it's not always pretty

There were some grumpy times. Especially when Sloane noticed that Cort had destroyed her sand castle...again.

Southern Turkey beauty

There were some beautiful moments on the trip.

Med. Road trip

We went to Ephesus with Nannou and Nannou 2 (two Nannous?!)

purple sparkle skirt

This is what it looks like when Bill comes home from work. Sometimes he's greeted by his son, who has selected his own outfit for the day- and sometimes that outfit is a purple, sparkley, skirted leotard. He runs around looking like a pleasant little girl as he hits Sloane on the arm with a back scratcher, sneaks sports equipment out of the closet to drag baseball bats and golf clubs around the house and screams "Shoot you! Shoot you!" as he chases guests around with his 'finger gun'. Not really a gentle child at all.
And sometimes Sloane insists on wearing her too-small pajama shirt all day. And usually, the big kids are not here because they are outside until 6:17 every night because we tell them they must come home at 6:15pm. And sometimes Daddy runs home from work instead of using his car because he's a freak like that, so he's all sweaty and that doesn't stop anyone from climbing on him at all.

#1 Bill

Bill really is a superhero. He's awesome at everything he does, especially being a Dad and especially at being a husband who always puts me and the kids as his first priority and especially at being super strong and a marathon runner even though he has constant lower back pain and especially at recovering from surgery on his back that he only just had yesterday.

He's the incredible Bill.

In other news Billie stayed outside for 8 hours the other day playing jungle girls with her friends at the park before I had to finally insist that she come inside so I could stop sending Jackson outside with sandwiches and water bottles and after 2 trips myself to re-apply sunblock.

I was the kooky character at vacation Bible school AGAIN this year.

Cort was a little stomach sick the other day, you could tell he felt miserable just kind-of limp and mellow. We kept offering him things to make him feel better: 'want a popsicle?' 'want a teletubbies video?' He could only muster up one word 'baaaseballlllllll'. "You want to play baseball?" "yeah."
So, Bill took him outside and played. Poor little guy was happy-ish for 10 minutes and then came back in to rest.

Bill #2

Cort is an absolute monster. He doesn't hit or bite or anything but he SCREAMS when he wants something. And gets most of what he wants.

we're oh so exotic

So, it's really cool for the kids to get to grow up in all these different places, go to the pyramids, Ephesus and all of that. And, I'm pretty sure they don't appreciate it at all. Sometimes I overhear them playing games with other kids (also in the Foreign Service) and the kids are like "Let's pretend we're going on a trip!" "First we'll have to stop in Munich!" "Let's pretend we're watching a movie on the plane." "Are we going to Istanbul?" "No, Paris!" "Not Paris! I want to go to Barcelona instead."
So, that's just how they play and they aren't really aware that some kids don't move all over the world 8 times before they turn 10.




People always say how awesome it is that the kids get to have this experience of living overseas, but when we're not travelling it's kinda ordinary kid stuff with words like Turan Gunes and Cagdas thrown in the mix. There's gymnastics, play doh, piano, sleepovers, bike riding and playing Qwirkle. I'm pretty sure what it comes down to is the small stuff. A frequent walk we take is to a local grocery store, today I paid attention and took pictures. Sometimes when we see 'nature' it's in the form of a thistle growing next to a barbed wire fence and a field of trash.

They are used to walking on sidewalks made of dirt, hanging out around grafftti, feral dogs and litter. I don't know why I like that they're used to this but I do, it's not all manicured lawns and maybe this is good to know if you ever volunteer to work at a soup kitchen or makes for less squeamish ness if your college roommate is a herion junkie. They're used to hearing other languages spoken around them and sometimes making friends through mostly hand motions.
Cort's being exposed to all kinds of new things...for instance, this lamp post has exposed wiring .

orta boy!

Happy Birthday to you, Cort! It seems like only yesterday you were just a one year old....

Still sometimes

Sometimes life seems to be going by quickly. I have to stop and take pictures on mornings like this when quiet happens.

Happy July to you

And we just went here for a week- Happy Bday to Bill and Jackson. I think from now on we'll spend every birthday with waterslides, red lights under the balcony bed at the psychedelic Hillside Su hotel and splashing in the Mediterranean Sea.
Another vacation?!! Just how many 5+ hour long car rides are you Solley's going to take? Are you insane? The simple answer is yes we are. We have audio books and Cort's binky and we are insane- those are the three components required for Solley road trips. And twizzlers....LOTS and LOTS of twizzlers.

Something else

Sometimes I like to take something cute and then turn it into something else even COOLER. Haircuts and 3 pairs of comic strip mary janes on a Saturday.