Family Vacation

Yes, we went to the beach again. With so many miles of coastline in our country, it's hard to stay away for too long, especially when it's scorching hot in the city with no air conditioning. This time we went to the beach, just the 3 of us, for a true family vacation. I could write pages and pages of the fun that we had, but I think the pictures pretty much speak for themselves. We stayed at a resort in Ayvalik which was a 4 hour drive plus a 45 minute car ferryboat ride from our house. We loved it there and would totally recommend it. It catered more to locals as opposed to European tourists so since it is the month of Ramazan right now, the hotel was not very crowded. Here are pics from our fun!
Here we go!
It took us exactly 12 minutes to get from checking into our room to jumping into the pool.
Daddy bought these super cool squirt guns for he and Owen to have water fights.
Our hotel also had these amazing water slides. There was only one that was 3 year old friendly, but Ryan and I sure had a blast and Owen loved cheering us on as we went down the slides.
Yes, this is a picture of me holding my nose. Cute, I know!
Here is Ryan taking the plunge.
We had to bribe Owen with an Aslan Max Ice Cream bar to go down the green slide with Daddy, but he got up the courage and even did it a second time.
And the Beach
The view from our breakfast window
Owen was thrilled to eat boiled eggs for breakfast every morning. He is a big fan of the Turkish breakfast and kept talking about all of the same foods that he eats at his school.
So the instant we walked down the hall to our hotel room, Owen decided to take off his shoes. At first we didn't think anything of it, but that evening when he took them off in the restaurant again, we realized that he was enjoying the plush carpet on his feet. Homes in our country have hard wood floors and area rugs as opposed to wall to wall carpet. So when he felt this soft carpet on his feet, he was in heaven. That's what we love about Owen. It's the small things in life :)
Yesterday morning we hiked up to a place known as Satan's Dinner Table, which was a large plateau on top of a mountain overlooking a number of islands including the Greek Island of Lesbos. You can google it if you want to know the story behind the name.
When we weren't in the water (which was very little time because we could only get Owen to leave the water for sleeping and eating), we were doing a lot of this.
I love my family. We have so much fun together. Thanks for the great vacation!

BBQs and Beaches

We have done a lot of picnics at the park and playing at the beach this summer. These past few weeks we have had some great times with friends.
We did a late night BBQ at the park along the seaside a few weeks ago with these friends. Our local friends take picnicking to a whole new level. Good old PB&J and chips just doesn't cut it. Here we are preparing the shish kebabs.
They put Ryan in charge of building the fire.
Great food with good friends!
Owen played with his friends, Baki
Yarin
and Sevda
And we enjoyed spending time with ours
Serife taught me how to play the girls version of backgammon. It was way easier and I enjoyed it a lot more than the normal way.

Last week we visited our good friends and neighbors in their hometown on the Black Sea. We stayed with them in their house for 3 days. It was so fun! How could it not be great with this amazing view from their living room.
We hung out with our crazy fun kids at home, on a farm and at the beach.
Cinar and Ruzgar turned 1 year old this month. Happy Birthday!
Derya's dad came one evening to watch the kids
so that we could enjoy our last night eating fish on the beach looking at this.
Thanks Derya and Cuneyt for inviting us to your home and sharing your vacation with us. We had a wonderful time!