Ha, just like that another month has gone by. Sayonara March. You came. You went. The past month, plus some, have been busy with two trips for work for me, meaning two trips away that Bryan had to be a solo parent. On top of that, once I returned from these trips, I’ve been having to fully dive into studying for the SE exam, once more, so Bryan has been so helpful in doing pickups, taking the girls to and from gymnastics and helping entertain them a little more than usual on the weekends. He’s been so wonderful and I could not do any of this without him.
My first work trip came at the end of February. A trip to Greensboro, NC to hold my employee reviews in person. My new employee from Spokane joined me on this trip, so we shared flights, a rental car, and most meals together. We had three full days in the office, arriving Monday night late and leaving after a day in the office on Thursday. The days in the office were filled to the brim. I had five employee reviews to hold both Tuesday and Wednesday and the spare moments were filled with work conversations and a team lunch both days. On Thursday, I had my own review and then a four hour long strategic planning session and lunch and then the drive back to Raleigh.
The trip went swimmingly, but then our flight was canceled at the last minute. The only sequence of flights that would get me back to Seattle before Friday night had me go from Raleigh to Charlotte, then Charlotte to Phoenix, getting in at 1 am, I had to switch terminals and then flew Phoenix to Seattle at 6 am. I got maybe two hours of sleep on the flight to Phoenix and maybe two hours of sleep in a booth of an empty airport restaurant next to my gate in Phoenix. The saving grace was that I got upgraded to first class for my last flight to Seattle, otherwise I would have been a miserable human. I landed in Seattle around 8:30 am and was home by 10 am. I managed to stay awake most of Friday but got pretty delusional by early evening.
I was happy to be back home with the family though and enjoyed our biker gang to and from Brooke’s dance class on Saturday and on Sunday took Brooke and Madison to the Children’s Museum while Reese went to Clara’s birthday party and we had a great family dinner out to Din Tai Fung that night.
The very next week Reese had her last gymnastics meet, midweek on a Wednesday a minimum 90-minute drive away in Skookum at the Little Creek Casino and Event Center. As a family, we all drove down to Lacey on Tuesday night after Brooke’s gymnastics class, had dinner at Red Robin and then checked into our hotel, got in a quick swim session and then all tried to get to bed on the earlier side as we had an early wakeup.
The next morning, we woke up the same time we would have for school, but got Reese dressed and ready, enjoyed the surprisingly good breakfast at the hotel, and then drove the last 20 minutes to the meet. Reese got another medal for bars and we were happy to be completed with the first season of meets. The bronze girls all went out to lunch after the meet and it was a good bonding experience for both girls and parents. We drove home where we had the rest of the Wednesday afternoon together at home.
Bryan was able to get in a night out with Philipp and to volunteer at FareStart. We had a pizza dinner at Stevie’s Famous on Friday while Reese was at gymnastics. We spent the weekend at dance class, the park, having Lottie over, and I played a super wet and soggy soccer game.
Come Monday, I was heading out of town again. This time, the trip was to Salt Lake City for my team to have our annual conference trip to the ASCE Geo Congress. My flight didn’t leave until mid-morning so I was still able to see the girls off to school before heading to the airport. The flight to SLC is only about 90 minutes so I touched down around 3 pm. The first night was the first welcome lecture and welcome reception, held at the convention center. All 13 of my employees made it to SLC with relatively little hiccups and we convened for the reception.
I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at the convention center for the conference and thought that the presentations, topics, and team building aspects all were great. The lunches were surprisingly good too and they had a networking break each day around 3 pm so that I could get outside or catch up on work before the evening events. Both nights had an evening lecture and then we followed that up with team dinners at some nice places. Both places that I had reserved for my group worked really well. The first night, we had the private library space at Bodega & The Rest and this was a super intimate and quiet spot for our group with good food and drinks, but somewhat slow service. The second night we dined at Lake Effect and my group had the drinks flowing and there was a live musician but who wasn’t too noisy and this was a late night but everyone was really enjoying one another. I was feeling very good about camaraderie and teamwork. We had a mix of weather but I was able to get out for a quick hike by the temple, Capitol and up Ensign Peak.
On the last day, 2 in our group had to fly back early, so some stayed for the last half day of the conference and 7 of us went to Brighton Mountain to go skiing. This was a sunny day with no fresh snow but we had purchased half day lift tickets good for noon to 4 pm, which was perfect and the snow had softened up just enough to not be icy and the groomed runs were great. The skill level of our group was pretty balanced so we all hung together and skied the full four hours straight. My plan was then to catch the uber back with the group and go straight to the airport but the Ubers would not accept our ride request. Fortunately, one employee had rented a car with his family that tagged along so I was able to hitch a ride with them to the city and then was able to catch the Uber from there to the airport. I just barely made my flight but the 90-minute flight back went smoothly and I was home before the girls were in bed. The rest of my team got the bus back down the mountain and most stayed Thursday night in SLC as well. I had a lot of my employees reach out to thank me for a great trip.
Bryan and the girls kept busy with work, school, the playground when the weather allowed, cartoon happy hour at Central Cinema when it didn’t, gymnastics and dinner out at Tutta Bella.
As soon as I was back home my work was sabotaged a little. First, on Friday, we got snow and then Reese had a performance at the school assembly so all three of us went to watch this. Then on Monday, Brooke was off of school for her teacher conferences. The three of us went to her conference before heading home and she had a playdate from school, Grace, came over for her first playdate ever for the afternoon. Over that weekend, we also had Georgie come over for a sleepover and Brooke’s buddy Halle came over after dance class. We attended our friend’s 40th birthday party on Saturday evening and I got to play soccer again. Bryan called our house a daycare.
And last week I got back to FareStart to volunteer and then we had a babysitter for Friday night to attend Reese’s school’s auction. We had a great time at the auction with our friends and were the last group to leave the auction and then headed down the street to the Zoo Bar with our group to at least stay until our girls were asleep. The following day, while we were recovering from too much to drink, we had our friends Luis and Carina and their kids over for dinner as their kitchen is still being remodeled and out of commission. Kids had a good time with them. And Sunday, after the hangover was gone, I was back to playing soccer, this time in the sunshine and the girls tagged along and did great on the sideline and at the playground. We also made it to church again!
To round out an exciting and eventful March, Michigan has made it to the Final Four and has been very fun to watch. As were MSU, Texas Tech and Texas in their exciting runs in the tournament. My bracket isn’t doing well although I might come in second if Michigan does win the tourney! Bryan also got an ice cream maker from work and we’ve made some exceptional ice cream; chocolate chip, Cookie Monster, Nutella, and mint Oreo cookie to start.
Reese’s spring soccer season just kicked off this past weekend in a very cold and wet game. Girls were all in great spirits despite the chill and weather and managed to win 4-3, should have been 4-0 but we had a very bad four-minute period where the team just shut down. We also went to the Seattle Center to watch Lottie perform as Tammy in the play Tammy the Troll. This was a hilarious experience and the girls played at the playground before and after and then we all had dinner together afterwards.
I have two weeks until my exam and two weeks until we head down to Phoenix. We are all looking forward to that trip and the countdown has begun.
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Chelsea
