Blessed

On Christmas morning while we were opening our stockings & playing a game, we heard a knock on our door... and it turned out to be Santa Claus! Well, not quite, but the mailman with a note that said we had not just one, but two packages at the post office. Since people don't celebrate Christmas here, we were able to get our packages on Christmas Day!

We decided to wait until the next morning to have another "Christmas morning" with all of the AMAZING gifts that we got. Some we had requested, but some our friends in Ames picked out for us & we LOVE them! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, friends!

We love it all - I'm drinking Peppermint Mocha coffee as I write this, Dan's already started to play through the Michael W Smith book & hymnal as well as read some of the Hoard's Dairyman articles!

Two weeks ago we didn't have one Christmas tree - now we have three! Lynn's mom sent a really small one, and our friends sent a medium sized one & we found a big one here! We're so blessed!

We can't wait to read the books, eat the bacon, drink apple cider, and decorate for next Christmas with all of the fun things you sent us! THANK YOU again - it was so fun to open them all!

Christmas Morning

Our friends here have a tradition of sleeping "under" (next to) the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. It sounded like a fun idea, so we tried it out! Here we are on Christmas morning with our Christmas tree in the background. (Our couch folds out into a bed, so we slept on that!)

Lynn's mom had sent us some fun stocking stuffers & we opened our stockings on Christmas morning. Thanks mom for the great stuff!

Christmas with Friends

We celebrated Christmas this year with some dear friends we have here! We got together on Christmas Eve & Christmas Day for some special celebrations of Jesus' birth! We had a blast exchanging presents, singing Christmas carols & stories, as well as eating lots & lots (we had soup on Christmas Eve & lasagna on Christmas Day)!

It's such a blessing to have great friends here that we can celebrate with! Although nothing can ever replace family, we love that we can still celebrate with friends that feel like family! Here's another collage, again click to make it bigger so you can read the captions!

Here's a few extra shots that didn't make the original collage...

We made music shakers for the kids to use during Christmas Carols - they loved them (although Lorelia usually wanted to eat it!)

Jesus' Birthday Cake (the cake in the collage is for a local friend who shares Jesus' birthday!)
Our Christmas Pageant, Dan made a great shepherd with his little followers... Klaire & the Monkey Shepherd Ava :)

Gingerbread Fun!

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is making Gingerbread Houses (see last year's post & the year before that to find out how much we love doing this every year!) So this year we assembled the Americans & had a Gingerbread making party! We made the walls & roofs, Sheryl did the frosting & Rachael got the candy! As you can see we had a blast...

Click on the Picture Collage to view larger & read captions!

Merry Christmas!

We wanted to try to post these pictures of our home ready for Christmas before Christmas, but unfortunately never got around to it... we were making lots of food for celebrating Christmas here! But finally here are pictures of our Christmas decorations & our Christmas tree (which we finally found a week ago!)


The Elves in the above collage are a family tradition in Lynn's family. And our friend's kids love it! We hung our stockings by the door to our living/dining room. We love our nativity scene, Lynn's parents got it for us two years ago, it's beautiful - hand crafted in Bethlehem!

We received some new ornaments from friends & family this year & last which we love because they express the true meaning of Christmas - Christ's birth! We found the Wise Men ornament & the Mary on the donkey ornament last year when we traveled to Galena, IL in December, they had every kind of ornament you could imagine!

More Christmas posts to come.... Merry Christmas to all!

A Family Christmas Food

Tonight I made Poppy Seed Coffee Cake... my grandmother's specialty that I've learned to make over the past few years. Now if you're not part of the Klisch family you're probably not sure what Poppy Seed Coffee Cake is... but after this post you'll know!

Some of my ancestors came from Poland & that's where this traditional Christmas food comes from. It's a layered yeast pastry with 2 layers of poppy seed sugar paste.


When I was in 6th grade I had my grandma write down the recipe for a family cookbook I made, and I'm sure glad I did! I think up to that point, it only existed in her brain. And since I was never around when she made, only when we ate it during Christmas Eve, I wouldn't have know how to make it myself!

According to Wikipedia, poppy seed "sweet tooth" is a somewhat acquired taste, as many who married into the family will attest to, I'm one of the few grandkids that likes another poppy seed dessert (Mukufkey), maybe I'll try that next year!

Making it here in Turkey I couldn't buy ready made pie filling, but thankfully was able to find poppy seeds. The first & perhaps hardest step is grinding the poppy seeds. My grandma had a poppy seed grinder which I inherited but didn't bring to Turkey so I had to use the old fashion method... the pestle & mortar, which are easy to find here.

First we roasted them & then Dan ground up 2 cups & I ground up 2 cups. It took us each an hour... I know why in the olden days they had lots of kids... if you made more than one batch it would be a lot of grinding!

The next parts are easier... mixing the dough & letting it rise twice & cooking the poppy seed sugar paste. Assemble, Bake, & Eat.


Yum, Yum, Yum... my favorite Christmas treat!

Sorry to all my Klisch relatives, I won't be bringing Poppy Seed Coffee Cake to Christmas on Saturday! We'll be enjoying it here.... maybe someone else will make it.

I also made Dan's grandma's Christmas Peanut Butter Balls... getting ready for the big day!

More Christmas posts to come soon...

Becoming a Homemaker (Part 3)

Now on to decorating & making our house a home. It's been fun to put together a house & make it feel like home. Of course I have lots more ideas of what to do with different rooms & will probably do a follow-up post after Christmas as I'm hoping to get a few more things for Christmas!

We already showed you our living/dining room and our kitchen, but here's a few more rooms!

Our guest bed... ready for you to visit!
The other corner of the guest room... you can set your suitcase one of the little tables.
Our bedroom.
The family room... tv & hanging out

We recently purchased the Ottoman in the middle of the room, it serves as a coffee table, storage (it opens up), and foot rest! And obviously the bathroom.

Becoming a Homemaker (Part 2)

Now we're on to cleaning, not my favorite thing, but very important in this culture. Since I normally don't enjoy cleaning, I break my cleaning up into a little bit everyday. Behind my kitchen door I keep this "cheat sheet/board".

It helps a lot to look at it & know what I need to do that day, what I have in my freezer, what other cleaning jobs need to be done, many more washes my dishwasher has before I need to refill the shiner & special salt, and more!

The job doesn't always get done on the day that I want it to, but then the next day I know that I need to do two jobs! This ways I don't have to spend a whole afternoon cleaning, just little bits here & there.

Probably the hardest job is cleaning the windows & balcony, which I do every other week, or each one twice a month. But because they're such big tasks, I often procrastinate & let it go for longer. That only means that they get dirtier!

Our balcony is beautiful & wraps around 2 edges of our apartment, but that also means it's a lot to clean! And because we live in the top floor, the birds also like to congregate on our balcony. And where there are birds, there is bird poop! This last time I left the balcony be dirty for way to long & when I finally did clean it...
That was the amount of bird poop I swept up! Gross, I know!

Needless to say, I'm going to try & sweep it every few days now, so it doesn't become quite as gross!

Becoming a Homemaker (Part 1)

You've already seen the pumpkin, popcorn balls, cinnamon rolls, and almond biscotti that I've made. But every week I obviously make much more than that!

Thankfully I have a great cook book that had recipes in it from other foreigners living in Turkey. I've been trying new recipes for the last couple months but still have quite a few to go! Some of them we like, some we love, and some we won't make again!

Sometimes we're surprised, like we were with the German Pancakes we made a couple weeks ago. Not what we were expecting but good non-the-less.

Or when I made Cheese Broccoli Soup - I never would have tried that in the States (I would've gone to Panera), but it was awesome!

I now make my own Maple Syrup, Spaghetti & Pizza sauce, Salsa, & more! Time consuming but satisfying at the same time.

When I want to make something not in the cookbooks, I turn to the internet. I think there are more recipes on the internet than anyone could ever cook! And I look through recipes & pick the one I think will work best with the ingredients I can get here.

Someday when I get a good base of meals we like I'll probably start rotating the recipes though monthly so I'm not always cooking new meals, which is harder than cooking tried & true recipes!

And then every once in awhile we reach into our American pantry & pull out something like Kraft Mac & Cheese, for something easy that tastes like home :)

Becoming a Homemaker

That's right, I think I've officially become a homemaker. Why you ask...

Well, I cook, I clean, I decorate, I cook, I clean, I plan meals, I bake, I cook, I clean, I shop, I cook, I clean... well, I guess that's all!

I'm actually becoming better at it & beginning to enjoy it & want to do well at these things.

I think I'll highlight some of these areas in the coming days & let you know about my homemaking skills - what I do, how I'm improving, the funnier & grosser aspects of it all :)

Toy Box bread

Dan's not one to want to throw anything away, so when bread gets old (only a day or two, since it's always made fresh & delivered to our door nightly if desired!) he wants to use it. So we pulled out a recipe he remembered from being a kid called "Toy Box" bread, otherwise known as toasted cinnamon & sugar bread. It is yummy though. Here's a rare blog appearance by Lynn with our Toy Box bread.

Hummm... would you wear this?

We don't know this guy, but found him in a airplane magazine once when we were flying... as far as our fashion sense goes, we're not sure we'd recommend wearing this outfit in public. But if red suits with maroon sweaters are your thing...

Women's Weekend

At the beginning of November Lynn (with some of her American friends) took a Women's Weekend to Bodrum! It was a lot of fun, and especially needed by Rachael & Sheryl as the kids stayed home with the dads! We had a great time shopping, eating at Burger King & pizza, going to GAP (but now buying anything cause it's SOOOO expensive here!), drinking Starbucks, and more!

A big cactus... we don't have these in Van (Turkey is very diverse - like the USA).
At the Airport in Istanbul (we had a layover) drinking my holiday coffee (not quite the same flavors we have in the states for the holidays, but good non-the-less!)
Yes, we did find a GAP! Amazing and a little taste of home!
The view out of our hotel window - it was so nice to fall asleep to the sound of lapping waves!
The marina - I've never seen so many sailboats!
Another view from our hotel window...

Pizza on the Boardwalk!

Happy Birthday Nathan!

Next it's Happy Birthday to Lynn's brother, Nathan! Wish we could be there celebrating with you, too!

Happy Birthday Matt!

We want to wish Dan's brother, Matt, a Happy Birthday! Wish we could be there to celebrate with you!

A Trip Up North

A couple weeks ago we headed north to Dogubayazit with some friends. Dogubayazit is at the base of Mount Ararat, one of the mountains Noah & the ark probably landed on. We left around 9am & first stopped at a famous waterfall. Not quite as amazing as Niagara Falls but beautiful non the less. We had breakfast here – a picnic on the ground – people here love picnics!
Next we visited the tomb of a famous religious guy from the area. Sorry no pictures from there.

Then we went to a local castle. We had visited there two years ago when we came, but it was fun to go back with some friends. People here love to take pictures of themselves individually – kinda like on-site Glamour Shots. We won’t show you all of those, but they are fun! Here’s some of the group shots.









After the visit to the Palace we headed to the Pazar to do a little shopping & got sandwiches for the ride home. All in all it was a great first touristy trip with local friends!