Picture of the Week - 3/29/2018

I know I'm biased, but I really have the best kids!  Goodness...  they blow me away!

I've been away from home a lot lately.  And I miss my kids - and they miss me back - which is both heart warming and a bit heart wrenching.  

Zane and Beck found some old cell phones in our junk drawer.  They were determined to get them working.  They bugged Bob - and bugged him and bugged him and bugged him.  Zane was particularly persistent while I was away from home last week.  Bob worked on them for a while, then got distracted with things like cooking and care taking and taxi service, then worked a bit more.  They needed new Apple IDs and the old kind of chargers and had to get cleared out.  None of that is hard, but just takes time.  

So Bob would do a bit and then walk away and Zane would ask if they were done.  Rinse and repeat.  Finally on the day before I was scheduled to come home, Zane asked again if they were ready and Bob said no, but he'd work on them that night.  Zane said, "OK, but I really wanted them so I could Facetime with Mom."  I mean, really!  How sweet is that child!!!

Zane and Beck now have working phones (well "working" when on wifi...) and now have the ability to both text and Facetime with me.  This week while I was at my strategy meetings (only away for 2 nights this week...) I got pretty consistent texts from the boys.  (Aside, I'm sort of also blown away with both Zane's vocabulary and his sense of humor, which is VERY dry.)  I LOVE this!  I mean REALLY love it!  It is so cool to be able to communicate with them while I'm away and to get a glimpse of what's going on with them.  I also get lots of pictures of the dogs.  LOL

This picture is a selfie Zane took and sent to me Monday morning before he left for school.  Gosh my kids are cool!

Here are a couple of really cool pictures of Quinn too from his game last weekend.  He had a great Low to Low shot and the league photographer happened to be in the perfect spot to capture a whole series of pictures of the shot.  Quinn's really growing up in the last 6 months or so.  He's easily taller than me...  has muscle definition and is turning into a young man.  Sigh...  only 2 months of middle school left for him and then onto high school!

I can't wait to get to spend some quality time with Spencer and Quinn and Bob next week.  We are leaving on Saturday night for a trip over to London and Edinburgh.  It will be a cool - and very different kind of - trip!  Mostly I'm just looking forward to hanging out with these cool kids - while my little dudes hang with Berber and Pappy and send me adorable text messages!

Happy Easter everyone!  

Picture of the Week - 3/22/2018

Hi all!

Greetings from Glasgow Scotland on day 2 of my MBA journey.  So far so good - although I have had WAY less time this week to try to keep up with emails and "normal" work than I expected/hoped for...  so tonight you get this picture of pre-dinner drinks with some members of the course.  This has been a relatively easy module...  mostly a way for us to gear up for the coming courses and get to know the rest of our cohort.  It's been a wild week...

Tonight all my boys are participating (along with their dad!) in youth lacrosse night.  This is, sadly, the second year in a row I've missed the event.  It's a fun night...  and I really wish I could be there.  Alas...

Tomorrow is our last day of this first module - and then I'm headed home for a *whole* week before heading back to the UK for spring break.  LOL  More on that next week!

Cheers!

Picture of the Week - 3/15/2018

Man - the days and weeks are FLYING by!  I sure wish Mother Nature would take the hint and decide it's time for spring.  I'm tired of being cold!

This week has been a "normal" week - which really just means that I've been home to help with taxi duty.  LOL Bob (legit) puts 100 miles on our car every Monday because of the back-and-forth we have with all 4 boys every Monday.  Crazy!

Today I worked from home, squeezed in a hair cut, and then got to watch Spencer play (and win) lacrosse with Beck and my mom.  It was a good day!  Then I came up here to send out this email and got totally distracted by the NCAA wrestling tournament.  If you had told me 6 months ago that I'd be willingly watching wrestling on TV (by myself), I would have told you that you were crazy.  Alas...  I may have fallen for the sport almost as much as Spencer has.  

This weekend will be a fun one - if the rain holds off.  We have a lacrosse clinic taught by Swarm professional lacrosse players for the little boys.  Then Quinn has a game, Spencer has a game, and finally Zane has a game.  Good stuff - and that's just Saturday.  Sunday we have another game for Zane and Bob's U9 dynasty team.  LOL

Monday I'm off to Scotland to start my MBA experience.  Stay tuned for more info!  I'm actually really anxious about the whole thing, but I'm sure once I get the first class under my belt, I'll settle down.  

Here's a goofy little picture of my little dudes from tonight.  Goodness they are fun!

Picture of the Week - 3/8/2018

I love a good Godwink!  Urban dictionary defines godwink as "An occurence so odd and out of the ordinary, it had to be put in place by God. ".  I LOVE that! 

This was a weird week!  I had some customer visits this week in St. Louis and then Boston.  I was traveling with people I don't know very well who happened to be from Scotland.  One woman is brand new to the company and this was the first time I'd met her.  I wasn't nervous about meeting with the clients.  I do that all the time.  But traveling with people you don't mesh with - or don't know if you will mesh with - is stressful.  And I was playing not only my normal role, but also chauffeur and sorta-tour guide.  All of that combined with a relatively difficult travel itinerary and then some questionable weather forecasts.  I was apprehensive for this trip.  

Turns out that all was fine!  My colleagues were awesome and the customer meetings were very productive.  It was actually a pretty fun (although exhausting) trip until we realized that Winter Storm Quinn (no really, that's what it's name was!) was going to hit the Boston area the day we were scheduled to leave.  I decided to take off a day early and got out of the NE before the weather got bad.  I feel very blessed that I was able to rearrange my schedule to make that happen.  It meant I wasn't stuck away from home AND I got an extra day of cuddles from the boys!  Bonus!

Today I worked from home and tried to get things caught up from being away.  I even got to go to lunch with Bob.  Then ICING on the cake...  all our evening practices got cancelled because it's cold.  I figured with temps in the high 30s that the U9 teams might cancel, but was pleasantly surprised with the Senior Select team cancelled too.  Now we have an unexpected evening TOGETHER with no plans.  Godwink for sure!  I'm not even going to think about all the work I have backed up.  I'm going to sit and enjoy a glass of wine and some unexpected downtime.  If I'm lucky, I can even get Ozzie to sit on my lap while I watch some random and likely ridiculous show on TV.  I hear ya God and I'm going to take a breather!  Tomorrow it's GO time!

Picture of the Week - 3/1/2018

Did you miss me last week?

So I had TOTALLY planned to send an email out last Thursday from our cruise.  I even had the draft all set up so all I had to do was attach a picture and hit send.  I didn't even THINK about it until Friday night.  LOL  THAT'S how relaxed and disconnected we were last week.  And it was awesome!

A big thank you to my parents for watching the boys for us every year so we can go on the Buckeye Cruise for Cancer.  This was our 6th one (crazy to think Beck was 4 months old the first time we went!) and they are more fun every year.  This year's cruise raised 3 million dollars for cancer research.  It's a GREAT cause and a GREAT vacation!  And we may already be looking forward to February 23rd, 2019...

Here is a fun picture from our trip.  We had a lot of laugh with Greg and Chrissy and it's so fun to catch up with them every year!

We did miss a ton of stuff - including more HS lacrosse games for Spencer - one Freshman and one JV - both wins.  We also missed his participation at the Georgia Freshman State wrestling tournament, where he came in 3rd.  I think Spencer has played in 5 high school games and tonight is the first one I get to see - if it doesn't get rained out.  

This weekend kicks off games for Zane and Quinn too - and it's thankfully going to be a nice, sunny weekend!  Spencer has a game on Saturday too!  Then I'm off to a week of customer visits starting with travel on Sunday evening and wrapping up on Thursday.  I sure hope it's warmer in St. Louis and Boston than I think it's going to be...

Have a great week everyone!