August 28, 2025
The boys were up at 7AM and excited to start watching Remember the Titans. Ollie was way more into it than Lenny so we only made it through the first half before Lenny’s fidgeting became too much to bear. Due to our late start to the day, I didn’t have my normal morning play battle with Johngo but instead threw the football with the boys before we sat down to breakfast. Ollie continues to surprise us with his throws and Lenny is starting to get the hang of it too. We paused our throwing to sit down for another nice breakfast.
I found a stick that I thought I could use to fix the net but failed. The net has been repaired so many times that I doubt it will ever be in a state to catch my monster crab if he reappears.
The boys, lead by Lenny, wanted to play a pretend survival game. I started this briefly with Lenny in Romania. The idea was we survived a plane crash and ended up on an unknown island and they took it from there. They occasionally fight over who is the leader and who will do what job but are kept entertained for a good while. I have to intervene to remind them that if one of them discovers a weapon or tool that does everything it will ruin the game.
We headed into the water to cool off once the game ended. Somehow, we managed to pop another raft…. The dock has pointy rocks on it so coming near it always risks a pop. They have been difficult to replace in town since we are nearing the end of the summer season.
We had some snacks for lunch, one being corn on the cob. Lenny proceeded to take down 3! After I tried to fish off the dock where Ollie eventually joined me. We were sitting on the end of the dock fishing when he got up and started to run and I asked him where he was going. He yelled back, “You don’t wanta know!” and continued his run around the U-shaped dock to the other side. I watched him in a full run go flying off the side of the dock into the water. He started swimming as fast as he could when I finally noticed one of his sandals floating out to sea. He retrieved it without issue and I was left sitting on the dock laughing at the whole ordeal.
Sadly, one of my sandals must have fallen in without me noticing and drifted out to sea. I spent the rest of the day walking around in one sandal, thinking that Ollie takes better care of his things for once!
We have accumulated a lot of laundry and are hoping to get it done at Mehmet’s house now that the solar panel repair is complete. The laundry machine is very small but works well and the strong sun dries things very quickly. I told Mehmet’s mom how much the laundry can cost at a hotel, 2 USD for a pair of socks, and she seemed appalled so I’m sure the laundry will get finished!
Ollie’s newest game on the dock is having me stand on the edge and trying to tackle me into the water. Lenny quickly figured out what was going on and needed to get involved at once. The rules were that I was not allowed to touch them and could only move out of the way to try and get them to fall in. I got them in a few times like that but when I saw Kayleen videoing, I decided to give Ollie a toss to get one on camera.
When we went back inside to shower the cats were being fed, Johngo and the cats are cooked for by Mehmet’s family daily. Tonight, there were the most cats we have seen since arriving. I doubt they have any mice or rat problems!
We had another nice dinner sitting outside on the porch with the family. “Which animal most closely resembles you?”, Eileen asked the boys. Ollie said gorilla and Len said elephant. Mehmet’s mom shared a wild story of how his eldest sister, Denise, nearly died when she was ~3 years old by drowning in the sea. Through a series of fortunate events, miracles, she survived the ordeal.
Desert was homemade peach ice cream and cheesecake. Both were delicious and between Romania and Turkey there was been SO much eating. We definitely need to move/exercise as we are starting to feeling a bit gross.
We retreated to our cottage to finish Remember the Titans which quickly put Lenny to sleep. Ollie continued to be into it and was very mad when Gary got in the car accident. He had many questions about being paralyzed and the funeral that starts and ends the movie. Off to bed as I’m sure he will want to throw the football more or tackle me into the water tomorrow after finishing the movie tonight.
