Quick Recap

Well, for a brief moment in time I am sitting at my desk. I've been away from the office since last Monday. I had over 200 e-mails come in while I was gone. You can imagine my stress level as I tried to answer them all today! I finally just decided it's going to take a while and I gave myself a few days to accomplish that. To top it off, I'll be in Dallas all day tomorrow so, alas, no time to answer any more e-mails until Monday! :)

I had a great vacation! I took pictures with my regular, fabulous 35-mm camera instead of digital, so it will be a few days until I have those on CD's to post pictures of. But I'll get there. Guess I should start from the beginning...some awesome things have happened!

I will share more when I am allowed to (still hush-hush at this point) but I have been given an awesome opportunity with my job. I wasn't even expecting it, but it's big. And with that comes a lot of awesome benefits as far as experience, responsibilities, exposure, and even salary. I can't wait to tell more....for now just know that I'm pretty excited about my job, and thankful for all the frustrations I've put up with at work because it's paid off big time!

I am just a regional jet setter lately. Last week I went to Dallas, Austin, Springfield and St. Louis! I don't know how I kept track of where all I was, but it was fun. I spent Friday through yesterday (Wednesday) with my mom, aunt and sister on vacation. Part of the time we visited with my grandparents in Springfield, then we headed up to St. Louis for a few days. In addition to the ample amounts of shopping we did (haven't checked my account for how much damage I really did...good thing I haven't taken Financial Peace University yet!!!!), we experienced a lot of St. Louis culture.

In St Louis, they have this beautiful park in the middle of the city that has a science center, art museum, planetarium, and a giant amitheatre they call "The Muny". We have seen several shows at the Muny over the years, and they are fantastic. This year we saw "Aida", which is a beautiful musical by Elton John and Tim Rice. And the weather was perfect--jacket weather on a June evening, can you believe it?!

We also got to visit the St. Louis Botanical Gardens. They are having a special exhbit there of Chihuly pieces. If you've seen the huge yellow glass chandelier/art sculpture at the Oklahoma City Art Museum--that is by Chihuly. There were these beautiful brightly-colored glass sculptures all over the gardens, and it was so much fun to visit.

And, of course, we went to a Cardinals game. First one I've been to in person where the Cardinals lost. It was neat to go this year, because it is the inaugural season in their new Busch Stadium. It's an awesome stadium, and I'm still a Cardinals fan even though that was their 8th loss in a row!

Like I said, we did a lot of shopping, and a lot of eating. It was nice to get away with the family (though I really missed John!) and to forget about the real world for a while. I'll post pictures soon!