TURKNOY: The Year That Was 2011

The Year That Was 2011!

The Year That Was 2010 is a settling year. And then what? Let's see.

I haven’t done a review of last year. It seems that there are lots of things in front of the Turknoy family that we failed to review what has happened the past year. Admittedly, it’s not a particularly great year. Well, it was good. But not particularly great. Okay, I am just being way too positive. It’s that time of our lives where we lived in comfort zone and no particularly great improvement has happened – and if you know our family, this year is may be considered one of the WORST. But then again, worst is relative and not necessarily bad. (for our family, at least!)

January – We started the year with the entire clan from Turkey. It was cold but being together celebrating New Year made it all warm inside. We then headed back to Doha in second week of January and started this BLOG! WOOHOO!! There you go, the first milestone of the year. In a year time, we have earned lots of giveaways, met new online friends and earned (albeit small) amount of money from Amazon commissions and Google Ads! Awesome! Not to mention, husband’s promotion in his job – Another WOOHOOO! What a nice way to start the year indeed!

January 1, 2011! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

February – We targeted opening up a business for this month but it didn’t happen. My husband kept on and on and on… and on about the plans but it got stuck in a little piece of paper which I probably threw already! BIG PLANS, no action – I hope lesson is learned – Execution is everything!

March - We aimed to kick off our immigration application to one of the country who intend to live in the future but also it didn’t even started. We were too lazy to start the documentation process. A pain in the rear to even think about it , but more pain thinking about the failed plans.

April - Off to Turkey again we went to attend the wedding of the husband’s sister. It was not in the plan but then again so was the wedding. One of the family values that we want to instill in our kids is the importance of family events. And since wedding is an important family milestones, on we went for an unplanned trip to Istanbul. Never mind the unplanned expenses.

our family picture during Betul's wedding!

May - May is the month of our Kylie’s birthday. She turned 5 and we didn’t prepare any celebration for her. It is one way to teach her the simplicity of life. She actually requested to have no party at all. But I think she changed her mind about this as she is now preparing for her 7th birthday party come 2013!

Kylie simple celebration in her class - cake and cupcakes for all!

June - June is just another hot month in Doha and we tried to go along with the flow of monotonous living. The main challenge we face is the day-to-day domestic arrangements for the kids. Drop off Kerim to nursery, Kylie to school, pick them up after work, cook dinner, tuck them in for the night. And survive to sleep. It’s not THAT boring of course but this is the year-end review. And there’s really nothing much to review. If it’s a management system in business, our lives focused on operational issues, not much on life’s strategies. Is it good or bad - again it’s relative.

July – Had another unplanned trip to Turkey for the summer holidays of kids. We took our Tita Charissa to Istanbul to take the kids to their summer holiday with the grandparents. It was a good trip but not an easy experience leaving the kids behind. Despite the tiring and monotonous moments dealing with kids and taking care of their needs, it is still way better than dealing with that void in a parents’ heart without the kids. Well, at least, the grandparents are happy having spent some quality time with their grandkids.

August – So off the parents followed the kids to Turkey to spent the summer holidays. As for me, this was the FIRST time ever I have spent NOT WORKING ever since I have started working at age 17–so it is a big deal for me. But oh boy, did I get so bored!

Not that there are no places to see (well, there is not much to see and if there were, I am not really that impressed anyways!) And our birthday celebrations are not really a big deal during this year (mine, Kerim's and the husband's, plus our anniversary!) So, our supposedly favorite month of the year is not much celebrated this year. Here's us hoping that for the year 2012 will be a lot different.

Kerim's second birthday in Akcay, Turkey - well, there's elephant, his favorite!

September – First week is another wedding in Istanbul, this time husband’s cousin wedding. Love it that everybody's starting to settle down in the family. There will be more weddings to go to and I feel in the next years will be Philippines for my sisters' wedding (or maybe some other country!)

Side note: It still weird for me to see a wedding without a feast, or at least food for the guests. Something weird really. But then again, it is the culture. I came from a culture where we celebrate – MONTHLY birthdays for babies – go figure- so not feeding your guests during wedding is just plain agonizing.

Our family picture during Esmen's wedding!

And this month, *drum rolls!** we learned that we are expecting another Turknoy. Well, there goes the product of a long vacation for me! Productivity at its best! The best is really yet to come for our family.

October --Going back to normal in Doha. Life is good with kids. Again, stuck in the daily routine of our life in Doha. Morning sickness and pregnancy laziness hormones make me so grumpy and cranky in dealing with our day-to-day life.

November --This is the month for discontent, wanting to have more and creating more needs. We did get something going on – our second investment. Let’s see how this goes for next year.

December – The last month of the year. The month when our vision and plans of the entire family were tested (still is!) . My husband was let go by his company. It is a beginning of our new story to tell by next year.