No, Annemarie can't come out and play......

We made it to Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill - or wherever in NC we are, last night, and got settled into the (very nice) Washington Duke Inn. I've been told that we are right on Duke campus somewhere. Not that I'd know that if I hadn't been told, because we really won't get to see much of the beautiful scenery while we are here, so we might as well be in Bastrop for all that it matters.

Anyways.....last night, we had a small reception with all of the meeting attendees, and it was good to see, re-meet, and catch up with everyone since our first gathering, my first week of this job. Laura and I turned in early because we had some work to do. Well, we had plenty of time to get our presentations in order before we left Austin, but we waited....and waited....until the (almost) last minute.

So, we started to work on them around 10pm last night, and finally went to bed at almost 3am. I KNOW - crazy talk, but we wanted to get them done. Cheers to Procrastination!! Ugh. 6am wakeup call came REALLY early this morning.

I went over for the morning kickoff messaging from our CEO, and then had to leave because it's being sponsored by a competitor, and they didn't want us in there - hey, no problems here! So, I'm back in my room, working, about to go meet the other rejected folks for lunch....but I can't help wish that I was outside instead of working.

So, no, I can't come out to play today, but thanks for asking. I REALLY wish I could. Check out the beautiful view from my room!

Oh what a Sunday.....

I can think of at least a few things that I would rather be doing this early on a Sunday.

1. Sleeping
2. Laura would like to be playing with Ava
3. According to LA, I would be updating my Facebook or taking photos
4. Heading to church with Renae & Jeff
5. Sleeping, even with Molly meowing and headbutting me because she wants attention

But.....no! I'm not doing any of those things because instead, I'm sitting at Gate 15 with Laura and KB in Austin, waiting to board our first plane of the day, to Dallas.

After that, we head to Raleigh, NC. It is going to a VERY packed few days of meetings, meetings and more meetings. They might feed us and let us get up to use the bathrooms every once in a while.....but overall, it might pretty much suck. :)

Don't we look thrilled to be here??

First Thursday!!

It's been a while since I've hit up First Thursday.....so I was happy when Renae mentioned it. She and I met up with Tricia and Tara for a little dinner at Guero's Taco Bar, and then wandered South Congress for some outdoor vendor shopping.


I have to take a minute to mention one of my new favorite finds. Diane, of Tasty Jewelry, had a booth setup right near the restaurant, showcasing her jewelry and these adorable bauble magnets. I loved all of her original mod artwork, and all of the colors to choose from! I kind of got overwhelmed with all the choices, and so I went a little overboard! I love them!

So, check out her site, or look for her stuff at another favorite on South Congress, Parts & Labour. This is a spot that sells all things designed and made by local Austin artists - so cool!!

Caleb!!!

I had the pleasure of getting to hang out with Caleb, again, on Labor Day. Stacy & Lisa called me on Saturday to see what I was doing this weekend. I was hoping that they were asking because they wanted some updated pictures of their precious baby. I was thrilled that they did! :)

He is the cutest baby, and has changed SO much since the last time we took pictures - just 3 months ago. I can't believe that he's just a few days shy of 8 months. I was there the day he was born, and have been lucky to be part of this little guy's life since then. Love this baby....check out one of the many reasons why!!!









Be sure to check out the slideshow for all the images.

I ...

I saw this on several people's blogs, and since I didn't have anything else to blog today (I'm still editing the pictures from my Monday shoot....), I thought I'd take a few minutes to think about this.

I AM … watching the clock.
I WANT… things to get better for someone that I care about very much.
I HAVE … the worst eating habits. Dinner tonight? Microwave mac and cheese with vanilla bean ice cream.
I KEEP … picking at my face - ewwww.....gross, I know, but I can't help it. Ugh, I wish it would clear up soon!!!
I WISH I COULD … fly anywhere for free at anytime!
I HATE … the ants in my house!
I FEAR … failure.
I HEAR … Molly meowing for attention (I love it).
I DON’T THINK … that I drink enough water, or exercise enough (yeah, not at all is definitely not enough).
I REGRET … not trying sushi when I was younger - better late than never though! :)
I LOVE … my family, my friends, people, animals, YOU!
I AM NOT … afraid to learn and try new things.
I DANCE … like I'm on SoulTrain!
I SING … as much as I can without annoying others.
I NEVER … pay bills late.
I RARELY … read books anymore, and I wish I made the time.
I CRY WHEN I WATCH …the musical actors and actresses come out for their bows at the end of performances.
I AM NOT ALWAYS … up on what's going on in the news. I JUST found out yesterday that Mccain's running mate, Palin, was a woman. Yes, I know, I'll do better to come out from under the rock I live from time to time.
I HATE THAT … not all of my friends live in the same town as me.
I’M CONFUSED ABOUT … a lot of things, but I'm doing something about that. How's that for confusing? :)
I NEED… to continue to learn, grow and practice my photography!
I SHOULD … go to bed, but it'll be hours before I do that. :)

Austin BatFest 2008

It seems that Austin's unofficial mascot is the bat. Rumor has it that Austin houses the world's largest urban bat colony, and so it's only proper to celebrate the little creatures with a festival! I went to BatFest 2008 with Renae and Tara this afternoon, and OH BOY, it is hot as EVER in Austin right now!!! But, I strapped on my ShootSac, complete with my new lens, and headed out for a new Austin adventure.

There were all sorts of vendors showcasing their goodies along the South Congress Bridge....of course there were plenty of bat themed trinkets!


One of the main reasons for going was to enjoy and support Renae's hubby's band - Deejer. They were starting off the afternoon entertainment at the KLBJ stage. They rocked out, and I had a great time getting some images of the guys - JR, Dave, Jeff, Chris and Gary.








I loved all the trinkets that the vendors had out in the booths. I managed to only buy one thing - whew!




The Gentlemen's Social Club played next on the stage. I couldn't leave without grabbing a few more shots.




Be sure to check out the slideshow to view all the images from today. It will pop up the gallery view at the end.

Sure, we'll brunch at the White House....why not?

I think that this was the earliest that we'd had to get up the whole trip....but it was for a great reason. Kenny had arranged us to have a tour of the East Wing of the White House this morning. His friend, Tina, pulled some strings (thank you!!!) to make this happen at almost a moment's notice for our group.

We met up with everyone else who had arrived that morning from Boston, and went through the house. We weren't allowed to bring our cameras with us, so the poor quality of what we did capture is due to us not being able to NOT take any pictures....so we resorted to the iPhones - hey, better than nothing, right? :)

None of us dared to try to snap anything while we were IN the White House for fear of our lives....but after we left the building, since it was raining pretty hard, we hung around under the awning for a bit to see if it would subside. Well, Kenny was super sneaky.....told Brett to dip the umbrella back a bit, and he got one of DJ, Allie, me and Brett right outside. It's kind of amusing, because you can't really tell where we are since the umbrella is in the way....BUT, if you look close, you can see a little bit of the house.....yes, the white one....in the background. :)

The rain wasn't stopping, so Allie, Brett and I crowded under the one shared umbrella, while the rest of the crew got a little drenched on our walk to brunch. We dined at Old Ebbitt Grill, a spot that Tina told us a lot of government officials eat at quite frequently. I almost finished all my yummy french toast, had more than a few cups of coffee, and dried off a bit while enjoying the company of amazing people.


I sadly said my goodbyes to everyone.....until the next time we meet, that is.....and headed to the airport to come back home. It's been an amazing week and a half, and it's going to be SOOOO tough to get back into the swing of things tomorrow. Luckily it's one day of work, and then 3 more off for the long holiday - I'm definitely going to need them!

See you next time NYC......off to DC!!!

What a glorious morning! This was the view from Virginia's window at 630am this morning. Yeah, I could get used to this....too bad it's our last day in NYC.

With one last afternoon in NY, we decided to take a trip out to the Brooklyn Bridge. I just can't get over how nice the weather is here. If we had walked half what we did here in TX, we would have certainly keeled over by now. It was a perfect day to take a stroll to the top of the bridge, and back down.

I hadn't taken any JUMP pics in NY. I was too shy to ask any of the many other people on the bridge to try to get one of both of us, so Brett got this one of me. It's a little silly to be doing the jump by yourself, but it was worth it. Add NY JUMP to my collection! :)


We finally stopped at the pizza place at the subway stop at our last exit, and quickly scarfed down some slices before getting our bags and hopping a taxi to the Amtrak station.

Special THANK YOU to Virginia for allowing us to invade her life and crowd her living room for more than a few days!! You are a gracious hostess, and hopefully you'll come visit TX or CA soon to let us repay your hospitality!!

So, I have to say that the train is definitely the way to travel. We only had to get there about 30 minutes early, which ended up being way earlier than really need be, and had so much room on the trip. We took it from Penn Plaza all the way to Union Station in DC. Each row was nice and roomy, AND had plugs. So, we finished up the movie we started on the plane to NY, and watched another one too. What a way to go - I loved it and will for sure want to do this again soon!


We made it safe and sound to DC and checked into the fabulous, 5 star, St Regis Hotel for the evening (thank goodness for Starwood points!). The place was as nice as you would expect a 5 star hotel to be. I even was compelled to call Corey to tell her about it - she LOVES fancy hotels! I didn't get any pics, but that was probably because we were both starving, and quickly after dropping off our stuff, we took the bellhop's recommendation and dined at Georgia Brown's. It was true Fine Southern Cuisine - my meal even came with collard greens - it was all delish - and we were stuffed afterwards!


Early night.....exciting last day of my trip tomorrow! :)

Let's go Yankees!!!

We were successful in getting my passport this morning at my company's NYC building....so I took that right up to the security counter for my entrance into the office for the day. I had decided since I was there in NY, that I'd save one day of vacation and work today. I had a few calls, did a training session, and then called it a day to meet up with Brett in the early afternoon. Knowing that he was enjoying Battery Park, and lunch with some friends that were on their honeymoon in NY didn't really keep me in the mood to be all couped up in the office for too much longer!

We walked around the city a little bit more, before heading back to Virginia's place to get ready for the fun part of our day. We had tickets to the Yankees vs Red Sox game at Yankee stadium that night. Even more fun was that we were going to be meeting up, and sitting with, Laura and Andrew, who were in NY vacationing at the same time.

We headed out there on a very crowded subway......seems that was where everyone was headed tonight - don't blame them though. There are only 15 more games in this stadium before it's being retired for the new one - and hey, it's a classic rivalry game - bound to be an interesting night!! We walked around outside the stadium for a while....and had ourselves an infamous 'dirty water dog'. I'd heard this term, but wasn't sure what it meant....so I asked the folks standing in line behind us. Turns out that it is reference to the fact that the vendors don't change out the water that they cook the hotdogs in all season......ewww....dirty, indeed!

LA and Andrew were waiting for us when we got to our seats - which turned out to be pretty great. I can't exactly tell you where we were....I guess a little off from where 1st base would be, but we could see almost the entire field.....and it was a gorgeous night.

I'm no sportscaster, so you can read the play by play on ESPN, but the Yankees ended up losing, 7 to 3. The fans were amusing to say the least.....especially this one character that sat right in front of us. At one point Laura was crying she was laughing so hard.


After the game, we waited to get onto an even more crowded subway, and went with LA and Andrew back towards Times Square to get a view of it at night, all lit up. It is definitely a big tourist spot, but the lights are pretty amazing! We had to grab a few more shots for the evening, and then said goodnight!!

US Open and Free to Succeed Tour in NYC

We had a yummy crepe lunch early afternoon at Grand Central Station, and then took the 42nd bus out to the US Open. When Brett first mentioned that he wanted to go to this, I was all for it....but I really had no clue what it was. I knew it was tennis, but that's about all. Luckily it's a pretty easy game to pick up on as a spectator, and it was actually quite entertaining - I had a great time all day!

We started out watching a match between two girls, where Brett shared his method for deciding which person to root for - whoever is cuter, of course! :) I was glad to know that this method worked for the men as well when we moved over to catch Wawrinka beat (the much cuter, and who I was rooting for) Bolelli. The highlight of our day was being able to see #1 seat, Nadal, play Phau. Phau kept up pretty good to make it an interesting and intense game, but ended up losing in the end.

It was a lot of fun, and of course, now I really want to play some tennis. I bet that I'd be terrible at it, but I still want to try. Anyone have an extra racket I can borrow? Want to volley? :)



The evening took us out to Chinatown.....where we met us with the Free to Succeed Tour. Right when we got to the Sheraton, we saw Shyla and I couldn't have been happier to see her!! We went for a Pinkberry run.....one of her latest obsessions.....and then headed back to the bus to for some good old fashioned girl talk while the rest of the folks finished up the show.

After the show was over, we all enjoyed some real Chinatown Chinese food on the bus. I'm so glad that I got to see everyone again, and meet a few new friends too, while the tour stopped in NY.

Another wonderfully non planned day in NYC!

Wow, what a lazy start to a Sunday! Well, I guess it wasn't that lazy....we spent a good part of the morning figuring out how to get me my passport from Austin so I would be able to identify myself when it'd be needed. Thank goodness for Toni - she's an absolute lifesaver!! Turns out that the FedEx that would be able to "hold for pickup" is in the same building as my NY office....so bingo! :) Problem solved!

In sticking with our non-plan, we didn't have that much planned for the day, however, Virginia had told us about the Circle Line Tours that left from Chelsea Pier.....she even had saved us up some coupons from the local paper, so we headed towards the water to catch the tour. Well, it was our one goof on the public transport, and we ended up losing about 10 minutes when we hopped off a 15 bus to only get back on the next one, after realizing we were on the correct one from the start. Long story short...we got there too late for the tour we had originally intended, and the next one sold out two people in front of us in line while we were waiting to buy those tickets. Oh well, we went with the flow, and decided to walk back towards the city on 45th street and see what we came upon.


There were some neat walls on the walk back towards town, so we snapped a few photos. As much as I LOVE to be behind the camera....I get so awkward when I'm in FRONT of them!! Eeek!! But, I'd heard Brett mention more than a time or two how much he loves red brick walls, so I thought that it was nice of me to sit there and try not to look like a total dork for a photo opp.


We took off walking some more, and stumbled across Bryant Park. We grabbed a sandwich and a salad, and had ourselves a little picnic while watching some folks from La Boule play a few games of pétanque, which is a neat game with balls. It was a beautiful day, so we stayed for a while and just chilled out on the lawn.


Next stop was Top of the Rock, which is the about 70 stories up at the Rockefeller Center.....with the most breathtaking views of the entire city. We decided to head up there at night so we could watch the sunset from the top. It was beautiful. There were so many people there......all trying to get the money shot - I think we got a few good ones ourselves.


I'd be making it up if I tried to remember all of the different subway lines we took to get back to Virginia's each night.....but I'm pretty sure that the last one we take is the L. It spits us out right at 14th and 1st, and then we head up to 20th to Avenue C......but tonight, we decided to test out Brett's sense of direction, and go through Stuy Town Oval to her building. I was delighted to find that we came across a little section that had swings, and it was still open. I love to swing, and I can't remember the last time that I got to....so I did! Wheee!!!


When we got back to her place, Virginia hadn't eaten yet either, so we took the chance to try out the place at the end of the street that we'd passed by quite a few times already - Hane Sushi. It was all super yummy, and the best way to end yet another fantastic day!!