Paintings and drawings

I'm not an especially good painter or drawer. I'm can't draw people very well, but I still like drawing. My favorite thing to draw are landscapes.They can be quite beautiful sometimes. I first started doing canvas paintings about a year or so ago. The first one that I did was a picture  of several mountains with a house and garden at the bottom of them. At the top I wrote, " I will lift my eyes up to the hills, from whence does my help come from." I really like the way it turned out. I decided that I wanted to do four different paintings of the four seasons.  I wanted to do one every term. This next one that I did was a spring painting. I drew a meadow with small flower all over it, and a little stream running through it. Then we had summer break, so I didn't really want to draw  one then. However, after the summer, I drew a fall one. I drew a path, lined with fall trees. On one side of the path were fields, and on the other side was a meadow. After that, I decided not to draw a winter one quite yet. Instead I did a love, hope, and faith drawing. Next to each word was a flower. Next to love was a rose, next to faith was a lily, and next to hope were bluebells. I got the inspiration from a poem that I overheard my mom reading to my sister (Lizzie). In the poem it said that love was like a rose, hope like a bluebell, and faith like a lily. I liked that, and so I decided to draw it. So far that's all that I've drawn. I plan to draw a Christmas one. I thought of doing one that says "Peace on earth, good will to men," or just "Peace on earth. Then I would put holly berries or some kind of Christmasy flower or berry. Also, next year, I plan to draw a winter and a summer landscape picture. Here are some pictures of my paintings.

                                                                  My mountain painting
                                                                             

                                                                       My Fall painting

                                                                My Spring painting

                                                       My Love, Hope and Faith painting

                                                  (We still haven't found a place to hang it)

Christmas Activities

Merry Christmas! Well, its been a while since I wrote, for which I apologize. I have been very busy these past few months with school and music.  I have just finished exams this week and am so ready for a break. I can't believe that it's already Christmas! I wonder if everyone is as excited about Christmas as I am. We have a lot of activities planned for this happy Christmas season. (I just love the Christmas season, don't you?) Yesterday me, my mom, Lizzie, (my sister) my girl cousins and a neighbor family (with adorable kids) all went to the Nutcracker Ballet. It was really nice, I just love ballet. I recognized most of the music, and even some of the dances. Another thing that's happening this month is that my grandparents are coming on Thursday, and I'm really excited to see them. I'll tell about each activity that we're going to do in detail as they happen. Now for some fun pictures.

            I'm the one in the blue sweater. The one next to me is my cousin Rebekah.  

                  The one in the pink sweater is my other cousin Heather, and the other one in pink is my little sister Lizzie. The one in grey is one of my Turkish friends, her name is Selen.      

                                               Here's the adorable kids that I told you about.
                                                        (They are adorable, aren't they?)
                                       The little one in the red dress is my especial little charge,
                                             I always look after her when they come to our house.
                                                 She's four, and she's just the cutest little thing.

                                      Looking at the Nutcracker that we brought with us.
              (She was especially excited with opening his mouth using the lever on his back.)
                                                                             

                                                      Waiting for the doors to open.

Summer!

Well, I had a really fun summer break. We didn't go very many places, but we did do a lot of swimming. From the end of June to the end of July was the month of Ramadan, which is the Turks month of fasting. On July 3rd, David, my older brother, went to America with his cousin to work in a camp. The camp was in Colorado on top of a mountain. Last year there was a fire up there and so David helped chop down dead trees and clear trails. Then he went to my uncle's house (he lives in Colorado springs) for three days. After that he flew down to Texas to be with our grandparents for a week and a half. Then he flew down to Florida with our cousin to be with our other grandparents. He'll be back on Saturday, the 30th. So David had a pretty busy summer. About two weeks ago, we went to the zoo. It was just the moms, the cousins and Nathan and Lizzie and me. We had a really fun time, and we saw a lot of really cool (and cute) animals. After the zoo, we went to the seashore and had a picnic. Well, not much else has really happened this summer. Next I'm going to be writing a post about my paintings. 

Cherries

 Last weekend I went to Isnik with my family to pick cherries. Our friends there have several cherry trees. We got up at 8:00, and by 8:30 we were out on the field. We had breakfast on the field and then we got to work. There's a couple ways that you can pick cherries. You can pick from the ground up to a certain point (then all the cherries that you can reach from the ground are all picked). Or you could climb up into the tree and pick from there. Another way is to get a ladder, they have really big ladder, some that they had made themselves. I did a little bit of each, but I mostly picked from the ground. I'm just a little bit scared on ladders, and I'm not very good at climbing trees. After several buckets have been picked, you have to start sorting them. Only a few people at a time do the sorting, the other people keep picking. I helped a lot with the sorting and I like it. You have to take out all of the bad, moldy or rotten cherries, and you also take out all the leaves. An interesting fact about cherries, did you ever notice that when you buy cherries, most of them have their stems? There's a reason for this, the reason is that the cherries stay fresh for longer if they have their stems, because they get water and nutrients from the stems. So when you pick cherries, you have to make sure that you pick them with the stems. We brought home two crates full of cherries and we made cherry jam. Here's some pictures I  thought you guys might like.

Breakfast on the Field.

 Picking time! Up into the tree.

All done! We really look tired don't we?

All the cherries are ready to be taken into town and sold.

I'm the one in the truck with the blue shirt on.

What you sow, you will reap

One day I was coming home from the park,when one of the neighbor ladies came out of one of the houses near ours. I didn't know her but just to be polite I said hello. She said hi back and then she asked me if I had just moved in. I thought that it was kind of a weird question because I pass her house almost every day going to the park. I said no, that I had been living here for almost three years. Then she asked me if we liked our neighbors, and I said yes. She kind of looked surprised and she said that she didn't like her neighbors. I didn't say anything, and I kept on going. When I got home I was talking to my mom about what the lady had said, when my Mom found out what house they lived in, she said that they had had trouble with their neighbors. My mom told me about a Turkish proverb that goes; "What you sow, you will reap"
This also reminded me of a song by casting crowns that's called 'Jesus friend of sinners'. One of the lines in the song says "Open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers." That's exactly what the lady was doing. She wasn't being a good neighbor, and yet she expected everyone else to be good neighbors. I think that another of the problems was that she didn't realize what she was doing. Sometimes we do the same thing, without realizing it. That's why we always need to be be aware of what we're saying and doing. Not just with our neighbors, but with our family and friends as well.

Bread

Two weekends ago I got to go to an bakery in Iznik. It was really cool. I got to see how they make and bake the bread. First they make a fire in the ovens, then they take the fire out and put it in a different oven, then they clean the oven. After that they put the bread in and then close the oven door. After an hour they take the bread out and sell it. It was really interesting to see the brick ovens. We also got to take a loaf of bread home, hot from the oven. It tasted really good. Here's some pictures from the bakery.

Music

I love music, it's a part of me, something that no one can take away. When I was about seven years old I saw someone play a violin. Ever since then I wanted to play the violin. About two years ago I started taking lessons. When I first started taking lessons I went to a music school. The people there hired someone to come and teach. I went there once a week on Sundays, for two hours. After a year me and the other girls in my class put on a little concert for our family and friends. When the concert was over, I had the whole summer with no lessons. When the summer was almost over, I learned that my teacher would not be coming back. But as I really liked this teacher, my parents decided to ask her to come to our house and give me private lessons. She said yes, she would love to. Now I have one lesson a week. My teacher comes to my house on Wednesdays, at ten o'clock, for one hour. Violin is hard, and I have to practice a lot. But after I got over the hard parts, I started to enjoy it more. Just last week I started learning Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring by J.S. Bach. I also take voice lessons. I love to sing, and everyone says that I have a really nice voice. My teacher comes every Thursday at two o'clock for an hour an a half. She also gives my brother piano lessons. My favorite song that I've learned so far is Ave Maria. I've been taking lessons for about five months now. Music is so beautiful, especially classical music. I've grown up listening to classical music, so it's all the more beautiful to me.