Happy Birthday!

So today my blog is 1 year old! I can not believe it has been a whole year since my parents dropped me off at the Columbus airport with the car full of my apartment, and away I went. Looking back at this blog, it has been an amazing year. All the countries, and people, and sight seeing have been more than I ever could have imagined when I signed that contract to come over here. The job has been stressful, tiring, exciting, and rewarding, and today just happened to be a Presidential Jet Trip to the market. At the end of a long two days of store visits in my market, we sat down at Starbucks and the President of LBI told me my market is vibrant, compelling, and most importantly- consistently performing over plan. He was very impressed with all the stores. Then my VP told me he was extremely proud of me and how the market has progressed the last year. :-) (Deep breath) So that was the best feeling. And what a nice surprise that it was 1 year to the date of me coming here! And you might be asking; so are you coming home? And....I have signed up for another year. With all the work I have done here forging relationships with the business groups, and all the new countries we will be opening this year, I have decided to give it another year. So the preview for the next year: My trip to Moscow is next week! YAY! Istanbul is now officially in my territory- so now I go there every 6 weeks; new stores in Egypt so going to see the pyramids, Warsaw Poland... has stuff I'm sure..., Doha, Qatar is a new market as well, and this assignment will end with Lebanon! And of course I'll be back up to Jordan to see the Dead Sea in a few months, go through Ramadan again, and be back to the US for meetings and family fun every three months or so! I hope you have enjoyed the adventure the past year, and look forward to seeing everyone when I'm back in the states!