2015 recap, 2016 look ahead

My end of the year recap post has become a blog tradition (see last year's post and 2013's post here), providing an opportunity to look back over the year and think ahead to the some of the exciting events to be in 2016.

Painting at Terra Restaurant, Columbia, SC.

As with the past few years, I started 2015 with meetings in Los Angeles. In February I returned to Singapore for meetings, and found time to see some cool street art. I then made a quick visit to Cairo in March. Later in the month, we took the kids to St. Kitts for Spring Break. In April I was in Istanbul and Seattle. 

May brought a return visit to Istanbul and a memorable trip to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In June I returned to Buenos Aires, Argentina, with an amazing layover visit to the Wynwood Walls in Miami along the way. I didn't travel in July and August, but I did enjoy a solid summer of training for my first half marathon in September. Prior to Labor Day I had another set of meetings in Istanbul, and an opportunity to see the Asian side of the city. 

October included by first trip to Dublin. November took us to Columbia, South Carolina for a family wedding. December included a whirlwind set of meetings and talks in Warsaw, Vienna, Bratislava and a return through London and Dublin.

From a family history perspective, 2015 has yielded some breakthrough research, from finding an early connection to Los Angeles, a previously unknown first wife of my great-grandfather Harry O'Brien, seeing photographs of my 2nd-great-grandfather Thomas Robert Jones and 2nd-great-grandparents Vicente Campuzano and Maria Jesus Vasquez. 2015 has also uncovered some of the mystery behind the parents of my 2nd-great-grandmother Mary Alice Cain Read, opening up the research on her mother Nancy Jane Flatt and the Flatt family. I am hopeful 2016 will continue bringing these types of historical detail back to the surface for sharing on the blog.

2016 is already shaping up to be an exciting year, with some new places on the horizon, including plans for my first marathon. I am extremely thankful to have good health, a great family and the ability to experience the world.