Hannah with the perfect photo bomb

We had a fun night tonight. Ice skating, Mozarts light show, and dinner at Olive Garden. Perfect Christmas season type of evening. Will never take for granted having all my kids with me.

(BTW, Hannah HATES having her photo taken, that's why there are always so few of her. I've gotta start getting more sneaky with my photos..)

Last night we went to a friends Christmas party. We used to be pretty close, but times have changed it a bit. I can say that for most of my "friends" right now. I don't really hang out with anyone outside of work or church, other than my family. I know friendships are seasonal, at least for me they seem to be. But I desire the relationships I see others having. The life long friends that stick by you no matter what. The ones you can call any time of day. The ones you vacation with, have regular dinners with, shop with, cry with, do life with. Those are all gone from my life at the moment. I once had those friends, but time and circumstance have changed it all.
Last night my eyes were opened to people I may not have thought about before in that way. I used to have a pre conceived notion of what my friends would look like and act like and that they would be my age, and have kids my age. But what if they aren't? Maybe they are older, wiser, and full of wisdom. I'm praying for open eyes to discover friendships that I may never have considered before, but were waiting here in front of me all along. Lord, let me see.

Random pics on my phone

I love my Toms. Like seriously LOVE them. They are so comfortable and easy. They are my favorite go to shoe in the morning. And no, 5 is not enough. I actually have another pair picked out and waiting on my amazon wishlist. :)

My Christmas tree train. Only problem is Miles, our trouble maker cat, keeps derailing it. 

Our used car parking lot - aka our driveway

written on the wall of a bathroom stall in downtown Austin. Nearly made me cry. 

 

 Went to the Trail of Lights on opening night. BAD idea on my part. Soo crowded and it took an hour and a half to park. Yuck. But I'm glad the Austin tradition is back. Jordan brought Michael, and Hannah brought her friend Eamonn.

I'm 40. It's official. And I didn't cry.
It was a fun day. I got fitted for a new pair of running shoes, got a Kate Spade purse(I had collected 3 gift cards to Nordstrom Rack) (love that store..) , a beautiful scarf from Jordan, Tom's from Hannah, and an awesome anchor necklace from James Avery. And I was told how young I look more than once.
:)
Mostly it was so nice to have the four of us back together. Jordan got home Tuesday evening. Michael was here, but is now visiting his very sick mom in Houston. She was transferred there to a specialist because she is experiencing liver failure. Everyone is quite worried about her. She will likely be there past Christmas. :(
Lots of ups and downs around here this week. Life is a crazy ride.

 Tonight was Josh's company Christmas party. It was fun to put on a sparkly dress and heels and go downtown with Josh. I got to meet and chat with his old CEO's and the new one. (they just got bought out) I even got a personal apology about the whole China debacle a few months back. (when Josh got stuck in China during the buyout and everyone hosting him ((i.e. - the competitor of the new company)) found out at dinner and they promptly left and cancelled Josh's hotel and flights, etc..) I had forgotten all about that, but they wanted to apologize because they knew they were sending him into a potentially hostile situation, but were

not allowed to cancel his trip due to the legal agreement. Everything had to be normal until the announcement so there wasn't a tip off. Anyway, doesn't really matter, other than I thought that was sweet to apologize. They also acquired another company here locally so this party included them and there were some guys there that Josh used to work with at Cisco. He went to introduce me and they were like "hey I remember you from 16 years ago, you were pregnant!". That stopped me in my tracks. How on EARTH does a guy remember another coworkers wife from 16 years ago?? I sure didn't remember them.. They said I looked the same, and recognized me the minute they saw me.  Weird, just weird.
Anyways, there was a photo booth and a caricature artist at the party, thus the photos  :)

Ah, this place. It scares me, it challenges me, it inspires me, it hurts me. Like physically. It's kind of like torture. My muscles and tendons have yet to stretch to the locations and/or lengths they should be to be effective here (though they are getting better). But not only have I not given up, I'm considering signing up for level 2 in January. My 40th birthday(dec 13) is our last class for level 1. The other night across the hall from our class was the advanced class, and they looked so beautiful. Their movements were smooth and graceful and their spins and turns across the floor reminded me of why I wanted to be there. That will be me in a few years.
In the weight department, I am now down 6 pounds! Only 10 to go! I'm not gonna hit my goal by my 40th bday, but that was a pretty lofty goal. I'm happy with my progress.

All I need is Your love
To come and fill this heart of mine
My heart is a desert that has gone dry
And I need Your love to carry me by

The house is a wreck. The noise has been replaced with silence.
The college kids have come and gone.
It was so nice having Jordan, Michael and Erin here for the last 5 days. But now the house seems so empty.
We celebrated 3 birthdays, 2 thanksgivings, we ate a ton, put up the tree, and got a jump on some Christmas shopping. A whirlwind week. That's now over :(

Countdown till Christmas break begins now...

<3

Perfect ending to a perfect day

It was a great evening. Everyone just left, except for my girls, obviously. As I was turning off the lights downstairs I heard them talking and laughing upstairs, then I heard J tell H, goodnight, I love you! Those are the moments you miss, the ones that take your breath away.

Today is Hannah's sweet 16!

The day started off wonderful, she went and took her drivers test and passed! So she has her license and her car. Then we went to her favorite, Olive Garden, for lunch, and then we went to the shooting range this afternoon. (and brought our friend Kenny along) My girl is not the traditional girlie girl, and I love that about her.

Now we are waiting for Jordan to arrive home for Thanksgiving, and then Hannah's friends for her "party". Basically a junk food movie night. :)

Well that was quite a week. I don't even really know where to begin to try and explain the craziness.
I don't think I'm eloquent enough in my written words to try and write it all down.
We had alot of things go very very wrong, and we had alot of things go very right.

On Friday I was helping out at the Embassy helipad downtown, which was pretty much a fun day. Hannah and I got to ride in a helicopter to the track at one point. When we got there, we hopped right into a waiting chauffeured BMW who drove us on a tour of the track, on the roads where most people weren't allowed to go. There were trials going on and the place was packed, but whenever we would pull up to a crossing the National Guard would stop all the people to let us through. Everyone was straining to see who was in the car, cause they "must" be important. :)  So we got a killer short tour of the layout of the track and then were taken back up to another helicopter for the ride back. Hannah was so excited that she went. She was so nervous and hesitant about getting into the chopper, but I was so incredibly proud of her fighting her fear and doing it anyway. It was an experience we won't soon forget. She thought it was so cool being treated like VIP's. It really was pretty darn cool. Our evening at the Embassy ended with getting to hang out with some cool Austin firefighters while waiting for Mario Andretti to land. Yep, I asked him and his wife how their day was when they got off the chopper, and they said "wonderful".

Saturday and Sunday I was at an FBO at ABIA. That was my designated helipad that I was in charge of. Saturday ran smoothly for us and was pretty low drama. Then at 4pm I headed over to Austin Executive airport for Josh's birthday surprise. He met me there and we took off on a helicopter to the Oasis for dinner. He was very happy since he had always wanted to ride in a helicopter. I can tell you, there is nothing like landing in a helicopter at a restaurant to get some attention. Everyone had their camera phones shooting pics of us landing, it was really funny. As soon as we got out there was a guy in a golf cart ready to take us to the front door. We actually ate at Soleil? I guess it's the nicer restaurant next door. It was really good and the manager came over and asked how our flight was and asked if he could get us anything. :)  Word spreads...

Sunday is when the chaos began. I had more people show up than were expected due to lack of communication on someone who shall remain nameless's part. But I still got all my clients onto birds in a very timely manner, and everyone was happy. not so at some of the other locations however. Some choppers were late and then the governor shut down airspace for half an hour at one location so he could fly, and it ended up delaying some people by over an hour. So there were some unhappy clients out there. Then on the way back from the race apparently for a while the wait was up to 3 hours to get back on a helicopter. Some people knew this was gonna be an issue considering they would only give us 4 helipads at the track, so they were just in no hurry and having fun. Others took it pretty badly and got into some faces with very nasty words. (I don't envy Ren today.) All the Embassy people were routed back to me because the city wouldn't let us land there in the late afternoon, so I had them in addition to my clients. They were all supposed to be put in limos and transported back to the city.  I got some more volunteers after the race and delegated some to hand out gift bags, others to coordinate with all my drivers waiting, and I took the job of greeting them at the helipad with my firefighters, and golf carting them back to the lobby. I wanted to personally make sure they felt welcomed and taken care of. Alot of them I drove straight to their private jets which were in the same parking lot. It was a crazy scene around me. Private jets by the hundreds, half of them all fired up and blowing jet fuel fumes on me and dodging taxiing ones, and trying not to get hit by fuel trucks or helicopter rotors. It was absolutely nuts. I kind of think it must have resembled some sort of military base in the middle of a war. It seemed incredibly dangerous, and I'm shocked I was allowed out there with free reign.
At one point in the night in the middle of the chaos, we had a lobby full of people and choppers landing faster than we could go get them, the parking manager came to me and said I need to show you something. He walked me out the back door and showed me his little parking lot FULL of busses. He said "they all say they're here for you!" I laughed out loud, literally. So did he. Apparently the limo company was trying to help and sent me their whole fleet. I had to send them packing though cause it was causing a traffic jam and we had enough transportation for our people. It was great. Everything went smoothly at my airport and I was so happy that we didn't have any major issues. At the end of the night my feet hurt so bad after spending 3 solid 12 hour days in new boots we were required to wear. This morning they hurt when I stood up. I believe the are bruised pretty badly.
There was one guy, the videographer on tour with Aerosmith that made my weekend. We hit it off on Saturday when he was there, and I made sure he was taken care of just like I did with all my clients. But Sunday morning he walked in at 7 something in the AM and I smiled and told him good morning. He stopped and smiled back and said "There's that smile. You are the reason I came back today. It was rough getting out of the track last night and I thought about just taking a cab today, but I knew you'd be here with a smile for me today and that you'd take care of me. So I came back." Then when he landed last night I was sitting there in the golf cart with that same smile when he got off the chopper. He smiled and said "what a great end to my experience here in Austin."     That is a return customer right there. I loved that. Even though this was just a meaningless race in the grand scheme of things, it got me to thinking about the skills that I seem to have acquired somewhere down the road in the area of event/guest services or taking care of people. (not being boastful at all, please don't misunderstand) We all have gifts and talents, you just need to figure out what they are and how to use them.
As do I.

 

I swear, I am so bi-polar. . . .
I'm so done with this event. I don't feel good. I'm tired, cold, lonely, sick, and I just want to crawl in my bed and sleep for a week, and eat mint chocolate chip ice cream, and M&M's, and movie popcorn, and a pumpkin scone from Starbucks (and not have to run afterwards to burn all those calories) and watch chick flicks, and snuggle with someone warm.  But I can't do any of that.

I know.. boohoo..bring out the tiny violins..

The craziness has begun. The city shut down one of our downtown helipads on race day. So everyone is having to be choppered to the airport after the race instead of downtown. Not good. Now we need tons of limos and cars to finish the trek. Office was a zoo today and will be all week. Ren had to turn off the phones and leave a message so work could get done. I'm working on passenger lists for like a 1000 people at 5 different helipads on 3 different days.  Gonna be a fun week/weekend!

Man, I miss my husband..