Our adventures overseas

So, I know it's been a week since our epic return but with all the craziness around here (okay, the only craziness was me studying for the ACT. But hey, I'm the only one who updates this thing so you can deal) I seemed to have put off explaining all our adventures. Now I know you have all seen the pictures on facebook, but frankly, those are just pictures of people, which is great in all, but you've seen us since practically forever. So here are the real pictures. The 411, the low-down (name that movie) on Amsterdam and Turkey!!!!!

The view of Amsterdam from Mom and my window. The boys offered to give us the better room with the better room... and that's how it should ALWAYS be haha

Pretty flower arrangment at the Keukenhof.

Keukenhof!!! If it weren't for the extra cold and long winter, the tulips would have been out. It's okay though, we still saw a lot of pretty flowers

Well this is an interesting one. I'll explain. So in the Keukenhof, there was this weird box thing and so thats my head and Jacob's body. Very interesting.

Oh the parents :)

I had to. Giant pointe shoes?! Heck yes!

Outside some peace building. Supposedly, that's were leaders from random countries go to solve issues and talk peace. Hmmm I wonder how well that's working haha

Gotta love those wooden shoes

CHEESE!! Dad bought a wheel for us to eat of the train ride back to Amsterdam. We didn't eat it all though so every night we had to call the concierge for ice to keep the cheese from getting all warm and nasty. (warm cheese = super gross)

Windmills! Not sure what this one did... it may have been the corn one. I don't remember.

This one was actually a fake windmill. Well not "fake," just it doesn't do anything now except sit there and look pretty haha

This picture was in the running for our next desktop for the computer, but it lost. Oh well, it's still pretty.

Bikes are the major mode of transport in Amsterdam. You can forget about getting ran over by cars (okay, you still have to watch out) but the people on bikes could care less. I'm surprised I didn't get ran over or hit.

Way too many bikes...

Amsterdam is full of canals. I'm not sure if you knew that, because I definitely didn't before this trip haha

J next to his favorite type of car: Aston Martin. He like scouted out the parking lot every day to see if it was still there haha

Outside the Anne Frank House (aka Anne Frank Huis in Dutch)

The Hagia Sophia at night. It used to be a Christian church (like in the 1400s or something way long ago) but then the Muslims decided that wasn't gonna fly with them so they made it into a mosque.

The "U" in Turkey. It's so cute!!

Inside a mosque. No, it wasn't pray time because otherwise taking pictures would totally not be okay. But we all had to take off our shoes and for me and Mom, if it was prayer time, we had to cover our heads.

The other side of Istanbul (not the Asia side). There are two different straits separating the whole thing. Yes, we did "climb" that tall tower haha

Corn, these pretzel/bagel things, and hazlenuts are big street foods, kinda like a philly cheese steak in Philly. We never did try to hazlenuts or corn (especially not the hazelnuts. An allergic reaction would not have been good) but we did have the pretzel/bagel things a few times. Very tasty.

Eating a baked potato. Weird, I know. But it was like a delicacy to put all these strange ingredients in it. J and I just put cheese and butter... seemed safe haha

J "escorting me from the premises" haha

The Turkish flag. Pretty cool picture haha

A mosque... not sure which one though

Inside the Grand Bazaar where they have like a million little shops and a million people trying to get you to buy everything you DON'T need haha

Close enough ;)

Spice Market. Oh the scents... haha

Old men washing their feet outside a mosque. Dad was like so amazed by this and took like a million pictures and made J video tape them. (It wasn't even a "flip cam moment" in the words of Jacob)

Another mosque

Notice the three cats: one on the right, one on the left, and one small one in the middle towards the back. And I thought we had too many homeless cats! Istanbul had probably the same population of people and cats haha

The cutest little puppy ever. This is my problem: I love the little dogs when they are so young and tiny but the second they are big/grown up I can't stand them. But then I also have a problem giving pets away once they are old (like Fluffy). So I've decided that I'm just never going to have pets haha