Yep, that's right!! Baby shower #3, and I was totally surprised again! LOL! I love it tho - I've never had so many surprise parties in my life, and I've been loving every minute of them!
For this shower, I thought I was having by bi-weekly 1:1 meeting with my manager. I met her in her office and about 10 min in, she suggested we go to the conference room she booked as her officemate was "on his way back." So we head down to the 3rd floor, and she mentioned she booked 3010. This did strike me as being a little weird as 3010 is a HUGE room, but then again, I know that rooms are scarce in our building, so if this was what was available, then that's where we'd go!
As we approach the room, I could see there were some people in there, and I was thinking, oh man - we're gonna have to kick people out. Well, she opens the door, I walk in and there are a whole bunch of my team members waiting for me!!! My friends Heather and Karlyn had orchestrated a fantastic surprise shower attended by a ton of my coworkers. :) Everyone chipped in and got us a whole bunch of great stuff for baby. My friends rock!!
As it turned out, I unwittingly threw a wrench into the plans when I had a doctor's appt come up for 1:30 that day. Turns out the shower was originally scheduled for that afternoon, but I wasn't going to be there! So Heather had to hustle and get things rescheduled to an earlier time. Leave it to me to nearly blow my own surprise! :P
Friday, February 29, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Baby Shower #2 - Suprise! :)
Knowing B was going to be out of town for the weekend, I had made plans with my friend Kristi to go to tea. She picked out a place in Seattle called The Queen Mary Tea Room and we were going to meet there at 3:30. We'd been talking about this for weeks, and I was really looking forward to a nice afternoon outing!
So I find my way to the tea room, park, and wander inside...only to find a table full of my lovely friends waiting to surprise me with a baby shower!! I was totally shocked!! :D Heather, Eva, Clea, Lisa, Megan, Dawn, Kristi and Eve were all there to celebrate. I got to wear a tiara for the afternoon, catch up with the girls and enjoy some absolutely heavenly food. I had so much fun and couldn't get over the fact that I had been surprised again! Heather even set up a decoy date to throw me off (March 1) - smart (and tricky!) woman!!!
The afternoon went by way too fast, but I feel so lucky to have such wonderful friends here in WA (and in NY!). Thanks to everyone for making it an awesome party!
So I find my way to the tea room, park, and wander inside...only to find a table full of my lovely friends waiting to surprise me with a baby shower!! I was totally shocked!! :D Heather, Eva, Clea, Lisa, Megan, Dawn, Kristi and Eve were all there to celebrate. I got to wear a tiara for the afternoon, catch up with the girls and enjoy some absolutely heavenly food. I had so much fun and couldn't get over the fact that I had been surprised again! Heather even set up a decoy date to throw me off (March 1) - smart (and tricky!) woman!!!
The afternoon went by way too fast, but I feel so lucky to have such wonderful friends here in WA (and in NY!). Thanks to everyone for making it an awesome party!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Valentine's Day, Dinner and a Date with the Family Maternity Center
Valentine's Day started off in a very lovely fashion with the arrival of a beautiful bouquet of flowers from B. He sent me a mix of roses and stargazer lilies - two of my very favorite flowers!
Later that evening, we enjoyed a lovely dinner at Lucia Restaurant in Kirkland. The food was pretty good tho the chairs could've done with a bit more comfort. We dined early as Brian had to get ready for his weekend trip to DC. He was standing up as best man in his good friend Kristian's wedding.
Now here is where things get real interesting. :P After we got home, I curled up with the heating pad as I'd been feeling on and off achy and crampy. This had been going on for the last couple of days, but it wasn't really consistent enough for me to feel like it warranted a call to the doctor. Heh.
Fast forward to around 11pm Thursday night. It started to get pretty obvious that I was experiencing contractions. Between midnight and 1am I had 16 contractions that were averaging between 10 and 30 seconds in duration. We put in a call to the 24 hour nurse line, and it was ultimately determined that I should pay a visit to the hospital. We went straight to the Family Maternity Center and they got me all hooked up to monitors and definitely verified it was contractions. At this point, I was only 34 weeks along and the baby would certainly benefit from a few more weeks of "cooking." :P I wound up getting a special shot that stopped the contractions but oddly enough made my heart race for about an hour. The doc on call came in and verified there was no dilation or any other indications that I would be delivering anytime soon. Whew!
We left around 3:30am, stopped at the pharmacy and then went home and napped. Yes, napped, because we had to leave around 7am to take B to the airport! Needless to say, I wasn't about to head into work, so I spent a majority of the day catching up on all that lost sleep. :P Certainly a Valentine's Day to remember!!
Later that evening, we enjoyed a lovely dinner at Lucia Restaurant in Kirkland. The food was pretty good tho the chairs could've done with a bit more comfort. We dined early as Brian had to get ready for his weekend trip to DC. He was standing up as best man in his good friend Kristian's wedding.
Now here is where things get real interesting. :P After we got home, I curled up with the heating pad as I'd been feeling on and off achy and crampy. This had been going on for the last couple of days, but it wasn't really consistent enough for me to feel like it warranted a call to the doctor. Heh.
Fast forward to around 11pm Thursday night. It started to get pretty obvious that I was experiencing contractions. Between midnight and 1am I had 16 contractions that were averaging between 10 and 30 seconds in duration. We put in a call to the 24 hour nurse line, and it was ultimately determined that I should pay a visit to the hospital. We went straight to the Family Maternity Center and they got me all hooked up to monitors and definitely verified it was contractions. At this point, I was only 34 weeks along and the baby would certainly benefit from a few more weeks of "cooking." :P I wound up getting a special shot that stopped the contractions but oddly enough made my heart race for about an hour. The doc on call came in and verified there was no dilation or any other indications that I would be delivering anytime soon. Whew!
We left around 3:30am, stopped at the pharmacy and then went home and napped. Yes, napped, because we had to leave around 7am to take B to the airport! Needless to say, I wasn't about to head into work, so I spent a majority of the day catching up on all that lost sleep. :P Certainly a Valentine's Day to remember!!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Week in Chicago - Last Biz Trip for a Good Long While
I've already gone on ad nauseum about my travels getting here, so I'll keep this entry free of those grumblings! :) Got in late on Monday to freakishly temperate weather. But of course, being January in Chicago, that kind of weather was NOT destined to stick around for long! :P Tuesday I had to get up early to attend a rather irrelevant day long meeting. The cool thing was the meeting was held on the 39th floor (Penthouse) of Hotel 71. That just so happens to be the same space as what they used for Batman/Bruce Wayne's bedroom in the new Batman!! It'll be neat to see it again in the movie and check out how different it looks. :)
Tuesday night was our after party in the most random of all places. They rented out a recording studio in the West Loop. This studio is in Chicago's old meat packing district and located in an old warehouse that was once used for meat storage. There was no clear marking identifying what is was short of a small little sign on the nondescript building. You then step in and walk into a stainless steel old fashioned freight elevator (the kind where you open the doors yourself and have to hold the button down to move up or down). The studio space itself reminded me of a frat house. Lots of rooms, tons of instruments, and a very nice big ol' room full of recording equipment, sound boards, monitors, etc. Now, there is another significant point about this studio. See, Brian used to intern at a recording studio back in his DePaul days (or shortly thereafter). When I found out we were partying at some recording studio in the West Loop, of course I asked Brian where HE had interned at. I figured it was HIGHLY unlikely it could possibly be the same place. But after some detective work around the internet, wouldn't you know the studio was one and the same - Paragon Studios. I mean, seriously, what are the odds?! Then again, given my knack for coincidental experiences, it wasn't too huge of a surprise. :P I did think it was particularly cool hanging out in a place where B spent a bunch of hours before the time we'd ever even met. Heck - even some of the same people were still there!!
The event itself was a lot of fun. It was 80s themed and there was live band karaoke. I even got up and did American Girl with one of my co-workers!! Man, that song is HARD to sing. They didn't have the nice little monitor up front keeping you on the beat. Instead, all you had was a sheet with lyrics printed on it - no sheet music or anything. Oh well - I still rocked out hard with the tambourine. :)
One of my other co-workers totally blew me away with his rendition of Danzig's "Mother". If you don't know the song, it's a metal tune from the 80s. Hard & heavy deep-voiced, tattooed, biker-looking type singer belting out the lyrics. Well, my co-worker is the total opposite of who you would imagine singing this song. He's what I'd call "very Pacific Northwest." Tall, skinny, redhead w/ kind of a retro look style-wise. Definitely not the type you'd imagine rocking out to this song. Total props to him for pulling off an excellent performance!! :D
Wednesday I was very excited to meet Carrie for dinner at one of my favorite restaurants - Mia Francesca. This time we went to the Clark Street location. It's quite a bit noisier there but the place has a lot of energy. I had a lot of fun catching up with her and finding out what's new in her life. :) I miss her living in Seattle!!!
That pretty much sums up the week. Boring work stuff during the day, fun stuff in the evenings. I'm spending the weekend with my family before headed back to WA on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately I'll be missing out on Rob's Superbowl party and the inauguration of his new fancy TV since I'll be flying back while the Superbowl is on. Doh!!
Tuesday night was our after party in the most random of all places. They rented out a recording studio in the West Loop. This studio is in Chicago's old meat packing district and located in an old warehouse that was once used for meat storage. There was no clear marking identifying what is was short of a small little sign on the nondescript building. You then step in and walk into a stainless steel old fashioned freight elevator (the kind where you open the doors yourself and have to hold the button down to move up or down). The studio space itself reminded me of a frat house. Lots of rooms, tons of instruments, and a very nice big ol' room full of recording equipment, sound boards, monitors, etc. Now, there is another significant point about this studio. See, Brian used to intern at a recording studio back in his DePaul days (or shortly thereafter). When I found out we were partying at some recording studio in the West Loop, of course I asked Brian where HE had interned at. I figured it was HIGHLY unlikely it could possibly be the same place. But after some detective work around the internet, wouldn't you know the studio was one and the same - Paragon Studios. I mean, seriously, what are the odds?! Then again, given my knack for coincidental experiences, it wasn't too huge of a surprise. :P I did think it was particularly cool hanging out in a place where B spent a bunch of hours before the time we'd ever even met. Heck - even some of the same people were still there!!
The event itself was a lot of fun. It was 80s themed and there was live band karaoke. I even got up and did American Girl with one of my co-workers!! Man, that song is HARD to sing. They didn't have the nice little monitor up front keeping you on the beat. Instead, all you had was a sheet with lyrics printed on it - no sheet music or anything. Oh well - I still rocked out hard with the tambourine. :)
One of my other co-workers totally blew me away with his rendition of Danzig's "Mother". If you don't know the song, it's a metal tune from the 80s. Hard & heavy deep-voiced, tattooed, biker-looking type singer belting out the lyrics. Well, my co-worker is the total opposite of who you would imagine singing this song. He's what I'd call "very Pacific Northwest." Tall, skinny, redhead w/ kind of a retro look style-wise. Definitely not the type you'd imagine rocking out to this song. Total props to him for pulling off an excellent performance!! :DWednesday I was very excited to meet Carrie for dinner at one of my favorite restaurants - Mia Francesca. This time we went to the Clark Street location. It's quite a bit noisier there but the place has a lot of energy. I had a lot of fun catching up with her and finding out what's new in her life. :) I miss her living in Seattle!!!
That pretty much sums up the week. Boring work stuff during the day, fun stuff in the evenings. I'm spending the weekend with my family before headed back to WA on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately I'll be missing out on Rob's Superbowl party and the inauguration of his new fancy TV since I'll be flying back while the Superbowl is on. Doh!!
Road Warrior
Good grief - it's been a challenging travel week this week. I can only hope that the worst is over. The week started with a massive airport delay thanks to the weather in Chicago. Once I finally got into Chicago, the cab driver I got saddled with gave me total attitude when I asked if he took American Express (I learned the hard way a few years ago to always ask first!). I nearly exploded at him with a "Really?! Are you really going to pitch an attitude to a woman who is 8 months pregnant and just had a hellish day of travel?!" Fortunately, I was able to keep myself in check and just concentrated on being able to crawl into bed soon.
Tuesday was decent during the day as I carted myself around on foot until the end of the evening. We had a work sponsored event (more on that later) to attend in the evening. Around 9pm I decided I was ready to go, and one of my co-workers very generously spent a ton of effort tracking down a cab company over the phone (we were in a somewhat remote neighborhood and stepping out to hail a cab was pretty unlikely. Plus - the temps plummeted over the course of mere hours from 50 degrees to something below zero). As the party pad had no clear glass windows, we couldn't see what the weather was doing. The cab company called back 5 min later and said that due to the blizzard like conditions (!!!) it would be another 15-30 min on top of the original 15 min quote. Ok - fine, that's not too bad. Well, 15 min after that they call AGAIN to tell us it would be yet another 30-45 min!!!! So now it's 10pm, snow is blowing like mad, and the cabs have yet to show up. Thanks to some good ol' Midwestern hospitality, one of the women in the Chicago office (whom I've never met before) caught wind that there was a pregnant woman waiting for a cab for the last hour. She promptly found me and insisted that she would drive me to my hotel. How cool is that?! :) Turns out the cabs never did show up - lame!
Wednesday's & Thursday's travels were fairly uneventful - yay! However, Thursday night we got socked with several inches of snow which made the walk into the office a little treacherous. I decided against hauling my luggage with me and figured I would just grab a cab from the hotel. So I did do just that only to get stuck with another lame-ass cabbie. This time I had cash, so that wasn't the issue. Instead, this guy decided to let me out on the slushy side of the sidewalk and flat out refused to help me with my luggage. RUDE! I've just had really crummy luck with cabbies this trip. Grrr.
So now I'm on the Metra (train) headed out to meet the family in the NW 'burbs of Chicago. Please please please keep your fingers crossed that my flight is on time and smooth for my return trip on Sunday!! I don't think I can take much more travel hassle. :(
Tuesday was decent during the day as I carted myself around on foot until the end of the evening. We had a work sponsored event (more on that later) to attend in the evening. Around 9pm I decided I was ready to go, and one of my co-workers very generously spent a ton of effort tracking down a cab company over the phone (we were in a somewhat remote neighborhood and stepping out to hail a cab was pretty unlikely. Plus - the temps plummeted over the course of mere hours from 50 degrees to something below zero). As the party pad had no clear glass windows, we couldn't see what the weather was doing. The cab company called back 5 min later and said that due to the blizzard like conditions (!!!) it would be another 15-30 min on top of the original 15 min quote. Ok - fine, that's not too bad. Well, 15 min after that they call AGAIN to tell us it would be yet another 30-45 min!!!! So now it's 10pm, snow is blowing like mad, and the cabs have yet to show up. Thanks to some good ol' Midwestern hospitality, one of the women in the Chicago office (whom I've never met before) caught wind that there was a pregnant woman waiting for a cab for the last hour. She promptly found me and insisted that she would drive me to my hotel. How cool is that?! :) Turns out the cabs never did show up - lame!
Wednesday's & Thursday's travels were fairly uneventful - yay! However, Thursday night we got socked with several inches of snow which made the walk into the office a little treacherous. I decided against hauling my luggage with me and figured I would just grab a cab from the hotel. So I did do just that only to get stuck with another lame-ass cabbie. This time I had cash, so that wasn't the issue. Instead, this guy decided to let me out on the slushy side of the sidewalk and flat out refused to help me with my luggage. RUDE! I've just had really crummy luck with cabbies this trip. Grrr.
So now I'm on the Metra (train) headed out to meet the family in the NW 'burbs of Chicago. Please please please keep your fingers crossed that my flight is on time and smooth for my return trip on Sunday!! I don't think I can take much more travel hassle. :(
Just Adding Another Reason for Why I Refuse to Fly United....
One word: CHEAP. And that's not the good kind of cheap.
I was perusing the New York Times today and came across this little gem:
United starts charging $25 for second checked bag.
I was perusing the New York Times today and came across this little gem:
United starts charging $25 for second checked bag.
I dug around online for a more in depth article and found one from the San Jose Mercury Post from which I pulled these little snippets:
United is the first of the major "legacy" carriers to begin charging for a second bag, noted airline expert Terry Trippler. "Others will follow suit," he said.
The new United policy applies to customers who buy nonrefundable domestic economy tickets. The change took effect with tickets purchased Monday for travel beginning May 5. United will keep its 50-pound-per-bag weight limit for most passengers.
United's most-frequent fliers will be exempt from the rule. United Mileage Plus frequent-flier members with premier status or higher, or silver status or higher with the Star Alliance, will still be able to check two bags for free.Frontier is considering moving to a "branded fare" or "fare family" type of system, where different fare levels get passengers different amenities. "There's the potential that checked bags or a cost associated with checked bags could become a part of the fare-family structure" at Frontier, Hodas said.
Trippler predicted that by the 2008 holiday season, "everyone will be charging for a second checked bag."
United estimates the change will net it more than $100 million annually. One in every four of its fliers checks a second bag.Dear United,
Cry me a freaking river. Flying is a big enough pain in the butt as it is. Now you want to gouge me for even more money to fly your lame airline which has cut out perk after perk after perk? Never mind the fact that you pad your flying times by 20-40 min so that you can claim to be the number one airline for on-time arrivals and departures. What a load of crap. Wherever possible, I will continue to fly alternative airlines if it means I can avoid a trip on United. I'll spend my $25 buying the bottled water past security check points since I can no longer bring along my own.
Hugs and Kisses,
LD
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