- L did his first 'talk' on a Sunday. This time he spoke in English and it was translated into Turkish, but his next one will be in Turkish. He's already hard at work preparing it.
- A bit of a cold weather snap at the end of September turned into some lovely warm and sunny October days, like a little extension of summer without the need for sun hats and sun cream and worry about over heating and sunburn and adequate hydration. J, S and I made the trek across to our nearest big green park on Monday morning to spend a couple of hours there with some friends.
- We've been passing colds round between us in what seems like a never-ending cycle. S is the only one with a proper cold at the moment, I'm hoping (perhaps optimistically) that after his goes, we might be done with colds for at least a week or two.
- L's been doing a course on Saturdays, with three out of six sessions done. He's finding it really useful and is able to record the talks for me but I have to admit, having him gone from 8am - 2pm each Saturday at the moment is a bit wearing!
- S turned 5 months old today. I can't believe that his first few months have gone already, it's a cliche to say it but time flies so fast! This week he's started rolling from his front onto his back (admittedly mostly unintentionally). As he can already roll from his back to his front, he is now able to execute a commando-type roll to get towards things and places that look interesting. Of course, the most interesting thing to a 5 month old is his big brother's train tracks and trains.
- J has started attending a weekly morning play group that a friend of mine is running in her home. It's lovely as it's a group of mum friends who all have toddlers roughly the same age and live close to each other and we're all taking it in turns to help run activities in the group and support my friend who is hosting it. I've been helping the last few weeks so tomorrow will be J's first time there without me - eek!
- I've started working with a new language teacher. I have to do a lot of prep for her lessons but my weekly lesson with her is balancing really well with my other language sessions, where I basically just chat with a student for a couple of hours. The first is good for pushing myself to express more complex ideas and use longer sentences whereas the second type of sessions are better for general chat and fluency.
- Our home group has started again!
- I've been attending a weekly seminar on the Reformation. I've been to five sessions now, with the final one on Monday. The first three were in English translated into Turkish and it was really useful to hear an English sentence then hear what Turkish words were being chosen to express that concept in Turkish. The last two have been in Turkish, and I've been pleasantly surprised that I've mainly understood them - although I can't yet read long quotes on Powerpoint in Turkish and listen to the speaker at the same time!
- Our year-long Müzekarts (museum cards that allow access to lots of museums and historical sites in Turkey) that we got when we went to Ephesus this time last year were about to expire so we thought we'd better hurry up and visit Topkapı Palace, which we hadn't yet been to. We spent a fun couple of hours one Sunday afternoon exploring there. J was particularly taken with the swords in one of the exhibition halls. Interestingly there's a section of the palace that has a number of religious relics attributed to various prophets and kings - for example a staff said to have belonged to Moses and a sword said to have belonged to King David!
- I (with J and S) went to a surprise baby shower for a friend last week. It was the sort of baby shower that involved 8 children aged two and three years and 3 babies, so rather chaotic but fun!
- And we've had the usual busyness of life with two small children! Language study, trips to the park, time spent with friends, a visit or two to the aquarium to make the most of our annual passes before they run out in December, hilarious conversations with J, lots of laughter and middle of the night feeds with S...
At the aquarium
