August Vacay

Blog Post About August 2021 

It's funny to think about August right now when it's so cold outside, but I remember the evenings being something everyone looked forward to because the brutal sun would set, and instead of 110 degrees, we could enjoy 85 degree evenings.

August 5, 2021

Kylie had a break from school and went to California to see a friend she met overseas. 

We also missed her 19th birthday. Happy belated, birthday, Kylie!

August 31, 2021

Doug had planned a getaway for us as well, especially since he and Caleb had stayed in country in the heat all summer while we took advantage of the air conditioning in America. However, 72 hours before our flight, the country we were going to banned travelers from the country we are living in. 

Doug had to go into the airlines office and see which country we could go to that was not blocking our country. The man recommended a part of Turkey that we had never seen before, and seeing that was one of our only options, Doug and I began hunting online for a house in that area we could rent.

This is the view from our rental where we were 48 hours later!

August 17, 2021

Doug had already investigated things to do in the first country we were going to, so now we were in a new situation, but with the help of our rental car and the internet, he got busy making new plans, and then we voted.

We went to the grocery store, but also decided we would eat out for one breakfast, one or two lunches, and maybe two or three dinners.

This is me trying to get a picture of the sunset while my children think they are SO funny!

One of our dinners we opted for a sunset cruise. 

The captain of the boat cooked a wonderful dinner for us on his grill while we hung out, swam, and enjoyed the evening.

After dinner, the captain turned lights on under his boat so we could take a night swim. You can see Keira in the picture below (along with another boat in the distance).

The next day, we took a boat ride to another part of the coast to eat at this "Resturan." When we hiked to the top of the hill, the man who lives there had cooked fish for four of us and chicken for Keira. A friend we had made in the town we were staying in had called him and told him to expect us.

After lunch, we swam around the bay before taking another boat back to our marina.

The next day, Doug, Caleb, and I went scuba diving. Doug and I are certified, but it has been awhile. It was fun to take a beginning dive with Caleb. He was a natural.

Doug also booked us a kayaking tour in a town an hour away, which took us directly over some ancient ruins of a sunken city, allowed us some more swim time, and took us to another part of the coast where we climbed over 200 steps to see an ancient castle from the 4th century. This castle can only be reached by water. There are no roads that lead to it. 

Here we are at the top, looking back. 

Since I had gotten sunscreen in my eyes and they hurt, I kept my eyes closed a lot. I find this picture funny because with my eyes closed I couldn't tell where Doug was taking the picture, so I'm looking in a completely different direction from everyone else. 

I opted to stay out of the pictures after that.

It was a short vacation, but we squeezed a lot in. It was nice to be somewhere cooler for a while and also be near water where we could jump in and cool off.

We missed Kylie, we played a LOT of Settlers of Catan, we read, and Caleb even had an online class for school, but we are looking forward to the day when we can get away again.

A Blast From the Past

Blog Post About May 2021

To help take Keira's mind off of Kylie leaving, she went swimming at some friends' house.

May 8, 2021

While Keira was swimming, Doug was discussing things with the neighborhood guys.

And soon enough, Kylie was back in Nashville, back to school, and back to babysitting.

May 11, 2021

This sweet, curly haired lady is the mom to the four children above. We met her in 2009 before we went to Africa. You can see how young Kylie is in this picture (7) when this lady babysat my three one night.

Now, we've come full circle. 

This lady lives in Nashville, and Kylie babysits her crew weekly.

I love how God connects us.

Caleb's team won a soccer tournament in May.

You can see that Caleb is one of the tallest guys out there.

May 15, 2021

And the cat (Aoife) continues to be a source of entertainment for the kids.

May 16, 2021

Baton Rouge

Blog Post About Fall 2020

We had plans to travel to Baton Rouge the second weekend of October 2020 to see some friends, but Hurricane Delta also had plans to visit Louisiana that weekend. We couldn't delay our trip, and since we used to live in Baton Rouge and had ridden out hurricanes in the past, we thought we would give it a try.

We arrived and immediately started visiting people; however, Keira was invited to stay at our host home instead of doing all the visiting, and she had a blast! Who doesn't love pillow fights and spy games where you crawl around the attic?

It's a good thing that she stayed behind. We didn't finish our last visit until 2am!

The day after the hurricane blew in, power was out, but that didn't keep Keira from getting in the hot tub even with all the hard gusts of wind blowing in.

On Sunday, we had to leave earlier than we had planned because highways were backing up, traffic through Lake Charles (that was hit again for the second time in a short period) was not good, and we weren't sure we could take back roads if they hadn't been cleared of debris.

 

(These are the friends we stayed up with until 2am :)

Meanwhile, we left Karis and Caleb back in Texas where they hung out with friends.

Oct 13, 2020

October 17, 2020

Here Comes the Rain Again, Not to Mention, My Tears

Blog Post About Summer 2020

The storms didn't stop.

When we left Memphis to drive to Nashville, we still had a lot of rain.

A LOT!

September 1, 2020

Welcome to Nashville, Kylie!  😂

September 1, 2020

We were privileged to be able to stay at the parents' house of a young lady we knew from our time in Africa. 

After a good night's rest, Doug and I got up the next morning to help Kylie get the things she needed to check into her apartment. Caleb and Karis stayed at the house so they could get some school done, and Keira went to the zoo with the children of the young lady (now married) we knew from our time in Africa.

September 2, 2020

The apartment looked pretty clean at first :)

We had never met these girls before and we didn't know anything about them, but we quickly learned one of them liked Vienna sausages (see cabinet), two of them came with jars of Nutella, one of them really liked microwave mac & cheese, and they all liked junk food a little more than Kylie.

Roommates can be an interesting situation. 

Different beliefs, different hobbies, different schedules-kept can cause tension.

It was a good year of growth...maybe for all of them.

Being a Tourist

Since we had traveled all the way to Thailand, we decided to experience a little bit of the country before returning to the desert.

Keira and I tried out the fish tank.

Unfortunately for Keira, my feet had a lot more dead skin than hers, so they basically ignored Keira's feet.
.

We saw some beautiful things

and some interesting things

We took an ATV tour into the mountains.

We got a chance to look for shells.  

It was Keira's very first time, and she loved it! 

The other three have only had two other opportunities 

(South Padre in 2009 and the Indian Ocean in 2010)

It was like treasure hunting for all of them.

No segregated pools here.  All of our kids got to swim together for the first time in a while.

Sunsets are something to treasure, no matter where we are.

This was what a taxi looked like in Thailand.

Caleb, Keira, and I got up at 4:30 one morning to ride in one of these to an elephant sanctuary an hour and a half away.

We had a good time, but on the way home, I could tell some people had had a long day and were exhausted.

Keira was born in Africa, but she doesn't remember any safaris we went on, so she was very excited to go on this night safari.  She loved seeing the giraffes and zebras the most.

Maybe one day she'll get to return to Africa and see some of those animals on the savannah during the daylight hours.