Last week, I was in Los Angeles for work Sunday through Wednesday.  The trip was very productive, although, my work trips always seem to generate more work.  I flew home Wednesday afternoon from LA.  Coming back always seems to take longer because of the two hours lost in changing time zones.  My flight left at 9:30am, but when I landed in Chicago it was 3:30pm.  By the time I got my bag and took a cab home, it was already 5:00pm.  Blah.

Anyway, the next day, I went into the office as I had some meetings first thing in the morning, then I left around 12:30pm to go home, finish packing, and drop off Bentley at the Kennel before heading back to the airport to fly to Florida.  Mary and I made it there with plenty of time to spare.  Steve and Kati, made it just in time!  Kati had been in New York for work at the same time I was in Los Angeles.  Her flight was canceled, delayed, and canceled some more.  Fortunately, they made it.

The trip to Florida was for Jen and Ken's wedding.  The whole weekend was great!  All the events and accomodations were at a resort near Panama City called Carillon Beach, which is on the Gulf of Mexico side.  Friday we spent most of the day on the beach.  This was a great way to relax, until that night when the sunburn kicked in.  One day I'll learn.

The ceremony was on the beach the next day.  Although it was VERY hot and VERY humid, it was a great ceremony.  Afterwards, we went right to the reception for cocktail hour.  Everything went off without a hitch, and everyone seemed to have a great time.  I'm just glad Mary and I are both home again (for now at least)!  Pictures to follow...

This was not necessarily a horrible week, but it was a rough one and I am more than relieved to know that it is officially Friday and I am 10 minutes away from leaving the office.  After working feverishly on our department's budget for the last 3 days and staying late 2 nights in a row, only to have one days worth of budget entries be wiped out of our system and all need to be re-entered, I am ready to leave the office behind for a couple days.  Not to mention all the other mishaps from this week.  I told Jack that I felt a little mentally "beat up" this week, and despite the fact that I tried, I really did, to stay positive, I eventually just accepted the fact that this was just not going to be my week, so I tried to "Grin and bear it" as my mom used to tell me and tried to remember her other favorite phrase, "This too shall pass".  Jack was a good sport though last night after another tough day.  He went to the produce market with me (and he doesn't really like to grocery shop), we made pizza for dinner, and he let me watch my super-girly shows that we saved on our DVR.

Today, thankfully, has gone pretty well.  I finished my budget stuff (and it was a good thing since it was due today!), took a quick trip to Starbucks on my lunch to get some of the nice fresh, spring air we have today, along with a vanilla chai.  Life just seems so much better some days with my favorite Starbucks drink.  Hopefully this means the bad stuff is behind me for the week and that only good things are in store for the weekend.

I have a few fun things going on this weekend.  It looks like Jack and I will be heading out to dinner tonight with some friends, although the place is still TBD.  I am going to a rooftop Cubs game tomorrow for a friend's bachelorette outing and then have my good friend, Kristen's, wedding shower on Sunday that my mom and I will both be attending.  I am so excited to celebrate this occasion with her.  I had such a great time at my wedding showers that I hope she enjoys these moments and is able to tuck away all these happy memories.

Hope everyone has a GREAT weekend!

...but yesterday just wasn't my day.  Sometimes I can tell when a day just isn't going to go right and I just give in to that feeling, but despite the early signs yesterday, I fought to not let the day get me.  I tried, I worked to stay as positive as possible, but in the end, the day still beat me.  Thankfully,  it wasn't an AWFUL day - it just didn't go really well either. 

It started with me just dropping things left and right before I left the condo for work and I nearly forgot a VERY important work notebook at home, but thankfully I remembered right before I left.  Once at work, I realized I forgot my watch and jewelry and I hate the feeling of being without my wedding rings.  Then it was just work frustrations - someone giving me their work to do, someone doing something of mine, someone not reading the email I sent and basically asking me to repeat everything in the email over the phone, etc, etc.  I still hadn't lost all hope and was relieved when 4:30 came.  I was gathering my things to leave when I knocked my can of Diet Coke onto the carpet and had to spend 15 minutes getting it all up so it didn't stain.  I finally texted Jack once I left work to say I was on my way and with what had held me up from leaving.  He sent a text back "Let's eat comfort food for dinner".  I try not to be much of an emotional eater, but that offer just sounded too good to pass up.

He was a great husband and picked up my dinner choice - Taco Bell.  I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes I just love it.  While he was out, I let Bentley out and it seemed that Bentley wasn't feeling so great either, so I was quite sympathetic to him last night.  Thankfully, today seems to be a better day so far.   

I am behind in blogging, but have a few things to share, so I am going to try and spread them out in a few shorter blogs over the next few days.

I was just in Park City, UT for work this week.  Rough life, I know! ;) I have been there once before for the same meeting, but was extra excited to go back again because Jack was coming with me this time.  We decided to fly out a day early to enjoy a little time together before my work kicked in.  Once we arrived in Salt Lake City, we needed to take a shuttle to our hotel in Park City, which is about 45 minutes away.  The shuttle was a shared ride with two other couples, each of which had a little girl that I would guess to be around 3 years old.  During our ride, one couple sat behind us with their little girl, who was clearly in the "Why?" phase, as she asked questions almost the entire way.  Although I am currently not ready for kids, I thoroughly enjoy them when they aren't my own and Jack and I got some chuckles out of all the questions this little girl had.

One of her questions caught our attention when she asked her parents, "Why don't they have a little girl with them?" (clearly meaning us since we were the only ones without kids in this van).  The mom replied something to the affect of, "They may not have any kids." and the little girl piped up, "Well they should!".  LOL - I got quite a laugh out of that one! 

This past Thursday, I got back from a work trip to Los Angeles.  Usually, I'm only there for three or four days, but this trip was a bit longer.  I decided to go a bit earlier because my sister, Amy, and her family were there for a Sumo competition at The Los Angeles Fitness Expo.  Yep, you heard right.

My brother-in-law's brother, Sumo Dan, is a world-ranked Sumo wrestler and lives in LA.  He was competing in an open tournament at the LA Convention Center and invited my brother-in-law, Brian, to compete as well.  So, I got to see both Brian and Dan compete, which was a lot of fun!

The next day, I went with Amy, Brian and my niece, Annalee, to Griffith Park where we played at the park, went on the Merry-Go-Round, and took a little train ride.  Annalee seemed to enjoy it and I had fun hanging out with them.

Mary's dad also happened to be in the area to work at a show in Anaheim.  On Tuesday night, I drove down to meet him and we went to McCormick & Schmick's.  The food there is always great.  It was really great to see both him and my sister's family while away from home.  It made all the asset management, legal and rights & permissions meetings a little more bearable.  Although, the 70 degree weather helped, too!