Busy Month

Work has been super busy lately. My travel has picked up a little bit and involved going to Houston and Chicago this month, with some other account visits in the metroplex. I normally love getting out of the office for account visits, but work has been so busy lately its been hard to keep up and find enough hours in the day.

I feel like I am finally back on track from having Blake here. I am getting back into my old groove and am back to getting things done. While he was here I was so busy, then when he left it felt like I had nothing to do, and I stopped taking care of things I needed to get done. I guess I needed the break or something, but am happy to report I am back! Now I just need to get back to my regualr gym visits and all will be well. Cam and I have been going to the gym a couple mornings a week but its not easy getting up at 5am.

Cam has been traveling a lot lately, last week he was in Charlotte, NC on a boys trip and this week he leaves Thursday for a business trip, which then turns into his Iowa visit to see Blake. He will be home Monday after work. I hate missing out on trips to visit Blake, but flying us both up there every month just doesn't make sense. I figure this way Blake gets some quality time with his Daddy, which I am sure he will enjoy. Thank goodness for technology, what did we ever do before? Hopefully we can webcam a couple of times and I can talk to him.

It is funny whenever we webcam with Blake (when he is with Cam's parents) he always asks to see both the puppies, and then he wants to see his room, and certain toys he has left behind. It amazes me what he remembers, and overtime we show him his big boy room he gets a huge smile on his face and giggles. His laugh is infectious.

Thanksgiving can not get here fast enough. I am going to spend the weekend doing some Christmas shopping for Blake and I am so excited about it!! We want to get him a bike, he will be 4 in March and is 53 inches tall. Have any of you bought a bike yet? I didn't know what size to buy and need to do some research before I go shopping. I know he will continue to grow so we want to get something he can ride for at least a couple of years. There are so many different sizes, I didn't know what would be best.

Getting to celebrate Christmas with a 3 1/2 year old makes it so exciting. I love the holiday season!!

St. Louis

Cam and I had wanted to try and take a weekend trip somewhere before the holidays but quickly realized the majority of our weekends were busy. We have so much going on this time of year, fall just always seems to be so hectic. After realizing there was no "good" weekend to go away Cam suggested I tag along on a business trip of his to St. Louis. My first reaction was well its not Vegas, but it beats not going anywhere.

Then Cam informed me that his company would pay for my flight, so basically it would be a free trip, and since I had PTO to burn it seemed like a no brainer. The hotel we would be staying at was a new casino off the river and it looked really nice. Cam didn't have much to do during the day so we could spend time together and get to see parts of St. Louis. I agreed to go, it was better than spending 5 days apart so off we went to St. Louis.

The trip had a rough start, the hotel we thought we were staying at turned out to be the Four Seasons and was adjacent to our hotel, but ours was called the Lumiere and was not quite as nice. Not bad, but nothing compared to the four seasons, it was basically a re-modeled old Embassy Suites. They didn't have our room ready and seemed to be pretty overwhelmed by all the people checking in for the conference at 4pm on Wednesday. Everyday we were there both of our hotel keys would stop working. It was such a pain. I think the breaking point for me was when I went to take a water out of the fridge and realized when the cap didn't click that the water bottle had previously been open and was re-filled and placed back into the refrigerator!! GROSS!!

Cam ended up having work meetings during the day so I decided to explore St. Louis by myself. They had a pretty nice galleria, and had an H&M store so it was fun to go shopping. I was able to meet some friends of Cam's from back in the day so it was fun to hear old stories about him. The weather was amazing everyday, and I enjoyed the fall like weather. Since our hotel wasn't the best, a friend of ours gave me a key to his 2000 sq ft penthouse suite at the four seasons. It was awesome!! I went and worked during the day and watched TV in the suite instead of staying in our room. Cam got to come up there and meet me for lunch.

The Entry Way

The Main living area

(further down was the media room, office and another full bathroom)

The Office

The Master Bedroom

The Master Bath

The View

On Saturday we met up with my Uncle Steve and Aunt Jayne. They live in Highland, IL where my dad grew up, so we rented a Harley Friday afternoon and went riding with them and a couple of other people on Saturday. They took us to a bar called Fast Eddie's which evidently sells the most beer out of any bar in Illinois, even bars in Chicago. The place was packed! It was in the middle of no where but had at least 400 people inside. Getting to see the sights on the back of a motorcycle is such a different experience. Cam used to have a Harley when he lived in Austin, but sold it when he moved to Dallas. He loves riding motorcycles and it doesn't help my dad has a Harley and is constantly encouraging Cam to get a bike. Its fun to do once in a while, and it really is nice to go ride in small towns where you don't have to worry about traffic, but it is just so dangerous here. I would really rather him not own a bike, and just rent one on occasion when he feels the itch. So far that has been working for us.

It made the trip really fun, and we got to see some pretty areas of Illinois and Missouri. Luckily we got the bike returned in time, and then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. St. Louis has an area called the hill, where there are tons of homemade Italian restaurants. We met my family at an Italian place there and had the BEST homemade Italian food. I felt like I was back in Italy, it was so good. We really ended up enjoying our trip, minus the ghetto hotel and crazy homeless people (Another story). It is always fun to get away from Dallas, from responsibility and just enjoy our time as a couple. It worked out even better not costing much! Maybe next year we can plan a real trip away, but in the mean time it worked out perfectly and I am glad I got to tag along.

Blake

I wanted to post some pictures of Blake. It starts with some recent photos all the way to when he was a week or so old. So sad how fast they grow up! He is such a cutie, maybe I am a little bias. :)

September Visit to Iowa

We finally got to visit Blake in September, it was the first time we had seen him since he had to go back to his mom after his summer stay with us. It was so great to get to spend some time with him, and as usual he had grown taller, and had increased his vocabulary. He pronounces his C's as T's. For instance he will tell you something is cool, but it sounds like he is saying, "That is Tool!" It is so adorable, and he still calls me "Bagon." He had already out grown his jeans from Christmas so we had to get him 5T's from old navy and luckily the length works. I think he had worn his old pants maybe one or two times, I didn't realize how fast he would grow out of them. We technically should have gotten him a size 6 but they are just way to big around the waist and he is swimming in them. I am hoping these pants (we only got him 2 pairs this time) will last all winter and through the spring. Thank goodness he comes to Texas in the summers because he can still fit in all 3T's for shorts, he is so skinny but his legs are just way to long.

I cannot believe how fast he is growing up. He is talking so much more, and was in a really good mood for our visit. We had a lot of fun. It gets harder and harder to have to say goodbye to him, and Cam is going back up to Iowa in October to see him. We decided to drive up over Thanksgiving so we can take the dogs with us, and try and save some money since flights are so much more expensive around Holidays. Then Cam is flying up on Christmas Day to pick him up, they will fly back to Dallas and we will spend Christmas here. I am already planning out his week stay here over Christmas.

We found out he is going to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for Halloween and we got to see some really cute pics. I love Halloween, it is one of my favorite holidays, after Christmas of course. I hope one day we can take Blake trick-or-treating for Halloween, that would be so much fun! I put together a little package for him that I will mail off in about a week. Hope he enjoys his Halloween card and Halloween stickers.

We are missing him like crazy but luckily have been able to webcam with him whenever Cam's parents babysit him. In 5 months our little man will be 4!!! Completely crazy how fast time flies by!

Blog Layout

Wow I hadn't been able to check out my blog in a while and had no idea my background had gone away. TERRIBLE. Now I need to spend some time getting this put back together.

Work has been really busy lately and by the time I have gotten home, walked the dogs, cooked dinner, and did laundry/cleaned, Cam and I try to watch a show or two and then it is time for bed. I assume it's because of football season, and the Rangers continuing on, but I feel like we have been spending a lot of time watching sports. Fall always seems so busy!

I am LOVING this weather, so enjoyable!! For whatever reason this summer seemed worse than usual, so hot and so humid, other then my tan there isn't much I miss about summer.

More to post later and hopefully I can find a fabulous new background!