Yesterday we met Bill and Jane at Sea Salt, where they had invited us for dinner. It is only a few minutes from Elif’s house. After we settled Elif took some photographs, then Mina was allowed to handle Nana’s camera with care. The second batch of photographs are the ones Mina took, as you can gauge from the lower than usual angle of view. After she took some photographs of us, Mina turned the camera on herself and took a series of self portraits. I fixed a few of them for cropping, but the faces she made to the camera are entirely hers.

The following are the photographs Mina took

Earlier today the girls went shopping and came back with a nice dress for Mina and a pair of shoes to go with that. She liked it so much and put it on right away. As she danced, the skirt flared out with the big bow on the back flying with her hair. After a while I asked if she wanted me to take some photographs in her new outfit and she agreed. Here are the results, Mina posing, twirling, and being herself.

Elif had invited a group of her friends and their kids to a Turkish brunch so that we could meet them. In fact the kids are the common tie to them all. They either have met at school, story time, or other kid-related activities. All lovely people, doctors, scholars, software engineers, government workers, with lovely kids. Marsha and her daughter Claire were first to arrive. Claire reminded me of a fairy, very delicate with almost translucent skin. Then I met Ellie, Erin, Peter, and Sarah. Ellie, a software engineer, was from Lebanon and he enjoyed all the food selections “sucuklu yumurta” (Turkish peperoni with fried eggs) in particular. I had met Karen and her sons Rohan and Aditya on an Ojo conversation, now had a chance to meet them in person. Jan had met them all earlier and Rohan and Aditya called her Nana, like Mina calls her. In fact most of the kids seemed to call her Nana. (She does not like that a bit!!) Troy, Myra, Tallulah, and Harper arrived around the same time I believe. Troy runs the Caputo’s Deli where we enjoyed good music and deli sandwiches. The next group to arrive was Adam, Camille, Cameron, and Lian with Adam’s mother Kathy and Camille’s father Lawrence who did not stay around much. [Read more...]

A local gourmet deli, Caputo’s near Elif’s house has live music every Friday starting around 5:30 PM and Mina enjoys the attraction. Their main store is in downtown Salt Lake City and this one, Caputo’s 2 is a new one. So, after some rest in the afternoon we drove down to Caputo’s and took a corner table. Across the street was Mina’s favorite bookstore, next to it another restaurant they enjoy visiting Maza. [Read more...]