Catch-Up

Well, it has been a while since I have written anything. Life just seemed to get crazy for a while. But, here is a brief synopsis of our lives for the past couple of months.
July:
In early July, Andrew had a conference for work in Seattle. I was able to go with him. We had a lot of fun! We flew there on Monday. When we got in, we took a bus tour of the city (overpriced and under-delivered in our opinion) and then had dinner with his marketing committee that night. He was in meetings all day Tuesday, so I spent the day walking the city. Five hours later, I staggered back up to the hotel. I was exhausted! That night, I met Ellen (a friend from PT school) and her boyfriend for dinner. Ellen and I also spent the day together Wednesday. She showed me the non-touristy parts of Seattle. I think my favorite part was eating lunch on a hill overlooking one of the bays. There was a huge sundial there that was accurate down to the second. (I will try to get pictures up later) It was great to get to see Ellen again. I registered for the conference so I could go to the dinners and exhibits with Andrew. I got to meet a many of the people he always talks about when he comes back from these conferences. I also tried a lot of food that I had never had before. Some was good; some was definitely not. The highlight of the conference for me (aside from Andrew's presentation of course- from which they had to turn about 2 dozen people away) was the keynote speaker on Saturday. He was a former Whitehouse chef. He organized Friday night's dinner and told the story of each course as it was being served. Then on Saturday, he talked about how he became a Whitehouse chef, what the first families were like and several fun and insightful stories from his time at the Whitehouse. Andrew's gift for being a speaker was the Chef's book. What a prize! Anyway, while we were there, the weather was great and we had a wonderful time!

We were home for a week from Seattle and then turned around and drove to Manitoba, Canada for our 5 year anniversary. We went back to Barrier Bay Resort where we went on our honeymoon. It was just as we remembered it. This trip was a little different from our honeymoon, though. It was much more relaxing. Don't get me wrong...we enjoyed our honeymoon. However, we were on the go so much seeing the sights, that we did not get to just relax and enjoy our vacation. This time, however, things were different. We spent half of everyday biking, hiking, kayaking, canoing, and swimming. The rest of our days were spent reading a book on the hammock on the porch, taking a nap, or playing games. Another difference from our original journey to Canada was our experience at the restaurant we went to. Last time, we went to Jennifer's; a restaurant that sounded sophisticated and nice, but turned out to serve the only steak that Andrew has ever had to leave without eating. The food was so bad that we ended up going back to the cabin and grilling hot dogs. This time, however, we went to Lobo's Steak Pit (ironically, one of our options last time because it didn't sound nice enough). The food was some of the best we had ever had. Instead of coming home through the Dakotas, like we did last time, we drove over into Ontario and down through Minnesota. The view was much better and it only added maybe an hour to our trip. I think it was honestly the first truly relaxing vacation I have ever been on.

A couple of weekends ago, we went to Branson and Silver Dollar City with Monte, Kristi, Mason and Stephen Ellis. That was a new experience for all of us. We had never had reason to do all of the kid things before, and they had never been able to do the other things. Having the children outnumbered helped a lot. Kristi said that there were parts of SDC that she never knew existed. It was fun to get to experience Mason's first experience on a Big roller coaster.

Now, we are just back to normal with work and "things and stuff". It is amazing how fast time can go. Hopefully, it won't be so long for me to post again.

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