Thanksgiving...Turkey Style...

When we moved to Turkey in August, we knew we weren't going to be able to be "home for the holidays".  Little did I know, we would make such great friends to share this holiday with.  We all decided that we would make one big Thanksgiving meal, and share it together.  I decided I wanted to make my first turkey! Between my grandma and my mom, i've always had AMAZING turkeys to eat for the holidays, so I had some big shoes to fill! :)

We only had 6 of us, so we had a small 12 lb turkey. I thought I was prepared for cleaning out this turkey, I had my latex gloves(yes, I went there), my tongs, and was ready to go. Umm....I didn't get very far.  It grossed me out! haha Thank God J-Twice was here to take over! 

He took complete control, getting the yuck out (in it's plastic bags--haha), cleaned it and dried it off.  We stuffed the turkey, got it in the oven bag and let it do it's job of cooking!

We had said we were going to eat at 3pm, it was about 12:30-12:45 when I got it in the oven (yes, behind schedule because that's how I work) I worked on the side dishes I was preparing for the meal, our guest started arriving, and we snacked on veggies and cheese. And waited. And waited. And waited for the pop-up timer to pop. FINALLY, it popped! It was about 430-445....but it smelled and looked soo yummy!!

James was given the job of carving the turkey, and he did a great job! 

We couldn't wait to dig in and enjoy all the side dishes.  We had the complete meal: Turkey, Ham, sweet  potato casserole, mashed potatoes, corn, deviled eggs, stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, salad, homemade rolls...deliciousness! 

We all ate WAY too much, but it was good!! The boys enjoyed theirs while watching football, and us girls enjoyed ours at the table together! :) Sorry boys, I'll have to get a bigger table for next time! 

As if we had room for it, we cleaned up and set out the desserts. The best part of the meal, right!? We had pumpkin pie (of course), pecan, chocolate pie, and whatever Aunt Mary calls her dessert! :)

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the Thanksgiving we enjoyed here in Turkey.  Our close friends become our family when we have to be so far away.  

Being Crafty..

When J-Twice lived in the dorms before we got married, he found an old rocking chair that was perfect for his "gaming chair".  He moved out of the dorms and into our first house, this chair came with him.  We had such a small living room that said chair sat in the corner in the dining room for the most part and didn't get much use. We had all intentions of leaving this chair behind when we moved here to Turkey.  Before we knew it, the movers had a sticker placed on it and it was getting packed up. I thought, oh who cares, we may need it. It now fits perfectly in this little corner of our living room.  This chair had an old, ugly fabric on it and it was filthy...I hated it.  Most of it was covered up w a blanket, and it made it "okay" to look at.

Back in September, I had met this awesome friend, Amanda.  Little did I know back then about how awesome she is and the creative, crafty, ideas she can come up with.  Here in Turkey, there are TONS of fabric shops.  I had all intentions of taking said chair cushions to a shop and having them reupholster it. Amanda had a better idea: let's do it ourselves, it can't be that hard! So, on an adventure to Old Adana, we got off the bus in what they call "The Fabric District" ...we had no idea what we were looking for.  After looking in many stores, I finally found a fabric I liked.  We had no idea how much fabric we needed, so we picked a random number...turns out we had more than enough but better than not having enough, right!?  This fabric sat in my house for a few weeks before we finally set out to complete this project.

Then comes this past week.  We said "let's do this"!

 We had to take off the old, ugly fabric but being careful not to completely ruin it because it was going to be our pattern for the new cover.

Let me just say, that fabric was gross!!!!! I don't even want to know how old it was or what it had been through! haha  Amanda and I traced the old fabric and made a pattern with the new.  Remind you, I haven't sewn much else other than a pillow and a stocking (and i'm pretty sure mom did most of that work!) Amanda has only sewn a couple different things, but has a brand new sewing machine so we were putting it to work! We decided to do the bottom cushion first, because it was going to be the hardest.  We pinned the two pieces together and went to work.  Amanda finds great amusement in watching me do a project, because I get impatient and just do what I need to do to get it done, and quickly.  Meaning, I don't always do what is the correct way or watch what I am doing....also meaning, I messed up and started sewing a rather messed up line. haha  We had it on a triple stitch so it wasn't exactly possible to just take the stitch out and re-do it.  Rather, we prayed it wouldn't look too bad when it was complete! :) 

We were just about complete, and the sewing machine decided to act up.  Or rather, we learned that Turkish thread isn't as great as American thread! haha It wasn't tight enough, so it kept unraveling and messing up the sewing machine.  We couldn't get the sewing machine apart ourselves, so we decided to wait until her husband got home and he could look at taking it apart.  Therefore, we couldn't do much more that day.  The next day, Amanda got it fixed and finished the bottom piece. (much against my approval, but she doesn't listen to me very well.haha) She did a great job, and even fixed my mistakes as much as she could! :) 

The hard part was done.  Or, so we thought.  haha  We went to working on the back piece.  We made our pattern from the old fabric again.  Tried to match the fabrics up and couldn't figure out why it wasn't matching up.  It only took Amanda a couple of minutes to say "ohhh, duh!" and as soon as she said it, I knew what we did.  We made two of the same pieces!! hahaha Sooo...we had to make another pattern, this one being the correct way. (Front and back vs. 2 fronts)  Once we got all that figured out, we went to town on the sewing machine.  Much easier sewing this part! 

We got the old cushion back in, stuffed it a little and had to hand stitch the bottom to complete it.  I will say, even though I attempted a little bit, Amanda did the majority of that! She rocks, really.

We had worked on this back piece for quite a while that day, it was getting late and we both had tons to do for our Thanksgiving meal the next day.  I went home, telling Amanda to not worry about completing it, we would do it after the holiday.  I told you already, she doesn't listen to me much...because she showed up yesterday with the piece completed! Yay! :)

And now we have a cute little rocking chair, with fabric that matches the rest of the house! I think for our first time reupholstering something, we did a pretty rockin' job!! (Just dont look too close!) So.. many, many thanks to Amanda for helping this girl reach into her crafty side! 

Our Home

Today, I finally got ahold of a concrete drill so that I could put my mirrors and some pictures on the walls! Yay!!!! It's amazing what little things can make a place feel like a home.  So, with that...I thought I would take you on a little picture tour of our current home (Lord knows we will be having lots of homes in this adventure called "the military life"). haha
We have so far lived in two different homes and they could not be any more opposite of each other!! Our first home in DC was a 3 story, 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath lovely townhome.  Our home here in Turkey is 1 level, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath...needless to say, we had to get rid of a few things before we came here and our 2nd bedroom here is also storage! :)

So, here we start...

This is walking in our front door..

The first room on the right is the spare bedroom/storage..

dont mind seeing the extra boxes..like i said..storage haha and some Christmas presents to be sent back home!

 From there you walk into the living room, which is WAY larger than the last one we had and I love that..

Still waiting to add my vinyl quote above the TV..

And this is looking from the other side of the room towards the front door

And then we have our tiny little kitchen..

The dining room and another view of the kitchen

View from the dining room

And we walk down another hall which the laundry room and tiny little bathroom are off of...but I am sparing the pictures of those rooms. Mostly the bathroom because J-Twice has decided that he doesn't like the shower curtains that I brought with us from the last house so right now we have a cheap one from the BX that does not match the rugs I have! hahaha (oh, my adventures in life..) I'm working on this...just very slowly obvioulsy. :)

and I just realised this picture is from the opposite direction of the rooms I was speaking of! ha, oh well

The last room is the Master room...

Oh, and can I tell you that all of these pictures were taken at about 430pm, and you see how dark it is outside. Yeah, BOOOO!!! haha  Above each of the windows is an interesting curtain hanger in the ceiling....they apparently hang curtains different here...so needless to say, the ones I had, don't work. We'll see if I change that. Another fun tidbit..the rugs in the living room and the runner in the hall are from here in Turkey! Rugs are a HUGE deal here, so we were excited to get some!

But this is our lovely little home in Turkey. Enjoy.

In my head.....

Hello everyone!! Sorry I haven't been the greatest at keeping up with this blog as of late...I really don't have a whole lot to write about.  That only means one thing to me...we need to get out and travel!!! :) We were planning on making a trip to Cappadocia this weekend, but ummm....that would require one of us going to sign up for the trip and that has yet to happen! haha Good thing is---they have groups that go pretty much every other weekend, so we'll make it there soon!

J-Twice finally got his certificate for being September's Logistics Airman of the Month. shh...don't tell him I told you!!! He didn't think he deserved it, but his supervisor obviously felt differently. He had to go in front of a board and compete with some other Airman, and J-Twice won.  I tried to tell him for someone only being here since August, he's obviously doing something good but he doesn't like to see it that way! haha (boys.....)

I still don't have a job (and I haven't been looking too hard for one).  On the other hand, I am completely enjoying being able to go out and about with the girlfriends I have made here.  Last week, a group of 7 of us ventured into Old Adana on the Dolmus (the bus system here) and had a great time.  I got some fabric to re-upholster the rocking chair we have, so I am looking forward to doing that project! Look, I am becoming all domesticated and stuff...hahahaha!!!!! Along with all the fun i'm having, i'm also enjoying being back in the gym. My foot hurts occassionally but for the most part i'm back to where I was before jumping off rocks! :) The base is having a "Cold Turkey 5K" next weekend and us girls are supposed to be attendng! It seems they have 5K's often, so hopefully by time we leave here i'll be well off! 

Speaking of...can you believe we've been here 3 full months already!?! Time is flying by for me! The time has changed over here also, so now the sun is set by 5pm...I am not exactly a fan of that, but eh- what choice do I have! LOL I was talking to a lady that is getting ready to leave here in a few weeks about the weather during the "winter" here and she says it will get only cold enough to wear a jacket or sweatshirt, but gloves/hats/scarves aren't needed. AAAHHHHH....Sounds ah-may-zing!! :) She says it will rain a lot, but that when it rains, it down-pours, floods everything, and then the sun shines! Do you hear this!?! Heaven to my ears! No SNOW?! No freezing cold temps?!! No ice!?!?!! YES.PLEASE!!!!! Esp. after those FEET of snow we had in DC last winter! But, that doesn't stop me from wanting to take a snow tubing trip to the mountains! A group of us are planning to do that mid-Dec...should be fun! 

Christmas is coming up, QUICK!  This will be my first Christmas away from home.  I may stay in bed all day. HA, just kidding.   I can't do that.  I need to get out and get some shopping done...I will be running out of time to get stuff home in time! OHHHH, speaking of Holidays...I'm doing Thanksgiving at my house this year...that means i'm making a turkey....for the first time!! hahahahahaha This shall be interesting!! I am told it is easy, so we shall see! I'm actually really excited about it, so it should be a good time.  Some friends of ours will be joining us. Military life...overseas esp.....friends become your family.  That will be a blog entry itself! :) 

Well, I guess I did have some stuff to write about...but I'm out of words now! Hope everyone is doing well.....love you all!

Oh, I'll leave you with this pic of our sunset the other night as we were grillin' out in the backyard. Enjoy!

5 years (a day late!)

5 Years ago today, you asked me to be your girlfriend.  I still have yet to figure out why you asked me on Halloween (or as you say, why I said yes on that day!).  Never in a million years did I ever think I would date you, better yet end up marrying you.  So funny to think of how long we "knew" each other before we really knew each other…and then it all turned into a "bet". ha 

I still remember the day (like it was yesterday) we went to the park and swung on the swings…me, singing "catch a falling star and put it in your pocket…never let it fade away.." and you STILL wanted to date me! I remember the red rose you gave me when you got in the car, I remember being antsy (because I was nervous) as we sat and watched the sunset, and then being kicked out of the park because the sun was setting. ha My life hasn't been the same since. 

I remember our first kiss. I remember the first time you said "I love you". I remember the day we had to say "see ya later" as you headed off to basic training for the Air Force. I remember counting down the days until you graduated so I got to see you again.  I remember walking around the library in Texas, not wanting our time to end,because I knew it was another "see ya later".  I remember counting down until you got to come home again.  I remember shopping for your new car.  I remember having to say "see ya later' and seeing you off to start your military career. I remember planning our trips and figuring out who was going to travel that month: me to see you, or you to see me. I remember our first trip to the beach together. I remember all our late night/early morning phone calls.  I remember all of our first holidays together. I remember missing you so much. I remember our first vacation.  I remember the day you asked me to marry you.  I remember planning our wedding.  I remember saying "I do". I remember our honeymoon. I remember saying "see ya later" to all my friends and family to go start a life of our own. I remember having the hardest "see ya later" as I sent you off to war.  I remember counting down the days till you would be home, in my arms again.  I remember crying because I missed you.  I remember our first hug after you got home. I remember our first family vacation.  I remember finally being able to celebrate our wedding anniversary, together.  I remember all the trips we took together: New York City, Las Vegas, Ocean City…. I remember you saying "we're moving to Turkey".  I remember packing up our first house.  I remember moving half way around the world with you.  I remember.  

We have had quite the adventure together in the last 5 years, my love.  I can not wait to make more memories together with you.  You are my world, you are my everything.  Thank you for telling my brother "She is hot!". Thank you for that evening in CiCi's! Thank you for asking me to be your girlfriend.  Thank you for asking me to be your wife.  Thank you for saying "I do".  Thank you for never giving up on "us".  

I love you to the moon and back, my love.