Thursday, April 9, 2009

Since this Sunday is Easter I figured that this year was the year. The year for what?, you might ask. Well, the year for actually teaching my kids what Easter is all about. Usually we just give the kids a talk on Sunday and give Jesus about a 5 minute discussion, and then its off to visit and have fun with the family and eat eat eat! So this year, since I actually have a very free mind here in this Turkish lifestyle, I've had time to sort of think about how to do this. I went over to Sugardoodle and found some great ideas for kids. On Tuesday we had a little supper, Jerusalem style. Unfortunately, Jonathan was stuck in a school meeting so we proceeded without him.
Actually I think the only thing he would have enjoyed would have been the meat skewers. Cinci loved them. "Don't touch my meat!" he says.

There weren't too many spills. Here's my advice for anyone who does this. Don't make too much unleavened bread. It's not very good. My kids didn't like it and neither did I. Just make enough to taste it. Then you can understand the difficulty the people must have had in those times. Imagine, no good bread. Sadness! Also, don't expect to have a clean blanket when you're done. And whatever you do, promise yourself that you won't yell at your kids for any reason. It really ruins the whole experience. I yelled. I felt bad. And now I have to wait a whole year to do it again and do it right, without the yelling. But I'm sure none of you yell at your kids.


So that's our Easter kick-off for the week. I have more planned for Saturday and Sunday. We'll see if I can do that without yelling.


Meanwhile we've been enjoying the weather. We took a ferryboat across the Bosphorus yesterday and saw dolphins again. I feel pretty lucky. I saw three last time I took a ferry. Daddy.


Shermy in all his cheesiness.

The tulips are in full bloom here in Istanbul. We hurried down to Goztepe Park this evening but got there after sundown. Therefore, no good pictures. But at least you can tell they're pretty flowers. After walking around in the park in the dark we stopped in at our favorite Cafe. Kahve Dunyasi. They serve lots of coffee and have all kinds of chocolate. We always order hot chocolate. It's not the greatest. What's great is the chocolate spoons they serve with the hot chocolate. You can just stir that dark chocolate spoon right into your hot chocolate until it disappears, however, my kids like to smear the spoon all over their faces and hands.

They also serve chocolate rocks. Our friend Lesa provided the transportation. Thanks Lesa!

4 comments:

Strawberry Girl said...

Good Idea!! I'm going to have to try something like it this year. :o)

Code Yellow Mom said...

We did a Jerusalem meal last night and talked about the Last Supper. I decided this was the year, too. We didn't have any yummy "meat on a stick" (that's what my boys call them), though - Man, those look GOOD!

My husband yelled. :) Not until almost the end, but I still sulked, because it does ruin it. We had to have a little bit of a talk about sometimes ignoring in lieu of yelling, because the spirit can still be there when it's little boys being a little goofy, but it goes away when it's big boys losing patience.:) Ah well, there IS always next time.

A great thing that came out of it is that Henry wanted to watch a church video about Jesus online for his bedtime story, and he asked to watch it again this morning. (Finding Faith in Christ) He's "getting it." Yay!

Aimee said...

Does Kahve Dunyasi charge 8 TL for their hot chocolates like Gloria Jean's does? I'd love to find a more affordable place to take the kids...and how fun...chocolate spoons! Maybe with the chocolate spoons I could splurge on the hot chocolate.

Unknown said...

Your Jerusalem dinner looks like fun! I have a blog award for you on my blog. Can't wait to see you. I hear your coming in June! Yeah!