Time in Turkey

We've had a really good time in Turkey so far, we've also had some unexpected time here, but more on that later.
We got to Istanbul on Tuesday and ate some delicious Burger King before we even left the airport. It was some kind of wonderful.


Haydn and I got to enjoy Burger King twice! We were supposed to fly to Bangkok last night but the airline canceled our tickets without notifying us so we were at the airport until 1 AM trying to get that sorted out. Now we are flying to Bangkok tonight instead. Kind of a bummer, but today has been relaxing and I did get some more BK.

On Wednesday we got to go to the hospital to see some of our kids who are still there after heart surgery. We got to go to cardiac ICU and see baby Daryan. They are hoping to be able to extubate soon but he is still in pretty critical condition, please keep praying. Here's Jeff next to the model of the hospital, I couldn't believe how nice this hospital was!


We had a great time taking Daryan's mom out for lunch and then for some time in the city away from the hospital. It was also pretty wonderful getting to go to McDonald's twice and get some ice cream! I'm not one to usually take pictures of my food...but I was just so excited to eat some American food. We even got some Starbucks last night while we waited at the airport.


Here are some pics of us from the roof of the house we were staying at. I almost forgot how beautiful Turkey is, we've really enjoyed our time here.

We had a good time on the roof playing with Emma & Micah.


And this is Jeff's new traveling shirt. One of his good friends bought this for him right before we left Iraq because he said that Jeff needed a new shirt for his trip. Isn't it something? =)

We've had a great time in Istanbul but are ready to move on to phase 2 of our trip. Inshallah, we will get on a plane tonight and then arrive at our final destination in Thailand tomorrow night just in time for all of the big events to kick off for the week. Please be praying for our health. Jeff is at the pharmacy right now trying to find some cold medicine for us. I just got rid of a parasite last week, then got an infection from the antibiotics, and now it seems we are both getting colds. I'm really ready to feel better - especially on vacation!

Istanbul

Here are some pictures of our too brief time in my favorite city... or one of the top 5 at least!



Here I am at Sultan Ahmet, or the Blue Mosque. You can see the sea in the background. I love this area, and it was a beautiful day today.



Here is Jeff in front of the Hagai Sofia. It used to be a church but was converted into a Mosque a long time ago. It is an interesting mix of Christianity and Islam. Jeff isn't saluting here, he just forgot his sunglasses.



Here we are sitting on a park bench in front of a beautiful fountain.




This is the city at sunset as we crossed continents. Istanbul is pretty cool in that half of it is in Europe and the other half is in Asia.

We had a really fun day here today! Minus the part where we got ripped off by a taxi driver with counterfeit money. Apparently Turkey did away with all of the old lira - it used to be in the millions, and they dropped all the zeros and made these fancy new bills that look more like Euros. They are also apparently pretty easy to counterfeit. Lesson learned, check your money for the words 'Jokersiz'. We will be heading to the airport in a couple hours and will try to post in the next day or so to let you know we arrived safely.