Macaroons

These things look heavenly, right?

I've never had one but have always wanted to try one. And this past weekend, I finally did! This shouldn't come as a shock to anyone who knows me but I probably would never spend money on another one again. It's not like they weren't delicious. They were. I absolutely love how colorful they are too! It's just for me, nothing beats ice cream. So if I'm going to stuff my face with a dessert, you can bet it will be ice cream (unless I can somehow get the EXACT same cake from my brother Daniel's wedding. That was quite literally a slice of heaven)

Anyways, one flavor I tried was rose. Like the flower. Has anyone had something rose flavored before? I haven't! And let me tell you, it was a cool experience. My brain couldn't figure out how my tongue was tasting a smell. I tried to explain it to Jordan and he just laughed at me because I kept saying, "I've smelt this taste". Now that I'm actually writing this down I realize that its probably not as funny to you (the reader) as it is to us. I suppose its one of those "you-had-to-be-there" type of things but its a good memory for us and its one I never want to forget.

Jordan and I make each other laugh. We truly enjoy being together and I absolutely love that about us. The other day I was thinking about how I should seriously be sick of him and vice versa. And then it dawned on me that I could spend eternity with him and never get tired of having him around. And then I realized how that idea is ridiculously sappy. And then it hit me. I truly do have eternity to spend with him.

So, thank you Turkey. Thank you for teaching me that even when I'm annoyed that I can't find the groceries I want, even when I want to punch the other drivers on the road in the face, even when I miss my family, even when I'm completely fed up, annoyed, and walk out of the mall crying because I can't find what I want, I am the luckiest.

And thank you Jordan for making that true.

Running

I always joke that one of the reasons I picked volleyball over basketball was that basketball involved way too much running for me. I can take on short sprints any day. No problem. In fact, I like those. But any distance running and I'm like fat Amy from Pitch Perfect... COUNT. ME. OUT.

Well despite that fact, I've been having this bizarre feeling lately that I WANT to run. Since this feeling comes as often as unicorn sightings I decided to capitalize and actually do it. So I went for my first run in...well....a long time. And I decided, I'm allergic. It was terrible.

In all seriousness though (now that my "allergic" reaction has cleared up) I guess I am, kind of, sort of, glad I did it. I feel good. I actually do want to run more. But more than anything, I want to play some high level competitive volleyball. If only I was good enough to keep up with the Turkish teams out here. I miss playing. I miss lifting. I miss conditioning. Wait, what? No. Not that part. (Well shoot, maybe I do). But definitely everything else. I miss it. Can you imagine though. Getting paid to play the sport you love? You never have to work a day in your life. Oh yeah. Jordan gets to do that every day!! 

We are LOVING his new job. Truly a dream come true. And I honestly believe that Jordan works with the best management in Europe. This team takes care of their players (and their families). We are spoiled here and we love it. Great coach. Great teammates. Great management. We couldn't ask for more.

Oh and guess what, I got a dryer this week!! So helllllooooo to warm, cozy, soft towels fresh out of the dryer. I am SO SO happy. 

Cookie Sunday

Yesterday was another beautiful Sabbath day. It appears that our branch has some sort of theme each Sunday and yesterday was cookie Sunday! Probably one of the best themes yet. Its definitely motivation to stay for all three hours and then to mingle afterwards too. Not that I need ANY motivation to mingle (anymore). Back home in the states I would probably grab a cookie and leave without talking to a soul if I could help it. But here, I talk to anyone who will listen and come to think of it...I didn't even have a cookie! What the heck has happened to me?

*I'm turning into my mom. Socializing after church when the rest of the family is OVER it. Oh crap. Sorry Kawika....I know waiting for mommy sucks lol

After church we were invited over to a senior missionary couple's house for dinner. Brother and Sister Schmidt are awesome! Sister Schmidt, or Sue, is the best. She was the very first person I met at church. She is a grandma herself and is missing her kids like crazy so I let her borrow Kawika during church. She is such a bomb babysitter and K loves her.

They live on a really cool street that would probably be considered "ghetto" but I like it. Kids literally play in the middle of the street over there and people just hang out together outside at all hours of the day. They live on the top floor of their building (no elevator) and have a gorgeous view....

This is looking North...notice the contrast in buildings...old apartment homes, a mosque, and a brand new office building...

This is the view to the South...

I wish I would have caught pictures but I didn't think of it at the time so I'll just have to write about it... vendors walk along the streets just yelling out what they have for sale. For example, one man came through with watermelons. If you want one, all you have to do is lower your bucket down by rope with money inside. He will then grab the money and replace it with a watermelon. Then you just pull it back up to your balcony! Brother Schmidt was telling me that for awhile he paid his rent in this manner. He walked over to the landlords house (which is just down the street) and called out for him. He came out to his balcony, lowered a bucket, and Brother Schmidt placed the rent ($1400 TL) in the bucket, and the landlord pulled it back up! No receipts, no confirmations, nothing. How crazy and cool is that? I'm just relieved his money didn't blow away before it got up to the landlord! Brother Schmidt said that since then they have a new secure way of paying their rent (since they have a bank account over here now). I love learning new fun things about Turkish life. Thank you Kevin and Sue for cooking us dinner and welcoming us into your home. We loved it!

I'll have fries with that...

Turkish people don't do fast food here. Eating is a social event. And I really like that. I like that when you gather together you sit down and you enjoy your food and your company. There's no rush to get to the next place. You just enjoy yourself. 

BUT on this particular day we were on the go running errands on one of Jordan's days off and since we see Burger King EVERYWHERE we thought we would give it a try...maybe have a quick taste of home..? Well it was a hot day and all I wanted was a vanilla ice cream cone. Nobody spoke English and my google translate wasn't making sense to them soooo I was hooped. That was until one of the workers there sheepishly made a gesture of him pretending to lick ice cream. I got excited because I knew he finally understood what I wanted! We paid what we thought was an absurd amount of money for a cone and waited. He then passed us a cone along with two trays of three of everything...three strange tasting sprites, three whoppers, and three fries. I'm not sure how he decided that we wanted food. Or why he thought we needed three of everything. But I got my cone! And I was happy about it. 

25!

This past Saturday was Jordan's birthday! I thought I would be sweet and bake him a cake, get him a card and a gift, and make his day special. HAHAHA. I should have prepared in advance. Much much more in advance. But come on, when have I really had time in between having a baby, the NBA Summer League, and packing or selling everything we own. So I tried to make it happen in Turkey. But I failed. Quite terribly actually.

This is the cake box I bought at the store. The directions are in Turkish (duh!) so even though I bought every ingredient (as well as a baking pan and candles) I still had to figure this out. And then that's when I realized I didn't have any measuring cups or spoons. So I put the cake idea off to the side and eventually I ran out of time and it never happened. Oops.

*As a side note, I have since purchased measuring cups. In ignorance, I didn't realize they're not the same measurements I have used my whole life. Instead of cups and tablespoons, I'm working with grams and milliliters. So when I've attempted to cook or bake my recipes over here, I've had to convert each and every ingredient. And in case you were wondering, there is no easy conversion. It's a pain. And at best, I just roughly guestimate it and so far nothing has come out quite the same as it does at home. Not just because of the measurements but also because of the ingredients (or lack thereof) and the strange substitutions we've tried to make work....but don't.*

Then I searched high and low for a birthday card in English. The best thing I could come up with was this BLANK and MINIATURE card. Totally works. Right?? Ya, I Suck. But don't worry, it gets worse...

As for Jordan's gift, we had agreed to a shopping spree. But anyone who knows Jordan knows he loves to open up gifts. So I REALLY wanted to get him something anyways. Because anyone who knows me, knows that I LOVE  Jordan and I love seeing him smile. And I love giving him unexpected gifts. BUT despite the argument in my head, I decided not to get him anything and hold off for the shopping spree. This decision had more to do with the fact that I didn't have cash on me, they don't accept my American debit card, and the one gift I wanted to get him he had already bought for himself...

Well his big day finally arrived. Kawika had had a rough night before and had woken me several times so I completely FORGOT which day it was. Jordan quietly woke up, brought Kawika to me so that I could nurse him and then slipped into the kitchen and brought me breakfast in bed. After I ate, I thanked him and started to get comfy in the blankets again. He just looked at me and smiled. I thought nothing of it. FINALLY he gently told me what day is was. CRAP. Are you kidding me? I thought and thought about this day for so long and what I could do to make it special and then boom. I failed. I landed on my a$$ and fell in a pile of Christmas. No gift. No cake. No birthday wishes. And I didn't even write in the card. But at the end of the day, I'm still married to him and I got breakfast in bed! 

So we jumped in the car, headed to the mall, and bought him a PS Vita. Normally I would never get him a gift that involves video games but come on..at that point I literally had no choice. Then we drove over to the Euro side for a friendly game. I gave a heads up to the team that it was Jordan's birthday and they were much more on top of it then I was so they got him a cake and sang to him in the locker room after the game. Even they did a better job than me! Jeesh. 

Afterwards we went out to dinner at Hard Rock with one of his teammates (Matt), his wife (Jessica), and their kids (Michael 3 and Mia 2 months). Everything about that night was perfect. We loved the overcrowded, busy, but beautiful streets. We loved the familiarity of the American food they served there. We loved the underground garage that never ended. We loved the company. We loved it all! 

This is me with Mia. I can't believe how small she is. She is all girl and I love it! K's first gf?? I think so! 

The bday boy blowing out his candles!

Our little family...

And the whole gang....

I am so grateful for my sweet sweet husband. He is patient (with me) and kind. He is outspoken and opinionated. He works his butt off. He is loyal. He loves the Lord. He is a great daddy. And sometimes I'm not sure why but he loves me. I am the luckiest. Happy birthday Jordan! 

Caddesi

I like to think that Jordan and I are pretty adventurous. We just go and figure things out along the way. Well we went out for a drive to see what we could see and we loved it. We got lost as we always do in Turkey but we've discovered that if you just keep going, eventually you get to where you need to go.

During our drive we were discussing how whenever we use our google maps app, every street she tells us to turn on sounds EXACTLY the same...we were joking about it and then we decided to listen closer to her directions. Sure enough, almost every street ended exactly the same! Well no wonder why everyone gets lost here! Practically all the streets have the same name! We were laughing hysterically about this with every direction she provided until Jordan finally told me to google translate what we were hearing..which was "caddesi"....yep, it means STREET. We are such tards.

Anyways, there is and will always be traffic along the bridges so that's the first thing you just need to accept while driving in Turkey. We took advantage of it and enjoyed the view.

I love driving across the bridge. The traffic can be annoying and its strange that people are literally standing in the middle of the HIGHWAY selling all sorts of things from water bottles to bread to flowers...but the view is breathtaking. Oh and back to people selling things in the street, it ranges from old men to small children. And sometimes they get pretty aggressive. One boy was trying to sell lottery tickets and kept claiming that he had the winning ticket (translation provided by Ceren). He just leaned on the car and insisted over and over again that we hand him money and he would hand us the winning ticket! Another time this little girl just came and pressed her face against our car window. I don't have the slightest idea what she was selling but talk about awkward as Jordan and I tried to pretend she wasn't there. Longest red light ever!!

This is an example of the craziness of the street vendors...literally LAYING on a car!!

This is a popular street on the Asian side along the coast. There are tons of stores and restaurants and its just fun to walk along the street.

Turkey is such a beautiful place. We are really enjoying our time here and can't wait to see more! 

Breast Infection...this post is boring. Sorry!

Hi everyone!

I am ALIVE! Sorry mom, grandma/grandpa, and Uncle Don for not writing lately (because let's be honest, who else cares?) As I'm sure you all know though, I have been sick. And it sucks. 

Last week I woke up early to drop off Jordan for his trip and I felt a lump in my breast. When I got home, the pain was much worse and I felt a slight fever so I started doing some google research. I diagnosed myself with a breast infection. Despite the pain, I did hot compresses, massaged it, nursed on it, and pumped it (every tip I had read online to do). I kept feeling worse and without Jordan around things quickly went downhill from there. Fortunately Ceren came to my rescue. She picked K and me up and took me to the hospital for an ultrasound. They confirmed what I already knew... it was a breast infection. Later that evening my fever spiked to 104 so we went to the Emergency Room. This was an experience. Apparently they don't get many foreigners around there so they were excited to have me. I'm pretty sure my nurse was fairly new to the job so that only added to his anxiety. Also from what I could gather by his body language, he seemed to be in some sort of competition with another nurse (as if trying to prove himself). If I wasn't sick, it probably would have been more amusing but at this point I was ready to punch him. Anyways, it took THREE attempts but he finally got my IV right. (I think) they gave me two medications. One to reduce the fever and another for the infection. By the end of it all, I felt way better and was ready to sleep for a few days. Ceren had me stay at her house so that she could take care of me. I am so lucky that God sends earthly angels. Literally, I don't know how I could have survived everything without her help. 

I have no idea where the hospitals or pharmacies are located, which hospitals are the better ones, what type of insurance I have, who accepts it, and nobody at the hospital spoke English so that would have been especially challenging without Ceren. I am a strong capable woman so I'm absolutely certain that eventually I would have figured it all out but I'm really grateful that I didn't have to. So that's it for now. I'll write in soon with more interesting, fun things about Turkey!

Love and miss you all

xoxo

Waking up Kawika

If only everyone woke up like this (or woke up to this) the world would be such a happier place. I can't believe I get to enjoy this every day so I thought I should share it with my friends and family to see..

So somehow K slipped his arms out from my swaddle. And I thought it was tight! haha I am not as much of a pro at it as I had hoped...

All I do is say his name and he starts to smile with his eyes shut.

Then he opens his eyes and looks right into mine. I love it.

Since he has recently discovered his cute little tongue he decided to show it off.

He is so happy and loves life!

And then this photo. In my head, I think its him realizing what's about to happen. He's stoked and starts to cheer because its finally time to eat!

I never knew that I have always wanted to be this little man's mommy. I love him so much and I feel so lucky because I truly have the best job in the world!

First Sunday at Church

I know I'm really late in posting about this but better late than never, right?

So real quick, Jordan has been here at camp in Eskisehir (meaning the old city).

Its beautiful, right?

So that means Kawika and I have been left in Istanbul to fend for ourselves for a bit! Well, a couple associated with the team knew I would be alone so they called to check on me. Their names are Murat and Ceren (they both speak English!) and they have this cute little boy named Aras, who loves to hold Kawika's hand during car rides.

As you can see, this is Kawika's first friend in Turkey! Too cute. Well they are the sweetest family ever. They knew I was alone in a new city and extended their friendship. They took me out to dinner on Saturday for some traditional Turkish food. I loved it! Lots of lamb. Anyways, they asked me about my plans while Jordan was gone (which really wasn't much more than Netflix lol). The only thing I really wanted to do was go to church on Sunday. I had found where the church was located on the iphone map (which isn't reliable) and showed it to them. They were concerned that I wouldn't be able to find it or find parking so they offered to drive me. (Let me just add that for them to drive across the bridge to the Asian side and then back over to the Istanbul side is completely inconvenient BUT they did it happily and I am so appreciative of that). Believe me, I never would have found the church building in a million years if they hadn't taken me. Not only did they take me to church but they also waited near by for the next five hours so that I could stay for the entire duration. Talk about an example of service. I am so grateful because I really needed to be there. So if you guys read this, thank you. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you!

As I mentioned before, this is a tricky building to find. It doesn't look like the normal chapels back home. It looks more like a house and I thought I would recognize the standard "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" sign but no such luck. There's signs pointing to the entrance but those are  all in Turkish so I thought I might be trespassing into someone's home but luckily Ceren was there to help me out. We found the back door entrance and I still thought we were walking into someone's kitchen until I saw the picture of Joseph Smith and then I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. We then saw a woman sitting near by and as I approached I quickly realized she was American, spoke English, and was a senior couple missionary. I can't even begin to explain to you the relief I felt at some familiarity. I was an hour early so we sat down and chatted for a bit until others began to arrive.

Our branch consists of probably 40-50 members. In all of Turkey there are a total of 10 missionaries, 6 being in our branch. The first elder I met is from Mesa, Arizona. The second elder I met (Elder Clark) is from Calgary, Alberta. I then met a sweet girl (Melissa) from Chandler, Arizona. She speaks something like 6 languages and is a fellow Sun Devil!!!! Are you kidding me? "Its a small world" is no joke. Apparently there is also a Tongan lady in the ward (whose husband works at the Embassy) but she was out of town so I'm excited to meet her this Sunday. There are members in our branch from all over the world including the states, France, Taiwan, Nigeria, Mexico, and of course Turkey! It is such a cool branch and I'm so excited that we get to be a part of it.

You know how people always say that the church is the same everywhere they go and blah blah blah. I never understood it. I have sincerely tried to empathize but I just could not relate. Until now. For the first time in awhile, I felt at home. I didn't even realize how much I had missed that feeling of home until I felt it there.

During Sacrament, whoever is speaking speaks their native tongue and then someone else is on a mike and translates it to English or Turkish. So everything is repeated and it takes a bit longer. I thought it would be annoying or maybe take away from the Spirit but honestly I found that I got more out of the meeting than I ever had before (and even so with a newborn in my arms!)

This is the room where Sacrament takes place.

Just outside of the Sacrament room is this cool staircase. There are either three or four levels in the building but right now I can't remember.

On the third level is this balcony. 

This is the view from the balcony...

Just off to the side is this small building. I believe it is used as the primary room. However, I don't think they really use it much. I'm not sure that there are very many children in the branch. At least this past week, Kawika was the only child/baby in attendance.

And finally, this is my cutie all ready for church.