As we come to the end of 2022, Jan and I wish you all happy holidays and a wonderful new year.
Happy Holidays &
A Happy New Year
We survived another year! A series of health issues tried to tackle us, but we managed to move on. Elif and Mina managed to sneak out of school and work to come and visit us. It was great to see them both. Mina is probably the tallest of the three, turned sixteen, and even got her driver’s license. Elif is barrelling through the challenges to establish her coffee house, Kahve-Cafe as a go-to place in Salt Lake City.
We chose one of Jan’s ice abstract photographs for this year’s greeting card. It is brittle, fragile, intricately shaped, and melting away. A suitable metaphor for life!
Somehow, despite all our cautions and wearing masks everywhere we visited, I managed to catch Covid-19. Based on feeling a little off, I tested myself and realized it was positive. I am on medicine, and we have been isolating as Jan remains negative. Great news. While cooped up upstairs and Jan downstairs, I continued scanning old family photographs. Below are some selections from the new batches, going back to 1976.
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Have a Great 2023
And Now The Photographs
Fair warning, a lot of photographs with captions when viewed by clicking on them.
The first batch is from our first Christmas in the US in our own rental house back in 1976. My mother came to visit us from Turkey, and Jan’s uncle Warren and aunt Claire from the Cape.
Click on the images to see them larger, uncropped, and read their titles.







From our visit to Turkey in 1978



Photographs from our visit to Turkey in 1987 in several groups. The first one is my mother, Nevber, I seem to have taken in my sister Binnaz’s house. The second one is from a dinner that started as one with three of my very old friends. Then, it somehow became an extremely eclectic group. That dinner started around 1:00 PM. After that, the four of us continued for the evening dinner until midnight, and three of us went to a bar to watch belly dancers until 4:00 AM!


Then we visited my uncle Sureyya and his family at their summer house in Silivri.



Now we are on the Bosphorus, at dinner with our friends Cem and Aytac.



Now at two dinner gatherings at my folk’s house and later in my sister Binnaz and Ergun’s house in Istanbul.






Back in Rhode Island! And a few photographs from 2022 with our girls in October. Mina has grown up!



ömer baybars tek
Selam Cemal -Jan
Aklıma geldi.Bir bakayım dedim.Çok geçmiş olsun.Haberlerine b
sevindim.Sevgiler
A. Cemal Ekin
Baybars, merhaba. Yolladigim yeni yil ve Noel e-mail mesaji geri dondu. Ben de merak ediyordum. Verdigin yeni e-mail adreslerini yazdim ve buradan sildim, baskasi hasat etmesin diye.
Yeni yilinizi kutlar, mutlu, saglikli, verimli gunler dileriz.
Cemal