O' Tannenbaum, O' Tannenbaum

Our friends Pat and Michelle (newly engaged, yeah!) came over to help us pick out and decorate our Christmas Tree. Georgia had the honors this year and picked out the tallest one she could find. Then we had Turkey Pie and decorated to our hearts content. I love the Holiday Season!

Thanksgiving at The Gosselin's

What are you thankful for this year?

We're thankful for three little girls.

Georgia goes to her first sleep over!

Mallory the Movie Star

Istanbul

Dad just got back from a week in Istanbul, Turkey visiting our CIEE conference.

Istanbul is an amazing city.  Thousands of people pour into the metropolis, a mix of Parisian fashionista and Moroccan bazaars. 

Sunday we trekked and ferried through the city, visiting Asia and returning to Europe all in one evening (Istanbul is on both continents).  This mosque below was in a more Brooklyn-ish section of town we explored.

 

Monday we watched Turkey celebrate Mustafa Attaturk.  At the exact time of his death, the entire city froze.  People stopped their cars and got out, horns blared, and everything was eerily still from 9:05 to 9:07 throughout Istanbul.  We watched from our hotel. 

Then we conferenced.   Our CIEE staff was there from throughout the world, from Botswana to China.  Some PowerPoints and hotel coffee later, we had gathered a lot of information for Polaris (our company IT project).   A few evenings of Raki and Efes later, we wrapped up our trip with some visits to the sites of Istanbul including the Hagia Sophia (right).

Met some cool people along the way, spent some time with Jim and Todd and Patrick and Steve and Melvin and Amber and others, and returned happily on Sunday.

All of my pictures are here for the curious.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween morning Mom took the girls (dressed as princesses and a bee) to Whole Foods and met the Morrison's for cookie decorating and face painting. We had so much fun! Then "Auntie Michelle" and "Mommy's Friend Michelle" came over to get the girls ready for Trick-or-Treating. The big girls were My Little Pony's and got lots of candy while Mallory was a bumble bee and helped hand out candy. All in all a great Halloween!