6 months old

Julia had her six month check up today. She weighed in at 16 lbs 3 oz (55%) and is 27 3/4" long (98%). She's still long and skinny. :) Another round of shots and Julia did great. Only cried when they gave her the shot but was all happy and smiling a minute later when i packed her up to head home.

The Crabby State

I have been in Baltimore, Maryland for the past 5 days for the Annual IBTTA conference (International Bridge Tunnel and Turnpike Association). It has been a fun filled, pack solid event for me. I flew in Sunday and barely had time to check into my room before we had the opening reception at the Baltimore aquarium. Very nice place and such a great event. I liked the aquarium better than the one in Boston. They had great food and of course open bar. :)

Monday officially started off the conference with the first keynote speaker Michael Beschloss, highly regarded presidential historian. His speech was very funny and very interesting. He is an independent so would not give us his preference for the election but he gave us some statistics as to why McCain or Obama could win. After his speech, he gave out signed copies of his latest book. Very cool.

Have you heard of the cake show on Food Network called Ace of Cakes? Well, the place that the show takes place at is called Charm City Cakes and it's in Baltimore. The conference had them make a cake for us.

Monday night was the HNTB client appreciation dinner. Every year this is a big event that fills up with all our tolling clients. This year's event was at the Museum of Visionary Art. What a neat venue. We had just the best food too. I've included some of the pictures that i took of the art. It was also great to get to spend sometime with the CEO of my firm and his wife who is just fabulous. Plus all the great time i had networking with the KS turnpike Board members.

The ball of bras....

Robot family

Tuesday was full of sessions and lots of presentations. Tuesday night we took clients to the Orioles baseball game. It was really fun to see Camden Yards and to collect another mini bat that i do when i go to baseball stadiums.


Wed was the final day of the conference. We had our second keynote speaker, Steven Covey. He is the well know CEO of Franklin Covey (planners, etc...) His talk was about trust which i found very interesting. His book is called the Speed of Trust and i am definitely going to read it. I spent the rest of the day sightseeing around Baltimore. I went to Fort McHenry where the famous battle occurred in 1814 that inspired the Star Spangled Banner poem/song. Very neat history. Also spent some time in Fell's point which is full of shops and lots of Bars. ;) A few of us spent our time in the bars. I liked One Eye Mikes the best. ha ha Its a Grand Mariner bar if you can believe that. Also tried some drinks at Max's Tavern, the Green Turtle, Todd Connor's and B....


Thurs i flew home. So happy to see Mark and Julia. i missed them both so much. Next year's conference is in Chicago. Hope Mark will come with me to this one!! Thanks to Sally for coming to KC to help Mark out and watch Julia for us. We are so appreciative!!

Weekly highlights

This week has just been beyond crazy. I honestly don't know how families with more kids keep up. We have two kids but with Nina being 10 yrs, she is pretty self sufficient. The craziness started on Sunday when i took Nina and her friend Lauren to Worlds of Fun. The girls had a great time at the park. It was the perfect day to go too because it was Sunday, cool, 60 degree weather. Chiefs were playing at home so that took some of the crowd away. Plus it was cloudy and threatened rain all day which also lent to less crowds. The girls were able to ride all the rides multiple times w/o waiting in line. Nina just loves roller coasters and I couldn't keep her off of them. Lauren was easily persuaded to ride the Timberwolf but consistently declined to ride any other coasters after that. :) The park is all ready for its Halloweenfest too so it was fun to see all the decorations throughout. It was also the last day for Oktoberfest but since i had the girls all by myself, i opted to skip out on the beerfest, darn.... Tuesday night, our friends Brice and Laurie had us and another couple Scott and Laura over for dinner. Between the three of us couples we've all had babies in the last few months. The babies seemed to have a great time playing and staring at each other!! Brode is almost 9 months old. Colin is almost 8 months old and we have Julia at almost 6 months.

Friday night was Nina's volleyball matches. Her team is really doing well for their first year playing. They have a record of 8-4 after 4 matches. Not too bad!!

Yesterday, Sally, Julia and I went to the plaza art fair. Even though i was sure tempted, i didn't go overboard and buy lots of items. I did get a couple of neat pieces of art that i need to get framed. Hopefully before xmas. I'm very slow when it comes to that. My sister and her family came down this weekend also. hard to believe but it's been a year already that Monica and Kurt have been married. Little Marissa is just the cutest little thing. She can't weigh more than a buck and half and she's only a week younger than Julia.

Win or lose.....

Well, the annual Iowa State/Iowa football came and went over the weekend. As predicted, the cyclones didn't quite give the performance we had hoped for. Actually both teams looked pretty bad but once again, we came up short on field goals and lost to the Hawkeyes. :( We headed to the KC gamewatch which was at Mickey's. Great crowd on hand for the day.

Life of a 5 month old

Things are pretty rough for me these days. 5 months old must be that much tougher than being 4 months old. Why you ask? Well, mom and dad keep shoving this crazy gooey stuff in my mouth. It's slimy, orange, sometimes cold and it doesn't come in a bottle. What's up with that?? I guess it isn't all bad. I get to sit in this big chair with Mom, Dad and Sissy while they are stuffing other crazy looking stuff into their mouths. They don't use a bottle either, isn't that just weird. Maybe if i keep eating this gooey stuff, i can try some of the weird things mommy and daddy are eating??

Mommy and Daddy are putting more and more clothes on me these days too. I want to wear my pretty sundresses but the last few days, I have been wearing long pants on my legs, socks on my feet and Mommy even puts a jacket with a hood on my head when we walk over to Miss Cindy's house. She keeps telling me that it's getting cold outside, whatever that means.

My favorite thing to do besides eating everything i can grab, is watching my puppies play. We have a new little puppy Izzy that really likes to play with Nori. I like to grab her ears cuz she has lots of hair for me to grab at. Izzy and Nori like to roll around together and chase each other around the house. it's lots of fun to watch. Izzy makes this really funny noise when i grab her ears too. Not sure what that is all about. Izzy also likes to play with my feet when I'm in the jumper. I think it's funny but Mommy always makes Izzy stop. We also have a big black dog now too. His name is Kutter. Mommy tells me that he was here when i was born but i don't seem to remember that. He really likes to lick my face.

Who let the Dogs Out...

This past weekend was truly one for the dogs. First of all, Mark and I decided to rescue a 6 month old long hair mini dachshund. She was given up by a family that couldn't take care of her anymore. A friend at work sent out an email to help find a new owner before they took her to the animal shelter. I forward the info and a cute pic of her to Mark expecting a "so sorry" email in return. To my surprise Mark thought it would be a good idea for us to take her so that Nori would have a friend to play with. Nori is pretty jealous of our time spent playing with Julia these days. So on Saturday morning we picked her up. Her name is Izzy. Nori and Izzy spent all weekend getting to know each other, playing, chasing each other, stealing each other's toys....

Monday saw the return of our long lost lab Kutter. He returned from doggy boot camp where he has spent the last 5 months training to be a bird hunting dog. I'm sure there's a correct term for it but bird hunting dog works for me. So Kutter returned to the backyard (his now permanent home). Nori greeted him as she does all dogs and Izzy decided to hide from the big black monster. So our family is now whole and complete. The four of us humans, 3 dogs and one cat. I would say our home is definitely full!

Also this weekend our good friends Andy and Susan were in town. Them and their 3 kids stayed at our place. We had lots of fun on Sunday going to the park, pool and Deanna Rose (Julia and I skipped Deanna Rose). Mark and Andy had their FF draft on Sunday too. Then that evening we had anyone who wanted to come over for an impromptu bbq. It was great to see Joe, Angie & Wrigley; Justin, Kati and Tyler; Jenn, John and Alexa and of course Andy, Susan, Will, Paige and Calvin.