Lucky Seven

We did have one event from our time on home leave that I do want to post separately. 

According to Porter also, it was his favorite thing about the summer. 

(We did A LOT  of fun things too, so I guess we hit it out of the park

 for this one if it still comes in number one on his list!)

My baby turned SEVEN!!

I can not believe this day has arrived! How is it possible that it was a whole seven years ago

 when I got to hold my little munchkin for the first time? The time has flown so quickly. 

Aack! Make it slow down, please!

In anycase, hopefully this year turns out to be as wonderful and lucky for him as his birthday! 

As we had recently arrived back in the USA-

 (birthday present number one, being in America for his birthday!)

I went 100% hands off for his party, and booked the local bowling alley. 

They took care of everything-I didn't even make goodie bags.

Well, I did order the cake from Target-which he loved getting to pick it out-

 I know, right? Huge step for me. And you know what?

It was awesome! Everyone had such a fun time, 

and it was completely stress free for me.

He loved every second of it. They went the extra mile, and made sure he

 got to bowl on Lane 7, which he thought was SO COOL.

Daddy even made sure that he let Miles get in on the action! Noah has skillz, huh?!

 Now, for his FAVORITE part of his birthday:

for his final score- he got a 77!

What are the odds, bowling a 77 on lane 7 for his 7th birthday!

He's been talking about it ever since, lucky 7 indeed!

The Cake-Pokemon theme

The Crew

His buddy Ryli was even able to come for a bit, while dealing with their own inter-continental switchup! Thanks for squeezing us in guys, we loved that we got to see you all! 

I love that Porter has friends that understand his whole "international" lifestyle because they've lived abroad too. I think it makes all the difference in the world to help him not feel like he's weird or different. In this picture we've got Turkey, Mexico, Puerto Rico (yes, America but still..) and Moldova covered! 

Can he get them all in one blow?

Pizza time

They also got tokens to play in the arcade. It was a HIT. Maybe even more so than the bowling?

You can never go wrong with arcade games I guess!

Porter opening his "big gift" from Mommy and Daddy-

He was thrilled!

 This Lego Ninjago lover, could not have been a happier birthday boy!!!

We got him the Fire Temple, which he had been wanting for a loooong time.

Patience seemed to pay off though, and that's good because he and Noah both needed it for the 5 hours it took them to build this beauty!! 

Happy Birthday Porter!!

We love you so much, and can't imagine our lives without you!

Thank you for bringing so much love, enthusiasm, and humor to our lives.

To Be Inserted Here-Home Leave

So, our summer was awesome. We spent a month and a half on home leave, and had a blast! We were go, go, go and got to see many of our favorite people! We ate tons of yummy food, and filled our days with every fun adventure we could find in every one of the 10 States we went to! Whew. It was terrific, and exhausting! Documenting our home leave adventure will take a bit, and since we jumped right into school, and other fall adventures-rather than get completely behind I am going to try to catch up- and then do my home leave post. (I reserve the right to change the date when I put it into my blog book;)
So let this tide you over of things to come from home leave…. It happened, it was fantastic, and we'll remember it forever! Terrific memories made!

Our Home

In one last report on Istanbul, I had meaning to (pretty much ever since we got settled, two years ago!) put up pictures on the blog of our home. I think it is important to remember what the homes we live in look like, as so many memories happen there. We absolutely adored our apartment in Istanbul. It fit us so well, and we will/ already do miss living here. 

So, without further ado:

The Boy's Room

This was perhaps my favorite in the house. 

It was so cozy, and they loved it!

Miles Bedroom:
Such a cozy nursery. This little bedroom was perfect.  I had intended to put his name above his crib, but then we opted for the other way because we didn't want them falling on him incase of an earthquake! Turns out, we didn't have any major issues with that-thank goodness, but better safe than sorry.

This is looking from the corner with the bookshelf, the lighting is terrible, but just so we can remember all the fun nooks and crannies of our first European apartment! 

Trying to get all the angles, and I couldn't resist letting this guy be a model for me!

And, we can't forget the ever present humidifier! 

At least it matches.

Our Master Bedroom
This room was great, nice and big-
but had some funny things (as any European apartment does)
We had an awesome balcony though too, not pictured-but where the drapes in the left corner are.
That is also the wall/ side with our other dresser, mirror and entrance to the master bath.
At the end before we were packing I was taking quick pictures of the rooms that I never had-and didn't get every angle that I should have! Memories in our minds I guess for this.
This is taken from the bedroom door- with the "closet" directly to the right.

Our closet was a funny space, we had to use these cabinets from the Consulate, and Noah couldn't stand up in the back half, but we tried to use the space the best we could.

It worked as my craft space after Miles was born (initially I had a craft room/play room) before we turned it into the nursery for the first year we lived there.

Our Master bathroom:

Once again, the movers were half done when I took these photos, and I didn't get a great angle of the cute shelves above the toilet-

but just so we can always remember our giant shower!

The boys bathroom off the upstairs hallway

Our "dine-in" portion of the kitchen

I don't know if I will ever get such awesome storage space in my kitchen again...

at least I loved it while I had it!

Awesome.

The other half. Loved my kitchen. 

Tears will be shed when I remember these days!

View of the Family and Dining rooms from the "Living room" side

A view of the Living Room-

once again though, I was slow in taking it, didn't get all the angles I should have, and the movers had already started packing. Just imagine the drapes still there, and some more decor.

This is looking from the entryway French doors. 

I'm bummed I didn't get a picture from the other side too...

The Guest Room

If you were lucky enough to come and visit this gorgeous city, 

this was where you could rest your head!

We did get multiple visitors, which we LOVED!
We had a great time with all of you!

The powder room down the entryway hall

View of the Entryway from down by the guestroom.

Can't find a picture looking from the front door. 

I swear I took one, but still.

If I find it I guess I will just add it when I print my blog book! 

Kitchen to the right, and great room to the left-

And last but not least, the guest bathroom.

There you have it. 

a trip down memory lane for our family for the future.

We will miss you, thanks for all the amazing memories!

(Insert apt number here, but for security sake we'll just call you Apartment Awesome)

What I'll Miss Most About Istanbul….

We've had such a wonderful experience living here in Istanbul. I feel I need to write a few of my favorite things down, just to always remind myself of the little things I loved most. I'm excited to move on, and new amazing adventures await our little family I'm sure. However, I am definitely going to miss a lot of things here. It is hard to wrap my brain around that fact, when I think about how quickly Turkey wrapped itself around  our hearts. It seems like we just arrived, and I remember the feeling of all the new sights, sounds, and smells. How is it possible that all of that became so normal and comfortable to me? Well, no matter how it happened-I love that it did. I love that Istanbul was truly "home" for these last two years. So, without further ado:

My list of things I'll miss most about Istanbul:

-listening to the fog horns from the ships on the Bosphorus at night
-walking along the Bosphorus
-affordable, yummy restaurants right on the water with spectacular views!!
-shopping at the Grand Bazaar
-efficient buying of glasses and juice boxes (if you break one, you can buy just one- and then if your kid wants a juice box instead of a candy bar, you can get just one to tide them over when leaving the store!)
-fantastic, cheap and efficient car washes. They have great car washes set up in the parking garages of all the big malls. They do full details and hand dry while you shop! All for a fraction of the price to have it done in the States. Genius.
-affordable housekeeping and babysitting (with loads of English speaking Filipinos)
-Porter's school. We have had a fantastic experience, and he's made such wonderful friends and memories.
-Ronan's speech therapist and shadow aide. They have both been so awesome!
-that everyone LOVES my kids. The Turks love, love, love children, and what mother doesn't like to have people adoring her kids?!
-our apartment. we have loved it!!
-Mua gelato. So delicious, close, and lots of fun times with friends spent munching on it!
-the purple parking lot spots at Saphire Mall. They were parking spots made for me:) What's not to love?

-the electronic/ touch screen directory boards at the malls. They were awesome.
-all the amazing friends we've made here!!
-being able to walk to the mall/movies/grocery store in 5 minutes.
-our pool and playground. We spent a lot of good times there as a family!
-that the malls have so many types of stores. You can find anything you need at the mall!!
-our Saturday lunch dates
-the business cards from shops at the Grand Bazaar with the maps on the back (that you must keep if you ever want to find that same shop again!)
-the hidden tulips all over the city. They are in the tiles, rugs, iron fences, you name it all over the city! I love me some tulips.
-the sight of stacked Turkish delight in store fronts. It's such a cool sight, and they make it really beautiful and artistic sometimes! (and baklava too)
-great take-out bags from restaurants. Most of them are a wide square that you can place your to-go plate flat in. hard to explain, but trust me-they are way better than any take out bag I've ever seen in America!
-yemek sepeti-the website to get any and all food delivered!! It will be so hard to get used to not having the option to have anything delivered when we don't want to go out!

And last but not least:
-I love the way that the Turkish language uses the letter "K" to it's full potential! As the letter K is obviously the best letter in the alphabet! i.e. taksi, and Akvarym

Thanks for all the great memories Istanbul! We'll be back to visit as soon as we can!

Ronan's Goodbyes

Ronan and Maggie

I already posted about Porter's last day of school, but did not want to forget some of our most important good byes of Turkey. Ronan still went to speech therapy for several weeks after school was out, and I had to wait to get a "last day" picture with his amazing Dynamic Duo.

Maggie and Christina

Maggie was Ronan's helper at pre-school. She was there as his constant companion to help keep him on task, help him with anything he needed, repeat things into his "good ear", and work on extra speech therapy activities during any down time. She put so much time, attention, love and hard work into our little guy. He challenged her I'm sure as well, and she handled everything he could throw at her with amazing ability! We got SO lucky in being able to find both Maggie and Tina to help Ronan while we were in Istanbul. I honestly do not know what we would have done without them both. Maggie was so dedicated and I truly believe made all the difference in helping him come as far as he did this last year. 

There aren't really words to thank someone who was such an important part of your child's life like she was. Thank you Maggie. We will miss having you around every day more than you know! We know you were sent to us straight from Heaven! 

We can't wait to see you again when our paths cross in the States!

Some tear-filled good bye hugs

And then Christina. Wow. What a superstar of a speech therapist!

 I cannot say enough good things about her. Without her, who knows what and where our lives would be right now. I'll spare you all the details, but let it be said that she literally went 

the extra mile in every aspect of our relationship with her to help Ronan and our family out. 

It was such a crucial time in our little guys development, and we would not have been able to stay and finish our time in Turkey without her! She's fantastic, and literally one of the only American speech therapists in such a huge city! We got SO lucky to have her. Thank you Christina, from the bottom of our hearts. You have helped to literally change our lives. 

When you spend as much time as Ronan/we did with these two amazing ladies, it would be hard not to be extremely sad to leave them. And we are. We promise to keep you updated on all of his future happenings too. Thank you for loving our little guy like your own. We will remember all you did for him  our entire lives! 

One Last Bosphorus Cruise

We went on one last Bosphorus cruise shortly before we left Istanbul. And it was fantastic! 

It was a gorgeous day, the food was amazing, we had terrific company, the boys were all on their best behavior (still trying to capture the  magic of that day again?!), and we even had dozens of dolphins show up to play! It was such a perfect ending, and I'm so glad we were able to go out one more time. Taking a cruise on the Bosphorus is without question one of my favorite things I've ever done. The Bosphorus is the pride of Istanbul, and we have come to love it so much. Being able to enjoy having it at our doorstep has been such an awesome experience that we will treasure for a lifetime. 

Miles and Nihal (one of our fantastic hosts)

We went up to the opening of the Black Sea and pulled into a little bay to go swimming (well, other people did-we just relaxed on the boat and enjoyed watching everyone else swimming. The word was that it was COLD, and we opted to just lay out and relax!)

What a view though, huh? They anchored us and we ate lunch and relaxed here for a bit. It was incredible.

I don't think I will ever get over how gorgeous the water around Turkey is. It is the most beautiful turquoise I've ever seen! Hence the "color of the Turks" I suppose! 

Miles with our other awesome host, Hakan

As you can see by the next two shots, our family is in a great time of life for taking good group shots huh?! This is the best family shot we got, but we had to document anyway.

And one of my three cuties in their matching board shorts!

One day my dream will to get a wonderful one of the three of them….

wishful thinking? We'll see I guess

Porter and the other kiddos watching the dolphins. 

They were swimming up right next to the boat! It was so awesome to see them so close in the wild. 

We kept having to tell the kids to stop leaning over too far,

 so we didn't have any children overboard! They were SO excited to see the dolphins!!

just relaxing on the upper deck. 

it's a rough life, but somebody has got to do it!

Good Bye Boshporus. We will miss you so much. Thanks for the memories!

It's Been a While

Yes, I know. I've a good reason though. We packed up our home, said our tearful goodbyes, jumped on a plane- or 5- and enjoyed a wonderful home leave! The minute we got back to the States I went into (mostly) full vacation mode; and just tried to enjoy being back and with some of my favorite people! I got tons of pictures, so don't you worry. We have just rolled back into the Oakwood "Mothership" though, and I will slowly start to get back to reality! I've got to tackle Back to School in just a few more days and then I can really get caught up. I have a few more "last" posts from Turkey that I had already started- that I promise to finish, and then fill you in on the rest of our summer!

For now I'll leave you with this gorgeous smiling face!

So Stay Tuned….