Laundry Basket

For a little boy this is more than just a laundry basket. It has provided much entertainment.

Picnic

We spent the day with our American friends having a picnic. It was nice to get out of the city and enjoy the mountains and waterfall that were around us.

Asher was excited to be outside all day. Numerous times throughout the day he would excitedly say "water! water"! One of his new words.


The kids all enjoyed running around, getting dirty and playing near the water.


We had a gorgeous view all around us. Reed hiked up to where the waterfall came out of the mountain and got this picture from above.


The men were hard at work cooking our burgers.

We had brought a lot of yummy food!

Dan and Lynn brought their hammock and guitar. We enjoyed relaxing and music.

A relaxing day would not be complete for some without a game of Settlers of Catan.

This picture was taken at the end of our day. Asher was pretty wiped out, but loving every minute of the outdoors.

One of Asher's favorite things was to throw rocks into the water.

It was an enjoyable day with friends and beautiful scenery.

Queen Lorelai and King Asher

We went out for a traditional Turkish breakfast the other day with our friends. Lorelai and Asher sat at the head of the table in these high chairs. This picture isn't the greatest picture, but
they looked like royalty in these tall high chairs sitting above everyone else. The chairs were pretty impractical. They were taller than the table and had no trays, but nonetheless, it was cute.

High School Visit

My (Reed's) friend is a High School Geography teacher in a village not far from our city. He invited me to come with him last week and meet his students and fellow teachers.

Here I am with my friend (center) and his friend (left), an English teacher.



Here is the English classroom. They were very excited to have a native English speaker join them in their class.



So excited in fact, that they got up and performed some cultural dances (below).



After their dancing performance, they requested that I sing a song in English. Yes, they asked ME to sing. After many polite refusals they finally relented. As an alternative, my friend had Elvis Presley on his cell phone, so we all enjoyed "You Aint nothin' but a Hound Dog". Ahhh, the beautiful and bizarre occurances of cultural exchange.

I was paraded around to several other classrooms as well, and students were given the opportunity to ask me questions. This was really a challenge given my language abilities, but it was a very interesting look at the local educational system.

Barnyard Animals in our Backyard

Asher enjoyed watching the sheep graze from our back balcony. There is a small patch of grass back there and often sheep herders will bring their sheep to this spot.



Yes, we do live in a city, but it is not uncommon to see a herd of sheep in town grazing in open grass areas and occasionally stopping traffic.

Favorite Spot

Asher has almost outgrown his favorite spot in the house. He loves to stand in our cupboard and pretend to pump our water. On this particular day he decided it was a good resting spot for him and his monkey.

Funny Faces

Baby Sprinkle

My wonderful friends put on a "baby sprinkle" , a term used for when it is not your first baby. It's like a light baby shower. But seriously this was like a "baby downpour"! I was blessed by the generosity of so many.

My friends, Sheryl and Lynn, went all out with decorations and food! It was super cute with all of the brown and blue.

Here is the three of us:

Reed and Asher bopped in during the shower for a few minutes.

Aren't these "W" cupcakes cute?

Baby Wessman will be quite the well-dressed little guy. He got some cute clothes!

I had 3 little helpers that were just as excited as I to see all of the fun stuff for this baby!

Thank you Sheryl and Lynn for all your work into this shower! And thank you to all the family and friends that sent things half way around the world. I wish you all could have been here so I could have given you all big hugs! I truly felt loved and blessed today! Thank you!

Tonight's the Night.......

Asher is going to sleep in a big bed. We put the mattress on the floor and he did some "practicing" this afternoon. Asher's been sleeping in a pack n play for the past 11 months, but it is almost time to give that over to baby brother coming soon. We will see how it goes tonight....





To be continued.....

Turning 30

On Saturday, I entered a new decade. I have mixed feelings about no longer being in my 20's. I don't feel any different, but for some reason 30 just seems so much older than 29!

Our friends discovered the closest thing to an American type restuarant in our city. It was called the North Shield, which is funny to think that it exists here. So we celebrated Friday night, by going there. We enjoyed some spaghetti and steak and American music. Everything that was played was from the 90's which really brought us back a few years!



On Saturday we celebrated with our friends.

Thanks to Sheryl and Lynn for the pizza, cake, decorations. and all of the planning! It was fun to have friends to celebrate with!