Nothing too exciting going on here

Well there really isn't anything too exciting going on here at the moment, but I thought it was time to do?/make? (who knows...) a post anyway. So here's a couple of cute pictures, the first is Darren, Alison, Big Edi and Little Cully (hmmm - not sure that nickname will take off). The second is just a cute picture of my girls. Other than these two pics I don't really have much else to report, aside from Anna just let me buy tickets to see Carrie Underwood (in Nov) and Martina McBride (in Aug) - I have the best wife ever! Also we are planning a trip to Denver in July and a trip to England and Paris in September - so after those trips I promise that the blog will be back to it's exciting self!

Welcome, Cullen!

Here are the pictures of our new nephew, Cullen. He is very cute and big-cheeked, although you can't see him very well in the photos. Stay tuned for better pictures in the coming months...

My trip to Chicago

This week has been rather busy for me. So I had the pleasure of traveling to Chicago for the very first time and, although I was only there for three days, I had much fun and thought I'd (once again) share some pics. I was there for work, and was attending the United Way of America's Financial Stability conference (I don't work for United Way but do work with their staff on several initiatives, anyway...). The conference was really good but the days were pretty full so I didn't get to explore the city much - my hotel was at the top of Michigan Ave so that's pretty much the area I stuck too. However not to worry as I will be back in Chicago in August for another conference. One thing I will say about Chicago is that it is quite the humid city and I, for one, did not fare so well. It made me rather uncomfortable and meant that if I was outside for more than five minutes I would sweat profusely - which may be an over share but what are you going to do (incidentally this uncomfort was not helped by sitting on the runway for 45 minutes on the way home with no air conditioning - it was a tad unpleasant to say the least). Anyway even about sweat, onto the pictures!!!

Some cool building by my hotel

Some cool statue by my hotel - it's the building in the background(as you may be able to guess I did not spend much time figuring out what things were!)

The same cool building/statue area at night

The view for my hotel room window - it overlooked the Chicago river and the cool building/statue area.

So on the second evening we were there, an evening reception was held. The theme of the conference was Financial Stability which is one of the core principles of United Way's "Live United" campaign, which encourages communities and individuals to give, advocate and volunteer. Anywho we got some free t-shirts to wear the event and here I am with some people I work with - Kori, Bill and Jerilyn.

The reception was held at Millennium park which is pretty awesome and had this big sculpture in it, which I believe is called something like 'Dream Believe' (edit - it's actually called 'Cloud Gate' - I wasn't even close!!!), but it looks like a rather shiny, big jellybean to me.

This pic is underneath to arch of the jellybean and I am sure is a very popular picture - but I still think it's mighty neat.

Also is the park was a cool fountain thingamy. It apparently features the faces of Chicagoans (is that even correct) and spays a bunch of water - which let me tell you was rather tempting in all that humidity.

So that's the trip in a nutshell - I also had some Chicago deep dish pizza - which was tasty and nearly went to a Cubs game but bowed out as I was super tired. Maybe next time, like I mentioned I am back in August - so who knows! Also the keynote speaker was Barbara Ehrenreich who wrote Nickel and Dimed (the book I just read) and a bunch of other books. Her address was so interesting, as is her book (if you have never read it I would thoroughly recommend it - it's about her experiences living on minimum wage in the US - so interesting).

Anna's last day at work

So as Anna mentioned a while ago she switched jobs and is now working for the State. I thought I would post the pictures she took on her last day at her old work, I'd forgotten about these pics but until we got to Carlsbad and there they were on the camera- enjoy!

The classic MTC shot - although they are not in the MTC - confusing!?

"The Gals"

Anna at her extra large desk, clearly having a whale of a time on the phone

Anna with Gordon, Todd and Terry (I am not 100% certain who is who - aside from I am pretty certain Anna is the one with curly hair)

Our Trip to Carlsbad

I thought it was about time for an update - so here it is! Last week we got to spend glorious days hanging out in Carlsbad - California. We went with pretty much Anna's entire family - with the exception of Vicki and Joey (who had a baby the day before we left) and got to stay in Anna's grandparents condo - right on the beach! It was such a nice, relaxing trip and much fun was had. If you've never been to Carlsbad, I would highly recommend it, Anna and I went there on our honeymoon and it is such a quaint seaside town, very picturesque and only about 30 miles away from San Diego. The only downside to the trip was that Georgie couldn't come along, she instead spent the week at doggie camp with Abish (which incidentally turned out to be the most expensive part of the trip!). Anyways onto the pictures.....

Like I mentioned Georgie couldn't come along, but Anna found ways of coping!


Here we are by the harbor in Oceanside (just a little further up the coast)


This is the condo we stayed in - you'll see Anna on the Balcony - could it be any closer to the beach. No is the answer to that question


Anna and I at San Diego Zoo - please note the crocodiles just behind us


Again at the zoo, posing by a bust of some gorilla that was captured in the Congo - we thought it was pretty neat as Belgium (where we served our missions) ruled over the Congo for a long time, thus there are many Congolese people in Belgium, anywho there's a connection there somewhere!



The above two pictures are just of us hanging out at the Pier in Oceanside


Here we are as Penny and Pete - some kind of penguin characters - at Seaworld


Hanging out in front of the Sealions at Sea World, we had just watched the Sealion and Otter show - very entertaining



Enjoying the sunset


This was taken just after Edi took his first paddle in the sea - you wouldn't know it form this picture but he wasn't too impressed


Aren't they cool ..... need i say more (although in case you're wondering Anna is intentionally winking, for some reason she decided that it would be her new pose in pictures during this trip!)


Trying to pet a Dolphin at Seaworld - he almost came over to use, mind you who wants to pet a dolphin, I'd rather hang out with the Sea Otters (they were most entertaining)


Waiting for the Shamu 'Believe' show to start. We are sitting in the soak zone and hoping that our assumption that 'soak' actually means 'splash' is correct, it was!

So there you have it our trip to Carlsbad in a nutshell. It was really fun and relaxing, the weather couldn't have been nicer and all in all we had a jolly old time.