Dirty Ernie's First Bath

Bambino Ernesto's pesky umbilical cord chunk finally fell off so after a bit of additional waiting for it to fully heal up we gave his him first tubby time.

All parties involved had some learning to do about how to scrub-a-dub an Ernie bub, but things ended well I think. Especially I brought his high definition pictures for him to look at he calmed himself.

He had had a pimple looking thing on his cheek since he was born and I think I deserve a medal for never poking at it even once.

So fresh, so clean.

We celebrated having a clean little man by having some Turkish food at Istanbul Cuisine outside of Bellevue Square Mall. In the Istanbul airport lounge there's a station that makes pide, which is kind of a pizza-esque flatbread type of deal. They are always either closed or baking the pide while still being unavailable. At any rate when I saw them on the menu at this place I was forced to get involved.

We met up with our friends Shubra and Sumit at our local brewery: Chainline Brewing Company at Kirkland Urban. Everybody wants to meet the Ern-Dawg.

What will they think of next?

One of my favorite pastimes is watching Ernie sleep.

Flying Home to Collect Our Presents

Our lovely time in Saudi Arabia had come to an end. I have to say I was completely surprised by our time in Saudi. I was really worried about how strict they were going to be about Lydia's clothing and who knows what else, but I never felt out of place. More than once random people on the street would walk up to us, ask us where we were from, and just say "welcome to Saudi Arabia". It's nice to get in on the ground floor our tourism in a country before they learn to hate dirty tourists like ourselves.

The airport in Riyadh was so nice.

This Jack Daniels ad brought to mind my fond memories of visiting Lynchburg, TN.

We apparently like to fly Turkish Airlines because I continue to find myself in the Istanbul airport lounge, waiting in line for a delicious freshly prepared pide: the delicious Turkish flatbread pizza thing.

Lydia enjoyed the pide as well.

I got the dreaded Secondary Security Screening Selection on my boarding pass but I don't recall any additional harassment.

I rewatched Edge of Tomorrow while doing my best to eat this economy class food. I should get a medal.

I keep telling Lydia that my resting moments are all in the name of quality.

Papillon was an odd one.

We returned home to find a giant pile of baby shower gifts from our lovely family and friends. Luckily we live in an area where porch pirates aren't really a thing.