Off to Turkey (the country)!

Our last big trip to another country has come and gone.  Just like our entire time here, it went too fast.  My good friend Marina, and her husband and son, Gena and Vadim also joined us.  We really have had our fill (temporarily) of history, ancient ruins and tour guides, so we chose southern Turkey to simply relax on the Mediterranean Sea and get some sun.  Plus, it was an easy place to go with our Ukrainian friends.  We chose ClubMed Palmiye and went right before peak season.  We were blessed with gorgeous weather (the week before we came they had several days of torrential rain).  It was a lot of fun walking our friends through all the experiences of first time international travel: security, customs, flying, and just being in a different country, it was all a first for them!  They handled it beautiful and settled quite easily into the mode of eating too much, swimming often, and sleeping when not doing the other two activities!  The girls spent half their days at the kids club and participating in all sorts of activities: sailing, kayaking, water skiing, archery, trapeze, swim and on and on.  We all managed to get a little too much sun, but we recovered.  Swimming was on the agenda as much as eating was, so we did a lot of both!  The best was watching the girls try new brave things, Ellie got up on the water skiis briefly and Rylie did the flying trapeze several times.  They were awesome!  Ry made a friend at Miniclub and Sophie and Rylie became practically inseparable.  Tony advanced to the second level on the trapeze and became a “flyer”.  Since he received a certificate for his new skills on the trapeze he is seriously considering a new career with the circus (ha ha).  Tony and Gena did several activities together and they seemed to enjoy playing tennis a lot; nothing like a little competition I suppose.  Marina seemed pretty content staying cool by the pool most days.  Of course Vadim tried to spend his every waking minute in the water.  Marina says Vadim still wakes up every morning and says he is packed and ready to go back to Turkey!  We all had an amazing time building a lifetime of memories!