Amazing Istanbul

August 2014

After getting to bed early, we were rested and ready to begin our adventure. We had the most amazing buffet breakfast at the hotel before our tour began. Of course, it had all of the yummy pastries you would expect from a traditional European Continental Breakfast, along with cereals, eggs, bacon and waffles for non-adventurous American clientele. They also had traditional Turkish breakfast fare - tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, yogurt, bread, honey on the comb, figs and beyaz peynir, a white, salty sheep's milk cheese. Not being coffee drinkers, Tommy and I passed on the famous Turkish coffee and stuck to tea and fruit juice.

With happy bellies, we began our tour. There were 6 others on our tour, mostly Americans - a couple who was probably 10 years or so older than us, an older couple and her father who was probably nearing 90 and his Swiss lady friend. Our guide was great - very experienced - I think he said he'd been giving tours of Istanbul for close to 50 years, so he knew his stuff.

We started at the Topkapi Palace the seat of the Ottoman Empire for over 600 years. I suppose I probably should have known, but I had no idea that the Ottoman Empire still ruled up until the end of World War I. During the height of the Empire, as many as 4,000 people lived and worked on the palace grounds.

This is the Fountain of Sultan Ahmet III that stands right outside of the entrance gate of the palace. You pass through the first gate and into a courtyard:

This is a church in the first courtyard: 

We spent most of our time n the second courtyard. The palace kitchens were first built in the 15th century. The kitchens were impressive, consisting of 10 domed buildings and 20 chimneys. Over 800 people cooked up to 6,000 meals a day in the kitchens, so I guess they had to be big! This is a picture of some of the chimneys, but it doesn't do them justice at all:

As we listened to our guide, I remember being particularly struck by the power the women exerted over the Ottoman Empire at certain times during its rule. During the 16th and 17th century, in a period known as the Sultanate of women, the Sultans' mother and wives effectively ruled the kingdom. The "mother sultans" were often of slave origin and gained significant influence over their sons, the Sultans, who were often only children when they rose to power. Interesting stuff...

We toured the outer imperial treasury and saw the imperial arms collections. We also went inside the Imperial Council Chambers: 

 And got our guide to take our picture outside of them:

We could have easily spent the rest of the day exploring the grounds, including the inner courtyards and royal residences and harem, but unfortunately, when you only have one day to see such an amazing city, certain things have to be cut short. We caught a glimpse of the gate leading to the third courtyard before we made our way back out of the palace grounds:

When you step out of the gate of the Topkapi palace, the Sea of Marmara is directly on your left, the Hagia Sophia is on your right and the Blue Mosque is maybe a half a mile in front of you. The pictures we tried to take as you walk through the arched gate don't do justice to the beauty, so I'll just move on to our next location - the Hagia Sophia, seen here from the back as you exit the palace.

And from a couple of different angles:

I was originally not that impressed with the outside of the Hagia Sophia - I think I always associated that name with the Blue Mosque, which is a much more impressive, newer looking building from the outside.  The Hagia Sophia was originally a Greek Orthodox church built in the sixth century that housed the Patriarch of Constantinople in the 13th century and was converted into a Roman Catholic Cathedral under the Latin Empire. It was converted into a mosque in the 15th century and is now a museum. Inside, the Hagia Sophia is beautiful. What I found most interesting was how a Christian church was converted into a Muslim mosque. The church originally faced Jerusalem, but the altars in a mosque must face Mecca, so the Muslim altar is slightly off-center. Greek Orthodox mosaics stand next to Muslim minarets. It was like nothing I had ever seen.  Very cool.

This one is my favorite:

As it was Friday, and the Blue Mosque is still a functioning mosque, we couldn't tour it until after prayers in the afternoon, but we did snap a few pictures before we left:

From there, we headed to the Grand Bazaar and had some time to explore on our own. We entered from this gate:

 

It reminded me a lot of the Khan Al-Khalili in Cairo, except that the stores were selling different things, of course. Inside the bazaar, there were mazes of paths lined with small stores selling everything from carpets to baklava, lamps, clothes, spices and Turkish delight. The "streets" near the main gates of the bazaar were wider and the stores were larger and fancier, but as you would further into the maze of the bazaar the stores became smaller, and the streets narrower.

We didn't buy too much - a cute outfit for Livi and some Turkish delight for my dad - from this store, as a matter of fact:

After grabbing some lunch on an outdoor patio and people-watching for a few minutes, we headed back to the Blue Mosque:

As I mentioned, the Blue Mosque is still an operational mosque, so those who enter must adhere to the dress code, which for women means head and knees must be covered. I was not appropriately dressed in my shorts and t-shirt, but fortunately, they will provide you with a robe and head covering before you enter should you be in inappropriate attire. Here I am before we entered, looking stylish:

Once again, it was amazingly beautiful inside. I'm not sure if you can tell from the pictures, but there are thousands of cords hanging from the ceiling, attached to the low-hanging lights that are all around the interior of the building:

 

 The open area behind us in this picture is reserved for Muslim men to pray:

 Our last stop of the day was Hippodrome. The oldest of the sites we saw, the Hippodrome was built in the 3rd and 4th century AD, completed during the rule of Constantine the Great. The Hippodrome was the site of public games and chariot races - the social center of Constantinople during the Byzantine Empire.There isn't much left of the Hippodrome today, but in its day, it could seat up to 100,000 people, so it must have been a sight to behold. Remnants of the monuments in the center of the Hipppodrome still remain today. This is the Serpent Column, constructed to celebrate the victory of the Greeks over the Persians during the Persian Wars in the 5th century BC:

Of course, everyone who is anyone has to have an obelisk from Egypt:

This one was mounted on a base that depicts an emperor offering a wreath to a victor of one of the races:

We got to rest for a couple of hours, then headed out for dinner to the restaurant our tour guide had booked for us the previous night. Sofyali 9. It was a small, intimate restaurant offering primarily mezes, basically Turkish tapas. We tried several hot and cold appetizers - bread and cheese, olives, anchovies, roasted eggplant, spiced walnut spread, stuffed mushrooms, and followed with a plate of chicken shish to share as our main course (please ignore my face eating in the corner of every picture - thanks, Tommy) .

 

Of course, I had to try some baklava for dessert. For the most part, I was disappointed by the baklava I tried, but this one was delicious!

 We finished the day with drinks on the patio outside of our hotel

I ordered one of their specialty drinks named for Agatha Christie. It wasn't cheap, but it was delicious.

After such an amazing first day, can you believe the trip gets better from here?! Tomorrow, we begin our journey on the Wind Star...

The Trip of a Lifetime

August 2014

As I mentioned, on June 12th, Tommy and I celebrated our tenth anniversary, With the kids as young as they are, it had been quite a long time since we'd taken a vacation by ourselves. I will admit to being nervous to leave the kids for a whole 10 days, but Grandma and Grandpa and Nana and Papa generously offered to keep them, so I knew they would be in good hands.

And so...all the way back in January, we booked the trip of a lifetime. Ten years ago, when we took our honeymoon trip to Tahiti, Greece was also in the top of our list. However, in the summer of 2004, the Olympics also descended on Greece and we elected to spend our honeymoon relaxing in an overwater bungalow rather than fighting masses of tourists, sports fans and Olympians. Naturally, then, when we started thinking about where we wanted to celebrate our tenth anniversary, I immediately thought of Greece. But where exactly? I wanted to see the beauty of the Greek Islands, but I also wanted to explore the ancient history of Athens - and what else could we see while we were visiting the cradle of civilization?

From there, came the idea of a cruise. Neither Tommy nor I had never been on a cruise before and we were wary. We liked the idea of going to sleep on the boat and waking up to explore a new destination each day, but we didn't really like the idea of being on a boat with thousands of other people, lining up wherever we went and dressing up for formal dinners to make small talk with strangers. We happened upon Windstar Cruise Lines, a lesser known cruise ship Company offering smaller ships (< 150 people), motorized sail boats at that,and a casual atmosphere with no formal dinners. We also loved the idea of being able to sit at a table for two for dinner if we so desired (hey, we never claimed to be extroverts!). They even had the perfect itinerary - are you ready? - Istanbul, Ephesus, Bodrum, Rhodes,Santorini, Mykonos and Athens - amazing? Yes! So we took the plunge and booked it! The moment the trip was booked, I printed out a map of the cruise ship's route, pinned it to the wall behind my computer at work and started to count down the days.

On August 27th, that day finally arrived. It still seemed surreal when we arrived at the airport and they attached these tags to our luggage:

No, phone selfies on the airplane aren't the most exciting photos, but I had to capture the moment:

Eight or nine hours later, we arrived in the Frankfurt airport for a several hour layover. What time was it? Not sure - I'd sort of lost track at that point - I never sleep very well on airplanes. They were serving breakfast at the Frankfurt Airport McDonalds, so I guess it must have been morning. We ate our breakfast, took this picture, and finally were on our way to Istanbul! (The orange bracelet is to support one of our best friends who is fighting stage four metastatic melanoma - we love you Austin and we're always thinking about you - even halfway across the world!)

We finally arrived in Istanbul in the late afternoon and were met by a driver who would take us to our hotel. After looking forward to our trip for 8 months, we were in Turkey! As we drove to the hotel, we could see the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque in the distance in front of the sparkling Sea of Marmara.  Wow.  We made it.

We stayed at the Pera Palace Hotel. It originally opened its doors in 1892 and served accommodate passengers who had journeyed on the Orient Express. Ernest Hemingway and Alfred Hitchcock stayed there. Sean Connery's James Bond passed through in To Russia with Love. Agatha Christie even wrote her famous novel Murder on the Orient Express in one of the rooms in the Pera Palace. The hotel had been recently restored and was absolutely beautiful:

Pera Palace was the first building in Turkey to be powered by electricity and also home to Turkey's first elevator. The elevator still works today and when the bellman first takes you to your room you get to ride in it. After that, its back to the modern elevators down the hall.

A travel agent from Windstar met us at the hotel, gave us all kinds of information about nearby restaurants and even made us a dinner reservation for the next night. We booked a full day tour starting bright and early the next morning. We were excited to begin our tours, but more than ready for a little sleep after travelling for nearly 24 hours. We retired to our room, ordered room service and called it a night. Stay tuned for our adventures around the amazing city of Istanbul!

School Days

August 2014

So far, back-to-school day hasn't had much meaning in the Mhire household. The kids switched classes at daycare when they were ready, which didn't necessarily coincide with the beginning or ending of the school year. For the first time this year, Jack started in the Advanced Pre-Kindergarten class at Kids R Kids on the same day that school began for Frisco ISD. I guess you can blame my lack of experience for the quality of the pictures. Maybe next year when he starts kindergarten, I'll have my act together enough to have some kind of cute sign, or at least to take the pictures outside where it is a little brighter....

That is, if I can pull myself together enough to take pictures. It was tough for me this year walking him all the way down to the big room at the end of the hall - to the room where the "big kids" always were. It really did seem like yesterday that I carried my 6-month old in his car-seat carrier and dropped him off in Suite 150 with his bottles of breastmilk and a package of diapers. I think I managed to make it out of the classroom before the tears came, but I definitely didn't make it out of the building. Goodness knows how I'll survive when he starts kindergarten next year - I'm already planning on taking the day of work.

Here is my big boy on his first day of APK:

Little Miss didn't start a new class that day, but she, of course, wanted her picture taken, too. 

The kids even have homework in APK. At the beginning of every week, we pick up his blue folder with three or four worksheets - sometimes reading/writing based with the letter of the week or his sight words as the year progressed, sometimes recognizing numbers or doing simple addition or subtraction, and sometimes motor skill related involving cutting and/or coloring. Supposedly, they are following a kindergarten curriculum, so hopefully he'll be well prepared when he starts next year. As you can see, he enjoyed doing his homework on the first night - we'll see how long that lasts.

Olivia joins in too - here, she picked every pink marker out of the marker box to color her Bubble Guppy coloring book.  That girl loves her pink!! 

Old Friends are the Best Friends

August 2014

 

We were so excited when our friends from Houston decided to make a weekend jaunt up I-45 and visit us in the DFW Metroplex. I've known Jeff, Scott and Brian since high school, and Tommy has known them since middle school.  Scott and Jeff have awesome wives now and they each have a kid and it is still so much fun to get together as grown ups!

 

They arrived in town on Friday night and we all met at Esther and Greg's super cool new Knox-Henderson condo for the night. Some kind of inappropriate conversation is bound to ensue, but it is always so nice to just hang out with these people. 

We got to meet Sarah and Jeff's baby, Norah for the first time. I really wish this photo wasn't blurry because it would have been so cute.  Oh well, I'm posting it anyway:

Jack and Livi were happy to see Oscar again, and the three of them spent most of the night watching cartoons on Netflix or playing on the I-Pad.  They even got to enjoy a late night trip down to Lower Greenville for some yummy popsicles at Steel City Pops. I remember the row of bars and clubs that lined Lower Greenville when we lived down there, and I love what the area is now becoming - cool restaurants and even a Trader Joes.

Jeff, Sarah, and Norah stayed at our house on Friday night. Jeff and Tommy took Jack to his soccer game and Sarah and I had some time to chat. That afternoon, we joined the others for some lunch back in Dallas. We didn't even let some drizzle stop us from enjoying the outdoors. Uncle Greg hung out with the kiddos on the sand volleyball courts while the rest of us enjoyed some food and drinks:

 

We all went our separate ways for a few hours and met up again at our house in the burbs for cheese. meat, beer, wine and games. It was a late night for some, but fun was had by all!

 

Of course, some of us rolled out of bed earlier than others in the morning. Norah enjoyed playing with everything in Jack and Livi's playroom:

When everyone else woke up, we all met for brunch at the Blue Goose before they headed back to Houston and we headed to (what else?) a birthday party!

We've fortunate to have such long-time friends. We don't see them nearly as often as we'd like, but whenever we do get to see them, it is like we saw them yesterday!

Summer of the Birthday Party

Summer 2014

When Jack turned 2, and even 3, I remember being sad when I would invite kids from Jack's class at daycare to his birthday parties and only a couple would show up. I also remember wondering why so few of the kids in his class seemed to be inviting classmates to their birthday parties. Silly, I know, but mommies worry about silly things.

Well, apparently all that starts to happen around the age of 4. Jack had been going to one or 2 parties a month throughout the school year, but apparently he has a lot of friends with summer birthdays. When we weren't travelling or playing soccer over the summer, it seems like we were at someone's birthday party. Jack loved it! Here's a quick look at some of the fun that was had...

Jack's friend Olivia from school turned 5 and had a super cool party at the Legoland Discovery Center in Grapevine. The party started in a party room where the kids ate pizza and each put together a Lego creation:

 

What did they make?

It was a spinning hamburger!!

After that, they let everyone loose to ride the rides and play. We rode Jack's favorite ride with the birthday girl, and then we had to run to birthday party #2 for the day - all the way back to Pump it Up in Frisco (where Jack had his 4th birthday party) to celebrate Tiger's 4th. They splurged and went for the black light package, which I'd never seen before.

I'm really wishing now that I would have take pictures of something/someone other than just Jack. Oh well!

Jack's school friend Harrison had his party at the Sci Tech Discovery Center here in Frisco. It is small as far as museums go, but its a really fun place for younger kids to spend a couple of hours.  First, they all spent some time checking out the museum. Jack liked the magnets:

Here are Jack and his friend Jordan watching and listening as ping pong balls drop down over metal rods:

All of the boys particularly loved this centrifuge-like spinning ride!

After exploring the museum, we headed into the party room to make paper rockets and then shoot them. The highlight was heading outside to drop various substances in a bottle of coke and watch the reaction. Of course, Mentos made the biggest coke fountain! Jack was super-excited because he got to carry one of the Coke bottles outside.

Jack's soccer buddy Carver had a dinosaur-themed party at his house. The kids bounced on a bounce house, hunted for dinosaur eggs in the yard, grew their own dinosaurs in water and had flying dinosaur races in the street. They all (except Jack) wore their explorer hats - how cute is that?!

 Even Livi got to come to this one!

Another soccer friend, Cole, had his party at Urban Air, a trampoline park. Jack was a little intimidated when the big kids were bouncing all around him, but loved it when he could find an area more to himself:

His favorite part was bouncing off of the trampoline into the foam pit. I think he could have done this all day!

 He also had fun bouncing around with all of his soccer friends:

I didn't pull out my camera at every party - mostly the ones when I was chasing both Jack and Livi around at the same time. We had fun at a soccer party on the water slides at the Frisco Athletic Center for Jack's soccer friend Tristan's 5th birthday and on an inflatable slide at one of Jack's school friend's houses, and more that I'm sure I'm forgetting. I think a lot of parents find all of the kids birthday parties tiresome.  Maybe its because I'm a working mom who doesn't often get to see her kids just playing with their friends, but I love to go, meet his friends and their parents and see him interacting with all of his buddies and having fun!

Sidekicks Summer Soccer

Summer 2014

I think everyone would agree that outside in Texas in the summertime is no place for soccer. Fortunately, there was a great solution for Jack to get some exercise and continue playing soccer with his Pearson Farms friends - we moved indoors! Just like we did in the winter, the Sidekicks Too reconvened inside. Coach Lynsey continued to coach, but Coach Audra, or "Coach Mommy" as Jack likes to call me actually got to run a few practices and coach a few games while Coach Lynsey was out of town. I stressed out way more than I probably should have, scoured the internet for soccer drills for 4-year olds and actually had success at practice with "Sharks and Minnows" and "Rockets and Asteroids." Stay tuned - Coach Audra just may make an appearance later!

Jack had a great indoor season! He continued with the aggressiveness that he discovered at the end of last outdoor season and became an expert at using the walls to his advantage when dribbling the ball up the field. He did really well keeping the ball at his feet and dribbling it through the crowds.. He even scored multiple goal in a couple of games. Go Jack!

  

 

Using the wall to his advantage!

I tried to take a few videos, and even got one of his goals on video. Unfortunately, just the last second right before he scored - I was too busy cheering. This one shows off his dribbling skills - maybe he'll be an assist guy like his Mommy!

Here's the team with their medals after the last game of the season - Aiden, Tristan, Carver, Ryan, Liam, Dhilin and Jack (not sure where Jayden was):

And this is what happened when I tried to get a picture of Jack with his medal after the team pics.  I love my goofy guy!