girls trip to VA

girls VA trip, making banana pudding

saving the hummingbird

this hummingbird couldnt find his way out of the garage for hours so jer fashioned a net and saved him :)

Girls in VA with grandma

My Bday BBQ

preschool poster

Colorado

Hogle Zoo

Safi following in the photographer footsteps of daddy

miray's 80's party

My drive home

Perceived perfect mountains... dreams and goals in the distance.
A myriad of road signs... information, direction, suggestion, and distraction.
Temperate, enclosed, propelled transportation... personal success.

The surface of black tar with it's guiding white lines and shoulders to lean upon keeps it's patrons orderly as it wears it's gouges and patches like medals. It offers intermittent clean slates that only hold the same fate.

A broken down car...a fallen co-inhabitor.
An animal carcass...natures survival of the fittest failure.
Hay, silos, bridges, fences, cattle ranches, fields, and irrigation systems...the presence and persistence of a species.

Sunshine, clouds, shadows, sage, rocks, dirt, water, and wind...the natural order of freedom.

Some Assembly Required = SAR'd

So today is my dad's birthday which is a story in and of itself because up until a few years ago he always celebrated it on July 24th. He was born at home you see in Turkey and somehow it was remembered wrong until he was applying for all kinds of licenses for the bar and had to get his official birth cert...low and behold he's a cancer, not a leo!! actually makes more sence though.

Anyway, I ordered this reclining office chair for him weeks ago and it finally shipped. So I'm tracking the thing and the info said it arrived in Vegas yesterday but no more info. I called the 800 number and they give me the Vegas wherehouse number, which I call, and they say its here but wont be delivered until the 13th. WTF! Very sweetly I talked them into letting me come pick it up. I throw Safi in the car, nap time anyway, and head clear accross town in the 110 degree weather. Following the directions google gave me agaisnt my better judgement, sure enough we hit traffic on I-15, just as my gas light came on. "Damn it! Not again!" (This similar situation happened when I just pulled into vegas from utah and I got off at the 1st exit I could which just happened to be MLK jr. blvd and D street. Uhhhhh, not the best part of vegas.)

Going on, I barely make it to the gas station and then to the wherehouse. They were nice enough but seriously this huge facillaty had maybe 20 boxes in there (so that's dumb it was going to sit there til the 13th), 2 dudes talking (one of them an older dude with the back belt thing on), and lady behind the counter. ALL SLOW! If any of you know me you know thats not my favorite gear. I get my paper, give it to the guy, and go to my truck...waiting...for him to open the gate to load the box...finally...then I painfully stand there while he feebles around with a hand truck...then a front loader thing...ahhhhh! Me and another person could have easily lifted it in (infact thats how I unloaded it with my neighbor). So, I head home A DIFERENT WAY, and get there much faster, thank goodness safi takes act 2 of her nap and even survives the transition into the house because...looking at the box I realise... Some Assembly is Required!

Life iSAR'd (translation for the slow...life is hard)

Seems to me my day has been reflective of life: you plan ahead but sometimes things don't workout timewise delivered to your doorstep even though you've done your part. So you've got to work the system to your advantage, be kind and patient with ding dongs along the way, follow your own intuition at times against the given direction,and even then, put some elbow grease into it. Then, at the end of the day, a shower, good food, a well rested toddler, and making a loved one happy is reward enough :)

more Safi-isms

The other day when I wasn't home Jer was watching something on his computer when Saf walks up and says with lots of expression:
"When that's over, we'll go outside and go in the pool...does that sound like fun?"

Last night when Gpa Turk took her swimming, they were having lots of fun playing and laughing. Gpa Turk said something and Saf says:
"you are not funny!"

Today, Connie came home back from vacation and of course is flying around the house getting settled. Safi is following her all around and Connie was excited to see her and was interacting with her but kept saying she's busy. So Safi gets on her new bike "car" she got the other day (its in the house) and Connie says "ooooohhh what are you doing"
"I'm busy!" said Saf

Another Smith's Story

Saf and I went out for our daily errands after our daily dip in the pool, just as happy go lucky as we could be even thought it was 133 degrees outside here in "fabulous las vegas". So we pull into Smiths and I spot a game store a few dorrs down and decide it would be fun to get her a game for the DS since she's been showing interest in it. We park over by the game store, find a few games, walk one door toward Smiths and go in a little clothing shop and find a few good buys. Then we proceed to walk to Smiths because we aren't fat and lazy, do our shopping successfully, get a few treats, and are happily pushing the loaded cart accross the parking lot to the Truck. When all of a sudden with a huge jerk that scared the crap out of Safi the cart comes to a dead stop.
"What the?" i say under my breath examining the wheels, pushing and pulling more and more frantically since im kinda in the middle of the road.
As I try to pull over as much as I can to the side I figure "ok," as I pick up Safi and my purse, "we'll just go over here and get this other one and transfer the groceries and be on our way" Trying to hurry cuz my groceries are abandon, I'm starting to get really hot and wasn't too irritated until the 2nd...and 3rd cart i tried had the same problem!
"WTF!"
So I go back over to the groceries and some dude yells out his window, "you crossed the red line!"
"whatever" I said with a smile. but he was right as he pointed out the sign on the cart!

1st of all how the hell do you even make such a system? 2nd, obviously we all know why they would do it b/c people push the carts home, etc but 3rd, this represents so many things that have gone array with our society. The boundary, the color red(sign says yellow but its red), your forward motion being stopped, the acceptance of it all, etc. I wont go on.

Well, abandoning the groceries again we go get the truck, stop in the middle of the road, hoping someone has the balls to say something nasty to me so I can have a target for my frustration, and load the groceries in.
Then...
"Where's my sunglasses mama?"
(eye roll - seriously! These are special sunglasses i just bought her a day or 2 ago b/c they match Leahs)
So we double back to go look in the stores we were in before Smiths. Truck full of groceries I can't leave Saf in the car b/c 1. too hot to leave her in there and lock doors, and 2. can't lock her in there with the air on b/c she isnt old enough to open back up for you. Not that its a good idea to leave her in there either way, but im just sayin'. So of course we find them in the second store.

Oh my, what a day :)

4th of July!

Daddy and Safi pool fun

Dinner with friends

We went to the FireFly here in Vegas with our new friends Ryan and Aysa. We had tons of fun and the food was AMAZING!

making Baklava

Safi and Jasmine. We have made good friends with a couple, Ryan and Aysa who have a little girl Jasmine. Aysa is turkish so of course we get along and then of course Ryan and Jer have a lot to talk about being married to turkish girls :) Anyway, we went to their home for dinner the other night and Saf helped me make the Baklava that i brang.


after i put the filling on i turned around for 2 seconds and she grabbed avacados that were sitting on the counter and put them in LOL. I was on the phone with my mom at the time and told her what happened and she said saf was making southwestern Baklava.

here she is "painting" on the butter
"painting" butter

mixing the walnut filling

misc pics

Safi's 1st haircut


My old house in Vegas that i grew up in


When Jer and I went to the movies by ourselves (a rare treat!)


Miray's 6th grade graduation


a blackmail photo of Leah (muuuaaaaaahahahahahaha)

Safi quote of the day

As she discovered the hair on her legs she said "Daddy have this...I have this too!"

Supi & Safi

Buddies!

Funny things Safi said today

"I'm big, do you understand me?" as she grits her teeth and grabs my arm (got that one from playing with dad)

When I told her it I wanted to go in from the pool and play playdough in an attempt to get her in she said "oh, ok, go then!" and pushed me and my floatee away

LOL she is so funny

Having fun

not today buddy, not today

so another Smiths story. I'm shopping along when some young able bodied black dude approaches me asking for a quarter cuz hes short that much for diapers. Yeah, I say, go grab em and Ill meet yiou at the register. so i go over to the baby isle only to find some other dude handing him some change. so he says
"oh, ill just get these cheep ones ok?"
"yeah" i say "but you just asked that guy for money"
"well i didnt want you to buy it all" he says
"so is this how you roll bro?" i ask, "grab em and lets check out and ill buy em"
"well yeah" he says "when i have to buy milk and shit too"
"i just wanna see you buy em" i say
"what else would i buy" he says "you know what, forget it, i dont want your help" as he throws down the diapers on another shelf
"thats what i thought" i say, and i tell the store manager that some little black dude it hustling people in the store, only to find out he is in there all the time.

duh! i knew what he was all about from the get go, just decided to call someones bluff for once cuz today was not the day to fuck with ME!

bday vids 2

Bday vids

Mirays Bday