Birthdays are a great time to reflect on the journey past and the journey to come. 60 is a number that means different things to each one of us. For me and the Turk, it means that we move on to our next phase. Jobs are not our focus. Self discovery and fulfillment ARE. We kicked the year off with our Italy/Greece/Turkey vacation over the summer and then started planning our joint birthday celebration - in April because the weather is good.
I was thinking that our friends all come together for big events, like
weddings and funerals. I dont see any weddings on the horizon and I
certainly dont want to wait for any funerals. So we asked our friends to
come together for this celebration - which is really a celebration of
FRIENDS!
Planning was extensive with logistics and coordination of schedules.
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| Dollar Store birthday wine glasses! |
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| amazing appetizers |
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| Hog fish was the favorite |
Tulin flew in from Seattle to help us out and join the fun.
High school was represented with Janet (Jake) coming in from Arizona.
Farkles were almost all in attendance with Jackie coming in from San Francisco. Joanne was traveling in her Airstream out west.
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| Becky, Pam, Jackie |
Orlando days had Karen from Maryland to remind me of all of our adventures through the years.
Deloitters were in the house with Dave and Judy from Atlanta and Jessica and Kenny from Sarasota.
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| pre party activities |
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| Kenny is welcomed by cousin Jan |
Client SAP even had good friend Michelle in from Vancouver to get some well deserved Florida sun and sand.
Florida travelers included Marco and Katrinka, and Sandy and Scott from Brevard County.
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| Marco and Katrinka |
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| Arthur, Scott and Sandy |
The parental units came in from Lakeland.
Susan and Jim drove in from Valdosta GA when they heard 'party'!
Our local peeps showed up with their party shoes.
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| Ted and Jim giving the Turk shots! |
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| Tom and Diane |
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| Hugs from Ted |
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| Jan, Camille, Jess |
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| Diane and Laurie catch up |
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| Tules sees Camille and Glenn |
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| Pam and Arif! |
We pulled together all of us who graduated from FTU, now UCF. Quite an alumni group!
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| Jackie, Becky, Jess, Jake, Pam |
It was so much fun to get people together who have heard 'the stories' about each other, but have never met. It got confusing after a while trying to remember who needed introductions. From our viewpoint, they should all know one another!
The cake was cute - though not tasty. It was decorated
with objects that represented the Turk's and my hobbies: kayaking, wine
drinking, hiking, traveling, beer, fishing, BBQing, vegetable gardening.
By the end of the evening, we were quite relaxed!
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| Tulin wears the table centerpieces |
And the party continued to brunch on Sunday! But at the end of four days of entertaining, cooking, eating, drinking, the Turk was POOPED.
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| The end! |
