Swimming

It's summer and there's not a lot to do in this HEAT WAVE, but SWIM. We purchased a season pass at the base pool and boy are we taking advanage of it. The kids have all made steady progress.

Savannah is perfecting her swimming skills by going down the slide and jumping off the diving boards. She's trying to learn how to dive. Many of the attempts end up in a belly flop. Ouch!

Ricky occasionally takes off his life vest and gives it a shot. He's been swimming short lengths without the vest. Good job.

He also likes to lay on the pool deck in between swimming...reminds me of my childhood days.

Look at Kylie swim. Yep, she just decided a couple weeks ago that she didn't want to use the life vest anymore. She took off the vest and did it. She's now able to swim by herself. I was impressed.

Grapes

When we moved into our house, I mentioned to Kim "we'll need to cut down that dead tree." Our gardener and neighbor suggested we don't do that. Turns out that dead tree was a huge grape vine that was getting ready to sprout. The gardener trimmed the "dead tree." It began dripping juices from the freshly cut limbs. It did this for a week or two. Next thing we knew, our backyard is covered with grape vines and was sprouting grapes. Good thing we didn't cut it down. Here's a brief chronology.

March 24, 2008

April 20, 2008

May 25, 2008

June 14, 2008

American Restaurants in Turkey

Here are a few familiar American fast food restaurants in Turkey. Check out the McDonalds delivery vehicles.

Ankara - Part 2

Tower and shopping mall. The tower is approx 45 stories tall.

Intersection - looking down from the tower.

View of the city from the tower.

Inside the revolving restaurant tower. Waiting for our $8.50 beers.

Off to dinner at a nice restaurant. I tried some pretty strange, but good food here.

To finish off the meal, I had some Turk Kahve or Turkish Coffee. It is served in a small coffee cup. It is very strong, but also good. Many people don't drink the stuff at the bottom because it is like drinking coffee grounds. Well, I thought I could drink more before I made it to the grounds, but I was mistaken. Needless to say, I don't recommending finishing your Turk Kahve. There was no more than 2 cm left in the cup and to prove how thick it was, we were able to make a toothpick stand upright.

Swan Park. Check out the brickwork on the grounds.

A swan in Swan Park.

Back on the road, we stopped to check out this incredible Tuz Golu or Salt Lake. Check out this image from Google Earth. Adana is at the bottom right and Ankara is at the top left of the pic. 1/4 of the way from Ankara to Adana is this huge salt lake that you can't miss.

I've never seen a salt lake before, so I was very excited. It was surreal. The water was as calm as you've ever seen. The salt along the shore looked like ice. And the salt was actually salt; and quite tasty I might add.



The people standing in water looked like they're walking on the water.

End of trip!

Ankara - Part 1

The purpose of this trip was to visit Ankara Area Control Center (ACC) to liaise with our air traffic control partners. I went with my RAPCON Chief Controller, translator, and Turkish Air Force controller. This was a three day trip...two days for driving and one for visiting. The trip by car is 6-7 hours depending on speed and how long you stop to eat.

Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and has a population of approx. 3.9 million people. It is Turkey's second largest city after Istanbul. More info. on Ankara can be found at the Wikipedia site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankara.

On the drive, we stopped at a fabulous outdoor restaurant which was tucked away near the mountainside and a small river. Meet my companions on this trip.

Of course, I have to point out the name of the hotel we stayed at...

Ankara Airport from the road

Ankara control tower from the road

Ankara ACC

After our official duties, we had an opportunity to take in some sites. We visited Ataturk's Mausoleum. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is known as the father of Turkey; he is a war hero and former president from 1923 - 1938. The Turkish view him much like we view George Washington. Ataturk is responsible for "modernizing" present day Turkey. A few of the things he did were make all men and women equal, changed the language from Arabic to a new form of Latin, and passed the Surname Act which required all Turks to have a last name. Ataturk was given the first last name which means "Father of the Turks." No other Turks can have this name. There are many more interesting facts about him which you can view at the following links: http://www.mrdowling.com/608-ataturk.html, http://www.allaboutturkey.com/reform.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataturk

Me in front of Ataturk's casket. Yes, I know I don't look very thrilled, but I was truly excited to be there.

Mausoleum ceiling.

In front of the "Street of Lions"

View of the city from the Mausoleum on the hill.

to be continued...

Asian Pacific Heritage

ASIAN PACIFIC HERITAGE CELEBRATION

We went to the Asian Pacific Heritage Celebration at Arkadash Park this past Saturday. Savannah entered a kite contest and they announced the winners here. She made the kite from scratch along with some help from mommy. 1st place prize was $40 to the BX. 2nd place prize was a $2 coupon for Baskin Robbins, a bookmark, and a magnet. She did a great job on the kite and took 2nd place. Can you guess which kite is hers?

Did you pick the right one?

Here's Kylie at the playground. Isn't she getting big?

The kids had their faces painted. Can you guess who they are?

They closed the festivities with the Fire Dancers.