Our afternoon with Pau

Pau Gasol, that is...

WARNING, ridiculous groupie type action and amount of photos at seeing someone famous to follow. I debated even discussing it, but hey. Let's be honest, this doesn't happen that often, and everyone else had their cameras out too...so I don't feel bad. (and P.S. we are Celtic fans in this house:)

As today started out, I was not expecting anything special. Every member of the family, to differing degrees has been sick off and on lately with something and after a day of mommy not feeling well yesterday, Porter ended up waking up in the middle of the night with a fever of 102 and other unmentionable yuckies that go along with it. He seemed to be feeling better this morning, but we decided to keep him home anyway; especially since today marked the first day of the long weekend we have here in Turkey. Everything was a half day both for Noah and Porter. When Noah arrived home, and Porter had seemed to be doing ok all morning we decided to take a routine trip to the mall. (Mostly, to get some lunch that I didn't feel like preparing). We settled on some Burger King and then proceeded to start our usual route. We had a few errands to run, and as we exited the food court we ran into this: or him actually! Pau. Gasol.

Now, if you are not aware Istanbul is currently hosting the 2010 World Basketball Championships! It has been a really big deal here, tons of commercials, posters, promos etc. It has been fun, and great to see all of their national pride! So anyway, apparently Nike sponsors many of the teams and they had arranged something special. Now, here is where I am a tad confused, Pau Gasol is from Spain, but from what I am told is not actually playing for them right now. His brother is, however, and so I am assuming maybe he is just here supporting his Bro and his country. Anyway, they had set up this thing where he did a press conference or something, then he was helping a few lucky kids learn how to shoot a basketball. Below, is a picture of him bestowing his wisdom.

Now here is where it got fun. So after standing around for a few minutes watching that, I wanted to get a picture of all the different uniforms. I thought it was cool how they had them all up. Now let me take you on our visual journey of the closest brush with true fame that I at least, have ever had...

So I take this picture of all the uniforms-not too many people around, then two seconds later...

I turn my camera to the left, already raised and in position from the last photo to snap this. Notice the guy in front of Pau is being guided aside by his bodyguard?

1 second later, imagine me being sidearmed (gently though, he was nice) by this same gentleman!

I keep snapping away to then get this photo 1 second after that. Noah and the boys are right by me, and we definitely could have reached out to touch him. Just to give you some perspective.

2 seconds later, turning my camera to the right. He really is tall! So to all you Laker fans, here you go!

We went about the rest of our errands, including snapping a better photo with the USA and France Jerseys...and Porter in his soccer gear:)

Then...we went to the Nike store, where we I was able to pick up a Birthday gift for Noah that he wanted (related to the tournament, so probably won't be available for long) and we ran into him here again! He seems quite nice and was signing lots of autographs and things.

Then Noah got this great shot. This was the bodyguard who pushed me aside. What a good momento of our afternoon.

There you have it, a reason... (especially living overseas, btw) to always carry a camera with you! Glad I actually pulled through this time. Way to go Kendra!