August 25, 2025
Today we had another chill day in Balıklıova. Len and Kyle went into town with Mehmet first thing to get fresh bread, a daily chore of his. They also got a new raft since the one floated away yesterday on our watch. While they were in town, Ollie and I watched a few videos on the history of Türkiye.
Turkish breakfast continues to be one of my favorite meals of the trip especially because Mehmet’s family continues to spoil us. All throughout the meal, the kids were clamoring to get in the water and play the “cowboy game” where Kyle lassoes us with a tube. We spent hours in the water playing the game and swimming.
During an afternoon lull, Kyle went fishing on the dock, I read a book and the kids watched some Dino show on Netflix. Kyle made a batch of margaritas and gave the kids cups of lemonade with salt on the rim. They went nuts for this! They kept calling it the “kids’ margarita” and repeatedly asked for “another round of margaritas please.” We told them we need to rename the drinks to salty lemonade. Kyle caught a few small fish! He also said he saw a huge crab with claws the size of stone crabs. Its haunting him that he missed the crab thanks to a broken net.
We spent the afternoon back out in the water and managed to pop another float. Mehmet’s sister Denise continues to spoil us and came to greet us at the water with a tray of freshly made cheese borek. The boys were slow to warm to the new food but once they realized what it was (essentially fried cheese sticks) they snacked on them through the rest of the day.
Ollie smelled food in the kitchen and learned Mehmet’s Mom and sisters were preparing stuffed grape leaves for dinner. They let him sneak a plate early while we played Uno and he went back for seconds and thirds. Len was fading fast during the late afternoon and Kyle decided he needed to get Len in the water to revive him to make it to dinner. He picked him up and ran to the water and jumped in with him on his shoulders. Len acted like he hated it but it was obvious he loved it. He begged for me to then jump in with him too. Ollie ran in after us and we spent another hour in the water before showering and getting ready for dinner.
Mehmet brought the boys a bunch of goodies from home including Penn State (his alma mater) jerseys, a football and a few board games. The boys wore their jerseys to dinner and we could hear Mehmet’s joy, “whaaaat look at you!!” when he saw them. They played catch for a while with Ollie surprising all of us that he can actually throw a spiral.
We had a lovely dinner with kofte baked with tomatoes and carrots, grape leaves, borek and pickles. Ollie somehow put down more grape leaves and Len had at least 4 borek. The boys were given the option of cookies or another lemonade margarita for dessert and they chose another salt rimmed marg. Len went to bed soon after since he was showing signals of exhaustion. Ollie was stoked to be able to stay up with us solo. Once Len was asleep, Kyle came out with a headlamp and net ready to hunt for crabs. We caught a small crab but most were able to scamper back into their homes on the rocky dock before we could grab them. Kyle’s monster crab continues to allude him but he did catch a tiny shrimp! Mehmet’s mom said they used to be able to throw out baskets and catch huge shrimp off the dock but not any longer.
While looking at the stars out on the dock, we saw a shooting star. Ollie made a wish—first to play football at Penn State then switched to be president of the US.
