August

August was a busy one for me - I was out of town 18 days in August so it's good to be back home and sleeping in my own bed. Not to mention August is one of our busiest months at work, so being gone for two weeks of work was not my most strategic move but it was a fun month.

I started the month with an 8 day leadership development seminar at Stanford. It was a pretty cool week and I got to meet a lot of great people from colleges around the country. We stayed in dorms all week at Stanford, and getting used to sharing a bathroom with 15 women was interesting. Below is the picture of my breakout group with people from Montana, Colorado, Minnesota, Davis and Sacramento.


In the middle of the month I headed up to Oakland for an overnight stay, and to attend my friend Chris' wedding reception. I don't have any pictures from that, but it was a great event and I'm so glad I went.

Two days later I headed across the country to Virgina to see my friend Brenda and her boys. It was a relaxing week, mostly hanging out, catching up and watching movies. I can't believe how big the boys are getting - seems like yesterday that we were in Pullman and Taylor was a baby - then moving to New York where Brady was born. It's been fun to watch the boys grow-up and I'm glad I get to go see them every year or so.

Brady - 8 - loves the pool - as long as he's got his goggles on!

Taylor - 11, becoming quite the little football player.

Here's all of us, including their friend's little dog who's name I can never remember because Brady calls him Percy (I think).

As soon as I got back from Virgina I started making these cookies for my friend Judy's sister's baby shower. Jude came over one night to help me decorate which was a huge help. We then shipped these to Boston - not entirely successfully - we hear Fed Ex totally ignored our fragile stickers but Judy insured them, so it should be ok. The looked cute at one point, not sure how they actually all ended up - hopefully enough of them weren't broken.

I finally settled back in Long Beach and had a busy 3 day weekend. Friday night Judy and I went to see Jack Johnson in concert - it was awesome - I'll definitely go again someday. Maybe I can catch a concert in Hawaii - I'm sure that's the best place to see him :)

Saturday I went with some co-workers to the San Diego State vs Cal Poly football game. We had free tickets in the VP's box. I couldn't exactly turn down free tickets, free food, and free beer. We had a great time even though Cal Poly won in the last few seconds (which is fine with me but we were with the SDSU VP). We also got these free SDSU jersey's - not sure when I'll ever wear it again - but it was cool anyway.


Sunday was a birthday party at the beach, which was totally overcast and cold - not exactly how you picture labor day weekend in LA, but it was fun anyway. Monday was my much needed resting day - I even napped for the first time in a while. Back to work today....