The Beauty Shop

OK, here's one. Getting your hair done in Turkey is somewhat of a challenge. There is one salon in the Alley owned and run by a Turk who was trained in the States and used to work in Texas. He is a great guy, speaks English perfectly, lots of fun to be with and good at the trim. But I color my hair and it is long and he charges the same price as they do in the States. Now where is the third world discount in that? But he has put the fear in me about getting my hair cut on base. He says they have no training there. Of course, they are his competition. So my solution has been to get my hair colored on base and stop cutting it. I figure I will donate it to Locks of Love when I get back home. In the meantime it is getting long.
So let me tell you about my trip to the beauty shop last week. It is quite fun most of the time, I get a manicure and a pedicure, my eyebrows plucked (more on this later), and my hair colored and styled for about $50 plus tips. Dude. It's all good except for the plucking. I keep meaning to bring a camera with me to capture this interesting process as it is hard to describe. The girl puts a long piece of string in her mouth and twists it up and uses it to pluck out your eyebrows. It makes waxing feel like a massage. I know it is hard to imagine, I will take pictures next time. So this last week the girl who plucked my eyebrows pretty much insisted that I dye them to match my hair. Now I can say I have had my eyebrows dyed. Can you? The real fun part of the experience was while I was getting my pedicure, the eyebrow plucker asked me if I had any Tylenol. I asked her to bring me my purse so I could check. Instead she got my purse and proceeded to rummage through it herself, helping herself to gum and sharing it freely with the other people there. Now that had never happened before. I should say that I go there at least once a month and they know me, better than I thought, apparently.
Always an adventure, driving or otherwise.
I didn't have any Tylenol.

We had another Branch Conference this month and I thought I would post a picture of most of the members of our branch. What a good-looking group of people. The conference was held at the Adana Hilton. I played the keyboard for all 3 sessions I am sorry to say. I really need to practice more often. I am actually playing in Sacrament Meeting every Sunday now since the other pianist was released. It is always amusing slash mortifying to me to see how badly I can screw up each week. No matter how much I practice. This past week, for example, I picked a song I was not 100% familiar with but it went along with the theme. So all Sunday morning I listened to it on LDS.org so I could get it in my head. I am not so good with counting, it should be noted. Anyway, it was the opening song and I messed it up timing wise for the first three verses. I am sure the guy leading the music was cursing me under his breath. What a mess!
The third photo is one Sydney took in the car of the entrance to our little home away from home. The area just outside the base is called the "Alley" or "Incirlik Village." Don't you wish you were here?

San Antonio Here We Come!!

So it's sort of official, we are headed to San Antonio, Texas this summer. We don't have orders yet so nothing is set in stone, but Doug's new boss in Texas called last week and it looks like we are headed back to Texas. The kids were not too happy at first but it's growing on them. We were stationed in Del Rio, Texas from 1995 to 1998. It is about 3 hours west of San Antonio. We escaped to S. A. on a regular basis so we know what a cool city it is.
The bad things about going back to Texas, in my opinion, are the heat, my gosh, the heat! And the fact that this is probably our last assignment and it would have been nice to go somewhere we have never been. But compared to Turkey, S. A. will be like a slice o' heaven. The restaurants alone will do wonders for us after two years of nothing but Taco Bell, Burger King and Turkish food.
Also, there is a temple there now which was not there 10 years ago. I have really missed going to the temple. I would say it will be nice to be in an English-speaking country again, but come on, it's Texas. Where yeeha meets ole! I'm not sure Meghann's two years of Turkish will come in all that handy. But, heck, I learned all the Spanish I need to get by from watching Sesame Street.
So we will see you all back in the States in August!!

What I Won't Miss

There are lot of great things about living here and I will blog about those things one of these days. Lately I have been homesick and tired of being here so here is a vent blog about what I will not miss when we roll out of here this summer.....
1. Buying milk in half gallon boxes that only get delivered once a week and only last one week.
2. Only driving 25 miles an hour. Since I lack the fortitude of spirit to drive off base, I have personally not driven more than 25 miles an hour since 2006.
3. The way they drive off base, like they have a deathwish.
4. The smell of burning trash.
5. AFN- only 10 channels and AFN commercials that deal with OPSEC ( watch your back-the enemy is watching), depression and suicide, and Ruthie Alcaide talking about alcoholism.
6. The scheduled and unscheduled power and water outages.
7. Mandatory fun, i.e. Awards Banquets, Balls, Promotion Ceremonies, office farewells, etc.
8. The school.
9. Cement walls that require a hammer drill to hang a picture.
10. All the stray and abandoned cats.

OK, I feel better now, I guess.

I Got Me Some Religion

Last September I started teaching seminary. For the three people who read my blog but are not Mormons, seminary is basically a scripture study class for high school age kids. This year one of MY kids is high school age, gasp! So I actually volunteered to teach seminary in order to make sure it was available to Meghann. This year we are studying the Old Testament. There are only 2 other kids in the class. We meet every Sunday morning for about an hour and I impress them with my vast knowledge of scripture (that was meant to be sarcastic.)
So I am studying a lot each week for that. So far, as usual, the teacher has probably learned much more than the students. It has been great, all the kids I teach participate and ask questions and we have a good time.
I am also still doing Bible Study with a group of women at the base chapel. Right now we are studying the book of Daniel. There is a lot more to that book than just a group of frustrated lions! We are starting the half of the book that deals with what Beth Moore calls "end-time events." Basically the LAST DAYS. Our first discussion was yesterday and because there are so many denominations in the study the conversation was very exciting. They all agreed to respectfully disagree to some extent. But really, what they all decided was that nobody really knows how the Second Coming is going to occur, so it's best to cover all your bases. I kind of keep quiet. I see the confusion and all the questions left unanswered in the minds of the other women and I am utterly amazed and thankful to know what I know about the gospel of Jesus Christ. It gives me peace.

Abby Update

Sadly, Abby isn't doing very well. Her tumor is growing bigger every day. You can see it sticking up in the picture with Meghann. She is still eating, but she is losing weight. It turns out she really is just fluffy, when you pet her now, you can feel her bones. She can't hop up on her cat scratch, or the recliner. She gets up on my bed by climbing on the chest at the foot first. It is so sad. She is still very sweet and cuddly, but it's easy to tell she just isn't her old self. I was telling Doug the other day, that she has always seemed like a two-year old-she just has that mentality. It's hard to keep in mind that really she more like an old lady. We are watching to make sure she isn't in any pain, I don't think she has much more time left. We are lucky to have had ten and a half great years with her and Dinah.

Life still goes on even though I neglect my blog. Here are some of the latest bulletins:

Meghann is a rockstar. She is writing songs and practicing and is getting pretty dang good.

Sydney is blossoming into a lovely young lady (she would hate that I wrote that, ha ha, Syd.)

They were both on the latest honor roll. Our church just had what is called "New Beginnings", and both girls spoke about goals they have been working on-they did a great job. Doug and I are pretty proud of them, we might keep them around awhile longer.

In other news, we got a new "shaggy" rug. Dinah seems to like it.