Turkey Trip: Part 1

We got back yesterday (wrote this on Sunday...sorry) from an amazing 8 days in Turkey! I never thought I'd want to go there...turns out, I was wrong! It was beautiful! We stayed at an all-inclusive resort in a city between the Mediterranean sea and beautiful mountains and man, it was cold! Well, chilly.

*It's misleading for me to say something is cold, I was under a blanket today at 80 degrees :)* 

We got these handy-dandy armbands when we arrived and those little buddies gave us access to all we could eat at almost all the restaurants and all the delicious fountain coke and ice cream we could handle! Ah, the joys of a resort...

We went on a retreat, of sorts, for ex-pats living on this side of the world. And many, many friends of ours went, too! What fun! Lucy had a blast reconnecting with her best pals, Morgan and Micah, as did me and the hubby with their parents, and others!

And the icing on top of the already wonderful-sounding cake??? My MOM came, too! Woohoo! We got to spend LOTS of time with the amazing Sheila/Bibi and she got lots of Lucy love! Seriously, it was a huge answered prayer because, well, Lucy isn't the friendliest child. Well, she hasn't been. We're hoping and praying that she's turned a corner after last week. She let Bibi carry her and she held Bibi's hand walking places and they had meals together... truly, that was the biggest blessing of the week!

Another really great part of our week was all the singing and praising the Lord we got to do! I even got to sing and lead worship with Morgan & Micah's dad the first night we were there and then I got to sing 3 more times, too! I LOVE LOVE LOVE me some worship! It's one of the things I miss most about our home church back in the Ham.

I think Lucy's favorite part - besides Bibi, of course - was being with Micah and Morgan. Every morning when she got up, the first words out of her mouth were "Chocolate milk" and then "Micah!" Yep. And then when see him, even if a bad mood had followed her around all morning, she'd instantly perk up, laughing and smiling and running around. It was priceless!

Their first time seeing each other in the airport was probably the best moment. Except, we were in line in customs and they came up behind us, but were in line to buy their visas. I thought Lucy would be happy to just SEE them, but no, she wanted to be with them... and lots of crying ensued when she couldn't go to them immediately.  Soon, though, they were united and we even let them sit together a bit on the airplane ride to the city where the hotel was. And from that point on, as much as they could be, they were together!

 Here they are in the airport!

 And then on the plane...

 And then Morgan and Lucy took a nice ride on the luggage cart to the bus that took us to the hotel!

 One day in the hotel...

More later...