Momma & Child

More conversations. She is a talker...like her daddy.

Father & child

Anastasia has started "talking" to us these days. She tells us all about life and being a baby. Unfortunately, we don't always follow, but she's patient with us.

Crazy Old Ladies and Culture Shock

So we were just minding our own business, walking along having a good time in Thessaloniki. It was a moderately warm day, and being Americans, we decided not to dress our infant daughter in a parka when it was 60 degrees outside--crazy, I know.
Since it was so nice out, we let our friend, Summer, (who happens to live in Greece) hold Stazy as we were touring. As we were walking around in the nice temperature, neglegently dressing our daughter in a mere coat, gloves, hood, and warm socks, this seemingly harmless sextagenarian walks up and sweetly takes Stazy out of Summer's arms without even asking. She spent lots of time oohing and ahhing over her and talking about how sweet she was. Summer and Robyn just stood there agreeing while Summer's husband, Greg, and I headed to Starbucks for a coffe mug with "Greece" on it. 5 minutes later, we come back and now there's this hoarde of women standing around admiring how cute and (ominous voice) how young/small she is. As Greg and I approached, the women continued to chuckle and fuss--seemingly without incident.
HOWEVER... once we arrived, we had a problem. The kind old lady started to change.
Have you ever seen Lord of the Rings when Bilbo goes all scary when he sees the ring?--this was her face when we asked to take back our child. Silly, I know, but after 9.5 months in the womb and nearly 2 months out of it, we'd kinda gotten attached.
Turns out, she just really thought it was far too cold for her to be out. This was though interpretation and sign language: Yes ma'm, she has socks on. Yes, we have a blanket. No we don't have another blanket. You want to see inside our bag? Because you don't believe me that we don't have a down fleece in here? Yes ma'm we are the devil. We're actually taking her to Olympus for a human sacrifice. (ok, those last 2 were made up, but the rest are true).
Even after we showed her the diaper bag and her blanket, she just wrapped Stazy tighter in her shawl and wouldn't give her up. I honestly wanted to go and forcibly take her. Obviously, this wouldn't have helped, but my paternal instincts kicked in and I was none-too-pleased with the little-old-lady act anymore. Give me my child, woman!
Fiiiiiiiiiinally, we convinced her that we'd keep her out of the cold so she gave Stazy up. Robyn tucked her safely into the baby Bjorn so no one else could take her. The lady continued to fuss and tucked Stazy in tightly and I managed to put a smile on my face and say "thank you" in Greek (the only thing I knew how to say anyway). It wasn't my true sentiment, but it was better than violence, right??

Lessons learned: don't let strangers take your child. keep said child strapped in Baby Bjorn so said strangers can't take said child.
Lesson taught: If you are a lady or gentleman; young or old; Greek, Turkish, American, East Timorian, or otherwise--> DON'T REFUSE TO GIVE BABIES BACK TO THEIR MOTHERS!*

*CPS excluded

Mt. Olympus

You remember all those things in school that you learned but never really thought you'd see. Ok, maybe for many of you, old-timer's has already kicked in, you forgot everything you ever learned, and you'd rather be watching Jeopardy with people who still remember it.
So here's the point--we got to see Mt. Olympus! It was far away, but still visible enough since it was a clear day. This is where Zeus lived. Luke used to really get into the Mythology stuff and even minored in classical studies in college, so forgive him for getting too excited about a big rock. It was cool and admit that you're jealous that you didn't get to see it instead of calling him a big nerd in your head (or out loud).

Train ride

We went to and from Greece via train. It was really hot on the way there and really cramped on the way back, but we had a good time. We had little better to do, so we took lots of pics :)

Dancing Baby

Anybody got the ugachacka song memorized? Stazy has the music in her head. We couldn't get it on video, but she likes to do a little head banging to music in the morning these days. In this picture, you can at least tell that she's getting good head control from the still shot.

Pork & Paul

When you can't get something, it makes you miss it all the more. We were able to satiate our desire for some pork, as it is available all over town. Luke could have eaten pork gyros every meal--possibly even for breakfast. We also found some things that we were craving, but decided to leave on the shelf...i.e. Lucky Charms and Cap'n Crunch. Both of those cost around 18 Euros, which is somewhere around $25 or more... We'll save those for another day.
Meanwhile, we hiked up to the wall overlooking the city to "Paul's Gate," the gate which is traditionally the site where Paul actually entered the city for the first time to bring the good news to the Thessalonians. It's also a great place to check out the city!

Greece!

We were pretty much resigned to staying in town for the last few months of Robyn's pregnancy. After Stazy was born, we pretty much still stayed close to home. Turks don't even leave the house with their babies for the first 40 days (except for hospital visits and emergencies). So we were ready for a quick break from the city after being cooped up since the beginning of September.
We hopped on the overnight train to Thessaloniki/Selanik to visit our friends and have some relief (not to mention pork). Stazy did great on her first international trip. The border guards were funny since they didn't ask any questions after they saw we had a young child. The only concern they had was that she didn't have any stamps in her passport...uh...because she was born in Turkey. "Ohhhhhhhh..." We gave them our residence permits and everything was fine.
We enjoyed our visit. We ate lots of pork and managed to resist the urge to "pimp our kid."
These are pictures of the White Tower, which was a part of the old city wall and also the interrogation/torture/lookout tower. The other picture is of the ancient agora where experts believe the riot in Acts 17 took place.

Our Downstairs Neighbors

We had a pleasant surprise from our downstairs neighbors. They brought us something called asure--a warm, sweet dish served for New Year's. Hatice, the wife, created the beautiful patterns with pomegranate, walnuts, seeds, and various other sweets.
We enjoyed our evening with Wii and talking about how things are going. We look forward to getting to know both Hasan and Hatice in the future.

New Year's

We joined some of our friends for a New Year's party. We were able to see many fireworks since we were on the 9th floor. We found a great recipe for boneless buffalo wings online and one of our friends couldn't help himself...
(this one is a little out of order, but not by much)

Smile

We managed to get a quick shot of Stazy smiling. Unfortunately, it's really short and has a nice shot of Luke's finger as well...

29+

We had a great time celebrating Robyn's birthday. We went to Chili's for some steak, refillable drinks, and chips and salsa.

Huffs

Baby's first Christmas!

Anastasia had a great first Christmas despite the various ordeals by outfit we put her through. She was a real trooper! And ain't she cute??

Furry Feet

Robyn's sister had an epiphany while she was here--learning that chickens don't actually have fur on their feet, despite appearances to the contrary. We'll give her a break, however, as most chickens in the States don't have feathers surrounding their feet.

Sushi Night

We've gotten decent at preparing various kinds of sushi. We got a bonus this time, though, as one of our guests used to help prepare sushi at a Japanese restaurant.

Sleeping Beauty

We're proud of her. Can you tell?