FINALLY some free time! (And Happy Valentine's Day!)

I have been horrible at updating my blog lately. Minus the Smartypants video (wasn't that cute!!) and a few "favorite" shout outs, I haven't had a chance to sit down, upload pictures, and recap whats been going on in our lives. I got out of my rhythm last week and I can't seem to find my motivation lately. But I finally have some free time to get caught up. So here goes...


I thought I had recovered from my week of traveling until I woke up Thursday morning feeling a little under the weather. It had been raining on and off earlier this week and that always seems to have an effect on my allergies. I don't really have allergies to speak of, so I must be allergic to the rain (ha!) That reminds me of a time when I once told Kelly that I thought being kissed in the rain would be so romantic, only to find out I react to the rain like its acid coming down (or so Kelly says.) I can't STAND getting rained on. But back to what I was saying...


Oh yeah, traveling. So I left for Baltimore last Tuesday morning. I was headed up there for a work trip - and that's mainly all it was. I thought we would get to see more of the city but we arrived late Tuesday afternoon and had some down time in our hotel rooms before we headed to dinner. We went to Tsunami, a yummy sushi place, for dinner (even though I really wanted to go have the famous crab cakes at G&M.) I was out numbered in votes. So we loaded up in the car and headed to Annapolis (about 20 minutes away from our hotel.) Mind you, I hadn't eaten since breakfast, and it was now 6:00 pm and I was starving. If you know me well at all, you know I don't do well on an empty stomach. I was beginning to get cranky...but given that we were with strangers, I couldn't very well voice my opinion. So I tried my best not to have a complete come apart as we drove - for what seemed like FOREVER to our final destination.


Once we arrived it took us forever to pick something off the menu. (Again, I was STARVING at this point.) I'm not a HUGE sushi lover and I'm not really the adventurous type when it comes to eating seafood, or raw fish for that matter. (All I really wanted at this point was to drive through McDonald's and load up on their Big Mac and a large fry.) I patiently persevered through the appetizers (tempura shrimp and raw ahi tuna) for our main course which was some kind of spicy mustard roll. I downed about 8 of those rolls so fast I hardly had a chance to swallow. Much to my surprise, they were really tasty.


As we were finishing up with our meal, I went back for one last roll and that's when it happened. I lost control of the slippery little sucker, dropped it in my soy sauce bowl and causing the entire bowl to spill it's contents all over my jeans. "Great" I thought. And its only the FIRST night of my four day trip. What was I going to do? I had to wear those jeans again tomorrow night. Thankfully, one of the girls we were with lived in Baltimore and offered to take them home a wash them for me. What a saint!


But that still didn't get rid of the fact that I had soy sauce all over my pants, we weren't even finished with dinner, and we had a 20 minute drive back to the hotel ahead of us. Oh what a night.


Wednesday was a better day! I got ready and headed to the Baltimore Station with my boss, Ginger, to visit our Ground Operations department there in Baltimore. We got to sit in on some of their daily meetings and watch what happens when a plane lands. It was fascinating to see how they get the bags out of the plane, refuel, restock the provisioning items, load the next passengers onto the aircraft and prepare to push back - all in about 20 minutes! It was quite an amazing operation to witness. Our next stop was the LUV at First Bite luncheon for our new hires. Ginger was the keynote speaker at the lunch. This luncheon gives our new hires an opportunity to mingle with the leadership of our company and provides them the chance to ask questions and get to know those leaders that they might not have a chance to interact with otherwise.


After we finished with the luncheon, we headed back to the hotel for some down time, and got ready for the Message. That's the term we use when referring to the Message to the Field. The Message is when our CEO, Gary, speaks to our employees about the state of our company and where we're looking to head in the near future. He delivers six of these messages each year.


Once the message was over, Ginger and I headed to dinner with Gary and his entourage.

It was a very unique experience for me because at dinner I sat between Ginger, my VP, and Gary, our CEO. There would be NO spilling of the soy sauce tonight, that's for sure! I even had to share the dipping sauce for our bread with Gary. I told him not to double dip...he just laughed.

We headed back to the hotel to crash, only to wake up the next morning at do it all over again in Orlando! The 6:45 am lobby call came all to early on Thursday morning. I was already worn out from the trip.

In Orlando, we went to another LUV at First Bite luncheon, and then headed over to the Orlando People Department to see their new facilities. The "People Department" is what we call our recruiting/hiring department. We had a quick break back at the hotel and then it was time to get ready for the Message that night. Thankfully, about 5:00 pm that evening, Ginger said I didn't have to go to the Message if I didn't want to - so I called Elizabeth to have her come pick me up! I was planning to see Liz and her husband, Dalton, while I was in Orlando but it was only going to be for a few hours the next morning. This gave us the perfect opportunity to go to dinner and catch up! The next morning we woke up and took it easy around the house (which I was so thankful for!) and then we headed out for some afternoon shopping! I had to catch a flight that afternoon to head to El Paso, so we didn't have a whole lot of time to play, but I loved getting to see them for at least a little while.

Friday afternoon I headed from Orlando to El Paso to meet up with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law to attend a Beth Moore conference. My very FIRST Beth Moore conference to be exact. I didn't get in until late Friday night, so we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed straight to the hotel to crash. Saturday morning as we headed to the conference I had no idea what to expect. I'd heard stories about how Beth Moore's bible studies have changed women's lives and that she is an amazing teacher, so my expectations were a little high. Within the first 5 minutes of the conference, those expectations were blown away! The music, by Travis Cottrell, was amazing! And Beth's authenticity and desire for everyone to know Christ and his Word was evident from the moment she took the stage. What an amazingly gifted speaker. Her talk this time was, "Don't Throw Away Your Confidence - There's Treasure in the Trash." It was wonderful! I was so moved by her knowledge of the Word and amazing memory for scripture. And oddly enough, this past Wednesday evening the women's ministry at my parent's church started the Beth Moore series, "Esther: It's Tough Being a Woman" and I signed up for the class! It is definitely weird to be in a bible study class with women that have been my Sunday School teachers since I was young - but the bible study lesson is amazing nonetheless. I'm really looking forward to learning more about Esther over these next 9 weeks!

Well - that's a wrap! I'm off to enjoy Valentine's Day with my handsome husband!

Thanks for stopping by! Stay tuned for updates and more pictures of our little pup!