parents

We've been married only 3 1/2 years, but our parents are meeting for the first time.  I was going to video record the moment and take lots of pictures - but I got too excited, fumbling with the camera and decided to just leave it because I didn't want to miss the moment.

The front door was open.  It usually is during the heat of the day or when we are waiting for someone.  Baba is usually waiting on a stool, whistling his airy tuneless tune - but we must have caught him during a bathroom break.  Anne came out first, then Baba, as well as Gokhan.  They all hugged and kissed and then we all cooed over Teoman.

Both of our parents have gentle hearts, and while communication was limited - it didn't stop neither of my mothers from showering each other with greetings and general chit-chat.  We sat on the terrace and drank tea, because this is what we do in Kusdasi.

The grass was cut, the walls were painted, and the kitchen was redone (and almost completed).

We put my parents up on the 3rd floor.  Potentially the nicest room with its own bathroom - but currently it's a room with a low ceiling, a rotting bathroom door, and we learned that night, a leaking roof.

Hakan and my father looking for our telephone line

Our home is far from perfect, and that is why we had the first night - my father, husband, and two brother-in-laws working on the phone line.  They somehow found the source of the problem down the street, their line out of hundreds, and were able to reconnect it - and only one person got mildly electrocuted.

The next day they were patching the roof with a torch and some aluminum.  A cheap and quick fix for now...

It wasn't long before Bubba had employed Tolga to some yard work and my dad jumped in to help.  Pretty quickly we had three stubborn men jockeying for control have how to tie up the roses climbing wildly up our walls.

the cook

dinner on the terrace

We had a barbecue with everybody - celebrating both Anne and Baba's birthdays.  Their real ones.  The both have a real birthday and a legal birthday because their parents registered them on different days.  Anne turned 66, but she kept saying 68 because while she was born in '46, her I.D. card says '44, and in Turkish when someone asks you how old you are, you say how old you will turn that year - so its always hard to clear age out of anybody.  Tolga's dad turned 70 . . . I think.

dutifully wearing our t-shirts

My mother brought gifts for everybody: Minnesota t-shirts, wild rice, and honey from my aunt.  She wanted everybody to where their t-shirts at the barbecue . . . and some of us did:


This also happen to be the first time the cousins met each other.  The cousins are 6 1/2 months apart and they were decidedly unimpressed . . . while the new grandparents were more proud of their grandchildren then they were of their own . . .

old and new generations