End of Summer

As I see friends posting on FB all the back to school stuff, we are gearing up for our end of summer.  It has gone by much faster than I thought it would.  I just thought with three kids at home while pregnant would mean the slowest summer EVER.  But I was wrong.  It went by way too fast and I"m pretty sad about it.  I'm sure it had something to do with Bea being here.  She has been a miracle and I am so sad that we only have one more week with her.  She told the kiddos she would happily come and babysit once in awhile.  But now that she is a newlywed, she is leaving the nanny world and getting a real job (her words).

Tomorrow we are finally going on our summer vacation.  We had originally planned to go in July and go to Izmir.  But once the girls were asked to go to Gymnastics Camp, we had to alter our plans.  I would have been totally fine with just sending Jocy.  She did really well with her first overnight trip this past spring.  But when their coach asked if Elly could go, we needed to figure something out.  She has only ever stayed away from us with family.  She knows Ms. Yana very well.  And Ms. Yana knows how to handle Elly's moodiness, so I hope everything will be fine.  But we decided it would be best if we vacationed near camp.  So tomorrow we are off to Çanakkale for 5 days.  We wanted to stay a few days with the girls and then a few more to make sure they get settled in.  I'm looking forward to visiting Troy and Gallipoli.  I've always loved History in school and its been amazing seeing things I studied in school.  On Thursday we are heading South to Ayvalik for some beach time and to visit Lesbos, Greece.  We had planned on staying on Lesbos, but we got a little nervous waiting on our Residents Permits.  Now we will just spend a day there and add another stamp to my passport!  And I'm dying for a Greek Salad and some pork!  LOL.  Have you noticed our trips have a lot to do with eating. :)

We will head back to Istanbul on Sunday and the girls will come back on the bus Tuesday.  Then it will be whirlwind of getting ready for back to school on the 10th.  I'm good with the girls heading back to school, but totally freaked out with Nate going.  I really have no idea what I'm going to do with all my time for a few weeks.  Oh what... find a new cleaning lady.  That has been harder than I thought.  Most of the recs I'm getting are for Live ins.  I just  want someone two or three days a week.  At least with the kids gone during the day, it will be easier to keep the house clean until my parents get here.  But I'm really hoping I find someone soon!

And for a sad note, my Grandpa Hoffman was buried yesterday.  I wish I could have been there.  Hopefully, I will get to video chat with my Grandma soon.  One perk of being so far away, its easy to ignore stuff going on back in the States.