2007: Year-end Blog Wrap-up

We did something like this last year, just as a way to wrap up the year in blog posts and pictures... so I wanted to do it for 2007 as well- I'll highlight a favorite story or picture from each month, so we can get a "big picture" look at this last year of our lives.

JANUARY 2007- IN TEXAS :)
...here's a photo we had made of Maranatha!

It totally captures the stage she's at right now--
beautiful smiles all the time & crawling all over the place!


FEBRUARY 2007- TEXAS

Last week, Jessica's brother and sister-in-law came for a visit with their 3 little boys. Here's a picture of our 2 oldest and their 2 oldest (Max-5, Ethan-4, Beaux-3, and Baxter-2)

MARCH 2007- TEXAS

We've been blessed to be back near family during this time of waiting. The kids have had a wonderful time with our parents, and here's a picture of some snuggle time with Papa:


APRIL 2007- TEXAS
Sadly, this was the best picture we got of the three of them, as the digital camera battery died just at the wrong moment. I wonder, could there BE a worse bluebonnet picture? :)


MAY 2007- TEXAS
Didn't post anything in May- but we were still with family.
So here are a few precious pictures from that time together.
Maranatha enjoyed the visit with Doug's family
(here, she's with his Great Aunt, who we call "Aunt Doc" because she's an MD)

We were glad to see Doug's youngest brother, Michael, who was in town for Spring Break

We signed Ethan up for a teeball league for however much longer we're here. He is loving it, and is by far the most alert kid on the field. No dirt digging by him- he is totally into baseball!



JUNE 2007- TEXAS
We had Maranatha's first birthday party in early June. It was such a fun day... the kids played, we ate pink cake and pink cookies, and admired our precious little one-year-old!


JULY 2007- TEXAS to ISTANBUL
HOME, SWEET HOME
Two weeks ago this morning, we arrived here. Last week, after just one day (!) of looking, we located and signed a lease on a great apartment. This place is just right for us! While most apartments here have a street right in front of them, the street in front of our apartment has been closed off, so we won't have as much traffic noise.

Additionally, it's on the "first floor" (which, here , means the second floor- the first floor is for shops and stores), which is great for the kids (no walking up flights of stairs or squeezing into the tiny elevators they have here). It has a bathtub, which is above and beyond what we expected, and it has a lot of great windows. We'll be very close to three great parks, and one big grocery store. Plus there's a Sunday vegetable market one street away, so I'll have my beloved fresh veggies easily accessible every week!


AUGUST 2007- ISTANBUL
Jess & the kiddos in the entrance to the famous Istanbul Spice Bazaar

*** we also learned that we were expecting another sweet baby during August***


SEPTEMBER 2007- ISTANBUL (and Doug & Ethan went to China to pack up our old apmt)
FAMILY GOODBYES


OCTOBER 2007- ISTANBUL
DADDY GOES TO CLASS

Doug started language classes (in Turkish this go round, Doug's third language to begin studying in the last 18 months!) last week. So now on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, the kids have a big sending-off ceremony, full of waves, kisses, hugs, "BYE"s, and blown kisses!

NOVEMBER 2007- ISTANBUL
This is what our entryway looks like when we have groups in our home. We've had times when the floor was completely covered in shoes, with more than 35 people in our home. Last night was just about 20 people. Much less than "normal"... but still, a lot of shoes! :)

DECEMBER 2007- ISTANBUL
Here are the kids, all bundled up to go out to play:

2007: What a year! (Didn't I say that about 2006?) :) We started out this year jet-lagged after unexpectedly returning to the US for medical testing. At nearly the half-way point of 2007, we learned that we weren't going to be able to return to China, so through God's leading, we ended up in Istanbul. Moving across Central Asia, learning yet another language, and adjusting to another culture have all been challenges, but we finally feel like we're adjusted to living here. We've been blessed with friends and language teachers that give us inroads and insights into this culture and place.

Though many things have changed over this last year, God has not changed. He is faithful as He has always been, and He has gently and graciously helped us through so many changes. And there are more to come- for us (baby Silas, and whatever else God has for us in the months and years to come)... and for you too. May HE be proven gracious and faithful in your life, through whatever changes come your way, as you wrap up 2007 and go into 2008- Happy New Year!

Christmas 2007

Thought we'd share some pictures from our Christmas celebrations.

Here's the afghan Jess made for Doug (it's a long story, but this is actually my wedding gift to him, so he was extra excited to get it!) :

The kids made cookies with a sweet family we met here (Maranatha was most interested in watching their baby):
Doug's Aunt MaryAnn made hats for the kids, and Nana & Papa sent "Mater" pajamas (among other much-enjoyed gifts) for the boys:

Maranatha loved her new dish set... she's been cooking up all kinds of stuff for us and her babies:

Doug got Jess a pair of pink converse lowtops (couldn't have picked a better gift!):

Christi & Courtney sent the boys this firefighter suit,
and they've been saving the day every day since!

Course, Maranatha wanted to try the firefighter suit on too. :) And Ethan's decked out in his new police outfit from Nana & Papa:

We had some good eats for Christmas this year. Jess made cinnamon rolls (with a maple, cinnamon, and coffee icing- YUM!) for Christmas morning:

Since we can't get ham here, we opted to have a mexican food feast for Christmas this year. We had chicken enchiladas with red and sour cream sauces, beef tacos, homemade salsa, guacamole, and beans. The beans were made with the only kind of beans we could find here-- some white fat beans... anyway, while everything else came out delicious, those silly beans came out really bland and we had a huge bowl full of them. We've been joking about them ever since!
Jess: "Baxter, I put some beans in your part of the lasagne tonight, okay?"
Ethan: "Baxter & I think you should have beans for breakfast this morning, mom."

We made gingerbread wise man cookies that turned out SO tasty:

We gave Maranatha a new stroller for pushing her babies around,and the boys got a toolset and have been fixing up the house and building all kinds of things (robots, swords, and Ethan built a cross).

We had a great first Christmas overseas (you may remember that last year, we unexpectedly ended up going back to Texas on Dec. 22nd for medical testing).

Thank you to all who sent sweet gifts for our family; it turned out to be a very special and simple Christmas and we were able to spend good time together as a family. Each night leading up to Christmas, the kids unwrapped various "characters" from the nativity set, and Doug would tell them that part of the Christmas story during our nightly family Bible time. We hope you had a very merry Christmas as well, able to celebrate the miracle of Christ's birth with your family and friends!

An Innocent Question

During this last week, iTunes offered some great Christmas music to download for free, and also offered (for free) the Bible Experience's reading of Luke 2 (the Christmas story). The Bible Experience is a dramatic reading (complete with crowd noises, baby's cries, and a musical soundtrack behind the reading) of the TNIV Bible that was read by professional actors with inflection and excitement. From this short sampling, it seems to truly be an "experience" of the Bible and brings it to life in a new and fresh way.

Anyway, the kids have asked to listen to it several times over the last few days. (Maranatha always says "bee-bee" whenever she hears the baby cry while the reader is talking about Mary giving birth to a son.) Tonight, Ethan asked to listen to it again, and while we were listening, he would ask a question here or there (like, "what does 'disturbed' mean?"-- since King Herod was disturbed at the news that a new King had been born).

But then Baxter came out with the cutest question: "Is that God talking?"

Me: "No, darlin, that's just a man reading from the Bible, but it IS God's Word."

Baxter: "Oh. Yeah."

:) Kids do in fact say the darnedest things.

Merry Christmas From Our Family to Yours!

Maranatha in her Christmas dress this morning:

Here are the kids, all bundled up to go out to play:

Baxter in his fun hat:

We went over to a friend's house to make cookies the other day.
Here's "Baker Ethan":

Lately, we've noticed that Maranatha looks so much like Doug.
Here's a recent picture that looks so much like pictures from when he was a kid:

Merry Christmas to all of you from all of us!

Kurban Bayram

While we are celebrating the Christmas holiday this year, Muslims around the world will be celebrating Kurban (also spelled Q'urban). This four-day celebration is a time when they remember Abraham's sacrifices, as well as a time when they, out of obedience to the Koran (Q'uran), will offer sacrifices of their own. They gather with family, eating sweets, visiting neighbors, and giving charity to the poor.

Just down the road from our apartment stands this Kurban sheep shop. From what we can tell (in the five months we've lived here), he runs his shop year-round... letting his stock run low in normal times, but adding on additional tents to house extra sheep for the holidays. In the days before Kurban bayram (which means "holiday") started, the lines were starting to get long outside his shop as families began to come to try to get the best sheep by arriving early.

As I (Jess) spoke with my language helper this week about what this celebration means to her and her family, she communicated that it is a time of obeying what Muhammad taught, and of being holy and pleasing God. We talked about the Old Testament idea of sacrifice as being an atonement for sin, but this is not the way that she has been taught to understand this Muslim festival. For her, there is no meaning to the sacrifice that will be offered for her family... rather, it is a simple matter of obedience.
This is what the inside of the Kurban sheep shop looks like. Each family will celebrate for four days, first coming to a shop like this to choose a lamb (for one family) or cow (which can be for up to seven families) to be sacrificed. Then they will take their animal (usually a sheep) to an Imam (Muslim mosque leader) or holy man to be blessed and killed, and then they will spend the rest of the holiday eating all of the meat, being sure to give the skins (the most valuable part of the animal) for charity.

Ethan and Baxter's Beatitude Bloopers

What Is It About Boys and Silly Faces?

Starbucks Walrus Boy:

Here, as you can see, Ethan's goofy face messes up what is otherwise a quite lovely picture of our children on the front steps of our apartment building:

Baxter imitates Ethan's goofy tongue-out funny face.

Here's the original:

And here's a nice picture of a pretty part of Istanbul, complete with Turkish-flag-resembling lights hanging over the traffic circle. The boys' silly faces make it an even more pretty picture, don't you think?

Out to Eat, Turkish Style

One day this week, a friend of mine (Jessica's) took me out to eat. She wanted to introduce me to a great, fairly inexpensive restaurant she knew about, and show me a kind of Turkish food that I hadn't yet tried.

It was very cutely decorated, compared to what an average Turkish restaurant looks like, and they had menus in both Turkish and English (again, unusual and appreciated).

Of course, sometimes, just like in China, the English gets mis-translated, and you end up with something like this:

You can imagine my amusement at finding that they serve "Slice Doug Soup" at this restaurant!

This is a picture of the women making gozleme, kind of like a Turkish quesadilla. Mine was filled with spinach and white cheese, and was utterly delicious! I took this picture through the front windows, so it's somewhat blurred, but what is in front of her is a big hot iron skillet/table, and behind her, in little bins, are the meat, cheese, spinach, and other toppings people might opt for on their gozleme.

Part of the "cute"ness of this particular restaurant is that these two women sit right up in the front windows of the restaurant, advertising what the specialty of the restaurant is, and giving an up-close look at how they make it!

It turned out to be a delicious lunch!