Life on the Runn...

Each January, our climbing gym hosts a large competition, and each year it has a new theme.  This year was all about the luchador.   Typically, I volunteer at the comp and Brian comes to take pictures, but after some convincing from a pal, Brian chose to attend the comp as a competitor.   I was really excited for him to do so, but as the comp approached, I became more and more nervous.  I knew Bri wanted to do well, and I know he never gives himself enough credit for how good he really is....and, of course, I wanted him to do well enough to climb in finals.  You see, if you place in the top five in your division, you climb in finals....in front of the whole crowd...in the spotlight...with music...and cheering....ahhhh.   I was helping a friend with score cards and got the news that Brian climbed well enough to make it to finals before he did -- it was hard to keep that secret.  The look on his face when he learned that he had made it...

Our adventures in Turkey were certainly memorable, as was the travel getting there and back...and the driving between Turkish towns. Our travel to Turkey make our way to Chicago (thanks to our trusty driver, Beeps) - one hour hang out in the airport, mentally prepare for being unable to communicate in our native language for the next 9 days and board a flight to Amsterdam - seven hours enjoy our first Turkish meal at the Istanbul airport, drink Starbucks and board a flight to Antalya - one hour checking in for flight #1  all of our bags were easy to pick out  exploring the airport - aka walking around before being confined to a small space for more than seven hours Amsterdam - waiting for flight number two (of three) Our travel within Turkey I'll let the pictures (and my captions) speak for themselves - eight awesomely amazing days LOTS of walking - Antalya  a few trolley rides - Antalya  ...

Happy birthday to my cousin, Sean, who quite honestly is one of my favorite people in the world and deserves the very best birthday!  Since we've been very little, Sean and I have been partners in crime.  What's not to love after all - he has a great sense of humor, is supremely honest, has the most fabulous fashion sense of any person I know, can shop with the best of them and loves to organize and reorganize just like me.   Even now that we're grown up, you can pretty much expect to find us together the entire time we are at family functions, and usually we're the ones loudly laughing while others look on wondering what we are talking about.  So to my very wonderful cousin, I say, Have a fabulous day, love!  

When it comes to our Turkish adventure, there is so much to share with everyone. I promise to give you all the details, and I can almost certainly guarantee you'll all way to go to Turkey yourselves after hearing how great it was, but until I can take care of that, let me share a little tidbit with you...Turkish treats. We ate so well while in Turkey, and aside from one lunch snafu, I would happily eat any meal I had again and again.  Everything was delicious and perfectly portioned; in fact,  I lost weight....that never happens on vacations!! here is a sampling of some of our meals mine were the ones on the top right, the middle right and the bottom left we shared the Efes - yumm!