Springtime in the land of Turkey!

It has been brought to my attention that I haven not posted a new blog since January. Oops! We’ve been busy over here, believe it or not! At the beginning of the year, Jordan and I both started working on our Master’s programs! He is going for Marriage and Family Therapy and I’m going for Nursing Infection Prevention and Control. We are super excited and we both forgot how time consuming school is!

As you know, I’ve been praying for a job since I got here. God answered my prayer last month! I got pretty much the only job on base and I am very thankful for it! I’m a “field representative” for a University that has an office on base…which basically means I answer phones and get paid to do homework. I’ll take it!

Well a lot has happened in the last three months…so I’ll just give you an update through photos! We were stuck on base for a while because of the political situation in the country…so most of the pictures are from March on.

One beautiful day we played downtown with our Turkish friends! Abu works at a restaurant in the Alley, and he brought his wife (who speaks zero English) and baby along. Our American friend, Jordan joined us as well. They took us to this really sketchy carnival. The Jordans and I went on this ride very similar to the Extreme Scream at the Puyallup Fair…and it wasn’t until I was at the top that I questioned the safety of the ride. We made it out alive! Then we went on the Ferris Wheel. After the carnival we took a little boat out to an island where we watched the sun go down. It was quite lovely! We went to the mall after this and the boys went into a hardware store and me and my new friend and baby went to a store similar to Walmart. We were browsing the diaper aisle, and I wanted to impress her with my crazy Turkish skills and tell her the diapers are expensive. I leaned over and said, "çok lezzetli!" and she looked at me like I was insane. Later on when we met back up with the boys, I asked Jordan how to say "very expensive" and says "çok tuzlu"....then I asked him what "çok lezzetli" means and he says, "very delicious". And then I died laughing. Jordan told Abu our mistake, and we all laughed about it together!  

View from the top of the Ferris Wheel. 

Hanging out with our Turkish friends! See the island in the background? That's where we took a boat to! 

This is the staircase down to the boats! Sketchy!

My new Turkish friend! She didn't speak a word of English, but who needs words!

Me and my man enjoying the Turkish island! 

Turkish flag on the island!

The Jordans enjoying the boat ride.

Beautiful sunset!

Last month I went on a retreat with the Protestant Women of the Chapel (PWOC) to Cappadocia!! It was sooo amazing! We had a speaker that came all the way from Texas, and she was amazing! On Sunday morning we had a service in a cave church that was used by Christians 1600 years ago that were fleeing persecution. Words cannot describe how holy and wonderful the experience was! 

Sun illuminating mosque

Beautiful sunset!

Cappadocia at its finest! 

Sun shining in cave church.

Turkey BFF Lindsay

Beautiful Cappadocia

Here are some random pictures from Adana and Incirlik.

This is in Old Town Adana. A mosque. 

At a carpet party in the Alley! So many beautiful carpets! 

This is our favorite carpet...Vadat, the owner bought it for $14,000 and it's not worth $20,000! It's HUGE and beautiful!

This is one of my favorite kinds. It's silk on silk, and is valued at about $8,000. 

Me and my man enjoying the sunshine on a Sunday afternoon! This is right before we locked ourselves inside to do homework the rest of the day. 

Sadie being naughty and making messes. This poor little plant was just not doing well, so we stuck it outside to see if it would do better. Obviously not.  

This is the Great Mosque in Adana and is one of the largest mosques in the Middle East. This picture was taken from the outdoor food court at the mall. =) 

Mall food in Turkey is much better than mall food in America!

My baby girl. Apparently I didn't get very good sleep that night. 

Enjoying the sunshine again! This is our neighbor's house behind us. Ours looks exactly the same. 

Sadie is such a good girl now! She does so good off-leash. 

Downtown Adana. My friends Lindsay and Jordan. There is a mosque to the right and a Turkish bath house to the left. 

My love!

Just a normal, crumbling, half-burnt building. 

Trying to take advantage of the beautiful spring weather before it gets too hot! Sadie was chasing butterflies. It was the cutest thing ever. 

My poor baby and her cone of shame! She ended up breaking it from running into things. 

Our backyard is really muddy and Sadie and the neighbor dog like to try to dig to one another. We have to wash her feet off before she comes back inside. 

This is Sadie's scar from being spade. I just took her stitches out. We got her fixed off base and we're pretty sure they took a kidney or something. There is no reason her scar should be that huge! Poor baby! 

Easter Sunday! We had church service in the park and it was beautiful! I sunscreened up!  Over 300 people attended and heard the Gospel message! 

One more Easter picture with my man! 

Last but not least...food! I thought I would include some food pictures so ya'll know what you're missing out on!

Turkish pizza! It's called "pide" 

This is my favorite Turkish food, if you can't tell by my enthusiastic expression. It's called tava.  It's basically tomatoes,   peppers, eggplant, salcha (tomato and pepper paste), garlic and butter cooked in a clay pot. It's served with rice. They put cheese on top for us American. Mmmm! And that's hummus in the middle, pita bread on the left and cheesy bread on the right. 

They always give you a huge helping of salad on the house before meals. That's a butter/garlic/chili pepper sauce on our plates. The most delicious thing ever! I crave the stuff!  

We buy our eggs from the Turkish cantina right across the street. Sometimes they have feathers stuck to the shell! They are the most wonderful bright orange color! Yum yum. 

Yes, there is a cupcake shop in Turkey! And they are delicious! Chocolate, strawberry, and orange cupcakes.  

The Turks sure love their yogurt. This is a yogurt pasta dish...it's warm yogurt and pasta with chicken in the middle. I am trying so hard to like this stuff but I just can't quite get past the warm yogurt part... 

This is our friend Justin. Yes, I'm the one who ordered pasta. The dish in the middle of the table was the most delicious Turkish thing I've ever had in Turkey. We ordered it by accident haven't been able to order it successfully again!  Ordering food is always an adventure...you never know what you're gonna get! 

We are officially 7 months into our tour! I'm adjusting to military life. One of the hardest things for me is saying goodbye to friends! I had two good friends leave in February and another leave in March. My Lindsay is leaving in June and I am dreading it. Fortunately people are moving in as fast as they are moving out...so hopefully new friends will be coming my way! It's consistently been in the 70s for the last couple weeks, and the hot weather is on it's way! I keep telling everyone this is summer in Washington!

We are babysitting Lindsay and Jordan's labrador, Mallie and the two dogs are just having a hay-day playing together. They'll sleep well tonight! We are a happy little family way over here in Turkey!