Traveling

I got to be home for basically one day. There is not a lot I could do in one day, but do laundry, watch Arkansas beat Georgia, and pack my suitcase again. I guess I should be glad I am in a place this week I have never been before.

Traveling alone is really no fun. When Michael and I go places together we have a blast. From the airport to the flight to the vacation itself. Yesterday was my travel day and boy was it ever boring. It was 8 hours of slow traveling. Living in Arkansas almost always required connecting to travel anywhere in the US, which honestly doesn't bother me, I always sit next to interesting people. I am just a very impatient traveler. I get annoyed by the person in line at security who tries to bring through their entire bathroom without realizing the 3oz rule or the business traveler, who travels every week yet can't seem to remember to take his belt off before going through the metal detector. That's why I love airports that have an expert line and then the everyone else line. I really love the airports with the expert lines where they yell at the slow people who don't know to take out their laptops or take off their shoes. Trust me when I say this, I don't get this annoyed at people when Michael is traveling with me.

Hoping I get to see the city of Seattle today. Never been here before, first impressions are positive. Weather is awesome, lots of lush green and beautiful view of the water from my hotel.

Another week in Chicago

I feel like I have been in Chicago so much lately. I actually had someone ask me if I was living here again. Seriously that is a bad sign I have been in the Corporate Office too much. I really like coming to the city. The weather this week has been awesome. Tomorrow I am actually going to wear a sweater and need it. There are lots of positives to being in the office. I do like seeing people who work in my office. It is always entertaining and fun to hang out with my sales team. The sales team went to dinner last night and there was no shortage of laughs.

Last weekend was awesome! Razorbacks game and fun times with friends. I got to see my good friend Rob and his new house. It was nice to just sit around and talk. He started his residency in July so, that basically means I won't have a friend for another four years. We had a good time, laughed about some ridiculous stories they had. They being my friend and his girlfriend. It was the first time I got to meet her and I like her, not that it would matter what I thought, but I did like her. Michael actually knew her from college, which was funny and ironic since my friend has been with her awhile and we had not gotten to meet until this weekend. I think when you get older and find your best friend, aka husband, you want all your friends to be as happy.

Sunday, Michael and I went to the LPGA tournament at Pinnacle. We got to see Michelle Wie, the best female player, and I am still not a huge fan of golf. We got tons of free stuff while at the tournament so it was very worth going.

Weekend ahead!

So, as of yesterday Michael and I will be going to Little Rock this weekend. There are multiple reasons to go to the Rock; the main and most important reason is my friend Peggy is coming into town from NYC and the other reason is Arkansas is playing LA Monroe this weekend. It has been a long time since we have gone to a Little Rock game, so it should be FUN FUN FUN!!

We are going to be very busy this weekend. Not only are we going to Little Rock on Saturday, we are going out to Pinnacle on Sunday to watch the LPGA tournament. I am very excited about this, because as much as I don't really care about golf I do think it would be fun and really cool to watch the ladies play in person. Maybe it is like baseball...as much as I LOVE baseball, I cannot stand to watch baseball on TV. 9 innings are just so long when it is on TV. Hopefully I will gain a new respect for golf after Sunday.

On another note, tonight starts Gabby's first day of obedience training. I am looking forward to having a well behaved dog. I will say Gabby can already do lot of good tricks and listens to us for the most part (unless she is excited). I am hoping she will learn to walk with us and not walk us, and I am hoping she will become really good at NOT jumping on people. My poor baby thinks she weighs 15lbs and really she weighs 50lbs. I will blame this on the fact that her bestie is a 15lbs miniature schnauzer named Callie. Gabby tries to do everything Callie does, but as I mentioned prior the only difference is Gabby weighs 50lbs. Example below, Callie loves to lay on the back of the couch, when Gabby lays on the couch she hangs off or else she slides down the front.

Summer is ending...

It is obvious that summer is slowly coming to an end. I am very grateful for the rain we have been having lately. My poor trees really have needed the water. We had been watering our trees every single day and they were still loosing their leaves. Very sad. I am worried fall just won't be near as pretty as it has years past. Now that we live in Arkansas again I was really looking forward to fall.

The rain is wonderful, but my allergies or something are going crazy. I hate being sick, I am probably the worst person sick. I am just not nice. My throat has been killing me. Yesterday was so bad that I was having trouble drinking and breathing. I have had my throat swell up due to an allergic reaction, but this is just no fun. I am hoping if it is allergies that the rain will make it all go away.

Lots going on...

I feel like lately I have been so busy that I can't even stop for a breath of fresh air, and it is about to get worse. I can't complain it has been lots of fun, especially this past weekend. First Razorback football game of the season! Of course Michael and I went to the game, can't let those season tickets go to waste. My brother came into town and I got to see lots of family this weekend, as well. That's why I love the Razorbacks games.

Me and my Dad

Michael and I bought a new bedroom suite in July and it is arriving in the next few weeks. I can't wait to have a king bed. Since I will be traveling so much in the next two months we went out and got our mattress. Now it officially feels real that we are going to have a new suite. I have started to think about painting the walls. Don't know if I will ever have time to actually paint but you know what I will try.

Here is my travel schedule...

Week of September 13th -- Chicago

Week of September 20th -- Seattle

Week of September 27th & October 4th -- Honolulu

Week of October 11th -- Chicago

Week of October 18th -- Palm Springs

As much as I love traveling and getting to go to fun places, I really wish Michael was going to be coming with me.

Chicago with my brother

A few weeks ago I went to Chicago for work, and I planned to stay through the weekend to hang out with my brother, who now lives in Michigan. My brother came and met me at my office in Lisle on Friday. I was so excited, because every year my office takes off half a day and goes to the horse races. I have a soft spot for the races even though I suck at the gambling part, I love the horses. I am such a cheapo when it comes to gambling so I never bet more than $6 on each race. On a positive note I only lost $6 in 7 races. My brother and I were picking good horses at the beginning but we really should have stopped before the last 3 races. We always picked one horse with good odds, one that we liked the name, and one with horrible odds. After the races, we went to dinner with some people from my office.

My brother is never allowed to hang out with those people again. My quiet, sweet brother made someone projectile vomit on another lady, also from my office, due to something he said. Eric just happened to say the funniest thing in the world at the exact moment that a guy in my office took a bite of food and swig of beer. Needless to say we laughed for a good 30 minutes at this nice restaurant over the whole situation.

On Saturday, my brother and I decided to go to the Art Institute of Chicago. I was excited since in the three years Michael was in Chicago we never went to the Art Institute. It was very interesting. I learned several things. One my brother has a world of knowledge and he really should be a teacher. He taught me all about Greek history, who needs a tour guide to explain all the different art and history when I take my brother. Another item I learned is one could actually spend an entire day inside of the art institute and still not see everything. After we left and my head was spinning, I took my brother on a short tour of Michigan Ave and the parks. For dinner I wanted to go to the cheesecake factory. Actually I wanted to go to Tsunami, my favorite sushi restaurant, but it is now closed. Sad Face. After waiting a long time for a table and a long time for our delicious food, we learned that our meal was going to be free. YaY! Funniest part is the last time Michael and I went there we received a gift card due to a long wait time. Apparently I need to go there more often for free stuff.

Picture on the Left my cousin, Right painting from the Art Institute

Sunday, I was leaving and we just wanted to relax a little, so I took Eric to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Love that Zoo. If you have never been, go! It is free and fantastic. I love looking at the animals, but I what I love more is watching the kids at the zoo. Especially the ones under the age of five. They are so excited to see each and every animal and I could watch that all day. I told my brother, when I have a kid, in five years, I will take them to every zoo in the country just to watch the fun faces. Note: Favorite zoo; San Diego Zoo, fantastic and HUGE, wear tennis shoes!

Honeymoon

Michael and I went to St. Thomas for our honeymoon. We left two days after the wedding, which was the greatest thing in the world. I cannot imagine leaving the day after the wedding.

We got to St. Thomas late the first night and it was dark, so we really had no idea where we were or even where our taxi was taking us. I think it made Michael nervous, he had his iPhone out with the map and route. When we got to our hotel and got checked into our room or should I say

large apartment. It was a two bedroom, two bathroom villa with a kitchen and living room. Even though it was dark we could tell we had an ocean view and a view of the town.

First Night

View from our room

The first full day on the island all we did was lay on the beach. Anyone who knows Michael and me knows that our vacations are not the typical relaxing vacation. We go, go, go. Well not this vacation, we relaxed and tried to enjoy the down time. So, we spent many days on the beach, but that was perfect. We had a reef on our beach which attracted lots of creatures and even several blacktip reef sharks. The sharks were cool to see from a distance and the hotel staff did inform us that they are harmless babies and their mouths are too small to bit anyone. After that he did tell us they tagged the mother and an alarm would sound if she got within 1000ft of the shore. I am sorry but 1000ft is not that much considering how fast a shark can swim. Michael has always wanted to swim with sharks and he definitely did, it took a lot to get me to stay in the water.

One day Michael and I went into the town of Charlotte Amalie mainly to do some shopping and a couple of site seeing adventures. I am a big nerd and really wanted to go to Blackbeard's Castle. Go ahead and laugh away, but it sounded fun! One super thing about shopping in St. Thomas is that it is all duty free. No Tax! I was not too impressed with the shopping but they have tons of vendors and they sure wanted to sell us stuff. After a little shopping we decided to find the 99 steps (102 actual) to Blackbeard's castle. On the way up the steps we stopped at this cute little bar that had the world's largest amber waterfall inside. It was man made. I found the steps going to the castle really neat, they are the original steps from 1679. When we made it to the castle, we learned it was closed. I was sad. Apparently when St. Thomas does not have 6 cruise ships in they don't even bother to open. BOO! So, I just enjoyed the view from the outside and the view of the harbor.

Amber Waterfall

Blackbeard's Castle Behind us

I thought the flags were a nice touch

About as close as we are going to get

Major J.M. Magen's Home (1820s)

While in St. Thomas, we decided to go and take a tour of St. John. We heard how beautiful it was there and so we found a group that picked us up at the Marriott's dock and takes you over to St. John, then drives you around the island, and takes you snorkeling at one of the many beaches. After going to St. John, I wish we had stayed there instead of St. Thomas. The island's beaches were gorgeous. I have never been to a beach I liked better than the ones on St. John. Don't get me wrong St. Thomas also had wonderful beaches, but nothing could beat St. John. On our tour, they took us to a sugar mill where they made rum. It is no longer making anything but it was very cool to see.

Waiting on our ride to St. John

Brown Boobie

View from the highest point

From the Sugar Mill

Us at the Sugar Mill on St. John

At the Beach where we snorkeled

Our guide stopped to warn us about these trees

Views

One thing St. Thomas was not lacking was the amount of shopping. I think Michael and I went shopping everyday in some way, even when we went to St. John. Yacht Haven was my favorite spot on St. Thomas. The shopping was good, food was good, and we got to see some fun fish.

Yay for Yacht Haven

Some Fish Michael was excited about

We ate at a lot of fun places and got the much needed rest after the wedding in St. Thomas. If I was to go back I would probably do a few things differently. One stay on St. John and take the ferry to St. Thomas. Two, take lots of friends or family. Three, take Michael deep sea fishing! We had a blast and I am glad I can say I have now been there.

Sunset

Dinner at the Marriott

We definitely got some sun!