August and September in a nutshell

On August 19, Owen and I got on an airplane to take a 15 hour trip to IOWA. That's right, we went to Iowa and what a treat it was! Ryan was about to start an intensive 2 week orientation for his masters program, so we decided to spend 2 weeks at home with the grandparents.
Here are picks of some of the summer fun we had at Grandma and Grandpa's house.
Owen and Willie became best buds.
My parents borrowed this Jeep from some friends for Owen to play with. Let's just say that I'm glad he can't get his license for another 14 years.
He also got to drive with Grandpa down to the pool everyday.
Tractor rides with Grandpa
Riding his princess bike around the driveway. My dad found this bike at a garage sale and Owen didn't mind the princesses a bit.
Hanging out in the kitchen with Grandma. Grandma hooked him up with all kinds of yummy treats from America. I think his snack basket had a bigger selection everyday.
Playing Legos and Construx with Grandpa.
Taking a "worldpool" bath in Grandma's giant bathtub. Owen loved using the jets to shoot the He-Man guys through the water. Here he is pretending to be Daddy with a goatee.
The huge playroom in the basement was this little boy's playland. He really loved it because we never made him clean it up (since it was in the basement where no one could see it).
Grandpa showed Owen his shell collection and taught him how to hold it up to your ear to hear the ocean.
Owen is one of the few who has ever held Grandpa's brain coral. He was very impressed.
Don't worry, we didn't forget what an amazing husband and daddy we have that let us run off for two weeks of fun without him. We skyped with Daddy everyday and kept him up to date on all of our adventures.
While we were there, we had lots of visitors. The first and most important being my new niece, Britta, who was just 3 months old. Isn't she a doll?
Owen was super excited to hang out with Uncle Benner. Especially cause he remembered all of the names of his old He-Man guys.
Of course Grandma couldn't be happier to have her 2 grandkids in the same room with her.
Owen and Uncle Benner spent lots of time playing baseball and soccer. But Owen's favorite activity was swimming.
Let's talk about swimming for a minute. Owen's first day at the pool he was pretty determined to not set foot in the water.
But with Uncle Benner's encouragment
And lots and lots of swimming with Grandpa
By day 5, we was like a fish swimming around all by himself (with the help of his Popeye Muscles, of course).
Grandpa gave Owen a medal for being such a brave swimmer, crazy driver, fast soccer player, and excellent bike rider. As you can see, Owen thought he was pretty much the bomb. It really was such a joy to watch him enjoy some of the summer activities that are harder to do in a big city.
Owen LOVES his cousin Britta. It is so fun to have a cousin and the next time he sees her, she'll really be able to play with him.
Our favorite nighttime activity was cooking hotdogs, roasting marshmallows and playing with sparklers. Owen enjoyed helping Grandpa build the fire and I enjoyed eating smores.
Great-Grandpa got lots of hugs once we discoverd that he made a great base when playing tag.
The other super special treat of our time in America was when Anne and Papaw showed up to play for a few days. Life couldn't get much better for Owen.
Dancing on the table before breakfast
Showing off his new swimming skills to Anne and Papaw
"Papaw makes me fly like Buzz Lightyear!"
Storytime with Anne
Playing hours of "you can't get me you better watch out" in the yard
On our last night with Anne and Papaw, we had a Mickey Mouse Party complete with hats and Mickey Mouse Ice Cream Sundaes. Even Great-Grandpa got in on the fun.
M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E!!!! are you singing it?
We have the best families in the world. They are so suportive and generous and we couldn't have had more fun with them. Thanks for the great time!

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!