhaps our favorite meal- the Turkish Kebap!!!!!!! (sooooooo yummy, can I say that again?! YUMMO!!)

So if you had not guessed yet, we are going to

ISTANBUL, TURKEY!!!!! and we couldn't be happier. This post is such an awesome location and holds some great family history significance as well for our family. We truly realize the blessing we have to be able to spend a portion of our lives in this great city. We can't wait to start this adventure and will be loving any all visitors that might want to come our way! There will be many more details to come as well as some more pictures of our soon-to-be home, so stay tuned to learn more about our adventure!