Once upon a time...

Mahire, Mike, Melinda, and John took a holiday...

Here are some highlights (all pix are clickable)...

Wednesday, June 23rd, JFK International Airport to Istanbul, Turkey, transfer and arrived Izmir 2pm Thursday...

Friday, a day of rest and recovery and hair cuts...

Saturday, travel to Cesme, on the western coast of the Aegean Sea, rented a 3-bedroom vacation home in Ciftlikkoy overlooking the warm Mediterranean...

Relatives visited, talked, ate, and, somehow, we slept 8 people. Daily visits to the area beaches. Cesme is almost surounded by water and rocky coasts hiding great little coves with soft sandy beaches.

Thursday, July 1st, enrolled Melinda and John in an award-winning sailing school "Lazer" boating course. They speak only minimal Turkish, but all of the other students are fluent in Turkish/English and are helping...

Hello, again. I sort of tired of making this page and haven't updated it for a while. (A whole month, in fact!)

Well, the sailing thing didn't work out too well. The language gap was too great and Melinda and John didn't get to spend enough time on the water, so they kind of dropped out of the sailing class. We've been talking about getting a class in windsurfing or kitesurfing or scuba but haven't reached any decisions.

Monday, August 2nd, days kind of running together, we've been staying up late (because it's cooler at night), sleeping late in the mornings (most families are), picking a different beach to visit (there are so many) after lunch, browning ourselves for a couple of hours (lots of sunscreen for me).

Some nights we all pitch-in and cook up a little family meal, some nights different relatives from different parts of our extended family visit and we host a huge get-together, and other nights we visit one of the local restaurants.

Having too much fun to work on this web page too often.

Friday, August 13th, talked Melsa, my oldest daughter, into taking some time off work and spending us our last couple of weeks here. Melsa arrived today after three grueling flights for a marathon 36 hour trip from Seattle to Izmir. But she's here safely and enjoying the beaches and weather.

Thursday, August 19th, changed our outbound flight from Izmir to Istanbul from the 30th to the 26th to spend 4 nights/3 days in Istanbul with Mahire's cousin Ali. He will show us all the sights over the weekend just before we fly home. Looking forward to it; I've never been to Istanbul; just the airport.

The ice cream vender plays tricks on people: sometimes the cone is empty, sometimes he flips it upside down when you try to grab it, sometimes you get the entire bucket of ice cream. Much fun.

The markets are amazing, so much fresh fruit and vegetables, lots of clothing, shoes, spices, and interesting people. This little girl just couldn't stop smiling.

More time on the beaches; Melsa wanted a deep tan to take back to Seattle.

We found King Tomi on Pirlanta beach tied to a rock too close to the surf while his owners swam. So my kids built a sand castle for King Tomi.

Mahire takes pictures of everything, including vegatables and pretty girls in the market.

All too soon, the months dribble past and the end of August arrives.

We left Izmir for Istanbul (1 hour flight) on Thursday, August 26th. Mahire's cousin Ali met us at the airport and took us to his villa.

Friday we attended Ali's promotion ceremony from Major to Colonel in the Turkish Army.

Saturday we shopped in Istanbul.

Sunday Ali took us sight-seeing to Hagia Sophia, dating back 1500 years to 537 A.D. Finally, I got to see a "pile of old rocks", as John puts it. Magnificient building, marble all around, superb mosaics, tiled walls, first a church, then a mosque, now a museum. One of the balconies has graffiti scratchings that have been identified as Norse runes. Amazing!

Monday, 11am flight, non-stop Istanbul to JFK, three trains to Hazlet, walked home. Managed to transfer in Penn Station, NYC, during the first night of the Republican Convention in Madison Square Garden. I've never seen so many cops.

All-in-all it was a great summer. Enjoy the pix.

Mike