That's The Pits!

Sweet Cheeks was born 1/2 Turk, we say. She got the cheeks they love to squeeze here. Her first words were Turkish. She ate feta cheese and strong black olives before she was two. When asked why our little girl loves the salty, strong olives, we always say, "Well, she's part Turk." Our older girls will eat them if served, but let's just say...they're pretty strong-tasting. It came as quite a surprise Saturday morning when Big Ben, Turk #2, reached for the olives at breakfast. CC and I raised our eyebrows and said, "Sure, eat up."

Perhaps he didn't want to be outdone by "Sisah" (He calls her "sister" but it sounds very much like Zsa Zsa.)

There's just one problem. Turkish olives have the big ol' pits in them. Somehow Sweet Cheeks learned at an early age how to pit them herself.

Big Ben isn't quite to that point. CC had to go pit-hunting in his mouth...

...only to discover one missing. It will reappear, I assured him.

Science Fair Wrap Up

I haven't blogged much this week! We are on our 5 week countdown til summer. It seems our schedule is in reverse proportion. The less time we have, the busier we get!

Friday night was our Annual Science Fair for grades 3-6. This was our "one" year to have 3 kids in the fair. Twinkle Toes scrapped the bacteria project when we could not get any bacteria growing after two weeks. Instead, she did a fabulous project on fingerprinting. The research was fascinating. We discovered that even identical twins have different fingerprints. T. Toes investigated at what temperature a fingerprint will be clearest. Her advice to the FBI? Lift your fingerprint samples in a cold room! (We also discovered that we can now easily identify who keeps putting fingerprints on Mama's windows!) Twinkle Toes took First Place for Fourth Grade. Way to go!

Firstborn had an agenda this year. She wanted to do something hard, something that would enable her to record lots of data, and something that she got to burn! We searched for hours, but most of the projects that fit her bill were for high school or college students and required more than our kitchen to do. Finally, I sent her on to bed and said, "I'll search a few more minutes, then let's call it quits." About five minutes after she went to bed, I bounded up the stairs and said, "I've got it!!! You get to BURN!" We raced back down and sure enough, she fell in love with the idea. Firstborn investigated biofuels and non-renewable fuels to determine which type of fuel was more efficient. She learned much from her research and offered good advice to her report readers. Non-renewable fuels are more productive, but biofuels will certainly deplete less of the earth. She also cautioned the exclusive use of biofuels, as they could soon replace the farmland we need for food. She took an honorable mention for her efforts. Well done!

Miss Middler researched what liquid will rust a nail the quickest. Her answer? Vinegar! We charted the acidity in each liquid. She won an award from her teacher for recording the most data.

I'm proud of you, girls! Win or lose, you worked hard. Twinkle Toes, I'll never forget mashing my thumb in baking cocoa all afternoon. Firstborn, I'll never forget the joy of finding "the perfect project" together. And Miss Middler, whether you got a ribbon or not, your board was by far the cutest in the whole school. A picture of a face as cute as yours with goggles that swallow it, is first place in my book anyday!

Big Fat Turkish Wedding!

After our Easter service, we headed right out to attend our first-ever Turkish wedding. We have been invited in a general way to Turkish weddings before, but since we did not know the bride and groom personally, we declined. However, this wedding was for someone who is very special to us, our school security guard, Ferhat. He's been with our school ever since Sweet Cheeks was born. In fact, when I worked at the school and she was 2, she used to sit and eat olives and cheese with him daily. She used to call him her best friend. He is the best security guard we've ever had, and we were happy to share in his special day.

The wedding was just about as opposite of an American wedding as you can imagine! It was not held in a place of worship, rather a "Wedding Hall," a room rented for weddings. Just before the bride and groom arrived, people lit up sparklers. Then torches surrounded the happy couple as they walked in.

Emine, the bride, was beautiful. Turkish brides wear a white dress, but also a red sash, which symbolizes purity.

After their first dance, they sat on thrones! And then, for HOURS, we danced. We danced and danced and danced. The Turkish songs don't really end after 3-4 minutes, like ours. They go on for 20-30 minutes. We all did the traditional Turkish dance in different variations. It's called the Halay. I'd love you to see it on video...I'll work on posting that! It was not quiet or calm!

The really adorable thing to me was that all our neighborhood 'folks' came. This is our neighborhood simitci. He sells the school kids little round breads each morning.

It was really fun! At the end, you are to go and present your gift (money or gold) to the bride and groom, and it is then pinned on a sash they wore. Then the gift is announced! Yes, very different than America.

It was a great experience!

Easter Morn Part II

After our nice breakfast, we headed out to church. Our church is small. But the people who attend mean business about their relationship with the Lord. We have several small fellowships who meet in our building on Sundays. On Easter, we all met together. My words are inadequate to describe the atmosphere, worshiping with Koreans, Iranians, Jordanians, Turks, Faroese (look that one up!), and so many more...all celebrating our common belief in the risen Savior. It was wonderful, to say the least.

My friend Brenda organized a small Easter choir for the day, and I was happy my two older girls signed up, practiced, and sang with them.

It just seemed like a little taste of heaven to me...so may skin colors and eye shapes and backgrounds, all of us worshiping the One True God.

Easter Morn Part I

How did you celebrate Easter? After worshiping the Lord in church on this most special day, we normally go out for a nice lunch. This year, however, the day's schedule was different. Our church started later and was a combination of all the congregations that meet in our church (Turkish/English/Iranian/Korean...I could go on and on.) Also, Sunday was the wedding of our school's security guard, which CC and I needed and wanted to attend. So, we decided to make our Sunday morning breakfast a little more special rather than go out for lunch. Cinnamon rolls were a must.

We give our kids Easter baskets, but keep them simple. I had a small box of jelly beans and a chocolate egg and a small toy. My sweet friends Brenda and JN decided they wanted to bless our kids and gave me a bag of candy for each of their Easter baskets.

Someone had given me an Easter egg dye packet from the US, so each of the kids dyed 3 eggs.

It was so very cold and rainy here yesterday. We donned our Summer sundresses, all coordinating, and I just could not bring myself to put a winter coat atop them. So, we opted for our good ol' shawls, which I think look like dyed Easter eggs anyway. Sweet Cheeks is turning herself into an egg here.

Our philosophy is to let these oh-so-important holidays be fully the Lord's, but also allow those traditions which will make the day special and fun, so long as we keep them simple. So, I am curious. For those of you reading this who are Christians and celebrate the risen Savior on Easter Sunday, what other fun traditions, if any, do you use with your family?

Twinkle Toes' First Attempt

Twinkle Toes found an amazing experiment where you take bacteria from the mouths of your participants. Then you have them use different mouthwashes and determine which one kills the most bacteria by growing little bacteria samples of all of these testings.

She was very excited to try it. I began to wonder if the results would be so amazing that I would need to start insisting everyone in the family use mouthwash nightly.

However, no bacteria ever grew. We waited. We watched. Nothing. Finally, Campbell Clansman announced that he had the perfect conclusion to this experiment..."No Campbell has any mouth bacteria." Twinkle Toes decided to switch to another project. (I could have given her samples from my fridge...but oh well.)

Miss Middler's Science Experiment

I am SO happy to be back on blogspot! Thank you, Turkey, for giving me back my chance to blog here!

We've had a busy month. Some of our memories from this past month can be found here: www.campbellclanblog.wordpress.com but we are officially back on blogspot and hoping it won't be blocked again.

Next week is our Science Fair. This is our family's one year to have three kids participating. Miss Middler, now a third grader, got her first chance to be in the Science Fair. She chose to determine which liquid would rust a nail the fastest.

Her guess was lemon juice, but in the end she found that it was vinegar.

I just had to put those goggles on her, I can hardly stand it, she is so cute!