Happy Kids

Today we went to the beach in Guzelcamli and had a great time.  Nehir has left his fears behind and has discovered his inner fish.  He loves to swim and as his confidence grows so do his skills. Earlier this summer trips to the beach involved essentially forcing him to go, and then Selcuk and I would take turns being the one who had to take a break from swimming to follow Nehir around while he rolled around in the sand, getting completely covered in the stuff.  When we were ready to go, one of us would have to force him to take a shower to get the bulk of the grit off of him, and this would involve much shrieking.  

Now he can barely wait for us to get our beach stuff set up before he plunges into the water. He has learned to take a breath and keep going and to dive under to pick stuff up.  He was really happy today, which makes all of us happy too.

Taylan too had a great time, but he always does.  He loves the water and only complains when we try to take him out before he is ready.  There were no waves today so he could walk along in waist-high water and he thought that was cool. He also enjoyed running up the beach into the sand and then doing a belly-flop into the sand.  This meant another trip back into the water to rinse off the sand, followed by another belly-flop, etc. etc.  It was great to see both kids so happy.

Nehir's giant drip-sand castle.

Taylan taking a dip in a little bucket.