Black Sea or Bust

So my sister and her family are in the States for 6 weeks as well as some of our best friends, so we decided that this summer it was time for a family road trip! Woohoo!

The last time we did a long road trip was 3 years ago and it was pretty much the best, even though Isaiah (who was 9 months old at the time) broke out with the chicken pox the first day of our trip. Joel asked me if I wanted to go home and I said, "Let's keep going!!" Yes, we are committed (and a little crazy), but we love us a good road trip!

To make road trips successful with our posse of kids, we have to plan it well. This includes:

- Letting the kids pick out special snacks for the van that they don't normally get to eat (for our kids it was chips and doritos). 

- Borrowing some books on cd to listen to in the van - Adventures in Odyssey, Anne of Green Gables and Chronicles of Narnia.

- Bringing clipboards, paper and crayons. I also found some free printables online and the kids had fun doing color by number pages, mad libs, scavenger hunts and coloring pages. Isaiah (who is 3) had a small backpack with special things for him to do - playdoh,  paper and a few crayons, a sticker activity book and some lacing cards. Brooks (1.5 years) was seriously a rockstar traveler! I didn't really bring anything along for him to do, but he enjoyed looking out his window, taking naps and making us laugh every time he said, "GUYS! WAWA!" when he saw the sea.

- We tried not to do more than 2.5 to 3 hours of driving every day (although we broke this rule on the way home and did about 7 hours one day and I was ready to pull my hair out till the end). We usually like to get an early start every morning and finish around lunch time, then have the rest of the afternoon and evening to explore and set up camp. 

- We downloaded some fun new music from I-tunes that became the theme songs for our trip. On our last roadtrip we listened to Paul Baloche's album The Same Love and now every time I hear songs from that album I think of our trip! This time we chose Rend Collective's Campfire album and Hillsong's We are Young and Free album. Great picks! 

For this roadtrip we decided to head up North and see the Black Sea, with lots of stops along the way.  And since this post is already way too long, I will write about our first day in another post :)

April in pictures

Some of my favorite snapshots from the month of April . . .

Weekend picnicking with some of our favorites :)

Perfecting the art of the stare down. This is one of my all-time favorite pictures!

"God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars." Just a 10 minute walk from my house and I can be here having my quiet time!

Representing our favorite Turkish soccer team!

The morning began with lots of reminders to not get wet, but by the afternoon all rules went out the window.

A fun afternoon of picnicking and hiking - I'm so thankful that I get to do life with these people!!

Joel's 30th birthday surprise

Joel turned the big 3-0 on May 26th. As a birthday surprise, his brothers flew in to visit at the beginning of May. It was their first time visiting us in Turkey and I was so glad they were able to come! 

It was a whirlwind trip for them; they arrived on a Friday night and left Monday morning. But how special it was for Joel to have his brothers come and experience a bit of our lives here.

We had been planning the trip since February and, oh my goodness, was it ever hard to keep it a secret from Joel!

We did surprise him (yeah!), but he said he knew I was up to something because of all the cleaning I was doing that week. Haha!

I just LOVE the kids' reactions. I had to keep it a secret from them too, so they were just as surprised as Joel (if not more) when Uncle Ryan and Uncle Torrey showed up at the door.

Cookies and coffee on the balcony after all the excitement died down :)

Showing them our favorite spot at the beach!

These kids had so much fun with their uncles and were sad to see them go!

Love this one!

It just isn't a Hildebrand get-together without a campfire.

Children's Day 2015

We had fun celebrating Children's Day (which was waaaaaay back on April 23rd - I'm so behind on my blogging) at the kids' school with yummy Turkish food and traditional dancing!

Enjoy the pictures! And just for fun, click on the links to see previous Children's Day celebrations!

Children's Day 2014

Children's Day 2013

Children's Day 2012

Colson with our sweet neighbor and friend

This was the ONLY picture I got of Colson (after he had already changed out of his traditional outfit). I didn't realize that he was in the same dance routine as Vienna and I didn't get any pictures or videos of him since I was focused on Vienna. Total mom fail!