Welcome to our Home

We hope you enjoy this little video of our home!

You Gotta Have Friends

J is loving his new friends! They like to smile, laugh, and even roughhouse, but they can all hold their own. We liked this picture of the three cuties as well as the outtake:

J in his new high chair:

Due to teething, our little guy who isn't normally a cuddler has been a little extra snuggly...

Now thats what I call multitasking!

J got spoiled with a little exersaucer so he can have a little more freedom!

Apartment Hunting...

I can't claim to have done much - or any - of the work, but let's just say that apartment hunting, especially in a foreign country, is hard work! While J and I stayed home, Ronnie was out and about for about a week walking from realtor to realtor and scouring the available homes. One day, J and I joined him and that was the day we settled on a new place. It has been exciting, and exhausting, setting up our home the last week or two but we are finally starting to feel settled. Hopefully we can share a quick tour of our place soon!

This is a special treat for the rough mornings - iced coffee and something akin to a chocolate croissant! Lord, give me self control...

We have many options for transportation, including bus, taxi, metro, walking, and sometimes access to a car. 

 We have a love/hate relationship with Ikea. Let's just say that pushing three of those giant carts and a stroller was an interesting challenge, and our hands are kind of raw from screwing stuff together, but we are happy with how everything turned out and after 4 trips hope we don't have to go back for a long while!

 After spending 5 hours in the store the first time we went, even this pink "hot dog" looked somewhat appetizing. =/

And... We're Back!

So, since it's been more than a year since I have blogged, and I didn't want to give myself the impossible task of catching up, I decided it would be a great opportunity to start fresh with our return to Central Asia! I would love to come back some day and write more about our pregnancy, baby J's birth, our time in America, etc. but for now I am starting with our flight to our new home. In case you didn't know, we were blessed by the best gift we could ever ask for, one that we had been praying for for so long, baby J. I suppose we won't be able to call him that forever since he is hardly a baby anymore *tear, sigh*, so I will work on a better nickname. While I plan to blog about our life here, sharing plenty of pictures since that's what I love to see, I must warn you that it might end up being about 80% pictures of J. If you don't want to see random baby pictures all day, this might not be the blog for you =). 

To say the least, we have been blessed by a great travel buddy. There are days when he is especially fussy and doesn't want to sit still, but on all of the days that we have been out in public, on flights, or shopping for our new home he has been so easy, flexible, generally content, etc. For that, I can put up with waking up 4 times during the night or fussing a little extra when its just us 3! This little guy has gone through a lot already in his short life, including about 10 flights - domestic and international. Here we are leaving our American home for our new CA home! I wish I had gotten a good picture of the 14 pieces of luggage that we checked (don't judge us for being so materialistic, it is almost everything we owned!), but it stressed me out too much and I was just praying it would all get through in one (or 14) piece. It was so hard saying "see ya later" to all of our amazing family again, but we were ready to get started on our new life as a family of 3. 

Get it?

Jud has learned to be flexible and sleep in many random places along the way, including his pack 'n play, random beds, chairs, the floor sometimes, his car seat, a rug shop...

 He has also been discovering new things every day like his thumb, feet, eating food, and we think he is starting to teethe!

 He also puts up with this on almost a daily basis. On this particular occasion, we were out with friends and all of the waiters/waitresses from this restaurant crowded around and started playing with our babies. They proceeded to take them away from us and sit them on a nearby motorcycle. I didn't know whether to watch and laugh, or be concerned and protective =/

 Overall, by the grace of God alone we have all been transitioning very well to our new city and home. Thank you for praying for us. More to come!

Mall adventure and water stains

The other day we went on a trip to a really nice mall in our city. A new apple store just opened there - it's 2 stories! There was also a Crate and Barrel which we found out had only opened the previous weekend! After we ate lunch at Carl's Jr. (a rarity here, but they have free refills so we take the chance when we have it!)

I have been seeing this all over the place recently. People are beating and drying wool to take to their summer homes. It looks so funny from far away.

We had a couple of tea tables with water stains, but I had seen a pin on pinterest about how to get out water stains. I decided to give it a try and it worked pretty good! Before and after...

Weekend Getaway

In May we were able to get away for a weekend to visit some good friends and love on their baby! It was a great time and we gorged ourselves in delicious food like homemade fajitas, hamburgers, homemade lattes, etc. Let's go back.... 

This city is famous for a spicy kabab, so obviously we had to try that while there. 

 Some people making turkish delight!

Banana milk (like a smoothie). SO good!

Selfie! #özçekim