Day After Birthday

This morning I carried into work with me, half of the three dozen roses Sean gave me last night and the adorable little birthday cake he brought.

And I came in and found a big old Edible Arrangements and special card on my desk from a bunch of my peeps at work!

Have you ever felt super super special!:). 

I guess I sure did this birthday!!!!

Weekend To Weekend - Birthday Blessings!

Wow!  Today is my birthday and I don't think I've ever been so loved and or appreciated!!!!

It started with this past Saturday, being taken to my favorite restaurant by my favorite person!:)

Sunday I got to go to church and then take an international student out - she's working at Six Flags this summer and this is the second time I've been able to bring her to chruch and lunch with me!

Monday morning I came into the office to be greeted with.

(Faith LOVES Michael!:)

Birthday donuts, birthday Mariano's gift cards! 

At lunch my work team took me out for sushi!

I got back and this was at my desk!

I've had emails, texts and shout outs in Facebook (of which I'm not even a member :)

And tonight Sean is coming over later!:)

I do indeed feel special today!

And actually my bday started on Friday when Kim got me a ticket to go to the Cubs game with them!

Where they actually WON!

And after we went to The Green Mill jazz club (where I got kicked out! Apparently you can bring outside food in but not a Starbucks to stay awake!:)

I spent the night at Kim's and then we went and had breakfast Mimosas at our fave place!

And last weekend!  I got taken out kayaking with my dog up in WI!  It's like a bday month!

And last Sunday my friend Sarah and I went to Ravinia and saw Star Trek v with the cso playing!  Awesome!:)

What an amazing birthday month and it makes me remember my amazing friends and all the people in my life who keep on loving me no matter what!

Thank you for birthday shout outs!  Gifts! Dinner!  Time!  I have awesome people in my life!!!!

Education

Capital!

That's a quote from a song my nephews used to listen to.... I don't remember the rest of the words because they just go through and sing all the state capitals.....

But - the state capital of Ohio is Columbus!  I actually knew this before but I'm reminded every morning this week as I walk by it on the way to the conference I'm attending!

And just to clear up misconceptions...

Columbus is actually a pretty cool city compared to so many other state capitals!  Great restaurants, great sites, great running trails!  I like it better than Cleveland and Cincinnati actually!

Here one more day then home!  Yay!  My eyes are starting to cross!  Too much of a good thing and all!  I can only be educated so much and then my brain fries!

I'm In Shock!

Weekend come and gone!  

Saturday, Sean and I had some fam and friends over to his place so could do a cook out and take the pontoon boat out. However, we all walked down to the dock where the pontoon is and it was - gone!  Turns out Sean had signed up to use it but some yahoos took off with it!  The guy who runs the association ran them down in his boat and told them to get their bobbing bottoms back to the dock becaue they hadn't signed up and were talking out spot.  We never did end up going out as its a little bit of a hike down to the dock and with mom and Uncle Raine it was just a little too much.  Made me sad becaue I was really looking forward to going out with everyone!

We ended up back at Seans place eating and playing games (of course becaue Pat and John were there!).  Seans good friends Dave and Kim came with their grand baby and when it came time for feeding they let mom have a turn with her!:)

Sunday, Sean and I hosted some of the Six Flags international student employees.  There were three students from the Dominican Repulic who came to church with us and then we took them out to lunch with us after.  Sean made me all super attracted to him by speaking Spanish with them.  One of the girls who didn't speak that much English and who just sat there kind of blandly, absolutely lit up when he started speaking and the others were laughing and just amazed at how good his Spanish is.... Comes from living in Spain and other Spanish speaking countries and I'm always impressed!

The afternoon I ran around doing some errands with Calvin who immediately came home and took a dip in his pool....

And then Sean came back and we went to our very first Ravinia concert of the season!  So sad that it's taken this long to get there!

It was Diana Krall who I have heard in ages but still love!

There's nothing like laying out under the trees, on a blanket, with someone awesome, listening to Diana Kralls smooth voice!

Happy!  

So I'm a little in shock this week.  Last week I was out of town for one night, felt ok.  This week I'm out of town the entire week for a conference.  It feels SO strange being gone early Monday morning until Friday night.  I'm looking forward to the education but it's so intense packing for a week!

After classes at 5 I went over to Germantown, this really quaint old section of town in Columbus, OH.  All this brick and the buildings were seriously lopsided!  Crazy!

My destination was an old bookshop that's supposed to be huge.  So - it was crazy big with 32 rooms if books, but I have to admit Portland and New York have bigger book stores!  But I still over did it and walked out with a copious amount of books!

I got back to my hotel around 6 tonight and I found this on my room desk:)

Isn't my BF amazing!  I called him and he said he figured since I was here for the week....

Now I have happy, pretty flowers all week in my room!

And the day is now ending. There's a Cuban place around the corner that I tend to go to while I'm here.  They're actual Cuban people who own it!  So yum!  I got fish tacos and - ahhh so good - tostones!

And now with my tummy full, my hands full of books and my head full of happy...

Night night!

Score!

Jocelyn and I had a pretty productive meeting with our sales team in Florida.  We got a lot done in a few hours and then they're really nice so they told us we should go and just enjoy the rest of the day!  And to top that, since we're staying at the beach they're like "we don't want you to come all the way back here so we'll just meet you out that way."  Yay!

We got to the hotel and checked in and I was texting Sean aswe walked up to the rooms.  I walked into the room and was putting my stuff down and looked on the desk and saw this basket and started texting Sean and saying Marriott left me a basket and he was like "what?  Wow!  Gold member" and then he kept on and finally something about it, I looked and saw that there was a paper attached.  Which I finally looked at it and - dog gone it if it wasn't from him!!!!!  Score for me and score for him!  Jocelyn was SO impressed with him and I was just SO overwhelmed that he always thinks of the most amazing little things!  Especially when I was missing him! 

Even though it made me sad because he wasn't with me, I took Jocelyn to our fave place, The Reef, for dinner and we sat out by the ocean.

But tonight I get to fly back home and tomorrow I get to see him again!  I'm thinking I'm having withdrawals!....

And next week I'm gone all week for an infection prevention intensive course.  Boo - miss him!  But hopefully I'll learn a lot!  New product line and new eduction so I'm where I was on my other product line!

Another Weekend - Another Event

It was another weekend away for yet another event and I got to spend some more time with my amazing man!!:). This past weekend was a family event for Sesn so the two of us felt obligated to go back down to Jacksonville - for his family of course!:)

We got in late on Thursday night and still had time for Sean to fulfill his fantasy of being Paul Blart (but airport cop!)

We stayed the night with some family friends near the beach but because of allergies I couldn't sleep so - at the crack of dawn I strapped my shoes on and went down to the beach for some Picts and a run!

Because of my sinuses we ended up moving to another place close to the beach - but not as close as the first:(. But still great because nothing aggravated my nose!

That night we went downtown Jacksonville beach to an ocean front place we'd wanted to try where the chef does a pre-dinner tasting... It was pork rare with some kind of mango something or other.  Dad would be having a fit that I ate almost raw pork ... We'll see what happens....

Saturday we decided to just spend the day at the beach as we both just needed one day we weren't meeting family friends, cleaning a moms house or just plain old working... BEACH!!!

We did dinner early and went to see the new Mission Impossible... Maybe one thumb up and one thumb down?...

And Sunday morning we got up early to go to our Florida beach church The Chapel to hear a great message and see our peeps!

Oh - and be back by our Sawgrass beach!

We were on the road by 10 and headed to the navy base where his dad had worked after he retired.  Mr Gartland taught the equivalent of high school classes to sailors on the ships. Which I'm guessing was a pretty cool job and I think he thought that too!

We met Seans brothers and mom for a mass for his dad.  Funny thing is it ended up we got there too late for the mass but in time for the Protestant service!

We just sat through the service and then we headed over to the golf course on the base and ate at the restaurant there.  It was pretty good but even better just spending time with them all and learning more about his family!

That night we decided to take a little adventure and we headed to fernandina beach by Amelia island.  We ate at this fabulous place and then just walked around before heading back and finishing packing up some stuff.

Fried peach pie and donut bread pudding!  Southern yum!:)

Monday we got home to Chicago around 1 and I wanted to take the rest of my vacation day so we decided to beach it Illinois style...

It was cold water and of course the biting flies were all over!

But it was the beach!

And today... Wednesday!!!!

I'm headed back to Jacksonville for work!  It's an overnight trip and I'm with a female colleague of mine so - not as fun as Sean but not as tedious as traveling with my boss!  Somewhere in between!:)

But we're dining on the beach tonight for sure!!!!!