It's So Glamorous!

Another week, another trip. I flew to St. Louis early Monday morning. I met our regional leader and sales VP out there to conduct manager training for the St. Louis area managers. It went well. Our regional leader has decided that we should conduct the same training for our other managers as well, so in October I'll be headed to Indiana and Ohio. I've been at LandAm since April of last year, but there are still many managers in my region I haven't met. Most of last year I spent dealing with all of our layoffs and other strategic initiatives, and it just wasn't right to spend the money to travel. I'm now able to get out of the office more, and it's great to finally meet all of these people I've only spoken to on the phone.

Even though I really do enjoy getting out and meeting everyone, the downside is the days are usually 15-18 hours long, with very little downtime. On this trip, I was up at 4:30 Monday morning, on the road by 5:30. I landed in St. Louis at 10:30 and was at the office by 11:00. I was early, so I caught up on voice mail and e-mail, took a tour of the office, and then decided to grab some lunch. Being the obsessed crafter that I am, I found a scrapbook store on Google, set my GPS, and headed out. That GPS was crap. I ended up in some subdivision, no store in sight. Time running out, I grabbed a sandwich and headed back to the office. We had our meeting all afternoon and then went directly from there to dinner.

When I found out that dinner was going to be at a Japanese place, I was a little nervous. I'm a picky eater, and any kind of Asian food is off limits. I was assured they had "regular" food there, so I thought if it's not for me, I'll stop somewhere afterwards so at least I get a dinner.

I didn't have to worry about that. The dinner was fantastic. They prepared everything right there at the table, so it was a lot of fun to watch them and talk with them. We all had a good time, and it was just what we needed at the end of such a long day.

Never having been to St. Louis before, I had hoped to get out and explore a little bit. That didn't happen. I got to my hotel room at 8:00 their time, 9:00 Michigan time. After being up at 4:30, traveling, presenting, and then having that huge dinner, I could not keep my eyes open. I did have to log on and get through some e-mails, which thankfully didn't take too long. But I was pooped. So, no Arch for me. And that's okay, because our training went well, and I was able to spend time with my new Missouri/Kansas friends. Traveling for work seems glamorous to some people, but the reality is, is it's exhausting. I'm just thankful that my flights were all pretty much on time and that we had good weather. Good flights and good weather make all the difference.

What I didn't get to see.....

What I did get to see.......

Not as glamorous as the arch, but it'll do.

Olympic Fever

All I want to do is sit and watch the Olympics. Between the men's and women's gymnastics and Michael Phelps, how am I expected to participate in the activities of daily living??? While driving to Chicago this afternoon, I heard a song on the 80's station that immediately made me remember the video below. Given that I have Olympics Fever, I thought it appropriate to share this. Do you remember when this came out????

Hittin' The Road

Tonight I attended a card making/scrapbook night at our church. We've decided to make it a small group. Our church encourages everyone to join small groups to help get to know each other while coming closer to God through Bible study and informal worship time. This small group will be brought together by a common interest in card making and scrapbooking, but I think it will be good for me spiritually. We already started throwing out ideas of things we want to do and people we want to be sure to include. We even have some ideas for service projects we can do, and that makes me happy. I feel so blessed with all that I have, and I would like to combine my hobby with a way to help others as well.

Tomorrow I head to Chicago for a business trip. I like to leave early in the day so I can get there before traffic gets too crazy. We just have one day of meetings, but it will be a long day. I'm driving over there alone and will have another woman ride along with me when I return late Thursday. I'm glad I have someone riding back with me, because that drive can be really long after you've been in meetings all day.

Minty Fresh

Yesterday we spent the day in St. Johns at the Mint Festival. We went with Randy's sister, Kim, and her family. It was a lot of fun. We first watched the parade, and then we headed to the park for the arts & crafts show and, of course, fair food. A good time was had by all, and we came home exhausted after such a busy day. Randy's getting my cold, so he pretty much went to bed right after dinner. I spent the entire night in my craft room trying to put things away and clean up in there. How does that little room get to be such a sty???

How I Love My Husband

Tonight I will share two stories about my husband. The first is shared only because he (reluctantly) agreed that I could put it on the blog. He's a good sport.

Last night we were talking about the Olympics starting and how we looked forward to the opening ceremony. Randy said, "I heard that the American flag is going to be carried by some little lost boy. I wonder what that's about." I didn't think I heard him right, so I said, "Yeah, I heard that a Lost Boy was carrying it. I think that's kind of cool. I wonder how that came about." Then Randy said something again about a lost boy, and although I can't really remember exactly what he said, it finally dawned on me that he thought they were putting some lost little boy in the opening ceremony, trying to find his parents. I explained to him what I knew about the Lost Boys of Sudan, and although I'm no expert, I did find it extremely funny that he thought they were putting a lost little boy in the parade. Don't you love Randy?

Now, on to the second story. This will show you one of the million reasons why I love my husband. I went to the grocery store tonight, right after work, along with pretty much everyone else in the city of Lansing. By the time I got through the store, I had an overflowing cart, and the lines were unbelievable. They were so bad that I took a picture with my phone and texted (is that a word?) to Randy, telling him I thought I'd be there a good hour trying to check out. Every line had at least 7 people in it.

About ten minutes later, as I was looking at the Brangalina babies in People, I look up and see my Mr. Love. I was so surprised. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he knew I'd be there forever, so he came to keep me company. He took charge, of course, and loaded all the groceries on the belt, loaded the cart, and loaded them in my car. When we got home, he brought them all in for me. Can I just tell you, I am the luckiest wife in the world!! I told him it meant so much to me that he came to keep me company. He said, "It was nothing." I corrected him....."It was SOMETHING to me."

Garden Fresh

I haven't posted all week because I've been sick with a fun summer cold. I started feeling crappy on the way home from Holland on Sunday, and by Monday morning I was a sneezing, drippy, red-nosed girl. I started feeling better today, so hopefully tomorrow I'll be back to my old self in time for the weekend.

Our garden is finally giving us what we've been waiting for all summer......YUM!

Willett Family Vacation

What a great weekend we had. We spent three days in Holland with Randy's sisters and their families. We spend a weekend together every year, and it's always a blast. Randy's sister Tammi lives about an hour the other side of Chicago, so we try to pick a place that's central for all of us. Holland was a great place for us to visit, with a beautiful beach and lots of other things to do.







We really liked downtown Holland, but I have to say that we had the worst service ever at just about every place we went. Saturday's lunch about put us over the edge. Our server acted like she hated us from the minute we walked in. Her tips - or lack thereof - reflected her attitude.



Do you like our shirts? We got those last year. They say, "Willett Family Vacation" with all of our names listed on the back. This year we added buttons to show Holland and 2008.



One of the favorite things we did was to go to a place that had cosmic golf and laser tag. I had never played laser tag, but I've done paintball, and it's about the same thing. I was awesome at paintball, but it was years ago, so I wasn't sure how I'd do at laser tag. There were six of us that played, and we played another family of six. We got creamed by them, but, amazingly, I was our team's MVP with the best score! I know, I know, you would never think that I would be good at something like laser tag! I'm so uncoordinated that I can barely walk, yet for some reason I'm good at this. Go figure.


Randy's sister Kim came in dead last......




Randy's nephew Christian was too young to play, so his mom Tammi stayed in the arcade with him. He did a game similar to Wheel of Fortune and won 200 tickets in one spin! He was so excited.

All in all, it was a great weekend.