Back by Popular Demand!

I am wrapping up what was no doubt the most eventful summer of my life and I will try to give a very short version on my first blog after a long hiatus. But first I wanted to give a shoutout to my cousin Andy Newlin who is getting married today back in Wyoming. I wish I could be there but I've learned a while ago that I will constantly be missing important events like this because of my basketball career. Everything requires sacrifices so I suppose this is mine. I am still however thinking of the family back in Cheyenne and will have excitedly be awaiting the pictures to be sent to me!

After my final game last year in Adana, I flew back to Riverton only to fly to Phoenix two days later to try out for the WNBA team, Phoenix Mercury. Unfortunately I was waived in training camp and was left pondering what I would do then with my summer. I didn't have to wait long for thing to get rolling again, however. After a visit to Stanford visiting friends and watching some of the seniors graduate I made a trip back to Turkey to start the process of getting my Turkish passport. This is a story in and of itself, but basically the national team coach (my coach from my Botas team in Adana last year) and the Turkish federation asked me to join their national team and this required me to get Turkish citizenship. Each country is allowed to naturalize one citizen and since I have no ties to Turkey through my family, I was their one citizen they wanted to "make Turkish." I decided to join the team after realizing the WNBA would not be an option for the summer. During this process, I signed a 3 year contract with Fenerbahce. This Istanbul team won the league last year so I was more than excited to join a successful program and the fact that I am Turkish made me more appealing to the team because I didn't take up one of the spots reserved for another American.

So after a week in Istanbul doing all the tedious things necessary to start the passport process I made it back home for a little bit. During this time I visited my brother in New Jersey where he was training for the Olympics. After just a 2 week visit the national team wanted me back in Turkey to train. So off to Turkey again I go to train for two weeks before making a trip back to Riverton to be a bridesmaid in my friend Laurelle's wedding. I was home only a 5 days before catching a plane back to Turkey to finalize my passport. Now I am just breezing through these trips back and forth but may I remind you that each trip from Denver to Istanbul is about 20 hours. I've never spent so much time in a plane as I did this summer, but I did rack up the frequent flyer miles!! So finishing up the passport process took just a couple days before I hop on yet another plane for Beijing to watch my brother compete in the Olympics.

I'm sure most of you have heard all the amazing stories about Beijing so I won't spend too much time talking about it. It definitely was an unforgettable trip to be immersed in the highest level of sports competition ever. Adding to that the cultural experiences we faced from the people, to the cuisine, to the cab rides.....We made some awesome memories and maybe in 4 years we will do it again in London!

While at the Olympics I missed the first game that the Turkish national team played in their elimination qualifiers for the 2009 European championships. So I flew directly from Beijing to Finland to meet them and play against the Finish team. We played in Finland, Bosnia, Italy, and Poland and finished the qualifying tournament 7-1 and first place in our pool. So we will play in Latvia in June 2009 for the European championships. After our final game in Turkey I came home for a week (notice the long trip again) and now I am back in Istanbul with my Turkish league team gearing up for the season to begin next week.

And that was my summer in a nutshell!! I'm glad to be settled down in one place for a little bit and actually able to unpack my suitcase in my new apartment. I will have pictures from the summer up at my knewlin.shutterfly.com account soon.

Until next time.....