Work Adventures

Last night I arrived home from yet another business trip but this one was a little different.  We had meetings, I gave a small presentation (I was supposed to give another one but apparently by boss forgot), we met with some of our affiliates, did the usual amount of schmoozing and so on.  The thing that made this trip even more different is that we went white water rafting!

It was awesome.  We were in Charlotte, NC and they have a competition grade manmade “river” with some pretty crazy rapids.  I think some were considered class4-5?  Anyway, we had a blast.  I went with 5 of my co-workers, 4 girls 2 guys.  Our guide was straight out of surfer dude school and managed to have me laughing pretty much through the entirety of our instructional session.  I later found out that he is an EMT/ski guide/rafting guide and a slew of other fun professions.

We managed to get through most of the rapids pretty smoothly but one of them was a doozy!  From what I am told, one of my co-worker and I fell out of the boat in perfect synchrony…this is when I was wishing I paid more attention to the instructional speech.  I managed to swim myself out of the rapid and into what they call an Eddie-where the water is running reverse to the current?  Anyway, the hard part was getting back into the boat.  I was no help in this regard given that I have the arm strength of a 2-year-old.  Again, from what I am told, my boss grabbed me and threw me into the boat like a rag doll…apparently it was quite funny to watch.  All I know was that I was stuck in the bottom of the boat with 6 people laughing at me with me laughing so hard I couldn’t move.  It was awesome.

I finished up the trip with another graceful move where I managed to fall face flat into the boat when I was trying to exit.  This prompted our guide to ask me if my middle name was Grace. 

All in all it was a great trip.  I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a little adventure.  Here is the link.

Also, go here to see photos…we are photos #22 and #23. 

Resume

Last night around 8:15 Ben and I decided to go for an evening run.  We took or normal path along the lake which leads behind the Planetarium and Shedd Aquarium giving beautiful views of the city, especially at night.  It was quite romantic despite the fact that I was doing everything I could to keep my dinner down and it was extremely humid giving way to heavy breathing and lots of sweat, nonetheless, I thought it was nice.  As I was admiring the wonderful view commenting on how beautiful the city is at night we ran around the curve formed by the Shedd and saw two people going at it.  They weren’t just making out, they were going all the way…some would refer to it as “D—– Style”.  We immediately started to crack up, as did they.  To avoid any awkwardness we decided to comment, giving them a “good work” and “resume.”

 All in a day for the life of city dwellers…

 Call me inappropriate but I had to share.

How much for the lemon chicken?

Holy hell weddings are expensive.  I have always heard people talking about the massive expense that weddings are but I guess I always thought I would be exempt.  Wrong.  Today, I called about 7 venues in Chicago (granted some I knew would be out of the price range) but I was absolutely shocked at the price of things.  One venue wants to charge $175 a plate for lemon chicken!  Seriously?  It’s lemon and chicken…I could make it for about $5 and it would probably taste better!  One establishment wanted $5/chair for a rental fee…hmmm $5 a chair x 300 people=$1500 just for chairs (and from what I understand, this is cheap)!  The other interesting charge I found was the champagne toast…$4 per person!  Give me some Korbel in the bottle and I will be happy.

Today was a shocker to say the least.  Hopefully it gets better…

And the planning begins…

We have officially been engaged for 1 week and 1 day and already this wedding planning thing is a bit stressful.  The good thing is that we aren’t overly picky about when we get married but we are however picky about where we want to do it.  Living in the city of Chicago is great but it is also a very popular wedding spot and extremely expensive.  I guess it is a good thing that Ben and I come from divorced families and have plenty of people (we hope) that are willing to chip in.  Given that he is a student and I signed my life away on a condo we aren’t much help on the whole financial side of things. 

On another note, we got my ring back from being sized which happened to be the longest 4 days of my life.  Unfortunately,  I think it is still too big.  I just got off the phone with Tiffany and they agreed to size it again for free but since this isn’t my first sizing they can’t rush it.  Given the fact that my left hand is very popular these days and all of a sudden Ben and I actually have a social life I just can stand to be without it for 7-10 days!  It looks like I will be walking around with my left hand in a fist for a while.

If there is anyone out there actually reading this with genius cheap wedding ideas, please pass them along.  I am all ears.

We’re Getting Hitched!

It’s official friends…Ben and I are getting married!!!!  I still can’t believe it.  I keep looking down at my hand to make sure it is all still real.  Benjamin shocked the hell out of me yesterday afternoon when he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him!  We were on a walk around Lake Michigan (my favorite thing) when it all took place.  It was the most the wonderful proposal.  All I could say was “are you serious, are you serious…” while I was crying uncontrollably.  I was crying so hard I couldn’t see the ring.  I finally composed myself and let the moment sink in.

We then called our families and friends and welcomed all the happy wishes, tears, and barrage of Shut Ups from a friend.  I called Becca who is in Nicaragua and just got off the phone with Charlotte who is in Switzerland (My BFFs are world travelers) but still have to get in touch with my dad who is off in the wilderness in Alaska somewhere. 

I couldn’t be happier right now.  I’m not so much happy that I have the perfect ring and a beautiful wedding to plan but that Benjamin and I are official.  We WILL spend the rest of our lives together and he is the one and only person I want to do it with.  I told him yesterday that this is the best decision I have ever made.

Here we are shortly after the big event:

Now we are off to Tiffany to get my ring sized…