Thank you for the sweet birthday wishes!

When you get to be my age ...

I have to admit that I actually don't know how to finish that statement. What happens when you're 25 anyway?  You can finally rent a car. Sure, that's one things, but what else? I still expect to be carded everywhere I go, considering my flight attendants just called me some endearing names.

"Thanks for flying, honey."

"Enjoy your stay, sweetie." 

Those of you who know me well know that this is a bit of a sensitive subject. Don't worry, I'll let it go, but really, what happens when you're 25?


My birthday was on Sept. 25th, and I spent most of my birthday either in the air or in the Turkish International Airport. I've never been to Istanbul, Turkey, so that was cool, but I hope to one day go back and actually see Istanbul and not only it's airport. (I've already added it to my list of places to travel ... Who's with me?). During my six-hour layover, I lived on two cups of chai tea from Starbucks, read a lot and walked around for a while to stay awake. Nothing too eventful, really, which is probably what I needed: time to just relax. It's been a busy time, so relaxing for a bit was nice.

My flight landed on time, and I was able to meet a part of my team and head to bed. Later that day, they surprised me with a late birthday celebration. They're so nice!

Smiling with some of my new PLC friends. Thanks for celebrating with me :-)

Look, that's a part of the team during the birthday celebration. I had Kurdish tea, a pretty good cupcake and great company. No complaints :-)

I don't even like cupcakes, but this one ... well, it was different. The frosting tasted like the frosting normally used for carrot cakes, and the cake part might have had cinnamon in it. Now that I think about it, I'm not too sure about what was actually in it, but all you really need to know: it was delicious.

The team was really sweet to celebrate my birthday. They even hung birthday signs, which I didn't see at first (I'll blame that on jet lag because the signs were literally right above the table).

Anyway, this is one of the ways I celebrated the big 2-5. Thanks so much, again, for the birthday  notes and messages from home. You guys are the sweetest! Your birthday wishes made me smile when I was in the airport. Here's to my Golden Year ...