June 27, 2010

Family dinner at my house. Dad, we made the provencal marinaded chicken - because, yes, I have the herbes de provence! I think it could have done without the slashes

I also made a weight watchers sesame ginger quinoa salad - yum. But they are crack addled if they think it servers 4 - more like 8! Thanks to Jim for the fab strawberry slicing!

For dessert a peach sundae with a torched almond meringue. Even the kiddos liked it.

I think we all know why I liked this dessert! I put my hair up to avoid the flame :)

A bit of after dinner hijinks with the pipe cleaners that are in Auntie Martta's bag of toys. Those things have lasted forever!

June 26, 2010

Thought you might want to see the Theta swag from convention. The bag was packed with goodies that were mostly worthless, but some fun stuff.

June 25, 2010

This has got to be on the list of jobs Jane would never do.....He was replacing the caulk the crazy birds around our building rip out for fun...

June 25, 2010

Just couldn't get up early enough to catch the sunrise - I've caught a cold on all my travels. But here is the early morning light out of my hotel window. Not too shabby.

Nope I didn't take this one, but don't we look cute?! Jaymie, Lauren, Allison, Sydney, Liz and I take in the terrace before morning sessions begin.

June 24, 2010

Off again. I couldn't resist this picture in Dallas. Here is the baggage team loading all the bags for our plane only to have a beat up old truck pull up with more baggage - it all goes in!

Theta convention in Tucson. I popped out during dinner, but I seemed to have missed the sunset. But this is good enough for me. After temperatures topping out in the 110's for the day, it cooled right down to the 70's at night. Nice.
A different site - cactus on the horizon as the light fades for the day.

June 23, 2010

An almost blog fail. It's time for bed and I haven't take a picture yet today. So here is a quick snap of the Zoester as she is curled up for beddy-bye.

June 22, 2010

Back home to take care of the ordinary things that need taking care of such as doggie pedicures!

June 21, 2010

Sunrise in Aberdeen. This was the view out my hotel window when I arrived back at 3am. It just seemed to make sense to stay up for 2 hours to catch my cab to the airport at 5am. Ugh. Probably won't make that decision again any time soon!

The view from above. As I cruised back to Houston the clouds were beautiful.

June 20, 2010

Edinburgh! What a reward after a week of really long hours and travel! Harry and Heather were my official Scottish hosts with the mosts. We spent the morning wandering up and down the Royal Mile. After lunch we headed to the Castle. I liked this picture through the wavy glass.

Back to the hotel to supposedly rest where I redid my airline travel in reality. And then off to dinner at a fab French place on Victoria street. Here is the reflection of the street off of the light fixture over our table. Since it's daylight until about midnight, it's easy to capture a reflection at 9pm!
After dinner, we headed to The Last Drop for a pint or two....so named for the previous owners who sold seats for the local hangings in the square this pub overlooks!

June 19, 2010

Whoever heard of striking security personnel?! Well this is what you get when security strikes. At leas they provided snacks. It took me 30 minutes to check my bag and then 30 minutes to make it through this section of the line

And another 30 min to make it through this section....good thing I allowed for 2 1/2 hours of airport time!

At least they gave us snacks....Of course it ended up not even mattering because my plane was so delayed I ended up going to Aberdeen rather than Bergen->Oslo->London->Edinburgh.

After a short drive from Aberdeen I made it to Edinburgh - beautiful!!

June 18, 2010

Nice view from the 21st floor restaurant of the Rica Forum in Stavanger as I enjoy my 41 NOK Pepsi Max. Don't both to look for it in stores, it's not approved for sale in the US. :) About 20 minutes after this picture, all the clouds rolled in and we had gray and rain for the rest of our visit.

June 17, 2010

Bye bye Aberdeen, hello Stavanger. We caught a 7:25 flight out of town and headed across the North Sea on a prop plane.
On the upside, I got to catch up on my reading. Well my picture looking at anyway as I could only figure out about every 6th word.
And they served a snack.....a super healthy one!
Hello Stavanger, Norway! It was beautiful coming in. I might have to come back and visit Norway....in the summer....when I have tons of cash because this place is expensive!

June 16, 2010

We went out to a really delicious Indian dinner at The Jewel in the Crown in Aberdeen tonight with Harry and Heather. Wow, I had the Murg Gulshan and I can't say enough good things about it! Delicious! Afterwords we grabbed a pint (well not me) at the local pub.

June 15, 2010

Woke up randomly at 4:35 this morning and caught this sight out my bedroom window. Wonderful colors of light at that time of day in Aberdeen.
And in other news....why is there a bottle opener in my bathroom?

June 14, 2010

Some of the best words I've ever heard in my life: This ticket entitles you to entry into our lounge. Awesome. I picked up a free Hello! and breakfast, refreshed in the bathroom while James took a shower and just generally got to relax before the flight to Aberdeen. Nice!

June 13, 2010

I'm leavin' on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again....beautiful sunset on the way out of Austin as we made our way to Aberdeen via IAD and LHR. We got bumped up to economy plus because James is a gold member on Coninental....good thing because we took off late and had to RUN the distance in Dulles to catch the flight to London. Every seat on the plane was taken and I think only 3 people made it on after us.

June 11, 2010

Sign me up!

I finally checked my mail after forever and I picked up the latest copy of InStyle (Thank you Nana!). In it they had an article on the 100 reasons to love summer.....please sign me up for #64 prosecco popsicles! yum-o! I might have to put the recommended popsicle mold on my Amazon.com wish list. Can't wait to make these when I get back in town.

June 10, 2010

Monkey Capin'

My company is giving away screaming monkeys at our next trade show at the end of the month. We've got a little patch to iron on the cape that is super cute - get the monkey off your back! Something about how we'll manage your network for you with our super cool product. The catch is we have to iron on the patches....to 1,000 monkey capes! Crikey! It takes about 75 seconds to iron on a patch. I did about 100 last night. So this was my scene. Monkey cape ironing.

June 10, 2010

What the what? It's progress I say! On my usual route home from Houston, doing the u-turn at Congress to avoid the crappy connection between 290 and 35 and what do I see? Beautiful, beautiful progress on connecting those two highways. I can't wait! Only two more years :)

June 8, 2010

Room with a view? I'm not sure and the little camera definitely isn't sure either. I think I needed the bigger camera for this picture. One more night in Houston, this time in a much bigger hotel room. This was the view from my balcony at night when I finally finished working for the day!

June 7, 2010

Room with a view. It was a long day today - because of flight delays I didn't get home until 1 and to bed until around 2. Up at 6 to drive to Houston and work until 6pm. This is the view out the window of the building I worked in.....or what I call the land of no cell reception.

June 6, 2010

Alright I admit it, I didn't take this picture, but I did crop it! Had to get a picture of me and Laleh before I left town!

My favorite picture of Ben for the day - we were out walking the lake again and it was bright so the boy needed his shades! Too bad you can see my reflection in them.

June 5, 2010

A great morning in Chicago! We got up early (well Ben got us up early) and headed for a walk around lake Michigan. Not too crowded at all until we were on our way back for breakfast and we ran into the Race for the Cure! Ben didn't mind heading into all that oncoming traffic - he slept as soon as we put him in the stroller.

June 4, 2010

This day sucked. It was supposed to be a short half day at work and then on to Chicago to visit Laleh. Instead I ended up cramming 12 hours of work into 7, barely packing and making it to the airport to find out I didn't have a seat for the last flight to Chicago. So this was the best news of the day....a seat on the plane! And one with extra leg room at that! Thankfully Laleh had a great big glass of wine waiting for me in Chicago!!!

June 3, 2010

This is a massive bush just filled with purple flowers by my office. I caught one bee when I was taking a few pictures but there were plenty buzzing around!

June 2, 2010

Lightening photos! I was just a bit too late to catch the real show, but here is what I got:

I learned I need a better tripod - I might have to put that on my Amazon list!
And one neat one of a car driving by....

June 1, 2010

Powerball baby! Go get your ticket - the jackpot is over $200 million. The next drawing is Wednesday night!

May 31, 2010

Happy Memorial Day!! A very hot day off here in Austin. Ginger spent short intervals outside getting tortured by the butterflies and she loved every minute of it.

Zoe was even out for a bit too - check out her portrait with me reflected in her eyeball!

I spent most of the day China plannin'! I think we finally have the plan of where we're goin' when! Just a few more flights to book and hotels and we'll be set!