From the beginning: October 2007

Always too many to-do's

For those of you that know me well you know that I am quite organized and always have a to-do list going. I have the list of things for this week, this year, and this lifetime.....I guess I just love lists. Well to motivate me to finish what appears to be a pretty large list of to-do's this year I have posted it on my blog on the left hand side. With all the finishing of work items, preparing and taking our sabbatical we will see how much we get done....I will keep it updated as we finish projects!

Always too many to-do's

Seaside Birthday Retreat

Cyrus surprised me last weekend with a trip to Mendocino for my birthday! We left Friday morning and drove to the stormy seaside, stopping at the few wineries on the way and ending the day with a seaside massage and a wonderful meal. Saturday we woke to a gorgeous day which we took full advantage of visiting Mendocino, trekking to Fort Bragg for the North Coast Brewery tour, driving back into Anderson Valley for a visit to the redwoods and one other winery we wanted to visit. There were really three highlights of the day: visiting both the ocean and a redwood forest in one day (god I love California), meeting the wine maker at the local winery, which the wine is also named after, and watching the sunset on the beach with my husband!

On Sunday we drove south to the Point Arenas lighthouse, which is in the exact spot where California widens to the north and narrows to the south. This lighthouse prior to GPS, used to signal sailors to change course by 40 degrees which is important if you want to go to Washington and Canada and not Japan. It is also one of the few lighthouses left that you can go to the top of and see the original light. There are lots of other facts we learned about the lighthouse including the lighthouse mostly collapsed in the 1906 earthquake and fire, but thanks to the iron stairwell, which partially held the structure up, the attendant at the top survived.

All in all it was a great time as I love to explore new territories and I love surprises.

Though the trip seemed a distant memory as I returned to 12 hour work days in preparation for a huge event I was running at work, it was invigorating and helped me pull off a huge success - maybe that means a raise and a corner office :)!!!

Pictures of our trip:

Mendocino Birthday Weekend

Fort Bragg and Mendocino

The Drive Home

Seaside Birthday Retreat

Simple woodworking project makes book lovers happy

Here is a picture of the finished product for a book clamp that Vito and his mom had the idea to create. My tools and scrap pile made their idea a reality. It was fun working with them and hopefully the final contraption works well for their purpose. It turned out to be a "one home depot trip" project because of the excellent fore thought and effort put into the design from Vito. Looks nice doesnt it! You can put me in that list of book lovers too!

Simple woodworking project makes book lovers happy

Reunited with Disney, soccer and the girls

The past couple of weeks have brought lots activities. First I had the pleasure to watch my niece play soccer; I realized how competitive I really am- though the teams do not officially keep score I did and her team won 1-0. I also realized just how tough she is- she got a ball kicked into her eye while playing goalie, but shed no tears and after a quick examination by me, I was the closest to her on the field, she was back in the game. She rocks!

Last weekend we celebrated Cyrus’s 29th birthday; though his birth day was hectic with both of us running to meetings and trying to get out of the office to catch a plane, we did manage to have a great birthday dinner the night before and birthday cake that evening (same cake we had at our wedding only miniature) with my parents. The next day we went to Disneyland where we spent the day with my brother and Lauren being kids again. It was a blast; we got on so many rides.

Saturday night was my 10 year high school reunion; I went to an all girl’s high school, so it was sort of a scene out of the bachelor with Cyrus and all these twenty year olds around him. Cyrus summed it up the night so eloquently- you all thought you were so cute in high school, but now is when you are actually so beautiful. By the end of the night everyone was telling me how great he was!

Now I am back to work planning for Cyrus and my sabbaticals….only 5.5 weeks and counting. We have organized exactly what we will do with practically each day so that we can maximize the time, but more on that later.

Enjoy the pics!

Mayfield Reunion

Disneyland