Medevac Rewind

In an admission of an Epic Fail I have decided to go ahead and do one massive post to finish up blogging about our summer/Medevac at home. I have managed to do several posts on some of the bigger things we did already- but despite all of my best intentions, I will just keep getting further behind unless I just do what I can and move on. Ahh, such is life with a newborn I guess! I did not want to leave out of my blog book though, the "flavor" of our summer so I will give you the rest of the highlights:

We saw the tulips on the American side of the pond with some favorite pals at Thanksgiving Point!

Ronan was in his "won't look at the camera" mood, but luckily we had his trusty giraffe neck pillow! Doubles as a pillow and a stuffed animal while traveling! Genius.

Tulips are officially my favorite flower, no matter where in the world they are! Thanks for the great day guys!

Then I had a lovely Mother's Day, where Porter (under instructions from Daddy) made sure to pick me out some beautiful flowers and I got the new Taylor Swift CD! (Don't know how long ago it came out, but I was still thrilled:) Porter also drew me a beautiful card. I sure love my boys!

Next came a cake filled Birthday Celebration Weekend for me! I kicked it off by letting the boys stay up way past their bedtime until Daddy was awake (it was officially my birthday morning in Turkey) and we did cake (also courtesy of Porter's choice) and candles via video chat!! It's not the greatest picture, but it captures the whole family anyway! My hubby had also ordered me a terrific surprise of a new sewing machine that came just in time (so of course I could do some sewing while I was there) He knows me so well! I love my man!

The next day (on my actual B-day) I got to go fabric shopping with some of my favorite people in the whole world at one of my favorite quilt shops in the world!! We then had a tasty lunch together and I loved getting to see the girls! (old roomie/best friends kind of thing:) Sadly though, I somehow missed getting any pictures of the day! Aack! Love you guys anyway!

Then my sweet grandparents took us and my sister's family (we had 3 birthdays among us) out to dinner and brought another AMAZING carrot cake! We had a great time seeing the great-grandparents for the boys. Then our marvelous friends made me a incredible Birthday dinner (they are fantastic chefs) the next day, and topped it off with one of my all time favorites- a Red Velvet cake with Cream Cheese frosting!!!!!!!! YUMMMO! Thanks SO much again!

I am such a lucky girl, and felt so loved and taken care of even though we weren't in our normal home and situation. Now, if only I hadn't actually turned another year older it would have been the icing on all that cake!

The kids spent some quality time playing with their cousins, learning new games i.e. twister (the first time any of them had played-it was hilarious), and gorging themselves on everyone else's "new-to-them" toys!

Ronan further developed his love for all things Pirate-leading to the upcoming Pirate Birthday party we will shortly be throwing for him!

I was showered with more flowers from my hubby (these are the post-baby flowers: sorry I forgot to take a picture though for a few days-they were wonderful though before they started to droop!)

We hit Wheeler Farm with T &A where Tim showed me how to use the color thing on my camera! He got even more great shots-and the boys L.O.V.E.D climbing all over the old tractors and seeing the animals.

We drove up the canyon to see the mountains better and take in the view where we snagged our very first official family picture including Miles! Yes, we didn't get one in the hospital. I can't believe we forgot!

We got to spend some good time with much of my extended family! It was so great to see them all, and I loved that I got this shot of Miles with Grandma laughing about something! Fun stuff!

We took the kids to the zoo with Grandma and Grandpa and the cousins-Porter is showing you how much he enjoyed the Bird Show!

We got to meet two new nieces as well, which I loved!! This pic is of my beautiful SIL and little C! Little E was just as beautiful and looks just like her mommy did (my lil sis)! I sadly didn't get any pics of the two of them together though. bummer.

With these two additions though it is official:

I am the only sibling of 5 who have children so far without a baby girl! I guess I just must be meant for being a mom of boys!!

Miles got to meet some of his Great Grandparents!

(Miles and GGPa-my mom's dad)

Miles and Great Granma (my dad's mom)

*this is where the redhead gene comes from on my side of the family*

We got to see all of my siblings while we were home, including G&A who came in from Cali! It was so nice to spend time as a family, and especially my twin sis and my boys very favorite cousins! They are all close in age and Porter and Jakey especially hit it off this time. They are finally both into the same interests, and they have been asking for each other ever since we left. They were so great to help out while I was without Noah-

and a special thanks to Karin for waking me up after I was crazy jet-lagged and had snuggled the boys to sleep before intending to go to the store.

Without her waking me up and driving me there the Easter Bunny would not have come to my boys this year!! I was O.U.T. We had a great time and am so glad we got to spend so much time together.

We also got to spend some much anticipated, enjoyed, and needed time with

THESE GUYS!!

(Without their help our Medevac would have been MUCH, MUCH harder. Along with my twin sis and her little family, they were our "home". Taking care of us from beginning to end

-literally, with late night and early morning airport duty!! (not to mention 2 early morning and 1 late night going into labor duty!!!) they were total rockstars, and took care of us SO well. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything Art and Steph!) Our boys also are best buds, and as far as they know "cousins", which we love. Love you guys!

and THESE GUYS,

(Oh man, we were excited to see these guys! We just can never get enough! Thanks for planning your trip around us! And, I'm glad we could be together for Little G to try his first taste of ice cream! What a special moment!) Luckily, these guys are East Coasters, soooo guess who will be seeing a lot more of us next year? Woot woot!

and even THESE GUYS!!

(we even hit up our old stomping grounds for some delicious banana splits and cheese fries!)

We were so excited to meet up, and got so lucky that we all happened to be in town together. Noah was originally slated to go home before they came into town, so it was great that he got to stay a little later! Good times, good friends, good food. It doesn't get better than that!

I also got to spend some (but not nearly enough, sob. sob. -newborns will do that I suppose) time with some of my other favorite gals from our old neighborhood! Sadly again, I didn't get any pictures! I think I'm starting to sound like a broken record...

Next time I will try much harder to document everyone. Sorry guys!! Next time I visit hopefully we can squeeze in more girl time!

Lastly, we were able to squeeze in a fantastic family moment right before Daddy left to come back to Istanbul. As luck would have it, CARS 2 opened up just in the nick of time and we were able to go see it together in the theater as a family! For a mamma of 3 little boys, who coincidently also travel the world; this movie is a new all time favorite in our house! The boys were geared up with their new Cars 2 t-shirts, the popcorn was delicious and the best part was that we could all see it together in America! Nothing says summer like viewing the new summer blockbuster in English with no subtitles while on vacation!! Yay, Disney- your timing was perfect! We all LOVED it and will anxiously be awaiting the DVD.

So to review. We came on Medevac instead of staying in Turkey to have the baby. Now that it is all said and done, I am 100% glad we did. We were able to figure out some of the things that were going on with Ronan's hearing and the timing was excellent so we could get him off to a good start this next year, and it helped us make sure we bid on places that would work for him-thus getting Tokyo! Also, (for the most part anyway, there is always an exception or two) everyone who was in charge of helping us get all of our paperwork done in time was excellent at getting it all pushed thru and ready to go. We had all of Miles' passports, visa, medical clearance and paperwork ready to go. Whenever there was a small issue, they were very friendly and helped us get it taken care of. I was kind of worried about all of that aspect, but everything came together nicely. The kids were also able to have a good full summer vacation, and we were able to enjoy good old American health care! (Turkey is great too, but I've heard they like to give you most of your pain medicine in a shot form. No thank you, I'll take it orally please:) In all I was very pleased with the way that his job took care of us for the whole experience, and would recommend it. We did miss Daddy terribly while were separated, but I think the overall experience was definitely worth it for our little family. Thanks for the memories Medevac. You were good to us!