For any of my readers who have thought about what it means to be a TCK or parent one--here's an interesting quote from WORLD Magazine (Online):

Both presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are adult third culture kids, spending developmental years outside their passport cultures. Obama lived in Indonesia with his stepfather and mother. McCain was born in the Canal Zone and grew up as a military child in the Pacific...

...Third culture kids, like many homeschoolers, [Van Reken] writes, often have stronger relationships with adults. They can be perceived as arrogant—a charge slapped against both Obama and McCain. The world usually looks different to them because of their multicultural experiences. Many third culture kids develop a sense of a both/and identity rather than the traditional either/or identity common to those growing up in one culture.

"Obama is one of the millions of people across our globe who grew up among many different cultural worlds," Van Reken argues. "Ironically, among the common characteristics of these third culture kids is the capacity to be cultural bridges, to be able to see both sides of a situation."

And McCain? "He is seen as a maverick," she says, "because he frequently won't stay in his assigned box and has often voted across party lines."

reference: http://www.worldmag.com/articles/14398

First Sentence

Both kids are growing by leaps and bounds in their communicative ability. Anna has a pile of words, a few in the local language, and a few phrases she uses (mostly ones Matthew has taught her.) Matthew narrates our life and shares suprisingly deep and insightful thoughts with us. But today is a new celebration: Matthew said a sentence in his second language. He wanted to get our helper's attention to show her something he made with duploes, so he said, "bak bana, bana bak," which is, "look at me, look at me."

Quick question

As you can tell, I've been playing with technology. But I dont' know if it's working. It's complicated, youtube being blocked over here. So could someone in the US tell me if the embedded video a few posts below shows up at all? Thanks!

Oh, and I'm also kinda curious who's out there reading this, if anyone (other than Grammy and Grumpy). "Hellooo out there....??"

But no honey...

So I was hanging out with two of the ladies from our apartment building outside, and we were talking about food. The conversation started out with questions about what I eat. (Weight and food are favorite topics anytime here). I said we eat alot of chicken. A while later, one of the ladies brought out a baked/sauteed (how do I spell that?) vegetable dish. I tend to eat slower than the average local, so of course the topic of conversation was about me eating more and faster.

Finally, an hour later, I said I had to go in and fix dinner. The obvious question: "What are you making?" In my head I thought, "Oh no, how do I explain this one?" You see, I'd had a heads-up from a friend that the locals don't really like or understand putting sweet and salty things together, and I was making crunchy honey mustard chicken. So I said "I'm making chicken." "What kind of chicken?" "Chicken with...sauce...and um, you know that stuff kids eat for breakfast that's, um, corn?" (Luckily they guessed CornFlakes and I recognized the word.) "I [mime "crush"] those and put it on the chicken. Kinda like Burger King, but alot different." "Tomato and pepper sauce?" "No..." "Then what's in the sauce?" (Here goes...) "Mayonez, mustard, honey." In the next ten minutes both ladies insisted that 1. it's ok to like Mayo, but not on chicken. Only on certain kinds of salad. 2. I should make chicken tava (baked with veggies, very yummy, by the way). 3. Honey olmaz. That means something like "impossible," "can't be," "doesn't exist."

The next thing I knew, I was having both ladies up to my kitchen to show me how to make it their way. Cut up chicken, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, onion, etc. Season with a little tomato paste and black and red pepper. Cook 'till done. But absolutely don't use honey!

If the video below doesn't work, check out the video here

A blog post by Mike

I was helped by C.J.’s blog on how to think about vacations. He said that the temptation as a guy is to want to plan a vacation so that I can relax. (When I read that I thought, yup, I can identify with that). But that’s not really serving my family, nor is it the makings for a great vacation. (Don’t worry, I did actually get a lot of relaxing in). One goal we need to think about is building memories. I think we did that. I’ll give you a few things that I think I’ll always remember. Becky would probably give you another set, and Matthew and Anna would have yet another.

The age old question in vacations (at lest for me) is do we do the ocean or the mountains. Well, we decided to do both. In this country driving only 4 hours can take you to radically different terrains and different experiences, not to mention very different people.

First we went to the Mediterranean sea for two days. You’ll see in the pictures sand, surf, and a castle in the background, not a sand castle, but a real castle. What stands out to me from our time at the beach is being really exhausted, having tired kids, but still going to the beach and playing with the kids in the water. We went back to our hotel and crashed. partly because we were so tired and partly because the power kept going out randomly and we couldn’t see anything. But I had fun with my family. My wife has a lot of memories of the beach growing up. I began to understand those memories and we began to make some of our own.

We then took a 4 hour drive north to Capadoccia. Being in Capadoccia is kind of like being on the moon because the landscape is so different. There are these things called fairy chimneys, which are 5-6 story cone-shaped rocks sticking up everywhere. The place we stayed and the scenery was fantastic. But what I remember most are the things that didn’t go as planned. We were told that the “open air museum” was ½ a mile a way. Should we take the car or walk? We decided to take the car, only to discover that it had a flat. So, we walked. It was ½ a mile away, but not from the hotel, from the center of town. And the hotel was almost 1 mile from the center of town down a very step hill. During the walk our kids fell asleep—Matthew in my arms. He was very adorable, but also very heavy. We finally made it to the open air museum, but we found out that it was $15 per person, and we weren’t sure we’d get much out of it with tired kids. So, we played in some caves for a while, and walked back very tired, somewhat sunburnt, but very happy.

The drive home was an adventure. There is so much to see in the area. We decided to try to circle around and see some sights on the way back. We got away from the normal tourist sights and found some spectacular views and interesting history. But in going there meant going on the “road less traveled.” One road in particular was pretty much sand and rock. All the while I was hoping and praying that we didn’t get a flat tire. Why? because we were already using the spare. We thought about what would happen if we did get a flat. We saw several people riding on donkeys. I wondered if we could borrow a donkey, put our family on it, ride into town, and get a tire. I wondered if the guy riding the donkey and pulling a cart would give me a ride to the center of town to get a tire. We wondered about calling our supervisor 4 hours away and telling him that we got a flat in the middle of nowhere. He would ask, don’t you have a spare, and I would inform him that it actually was the spare that was flat. We ran through all those situations in our minds and laughed together. Thankfully, we didn’t get a flat.

Those are some things that I’ll remember from our vacation. I hope you enjoy the pictures and my wife’s witty comments.

For pics click here

To read CJ's blog click here


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Where were you five years ago today?


Special Day!


In 2002 Mike proposed
In 2003 We got married
In 2004 We bought our first house
In 2005 We had Matthew
In 2006 We had Anna
In 2007 We moved to the other side of the world
In 2008… what’s next?

My Two Kids

Odds describe one kid, Evens the other, can you guess which is which?

1. Likes to find Daddy’s backpack and buckle the chest strap closed.

2. Kicks the ball and then falls (on purpose) to the ground since that’s what the kids on the movie do during their soccer game.

3. Refuses to eat half the cookie because Mommy didn’t give the whole cookie. Still refuses even if offered the other half, presumably since it’s now broken?

4. Intentionally taps head on elevator wall and then says, “Ooww. Look Mommy, I bonkin my ‘ead!”

5. Pushes umbrella stroller around the house until it gets wedged somewhere, then cries until Mommy rescues.

6. Points out every bus and categorizes it as big or little.

7. Barks to indicate a dog has been sighted. Or a cat. Or a cow. Or anything vaguely fuzzy (except horses, who have their own word.)

8. Seriously likes routines… “Now it time for Matthew and Anna to go get a diaper change and get some juice and go… to…” “Naps” “Yes!” Diaper, juice, kiss on forehead, and say “Night, night, no talking, no standing, no spitting [there’s a reason for that last one]”.

9. Insists on picking out own clothes. Likes to wear underwear on top of diaper.

A Little of our Life

It’s hard to make generalizations about our daily life--once I say something it changes--but I thought I should update blog readers on what’s up with us (other than the cute pics and stories).

Language learning is still a big part of life, but it is slowly morphing. We now have fewer hours with our grammar tutor. Each of us spends some time each week with a helper for conversation practice. What can we say? Last time I blogged language, we were at mostly pleasantries and introducing our family. Now we can talk about a lot more subjects in our daily life, although our grammar and usage is still pretty rough. Put us in a group of native speakers, and we’re lost. But face to face with a sympathetic communicator, we can carry on a conversation even about abstract or spiritual ideas. A big challenge is trying to think like a native speaker—since this language is structurally pretty different from English, thinking in English and then translating isn’t very practical.

We’re getting to know more people around our neighborhood. Some of the ladies sit outside in the evenings, so I go out and sit with them while the kids kick a ball or generally look for things to get into. I got to have Doritos and Coke with a family at a store we visited recently, and Mike visits the owners of a little family restaurant around the corner. We trade dishes full of food with our neighbors in our building.

Being sick has been a big part of our life, unfortunately. We’ve been getting Amoebas pretty regularly. They’re treatable, but the medicine makes me feel (to be honest) pregnant—that is, vaguely hungry and fairly nauseous at the same time randomly throughout the day. God has been good in that both Matthew’s and Anna’s weight/height is normal—they’re both at the 50th percentile. We’ve also been looking into some possible issues with Matthew’s coordination and balance. We’ve met some really nice doctors who speak pretty good English at the hospital downtown.

And of course, to keep things from becoming routine, we keep traveling. You can see some pics in the sidebar of places we’ve been so far. We have a vacation coming up and a little after that another trip, this one to the Big City with some friends. The kids are great travelers, they recently did a six hour car ride. There were moments that they didn’t love it, but over all they did great.

I did two significant things today: I watched a chick-flick and made brownies.

Neither of those things are significant on their own; you have too see them from a certain perspective. While the kids took their afternoon nap, instead of cleaning, cooking, studying, or doing paperwork, I watched a movie. The house didn't fall apart, I wasn't stranded at dinner time, I'll do fine at lessons tomorrow, in short, it was ok. This says to me that we've achieved some slight level of stability in our routine after months and months of transition during which one little less-than-ideally-spent moment could throw the whole day or week into "catching up" mode. Life is getting more livable.

The significant thing about the brownies was that I made them from a box. Real American brownies (some cake mixes are slowly showing up here, but they just aren't the same). Not that I have anything against making brownies from scratch--I have a promising recipe waiting to be tried out. But you see, I never made brownies from scratch back home. The box mix is so easy and yummy. So after months and months of learning new recipies or re-learning old ones with new ingredients and substitutions for everything I cook, there was something satisfyingly familiar about tearing that box top off. I made brownies my way.

Oh, and I caught myself talking to myself (in my head, not aloud) in two different languages at the same time. How weird is that?

Mother's Day

I finally got my hands on the digital files for the pics Mike, er, that is, My Two Kids gave me for Mother's Day. He took these, edited them, and had them printed all while I was at lessons so it would be a surprise.

Olympic Sports

...are on my mind. I'm thinking of working out for the olympic sport of sunflower-seed-eating. I was never a big fan, but around here, it's a social thing to sit around and eat sunflower seeds. You snap the shell open with your teeth, wriggle that little bitty seed out with your tongue, throw away the leftovers, and pick up another all in one smooth motions that takes about the same (or less) time as it takes to pop a Planter's peanut in. But while my neighbors each have steadily growing piles of shells (husks, whatever are they called?) I'm still trying to fish that little piece of non-seed stuff out from under my tongue. Would it be too strange to go buy a bag and sit in my kitchen and practice?

If I can't qualify for the speed sport, I'll go for the strength sport--refrigerator door opening. It has a great air-tight seal. Every time I close it, it gurgles and clamps shut--I suppose it's attempting to re-create that chilly atmosphere we so appreciate. But now that it's hot outside, for a 3-4 minute period after I close it, it clamps down so tightly that rather than opening, it slides across the floor when I pull.

Of course, I may just take up toddler referee. It's the sneaky vs. the fiesty. The bigger vs. the littler. The verbal vs. the non-verbal. And of course, justice must prevail!

I love my kids!!!

The Beach

It was a beautiful 4th of July... Hot... Sunny... the sand was soft...

A great place to kick a beach ball around with Dad. The waves were perfect too, tiny little ones and shallow way out. Ok, not much fun for body surfing, but great for a 2 year old.

We rented an umbrella and lounge chairs and made sand castles.

Oh, and did I mention the real castle just off shore?

And of course, what would a day at the beach be without fresh hot nescafe served as you sunbathe?

My two adorable children were playing out on the balcony, and I was keeping an eye on them to make sure that heads were staying above water. They enjoy playing with cups and buckets in the pool, and it's an easy way to stay cool when temps are getting close to 100. But then I noticed that Anna was very carefully pouring the water out the balcony "window"...

....fortunately managing to miss the neighbor's laundry. I've actually never met this neighbor, and having to explain Anna's "rain" is not the way I want to start!

Spring Cleaning -- Rugs

Around here when summer comes it's time to clean the rugs and roll them up 'till fall. For smaller rugs, you take them outside, hose them down, squirt shampoo on them, scrub with a broom or brush, and then rinse well--pushing the sudsy water away with a squeegy. Our rug-cleaning party degenerated into a hose party when Anna got interested--first in helping, later in playing with the water. The lady in the picture is Yeter. She comes on Wednesdays to help around the house and we do everything from housecleaning to cooking to playing with the kids or talking about life. I love getting her perspective on how a house ought to be managed and the kids both love her chasing them around.




This is some serious rug cleaning... The large living room rug can't be cleaned on a balcony, so you can have a cleaning service take it away and bring it back clean and dry in a few days for about 10$. We'll probably do that in the fall. Although the locals take up all their carpets in the summer, we like our living room one for the kids to play on, so we'll leave it for now.

Father's Day

For Father's Day last Saturday the kids and I took Mike to a park to cook out. I found this place on the internet, but the site didn't include directions. I did however, find it on a map, so we took off to see if we could actually find it. We did; there's a beautiful lake a little over an hour an a half from our house. Just beyond the lake there are mountains, and the park is my a little creek. We overshot the park the first time, so some of the pictures in our slideshow (left sidebar) are from our wandering in the mountains enjoying the view. We had grilled chicken sandwiches, Rice Krispie treats (thanks to Grammy), and Coke. Of course Matthew and Anna's goal was to throw every stone on the shore into the creek before we left :). On the way there we drove through miles of farmland--lots of sunflower fields, some corn, lot of citrus orchards and other fields.

Anna's Words

eat, chair, juice, wet, hurt, head, hat, shoes, "fork," "woof," "hsss," turn, Bible, book, wash, ball, night-night, help-you, thank-you, Anna, Daddy, car, truck, more, yogurt, up, bye, hi, diaper, shirt, off, abla, watch, cookie, candy, cup, come, yes, trash...and my personal favorites, Bob and Larry (yes, that's from VeggieTales).

Just a few cute shots...

Riding horses:


Goofing off:


Dancing with Bob & Larry:

Watching VeggieTales:

McD's playworld:

Another Day in the Life

Monday May 26

Woke up 7:10. Got up, dressed and all that. Had the last of the muffins, kiwi, and yogurt for breakfast. Hung out the laundry and swept the kitchen, made the kids' beds. Got shoes on the kids and took them to the bazaar. Matthew walked the whole time. We were there about an hour, bought peaches, tomatoes, melon, green onion, parsley, bananas, sesame seeds, raisins, green beans, and cucumbers. Forgot lettuce, oops. Walked home for a potty/drink break and then headed back out. Let Anna walk as far as the pharmacy and then headed up to Bim (food store, reminds me of Aldi). Kids love Bim, they always get a cookie and I let them roam quite a bit. No chicken today, but I found something like apple cinnamon cheerios. Walked back, stroller loaded with groceries. Found a package from Aunt Ginny at the front door! Matthew’s watching VeggieTales and Anna is roaming…it’s 11:33.
After lunch played with the kids in their room for a bit, then put them down for naps. They slept from 1:30-3:30 while I did Turkish. I started disinfecting the veggies I bought this morning too. When they got up we folded the laundry together, finished cleaning the veggies, cleaned up the storage closet, colored, and started dinner. We had burgers, fries, brocolli, and carrots for dinner. After dinner I cleaned up while Mike read books and played with the kids. They went to bed and we watched the movie “Holes” in Turkish, with a break to Skype with Mom and Dad. Movie over, lights out, 10:47.