On my birthday in 2005, Dan and I went skydiving. We did a tandem jump, and my jumpmaster, Mario, had, if I remember correctly, about 7,000 jumps under his belt. I’d call that a professional After all, it was his job to make sure I got down safely. And he did.

This is my entry in this week’s Photo Friday photo challenge. The topic is Far From Home.

The furthest I have ever been from home was when I went to Turkey in May, 2001 on vacation with my mom, aunt, uncle, and two other couples who were friends of theirs. It was a wonderful trip - friendly people, great food, beautiful artwork and textiles. We had a wonderful time.

According to this site, it’s 5,282 miles from home in Virginia to Istanbul, Turkey.

One day we toured Ephesus, an ancient city near the southwest coast. This is a photo of the Ephesus Library. Archaeologists believe it was completed in the year 117.

This is a closeup of a statue in a niche to the right of the entrance to the library.

This is my entry this week for the Photo Friday weekly photo challenge. About two years ago, Dan and I and our exchange student at the time, Josi Schroder, went to Fort Story in Virginia Beach to check out the light house. While we were there, we walked the beach and found this guy.

This is my entry in this week’s Photo Friday challenge, The Good Life.

For the last few years, we’ve been going out on Friday night sailing races with Dan’s boss Laura and her husband Cap’n Steve and assorted other friends - usually Danny and Sally, Paul and Terri, sometimes others. It’s sponsored by the Portsmouth Boat Club, and it’s a blast After the race, we have appetizers and drinks on board and sometimes go to dinner at the Boat Club, or out somewhere.

We’ve had a few exciting moments out there. One night, I was steering and got a leee-tle too close to the Navy pier - the sentry there was not pleased. He actually had a rifle and shouted at us! Be careful out there

This week’s Photo Friday challenge topic is Surreal. I took this photo of a church, at dusk, with a light drizzle falling, in Ennis, County Clare, Ireland, in 2003. I love how it came out.

Here’s my entry for the Photo Friday photo challenge: Fuzzy. That’s Elwing, our 12-year-old, born-feral, now totally domesticated fuzzball. She looks so cuuuuute!

This is my entry in the Photo Friday challenge for this week: Infinity. This photo was taken from the top of Maeve’s Tomb in County Sligo, Ireland when Dan and I visited there in 2003. It was a breezy day and a stray hair blew across the lens just as I was taking the photo, so that’s what that is, not some kind of weird colorless rainbow

And those little black specks in the field are cows. Ireland is filled with cows and sheep. Pork is eaten everywhere, but I never saw pigs out and about, just cows and sheep.

PhotoFriday’s photo challenge this week is Wholesome. Is there anything more wholesome than an adorable kid playing on the playground? This is my nephew Patrick, who lives in Oak Park, IL, with his dad, my brother Brad, his mom Barbara, and his sister Katharine. Dan and I just spent the weekend with them and I have dozens of pix of the kids, as well as downtown Chicago. I love this one.

For this edition of the PhotoFriday event, with the theme of “Old,” I dug up this photo from my trip to Turkey in 2001 with my mom, her sister and brother-in-law, and two other couples who are friends of theirs. This is the base of an Egyptian obelisk, one of the ancient artifacts in the Hippodrome, the Roman-style arena in the center of Istanbul, where sporting events, bazaars, weddings, political events, and royal appearances took place. It is almost 3,500 years old.

Belated Happy New Year to you! What with finishing my class at ODU, the holidays, traveling to Florida to visit the in-laws for Christmas, I’ve completely gotten away from the blog. But here for your enjoyment is my submission to Photo Friday’s weekly photo challenge. This week’s topic is Peaceful.

This was taken from the balcony of my dad’s house in the Sierra Nevada mountains in March 2006.