Moving right along...

Hello blogosphere.

It's been a busy few weeks filled with enough rain to catch us up from the dry summer. It almost, dare I say, felt like fall for a few days.

Everything has been moving right along and we've had a lot of blessings. Today we got up around 5 to get ready for our engagement picture session. We had so much fun with our amazing photographer. You can check out a sneak peek on her blog: http://melissazihlman.com/Blog/

(I also had some amazing help from Haute Facade with my hair and makeup!)

After that we went cake tasting and finally decided on cake "flavors" and designs.

And now we're exhausted so we're going to put off all of that other wedding stuff we wanted to do today and take a nap. I think we did enough :)

Robert is getting close to graduation - time is flying by. Soon he'll be a "master" just like me! And I don't think I even need to mention work. I have so much fun every day...enough said.

Off to dreamland...

And....GO!

Whoops! I said we'd be back in August and it has flown by. Let's recap the past month or so...

In late July, I went back to the U.S. and British Virgin Islands with my friends Ashleigh and Stacey and my mom. We had a fabulous week visiting beaches and making new friends. Ashleigh definitely made the most new friends.

we travel as "the cupcakes."

Our trip to Anegada gave us fabulous sun...

All of us had great tans by the end of the trip!

And I get to go back to the BVI for Thanksgiving. Another girls trip! I'm loving the vacation this year.


The day after we got back, we went to Candice's baby shower. She's having a little girl later this month. Candice is so cute!

Later that week we went with a big group to Babe's in Burleson. If you know Babe's, you know it's an awesome place to eat. But to make it even better, Stacey and Russ were revealing the sex of their baby! It was so creative...they had the sonogram technician seal the result in an envelope. They gave it to the waitresses and said if it's a boy to put the biscuits down first and if it's a girl, the salad.

Drum roll please...it's a boy! I know everyone is excited to meet baby Jason around Christmas Eve! Now we're busy planning Stacey's baby shower.

Robert finished his summer finals around the time we got back from our trip. He just started his last semester. It's so exciting that he'll be done with his masters right before Christmas!

For Labor Day, we had planned a camping trip to Lake Ouachita in Arkansas with Kevin and Elisha. The last week provided a little drama and we didn't get to go. Jack got a hold of a safety pin from one of my dry cleaning tags and swallowed it - open - unbeknownst to us. He threw up for three days straight and and wouldn't eat so I took him to the vet. I thought he maybe had a stomach bug and I'd be laying out hundreds of dollars without ever finding out what was wrong. I was wrong! After an x-ray, Jack was rushed into emergency surgery to remove the safety pin, which had traveled down to his intestines.

It was terrifying. All I could think was, "what if he doesn't make it through the surgery?" He made it through like a trooper! The pin had preforated in three places but only tiny spots. The doctor was able to remove the pin and give him stitches. We couldn't go camping because someone needed to be with him the first few days all the time. He has to wear a c collar for at least 7 days and is taking 5 different types of medicine. He's doing really well and even though we were bummed about the camping trip, we're just glad we still have Jack! And our $2,000 safety pin.

I've taken advantage of all of this downtime this weekend to catch up on a few things. I've been organizing stuff in our house. We're down to the details on wedding planning now so it's been nice to get a few things squared away. Today we were trying to decide honeymoon things. Quite possibly an entire year of celebrating!

And I think that brings everything back up to speed...for now.

See ya!

Be back in August :)

Monday, Monday

It’s been a tough week. A very close family friend went into hospice. She’s battled cancer and many other ailments and won. But she paid a price with restricted mobility, trouble breathing, restricted diet, etc. She was tired of fighting and was ready to pass on. As selfish as one can be when someone close to them is dying, I found myself having a lot of respect for her decision. She was ready and without fear and I have to say, that’s pretty admirable. She passed away late last night.

I was really impressed with the hospice program at Arlington Memorial Hospital. It’s a new concept and it is focused around what the patient wants. They can spend their last days doing what they want, eating what the want, seeing their pets – all without being poked or prodded. They even told us that the brought a woman’s horse down on a freight elevator so she could see it one last time. That’s what I call care.

This weekend was another whirlwind. I am so excited about going on vacation in two weeks because I’ll get to rest!

On Saturday we went to visit Courtney at her place in Plano. She always makes the hour+ drive to see us so we thought we’d go out her way. She lives in a loft at the Shops at Legacy. We went to dinner, saw a couple of live bands, watched a water show and drank wine. A very good Saturday night.

Yesterday I picked up my little sister, spent some time at the hospital, visited my dad and took Caitlin for lunch at Dutch’s. So good. Then we met Stacey, Ashleigh and Russ at Frogberry for some froyo. Yum. Caitlin and I also went to the TCU bookstore, which is amazing, to do a little shopping. I picked up a few beach reads for the vacation and we both got a new pair of shorts. I love that they carry TCU branded Nike running shorts.

We then commenced our Harry Potter marathon to prepare for Wednesday night when we go to see the new movie! Nerds.

And now it’s back to work on a Monday. I definitely woke up at 5 a.m. to make it to Hillsboro for the safety meeting and no one is here. They are in Waco for another meeting. Kind of wish I’d been in the loop on that so I could’ve slept a little later. Oh well. That’s a Monday for you!

hellogoodbye

Hello blog. It's been a while. I've been a really bad blog friend.

When life "happens" sometimes the blog gets pushed to the back burner. I'm back. Just today.

Here's a quick update: Lemonblueberrysprinklesaregood. Annualreviewwasspectacular. Holidayweekendwastiring.

Wedding planning is coming along slowly. Last week I booked our photographer and hair and makeup. We're still bridesmaid dress searching. I have a lot of other vendors lined up and ready to go once the bridesmaid dress color is finalized.

In other awesome news...Ashleigh, Stacey and I are going to the British Virgin Islands in 19 days. I am SO excited.

I think that's it for today. I'll try to visit again soon.

women's lib and other adventures...

I have been terrible when it comes to blogging lately and for that I apologize. It's been a busy couple of weeks.



This week, I traveled to Scottsdale for a women's leadership conference for women in the energy industry. If you are familiar with the energy industry, you probably know that it is heavily dominated by males. That's why I was so excited by the invitation to join a group of women from my company.



We stayed at the Fire Sky resort and it was heaven. They brought a goldfish named Mimo to my room, I had my own patio...popsicles at two...sangria at five...



But back to the conference. It was small in size ~100 women and a few fabulous men looking to understand women better. A few of my favorite things included learning how to change my context, negotiation workshops and a panel of successful women leaders (including a vp from my company!). What I learned was that I work for a progressive company and that gender equality in 2009 is still a huge issue. One of the most interesting discussions centered around off-ramping when women have children and the dilemma of on-ramping (often way behind their male counterparts). That's a discussion for another day though.



They structured a lot of down time in the conference so we had time to actually get to know some of our fellow attendees. It was a great time.



The flight back was pretty entertaining. 73 businessmen were on standby and a battle of ego ensued. They managed to get a lot of them on. After they boarded first class and platinum/gold passengers, there were about 5 of us left to board. Very humbling. Good thing I checked my bag - the plane was 95% male. The most unusual flight I've ever been on.



Today I took the day off and went bridesmaid dress shopping with Ashleigh, Stacey and Caitlin. It was a lot of fun.



This weekend will be filled with yard work and getting my dad's router and DSL set up at the nursing home. He got a special laptop for his wheelchair so he can talk to us no matter where he is at in the nursing home. He just needs the wireless router for internet access all over the nursing home. Fun stuff!

Eat dessert first.

I have been totally remiss on my posting lately. With good reason. Robert has had a short break from classes in between semesters and tonight he starts his summer session in the B-School. Getting those electives out of the way for graduation in December - yay!

To recap - we took a very quick trip to OKC over Memorial Day weekend on behalf of my 14-year-old sister. When we went to AZ for spring training, she missed the beginning of a concert tour in Dallas so it was only appropriate that we caught the end in OK. We stayed at the Renaissance on the edge of Bricktown which made walking to the concert venue easy. We were upgraded into a two bedroom, two bath suite which was very sweet. Not to mention the room service we indulged in.

I have this thing about trying the french toast at every hotel I stay in (I'm talking nice hotels). The version here was french toast bread pudding. I was intrigued but disappointed. Def not what I wanted for breakfast. Maybe someday I'll be able to give the sooner state another try at french toast but it won't be any time soon.

Back to the real story - Caitlin had a blast at the concert and so did Robert and I. It wasn't too crowded and the venue had air conditioning...sweet, sweet air conditioning. Caitlin caught a guitar pick too!

Sunday night of that weekend was Sprinkles night. We had the "Ashleigh" version of the key lime cupcakes - they rank up there on my top flavor list. She also made some really delish food that I need to recreate!

Monday was spent by the pool getting some sun and mentally preparing myself for Tuesday - the dreaded root canal. I was in pain the entire weekend and I was convinced that I would suffer so bad on Tuesday that I'd have to stay home from work. My preconceived notions were so far from true. I felt zero pain throughout the procedure and afterwards. I didn't need any pain killers - nothing. The next few days I just took Motrin but nothing...I repeat nothing...compares to the pain BEFORE the procedure. So there you have it, myth busted. Root canals are awesome.

Last weekend I had to work the go green home fair. I picked up some green home swag and spent the rest of the weekend napping. I haven't done that in a while so it was much needed.

This week has been great so far. I was selected to go to a women's leadership conference for my industry in a week or two in Scottsdale. My second trip there within a few months. AZ must be calling my name. Or maybe it's the Sprinkles next to my hotel...

Oh, and now that it's official, I can announce that Stacey and Russ are expecting a little one roughly two weeks before my big day! Congratulations! I cannot wait to meet baby Mensik - I have my fingers crossed for a Christmas delivery.