Antalya 2015

Well. I'm a bit behind on...life. But my "baby" is almost 15 months old, all the summer interns and tourists are gone, life is getting easier, and we have no plans to add more babies or more interns to the mix anytime soon, so...a catch-up post is in order!



When we had to leave the country in April to renew our visas, we decided to take a vacation first. And it was a real. vacation. I mean, the grandparents even came to visit!




And this is what you look like when the only flights out of the country leave at 3 a.m.



We went to Antalya, Turkey, and spent eight days on the beach. It was still April, so it wasn't hot at all (at least not hot enough to swim in the non-heated outdoor pools), but it was warm enough and a welcome break. The resort was all-inclusive, so all we had to worry about was making sure we made it to the restaurants during meal times and to the pool during its opening hours. We went swimming every day, most often twice a day, and let the girls eat dessert after every meal. They had a "slumber party" in Mimi and Papa's room a couple of times, and overall we just had a good, relaxing vacation.


Special kid drinks from the lobby bar.




Chocolate spread on their pancakes was definitely the highlight of breakfast every day!


Ice cream almost daily from the patisseries near the pools.

We only went down to the beach a couple of times. The water wasn't really warm enough to swim in, but there was a good playground nearby, so we went once to play in the sand and water and once or twice to play on the playground.




This girl would have totally gone swimming in the sea if Shannon or I had been willing to brave the cold water for her! She was all in!


But this one preferred the sand to the surf.





The pool(s) was definitely the girls' favorite part of the whole vacation. Lane got to brush up on her swimming skills from last summer and by the end of the week she was doing really well, even able to swim the length of the pool. Mimi and Papa also brought her some good goggles so she wasn't afraid of getting her face wet.





Noel, on the other hand, is still pretty much terrified of getting water in her face. It's kind of funny, because sometimes she'll jump right off the side and get her entire head under the water and wet, and other times she's scared to death of getting a splash of water on her cheek. But she's still just three so I guess she has some time. She enjoyed swimming with floaties or sitting on the steps. Papa Buck and Nona Lou sent them mermaids for the tub/pool, so they had a lot of fun playing with those in the water.





And little Miss Raye just got to enjoy being loved on by her grandparents, an endless supply of simit and pastries from the restaurants, and by the end of the week she was actually enjoying the pool, too!






Oh my gosh a baby in a bikini is just too cute!

We enjoyed just hanging out with Shannon's parents, leisurely eating and not having to worry about cleaning up or washing dishes afterwards, taking the girls around to the various pools, restaurants, nearby shops, playgrounds and beach, and so on. We just took it easy and actually relaxed (well, as much as is possible with young kids!) for a week, and it was a great break! It was our my third time to Antalya and Shannon and the bigger girls' second time, but it was our first time to go without having meetings to attend. And I have to say...I think we'll be back.


Mimi and Papa out for a walk with the bigger girls.




I think this is the only picture I have of the five of us from this vacation.

Surprise!

You may remember that three years ago I surprised my mom and my brother when I showed up in Alaska with my sister to watch Sean graduate from high school.

Well, three weeks ago today Noel and I set out for the biggest surprise of my other brother, Kyle's, life: we flew to Alaska to watch him graduate from high school.

Not only did Noel and I come, but my sister and my nephew also came from North Carolina. And Kyle didn't know they were coming, either.

Hanging at the restaurant before graduation.

He was shocked, to say the least.

I left Lane with Shannon, all the laundry done, lots of friends lined up to help Shannon out, and 14 meals frozen in the freezer for dinners. I took one suitcase, one backpack, one purse, and one baby in the Ergo and we embarked on the 48-hour trek to Alaska. I have to say that the traveling itself wasn't bad (jet-lag with a baby, on the other hand, stinks). I mean, American Airlines hooked us up with a bulkhead seat with lots of legroom and a bassinet. While Noel didn't sleep in it that much since it was daytime for us, it was so nice to have a place to lay her down and let her play or sleep and give my arms a rest.

Snoozin' in the bassinet.

We had a 20-hour layover in Dallas on the way to Alaska and a 16-hour one on the way home. Normally that wouldn't be so great, but I happen to have lots of friends in Dallas, so I hooked up with my longtime friend Marci. She let us spend the night at her place on the way to Alaska (where we got a little sleep...Noel did a fair amount of screaming from being super exhausted from the long travel day) and hang out and nap on the way back. She let us borrow an infant carseat. She drove me to the mall where I got new blue jeans. She treated me to Chic-fil-a and Mexican food. I got to meet her little boy, William. I treated her to Starbucks for breakfast when she picked me up at 6:00 a.m. on my return journey and Dairy Queen for dessert during a trip to the mall. We schmoozed, chatted, and just enjoyed getting to catch up. All in all, it was great to see her (and it was great to have a real bed to nap on and a shower!).

Me and Noel, Marci and William, at Uncle Julio's.

And my chicken enchiladas. So yummy.

I met up with my sister at the airport (we managed to get on the same flight from DFW to Anchorage...awesome, huh?) where I met my nephew for the first time and got to see my sister for the first time in almost two years.

My nephew, Maddox. Yup, he's a cutie.

We made the flight to Anchorage, collected our bags (yeah...they wouldn't check them all the way through for us), ran (well, walked as fast as we could with baby, toddler, stroller, backpack, carry-on, and two suitcases) to the check-in counter for our flight to Kenai, checked in, and booked it to our gate. We barely made our flight and were very grateful that there's no security check for flights to/from smaller cities in Alaska. And we were shocked when we boarded the plane to find out that it was bigger than usual, carrying 25-30 people instead of the usual 15, even being a large enough plane to have a bathroom. That was the first (and only, as my flight back to Anchorage was on a 15-passenger prop plane) time that flight has ever had a bathroom!

And we got to Kenai, met my mom at the airport, and shocked the pants off my brother an hour or so later. We spent the next few days introducing ourselves to new-in-the-last-two-years family members:

Playing:

Relaxing:

Eating:

(Noel's first tastes of solids: avocado.)

Observing the wildlife:

Attending graduation festivities:

And playing Settlers of Catan:

(Noel liked to help.)

I got to eat steak, yellow squash, good yogurt, flavored coffee creamer, salmon, ice-cream sandwiches, Cherry Pepsi, halibut, Chic-fil-a, and real Mexican food for the first time in two years. I got to go to my church in Alaska. I got to play Angry Birds for the first time. I got to meet my nephew. I just got to be myself with my family, staying up late watching movies, talking, and playing games. I got to watch my brother graduate, hug his neck, and tell him how proud of him I was.

All of us. Except for my brother Sean. And Lane. And my and Rachel's husbands. =)

And I came home to this:

It was a good trip.

From the Archives: Hello, Vacation!

Last April Shannon's mom and stepdad came to visit. We hung out with them in Istanbul for about a week, and then we took five or six days and traveled around Turkey a bit with them. It was, to be quite honest, exhausting (I was newly pregnant and Lane got five teeth, three of them molars, in five weeks). But it was fun, and it was good to see his parents. Sometimes I feel bad for Lane because she just has to deal with all the craziness that our lives entail, but she seems to do pretty well with it all.

We greeted Sharon and Milton with BBQ sandwiches for lunch, and cake for dessert.

Boy were they surprised! I made a cake for them to announce the pregnancy, and we made cards and had them mailed to the rest of our family members that arrived right around the same time as Shannon's parents got here.

Anyhow, we "did" Istanbul first, taking them to see the main sites here after they had recovered from jet lag. We didn't really get many photos here, since we'd already been to the Hagia Sophia and the Basilica Cisterns and didn't want to pay to enter again. The only new site for us was the Blue Mosque, and I'll give it its own post soon.

Me and Sharon (and Lane) in front of the tulips near the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia.

We spent a few days just hanging out at home, going out to eat Turkish food, playing with Lane, and just enjoying each other's company.

Mimi reading Lane's new Easter book to her.

Papa and Lane, just chillin'. Gotta love Milton's jet-lagged bed head!

Lane in one of her new dresses and daddy, playing hide and seek behind the curtains.

Then we flew to Cappadocia, Turkey, where we spent three days and two nights.

One of the rooms in Derinkuyu, an underground city.

At the Göreme Open Air Museum.

Even Lane had fun!

Cappadocia is full of views like this.

Shannon hiked to the top of a...rock formation?...and got this shot.

People used to live in there. So strange!

Awesomely weird, huh?

Next we flew to Izmir, Turkey, where we spent two days and two nights. Our main reason for going to Izmir was so that we could go to Ephesus, which is about an hour away, but not convenient for flying into. We actually know people who live in Izmir, so we got a bit of help from the airport, finding the buses to Ephesus, and so on. Here are just a few photos of Ephesus. I could easily go into photo overload here but I'll just give you the highlights...

From Selçuk (the nearest city), it's a couple miles to Ephesus proper. So we took a horse-drawn carriage, which was quite fun, and was my and Lane's first time in a horse-drawn carriage (to the best of my recollection).

Arcadian Street. Which leads up to...

The Theatre Gymnasium.

A bit further down (to the right) you'll find:

The Celsus Library

Shannon, Lane, and myself standing at the Celsus Library and looking out into the auditorium with Curetes Street to the back right.

Curetes Street: one of the main streets in Ephesus.

The view from up Curetes Street, looking down toward the library.

Lane did a lot of playing with rocks in Ephesus.

And then it was back to Istanbul for a few more days before they had to leave. We had a lot of fun with them, and of course they loved getting to actually play with Lane (since she was only five months old the last time they had seen her, she wasn't really into playing yet). All in all, it was a great vacation. The time went so quickly...it's always sad when vacation is over, especially when it's with family you don't get to see very often!