Legs!

Not only did I get to see Leslie while I was out in California, but I had dinner with another Demon Deacon...and my Delta Sketch "little sister" Allegra! Allegra has completed her Doctorate in Psychology and is now practicing in Pasadena/LA so she drove down one night to meet me for dinner.

Poor Allegra had to battle a torrential downpour which is basically the equivalent of a blizzard for Californians. But, we had a great dinner at the Yardhouse. Great to see you Legs!

Escaping to the Sunshine

As many can tell you, I am pretty good at extending work trips into personal trips and I wasted no time in doing that in my new job. I had to head out to Long Beach for a 1.5 day meeting, which I extended into 10days in Southern California - not bad especially when I was escaping the cold early Feb weather in Chicago. It wasn't over a week of play as I did work the whole week in Long Beach, however I flew out the Friday before and headed down to San Diego to see my good friend and traveling buddy Leslie!

She drove up to the Long Beach airport on Friday night to pick me up and on the way down to San Diego we stopped a fun, oceanside restaurant for happy hour margs and fish tacos - yum!

After a lazy Saturday morning, Leslie had a baby shower to go to. Though I was graciously invited, I decided to skip out and enjoy the beautiful day (not too hard of a decision). I walked about 6/7 miles to mission beach and camped out on a grassy hill in the sunshine until Leslie came and picked me up.

Next up - Mexican for dinner! Is there really another choice in San Diego?

We followed that by going to see Slumdog Millionaire and enjoying some frozen yogurt.

Sunday was a delicious brunch followed by the STA Superbowl party. From there, I headed back up to Long Beach ready for a week of work after such a fun and relaxing weekend. Thanks Les!

Happy Birthday Dad!

I think this year was one of my Dad’s best in recent memory. We had just gotten a lot of fresh new snow, so Kelly and I headed up to Wisconsin where we met my parent’s and our family friend Rich to enjoy the winter wonderland. My mom cross country skied while the rest of us took the sleds (i.e. snowmobiles) out en route to a bar to have lunch at. The trails were great and the weather was good.

On a side note, as I had just gotten back from Honduras only 5 days before, I think I was perhaps the only one in the bar with a tan!

No Dust on my Passport!

I’ll be the first to admit that I am a little neurotic about my passport. It is honestly one of my most prized possessions – not the actual passport itself, but all the great memories it holds. I love to flip through the pages and remember the trips, the people I met, and the beautiful scenes from all the travel I have been fortunate to do in the past 10 years. I get anxious when I have to turn my passport in to process Visas and I am procrastinating a bit on my 10yr renewal process because I have a fear that they will not return my old passport.

All that being said, when I returned to Chicago around Thanksgiving there were no travel plans in the works that would require my trusty passport – a strange concept to me after the past two years of being out of the country at least once a month. Well, I quickly rectified that by planning a spur of the moment New Year’s trip to Honduras! Daron was doing a medical mission for a few weeks in mainland Honduras, and I decided to join him on his vacation to Roatan (an island on the northern coast of Honduras) for a few days.
After a few delayed planes and a ferry debacle, we finally made it to the island paradise of Roatan. I highly highly recommend Roatan - it is a relaxed island atmosphere, if relatively cheap, has amazingly fresh seafood, and super friendly people who are bilingual in Spanish and English (due to a heavy Pirate concentration back in the day.) In addition to all that the snorkeling and scuba are amazing because Roatan is situated on 3 Techtronic plates.
I even got Scuba certified - loved it, new hobby! I didn't have an underwater camera, so no scuba shots, but below was a great snorkeling spot!And all too soon it was back to the mainland to head home...

Shaw's

For the past few year's my family has had the tradition of having dinner at Shaw's Crab House on Christmas Eve and then heading to 4th Presbyterian for the service. (Yes, I am blogging about xmas in mid-feb...at least I am catching up!)
Kel and Mom enjoying drinks at the bar...
Dad enjoying an sampler with oysters from both coasts...courtesy of his mexican senoritas (aka, Kel's friends who gave him a gift certificate to Shaw's).
YUM - Crabs! Interior of 4th Pres.

Blog Slacker

Yes, yes...I fully admit that I have been a blog slacker as of late. There have been a series of technical difficulties (i.e. losing the USB cord to be able to load pictures to my computer) and other minor catastrophes. For example, I really did plan to get updated this week, and packed my USB cord...or so I thought, I brought the wrong cord so I yet again S.O.L.

I actually have written a lot of posts that are ready to go once I have the pictures loads...so if interested you'll get to "relive' Christmas '08 and forward.

But, for now...we'll have to rely of some of my more up to date blogger friends....

Here is my itinerary for this weekend...post to follow...and a mini-commentary on my weekend.

GO DEACS!!!!

When asked what I was looking forward to most about being back in the good old USA (besides friends and family) my answer was always NCAA Basketball. Last night certainly did not disappoint as I headed to Fireplace Inn in Old Town to watch my beloved Deacs beat the Tarheels 92-89 in Lawrence Joel. The stadium was packed and I would have loved to be there...

*Quad pics have not been posted yet, this is one from the game that sent WFU to the Orange Bowl 2yrs ago.*

I am WAY behind on blog posts and hope to catch up tonight now that I have replaced my missing camera USB cord. Stay tuned...