Istanbul... again!

I know some of you (ahem, Mom) are waiting for an Ireland post, but this was in the queue and was almost finished, and I need to get it up.  Ireland is gettin' there... But, yes. We went to Istanbul again at the end of April.  For our last time...at least from here, where we can just drive 6 hours and be there.  Definitely one of the perks of this job and lifestyle!  This time we caravaned with/met up with two other families from church.  The Coopers and the Brownfield-Nordstroms.  It was a lotta fun.

Picture of the fam in front of the Blue Mosque.

 Nuala and Maeve waiting for breakfast.  These pictures are going to be sorta-in-order-but-sometimes-kinda-random... just because.

The Blue Mosque.

Aaaand, the Blue Mosque, this time with the Cooper family!

Nuala, getting closer to the Blue Mosque.

Maeve, waiting in line.

Inside!  It's really gorgeous in there.  As I've said before, not a whole lot to keep you occupied for long-ish periods of time, but very beautiful.  Kids love that it's somewhat quiet, despite the throngs of tourists, so their parents have to work hard trying to keep them entertained and behaving semi-decently. "Oooh, look at THAT mosaic! It looks like a spaceship!" (Even if it doesn't...)

 Cuteness.  Maeve and her lil' buddy, Ivy.

I really, really love this picture of them.

 Later I was trying to get some nice shots of Maeve by the tulips, when...

 India replayed itself!  This tour group just came sneaking up behind the unsuspecting little girlie...

...and swoop!  Posin' and a picture-takin' ensued.

Bran, Mia (Ivy's big sis), and Nuala.  

We took a little break from walking and sat by the Bosphorus. Or the Marmara. I'm not sure exactly where we were sitting.  But it was pretty and relaxing.

Oh, this is the Blue Mosque again.

And this is the Hagia Sophia, from the Blue Mosque benches.  They're right across from each other. The Hagia Sophia is amazing.  We've been in twice before and didn't get a chance this trip, sadly. But, the line was hugely long the last day there, and we were trying to get an early start back home, and (like I said) we'd seen it twice...  It was actually nice going here and not feeling rushed to see things, since, you know, we'd done it already.  It was really, really... um... nice.

 We took a little boat ride on the Bosphorus, too.  That was fun.

 The Brownfield-Nordstom family.  We'll miss them!  They're headed to Switzerland this summer. Poor them... ;)

Maeve and Claire, her other little buddy on the trip.  These three little girls are sooo cute together!

Bran's favorite part of the boat ride. The apple tea.  He probably had 4 or 5.  Mostly because he got a sugar cube with them.  The boy must be part horse. The apple tea there in Turkey is kinda like cider, and is really tasty. 

Pigeon chasing.

And... pigeon feeding.

Ice creams (from Burger King!)  I know, I know... but they hit the spot!

Young Turkish lads.

Ivy, Maeve, and Claire trying to entice one or two of the bazillion kitty cats to come over...

 These guys were selling treats, and Garrett (oldest Cooper boy) and Nuala were buyin' them. They would twirl the little stick through this taffy-life candy.. they were pretty, and pretty tasty.

The younger Cooper boys, Aidan and Jared, and Bran, Mia and Nuala.  Those two boys are the big kids in Primary at church, and the other kiddos just LOVE them.  

One of the bazillion kitty cats in Istanbul.

Another one.

 Z and the kids in front of the Hagia Sophia. There's not many pics of poor Z up here, so I thought we should throw him in... You hafta admit, he's pretty cute.

Maeve and Mia walking through the Grand Bazaar.

 Nuala at the Spice Bazaar.  Quite colorful there! We got a pepper grinder.

Bran, Nuala, and Jared by one of the biggest doner twirly things we saw.

Maeve and Jihad.  He was a waiter at a delicious restaurant/cafe we went to twice. It was gooood.  This picture is the one illustration I'll include of Maeve and her world-conquering skills.  I have lots of pictures, actually, of Maeve and her myriad of admirers.  But this post is too long already.  Jihad gave her a necklace, a keychain, and a bracelet.  He actually gave each of the kids a bracelet or something, but Maeve... well, she's small, and smiley, and chatty, and charming.  I know I sound braggy about her, but it's true. She's outgoing and friendly and super cute.  People fell for her. Especially the young men.  Which sounds creepy but it's not. 

 We went to the Cistern again.  I'll never get tired of that place. Super cool and eerie.

 Haha!  Really, though, just directing us to the Medusa-head statues.

 Bran and a cool building.

 Yummm... Eating watermelon!  I want some now. Or rather, a huge glass of water. I'm really thirsty.

 Bran sooooo badly wanted to swing on this man-powered spinny swing.  Luckily I dug up a lira and he had a go.  It was really cute, because it is not nearly the most exciting thing he's been on, but he just LOVED it.

 Tired Maeve.

 The Blue Mosque at night.  I think this is when we were eating (non-Burger King) ice cream. I got pistachio, but it didn't meet my expectations. Maeve's lemon one did, though, and her ice cream standards are lower than mine so she didn't mind trading.  Well, she didn't know she traded, or she might have had an issue just with the whole "mine!" principle.  Phew. It was gooood ice cream...

One of the best parts of the trip was... going to Church there on Sunday!  It was soooo much fun! Here is a pic of Bran, Mia, Nuala, and Maeve with Elder Huish. This is super cool because he was a missionary in our little branch here in Sofia.  Just recently, Turkey finally opened up to proselyting missionaries, and is now part of the Bulgaria Sofia Mission.  We sent over four elders to be the very first proselyting missionaries there (we'd had service missionaries already) and he was one of them! We love Elder Huish, so it was great to see him again.  The OTHER very cool part is that the Branch President there (the leader of the congregation) is my Turkish teacher from BYU from 11 years ago!  Murat Cakir.  This wasn't a surprise, because I'd mentioned to President and Sister Roth (the mission president and his wife), when we heard about Turkey opening up, that my Turkish teacher had translated the Book of Mormon into Turkish about 10 years earlier.  President Roth said, "Oh, President Cakir! He's now the branch president there in Istanbul!" So I friended him on Facebook and he knew we were coming and they brought extra food to the Branch potluck, etc, etc.  Anyway, long story short(er), we had a great time.  Pres. Cakir's wife is so nice, and it was fun catching up with her and seeing how big and awesome their kids are now.  The children had a great time in Primary, and the whole branch was friendly and just so nice. I'm really glad we went.  Driving in Istanbul's a pain.  Plus, there was a big bicycle race that the city closed some of the main streets for, but thanks to Zachariah's most awesome directional skills, we still made it.  On TIME even!

Bran got pooped on by a bird our last night there. He said, "oh, I thought it just rained on me!" Nope.

Nuala felt the urge to dance.

For the first time, we went into the tombs that are right by the Hagia Sophia. They were free, had no lines, and were a little out of the way so we hadn't seen them before.  They were pretty neat to go in. The buildings were beautiful, but it was kinda sad seeing all the little coffins there.  There were a few bigger ones, but sooo many small ones.  This tomb in particular said "Sultan Murad III, his wife Safiye Sultan, and his sons and daughters are buried here. Total 54 sarcopaghi."  So... I don't know. It sounds like the two of them had 54 children.  I'm thinking that's not really physically possible, coming from just the one wife. I mean, I guess it could happen, with the right combination of age, multiple births, etc... BUT, whether there were some of his children's children there, too, or maybe a lesser wife and all the combined children, it doesn't really matter.  There were just a LOT of small coffins... sarcopaghi... The ones with little turbans on them hold males, we're thinkin'.  Bran was really interested in all these tombs.

See? Beautiful buildings.

And see? Really interested.  And what small little fellow there were... :(

Another tomb.

Another one.

And, on that note, here's the end of the post!  (See how clever that is? Z and Bran and Nuala walking away... the end of the post... I know... I'm good...)  We had a blast, and still love, love, LOVE Turkey!  We got back home around bedtime. Turkey is a lot... better put together than Bulgaria.  The roads are wonderful, the infrastructure is great, people seem happier and nicer. Things work well.  All that said, it was nice crossing back into Bulgaria, because Bulgaria is home.  For 3 more weeks, anyway.