The other night as we were sitting at home on the couch (in Germany, of course) watching some TV, my phone chimed telling me that I had a text message. It was my brother Doug sending me a picture of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. A few minutes later another message came through and it was a picture from Doug of the Eiffel Tower.
We visited there a few years ago and it was one of my favorite vacations since we've been in Europe, so I was happy that my brother was getting to experience the wonder that is Paris. We exchanged some messages about how beautiful the city is and how lucky he was to be settling into his dinner and drinks in the City of Light. 
The following weekend, as Rick and I sat with some friends in one of our favorite Irish pubs in Nürnberg, my phone chimed again. This time it was Doug sending a picture from the Sting concert in Madrid, Spain. I immediately expressed my envy (via text) and we had a fun exchange of messages involving some of the silly things that my brothers did with the lyrics of a few Sting/Police songs while we were growing up. Even from a young age, I remember bonding with my brothers over music, so I had to text my brother Butch to let him know that he should be jealous of where Doug was at that moment. Butch was traveling somewhere in the States and we exchanged some funny messages at the exact same time I was also texting with Doug in Madrid. I did all of this while sitting in a cozy pub in Germany on a random October Saturday night. Crazy, isn't it?
This past Saturday, as I sat in the same Irish pub in Nürnberg (yes, we spend a lot of time there-don't judge) my phone chimed again. This time it was a picture from Butch. It was my cousin Karen and her dog sitting by the lake in her small town in Texas. I responded with a picture of Rick and I holding up our pints of Guinness and we chatted via text about him coming to visit. I told him to give my love to our cousin and her husband and enjoy relaxing by the lake.I say all of this because if you sit back and think about it for just a minute, technology is amazing. We use it so often that it is just second nature. We don't even blink an eye when we get a picture from across the world on something so small that it fits into our pockets. It keeps us connected with our family and friends in a split second even though we are all worlds away from each other.
I do realize that things were just fine before we had all of this technology at our disposal. I remember when I was a senior in college, I went to visit Doug and his wife Susan while they were living in Tokyo, Japan. This was before I even had an e-mail address, let alone a 'smart phone', so those were not among our communication options. I still have the actual letter that Susan wrote and mailed to me before my visit outlining everything I needed to know before and after I arrived in Japan. I doubt that I would have kept an e-mail after all of these years, and it's always so much fun to reminisce when I come across that letter.
However, since I do live halfway across the world from my family and most of my friends, I am very thankful for the technology that we have at our fingertips. I can't imagine being so far away and not being able to communicate in the manner that I've become accustomed. So thank you iPhone, e-mail, Facebook, Skype, and Blogspot for keeping us in touch with all of the people that mean the most to us. I will continue to use all of you wonderful inventions until something new and improved comes along!
