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the world of squatty potties!  When Glenn and I landed in Istanbul, Turkey, the first stop was the ladies room.   Wouldn't you know the first stall I went into had a squatty potty.  My mom always said, "Once you don't succeed, try, try again", so I persevered until I found a regular seat potty! Phew!

Two weeks ago we attended a week-long training on how to debrief people who have gone through a crisis such as a break-in, earthquake or deportation.   The conference was held in a brand-new hotel (so very few guests) and it was off-season so the rates were exceptional!

The hotel is near Izmir (a one-hour flight from the capital) on the Aegean Sea.  It was windy but the sunshine and 65 degree temperatures made it very pleasant compared to our normal January snow and gray skies.  Way too cold to swim, but in the middle of the afternoon it was nice sitting out by the pool with a light jacket.  Not that we had any free afternoons, except Sunday!

This was the most intense training we've ever attended, both physically (loooooong days) and emotionally but it was so good and therefore, well worth it!

Out for a stroll during our 30 minute break.

The hotel is huge but there were probably only about 50-60 guests most of the week.  There was plenty of room in the dining hall but on one of the more pleasant afternoons, we took our lunch plates out to the deck to enjoy the sunshine with Jerry and Kathy.

Sorry for the date stamps on the photos.  I'll turn it off on my camera in the future.  

Flying from Izmir back to Istanbul I saw this add for Fritos corn chips!  Don't you know that led me to check out every grocery store we passed in hopes of finding those elusive corn chips!?!  Alas, I NEVER found a single bag!

After the conference ended, we spent a couple of days in Istanbul so that we could spend some time with six of our member care team mates who live there.  One afternoon, Kelly took a couple of us to the lively, colorful spice market.  I do believe I could have spent 3-4 hours there in the market!

Istanbul is the ancient city of Constantinople and much of what we saw seemed to have been built back in those days.  :-)

We ate at several Turkish restaurants.  This was one of my favorite dishes but I don't remember the name of it.  It is basically a very, very thin crusted pizza with some kind of ground meat (not pork!) and peppers.  

My tomato soup was served in this very interesting bowl!

While Kelly, Jerry, Kathy, and I were out one afternoon, we walked and walked and walked and walked and walked.  You get the idea.  I was going to say,"we walked in the old section", but then I realized the whole city is old.   

They are, however, adding quite a few very modern-looking buildings on the outskirts of the city.  It takes an hour just to drive across the city because of the bumper-to-bumper, impatient, horn-honking traffic.

On a side note, we stayed in a guesthouse and I found this devotional book on the bookshelf!  

The highlight of the trip, aside from the conference, was the dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts that Jerry bought to go with our movie one night.  They were the real deal!   Thanks, Jerry!  We know they cost you an arm and a leg!

We're back in Budapest for the next month.  Home, sweet home!

Let's just jump right in!

Welcome back!   A long time has passed since my last blog update.  Understatement of 2014.  Granted, the year just began so that's not saying too much, but good chance that it WILL turn out to be my biggest understatement for 2014!  How do I ever get caught up on all that has happened since Glenn and I went to the U.S. in June???  It's too overwhelming to cull through all our photos, and we did so many things, how do I decide which to include????  For the sake of time and my sanity, I'm just going to jump right in to the present and go from there.  :-)

Glenn and I just returned from spending Christmas in Senegal with our daughter's family.  We arrived on Christmas morning at 7:30 am.  It took us a couple of hours to unpack our 4 suitcases of things for Kari's family, putting the Christmas gifts to the side to be wrapped.  Once wrapped, we put them under the Christmas tree and then began unwrapping all our work!  

The next day we got to spend some fellowship time with their whole team at a cafe' on the beach.  They had the best shrimp appetizers and nems that we've tasted since our days in Cote d'Ivoire.  As you can tell, the "beach" is not sandy, but rather, very rocky.  

We spent a lot of time walking.  Walking to the house where Alec has preschool three mornings a week.  Walking to the neighborhood "boutique" (shack) where we bought Coke Zero, flour, bread and other staples.  We walked to the beach one evening, which is only about 10 minutes from their apartment!

The first couple of days we stayed close to home, but one of our first trips into town was to one of the authentic markets where they sell a little bit of everything.  We bought a fresh 2 kilo tuna and watched as the guy turned it into about a kilo of tuna filets.  We also bought fresh shark filets.   The guy told us that we would enjoy the tuna but we'd be back for more shark!  He was right.  It was very good!

Glenn and Jonathan grilled all the tuna and shark on the balcony that night and we ate until we were stuffed, and then had fish tacos (shark tacos) a day or two later. Yum!

We saw lots of interesting and exotic fruit and beautiful, wildly colorful vegetables, and bought as much as we could comfortably carry in all our arms ... 

… but what we couldn't tote, Kari bought from her veggie lady who comes to her house twice a week.  She and her husband drive a station wagon full of fruit and vegetables to certain neighborhoods on specific days, and have quite a business going among the toubabs (caucasians).  

This might be a good place to insert that Kari and Jonathan have a lot of "guys".  They have a guy that sews clothes for them.  They have a lobster guy who comes to their house.  They have a lady who comes in once a month to cook food for their freezer.  They have lady who makes English muffins for her.   

During our two weeks in Dakar, I was able to go to several different markets, every one of which I totally enjoyed! Besides the market where we bought the tuna and shark filets, Kari and I went with one of her African friends, Patricia, to buy African fabric to have some clothing made for her and me from her "guy".   Another day she and I went to a clothing market where most of the clothes were previously owned.  Here at the tourist market, as I was walking from one booth to the next looking at all the "souvenirs",  I looked back and noticed Jonathan was praying for a muslim man.  It was awesome to see!

One day Kari and Jonathan took us to N'Gor Island, just off the coast of Dakar.  It's a small, private island where the houses are surrounded with high walls and covered with pink and purple Bougainvillea.  The coast line is dotted with umbrellas and chaise longes for rent, and open-air restaurants.  We road in a motorized boat like this one, except ours didn't provide life vests for each of the passengers.  Maybe our boat was safer than all the others, seemingly not needing life vests???

It was a little nerve-wrecking when we hit a few big waves as we were first heading out since there were no seat belts and the sides of the boat were just inches higher than the slats upon which we sat.  One wiggly boy made me a little nervous!

After walking across the island, we enjoyed a tasty lunch of grilled fish with onion sauce underneath this pavilion.  

It was a lot of fun and a great way to spend an afternoon.  The weather was perfect and the whole experience delightful!

We did a lot of fun things, but the thing we enjoyed most of all was just hanging out with Kari, Jonathan and Alec in their apartment.  Alec is a hoot.  Full of energy.  Says and does lots of funny things.  Very expressive!

Like I said, he does a lot of funny things.  He likes to paint.  You've heard of fingerpainting.  Have you ever heard of leg and foot painting????

While Alec would nap during the afternoon, I would often go on the balcony and soak up some rays.  I am trying to increase my vitamin D absorption to help me through the blah winter months back in Europe.  Besides that, there was a nice breeze on the 3rd floor and the warmth felt so good!  (The first week we were there, it was actually cold in the morning and evening to the point that I was wearing long pants and long sleeve shirts!)

We had a wonderful time and look forward to going back when Kari has her baby in the spring.  :-)

Well, I'll try to do better at keeping up-to-date.  So sorry for the hiatus, but the break was nice!

Happy New Year!