a whirlwind weekend

ben's birthday weekend went by so fast we barely had time to celebrate it!  here's how we passed the time:

saturday began with painters arriving at our house at 8:15am... about 45 minutes earlier than we'd expected.  good thing though, since they were the last to leave around 5pm!

ben spent most of saturday supervising about 8 workers in total: 2 painters, 2 furniture guys, 2 electricians and 2 window guys

furniture guys installing the new closet

newly installed lights on new closet in the bedroom

i spent a lot of time trying to brew enough tea & keep enough tea glasses clean for the crew, when not running to the store to buy more paint & following them all around with the vacuum.   yes, it was a long day, but ben and i were so happy with the progress being made we didn't really care.

electricians installing lights & a new mirror in the bathroom

new ceiling & lights in the entryway

painting around the lights- the painters weren't happy that the electricians didn't wait for them to paint before installing the lights.

apparently, all 8 of the guys knew each other.  i guess they get called to a lot of the same jobs.  some were borrowing ladders from others, and they all seemed to work well around each other.

window guys & painter in the dining room

painting over the accent wall in the living room

i'm not quite ready to post the after pictures yet, but will once the new furniture is delivered this week.  ben and i are already feeling there's been a drastic improvement, and things are definitely coming together.

we went to work organizing & putting stuff away while waiting for the painters to finish.  after the painters left, we only had about 45 minutes to shower & get ready to go out for ben's birthday.

we met at a friend's apartment for some cocktails before heading to dinner.

ben, in front of her royal highness

we dined at a new french restaurant in town called la flambee.  it was a lot of fun starting off with kir's in front of the giant fire... definitely a different type of restaurant for ankara... and by different i mean extremely expensive!  but also really, really good.

eric, overwhelmed by the fire

ozge & agatha

dinner was delicious- i tried the beef bourguignon, and felt my own attempt at making this dish was put to shame!  it was a-ma-zing.

after we'd finished our entrees, 2 dessert plates were brought to the table, including a creme brulee, strawberries, a chocolate mousse, and the most delicious homemade orange ice cream i've ever had, all covered in spun sugar resembling a hair ball.  awesome.

a fun night was had by all, but boy were we exhausted by the end!  we spent most of sunday putting the house back together & were glad for a break in the home improvements...  that is, until we were about to start getting ready for a 2nd celebration dinner with friends, when ben happened upon a bottle of expired pomegranate juice.  the juice didn't look so good, so we agreed it should be tossed.

well, ben thought he'd open it & dump the juice so he could recycle the bottle.  BIG mistake...

fruit juice explosion

 ...not sure if you can tell in the picture, but the juice was EVERYWHERE: all over the walls, window, cabinets, fridge... everywhere.  i have never seen anything like it- as soon as it happened, i turned around and the juice was literally pouring off the ceiling.  raining fermented pomegranate juice, in our kitchen.  the smell was awful.  ben and i stood in silence for a minute trying to comprehend what had just happened, and then trying to figure out where to begin.  we quickly wiped everything down as best we could, showered, and left for our dinner at kalbur, from which i have no pictures because the explosion led me to forget my camera.

the aftermath

we had a wonderful fish dinner with good friends, the perfect cap to a birthday weekend.  when we came back home, i wiped everything down again & mopped... just how i wanted to spend my sunday evening.  now, another home improvement project lies before us:  repainting the kitchen ceiling!  stay tuned, folks.