Kids Playing

Kylie coloring

Savannah & Ricky playing in workbooks

Savannah's Birthday

We celebrated Savannah's 7th Birthday yesterday. We started the morning by mommy and Savannah baking a cake that Savannah picked.

Then mommy took Savannah, McKenzie, and Kylie to the beauty shop to have their nails painted and hair done.

Savannah had a sleepover with McKenzie and Thomas. They ate shells 'n cheese with octopus hot dogs and goldfish crackers.

Time for presents

Just what I wanted...a Nintendo DS.

Happy 7th Birthday Savannah

Danielle's Birthday

Danielle's 15th birthday was on the 19th. She's opening a gift from her dad while talking to her sister and dad on Skype.

What can it be?

It's a laptop computer. Thanks Dad.

Our 3-fingered son patiently waiting to dive into the birthday cake

Birthday love

Happy 15th Birthday Danielle

Maggie

Twins! Can you tell which is the real dog?

Back to School

Danielle and her boyfriend, AJ, heading off for their first day of 10th grade

Of course, she wouldn't let us take a picture of her posing or even smiling for the camera. Back shots will have to do. "Hurry AJ! Run! Don't let them take any pictures."

Notice the cupcake and Sponge Bob backpacks? 10th grade you say?

Savannah on her first day of 2nd grade

Waiting for the bus

Getting on the bus...of course

Savannah and her friend Mckenzie

"Now that our sisters are in school, we can get into a lot of mischief He..he"

Stand-by for Ricky's first day of school pics when he starts on September 8th.

Pie in the Face

My squadron puts on a First Friday event each month. First Friday is a tradition in some military units. Our squadron has a pot luck get together every first Friday of the month. This month, we also did a "pie in the face" fundraiser. People were placing their bids like crazy and it was nice not to make the list. Of course, someone was holding out until the last minute and dropped a lot of money to slingshot me to first place. The top five bids took a pie. They also auctioned off a chance to place the pie. One of my fellow flight commander's offered to bid for either Kim or Savannah to get me. Kim didn't want to do it so she suckered Savannah into it. Here we go.

The "you better not or else" look from daddy right before the pie

She did it anyway. Splat!!

"Rub it in why don't you Savannah?"

"Take that daddy"

"Come here Savannah. Let me kiss you" I did and poor Savannah was so embarrased to have the whipped cream in her face and hair.

I smelled the whipped cream in my nose until the next morning.

More Swimming

This summer has been instrumental in the kid's swimming development. They're all doing very well. Here's where they stand.

Ricky is going down the slide on his own and no longer requires someone to wait at the bottom to catch him. He's even dared to swim in the deep end.

The Slide

Swimming

Smiling

Kylie is just swimming like a fish. She's swimming under the water in the deep end and jumping off the diving board. She likes to do the twist and the cannon ball. She's so tiny, she looks so cute in action.

At the diving board

Cannon Ball
The Twist

I'm really impressed with this picture...not because I took it, but beacuse I snapped the picture just before the drop of water broke away from Kylie's chin. Pretty cool.

Savannah is working on perfecting her diving board skills.

Cannon Ball

The splash
Cannon Ball/Twist Combination

Are these kids ready for the olympics or what? Okay...maybe not yet.

Back to the Beach

Back in Turkey...we took another trip to the beach yesterday. This was our second trip to the beach thus far. Danielle opted out of this trip and stayed home to sleep. We went with two other families. We drove just beyond Kizkalesi to the Alton Orofz Otel (hotel); this was approx. a 1 1/2 hour drive. The only downside is there wasn't any sand. We still had a great time though.

Our setup

Ricky

Daddy & Kylie

Savannah & her buddy Thomas

Pals (Savannah, Thomas, Dallon, Ricky)

We chartered a boat for an hour. Here it comes.

All aboard

We stopped at a little cove and swam for a little while. Savannah jumping off the plank.

Kylie on the boat. She also swam in the sea, but we didn't get any pictures. Darn it.

Ricky & Thomas at the boat's bow

Cool looking Mediterranean boat.

Savannah smiling (with a mouthful of food)

Ricky chillin' on the boat

When we arrived at the hotel, we gave our vehicle keys to the attendant. They parked our vehicles and had the keys waiting in the lobby for us when we were ready to leave. As we exit the hotel, we came upon this tiny parking lot that is jam-packed full of cars. The attendant said it'd be 10 minutes before he could bring our vehicles to us. I don't know where our vehicles were parked, but it certainly would have been more than 10 minutes if our vehicles were parked among this mess.

Here's a pic of the hotel (along with another shot of the cars in the parking lot).

We had a good time. I think we'll try to go to the beach one more time before school starts.