Its been another week. Here is the rundown. On Wednesday Dane and I went over to Greg's (his brother in law's) house to learn how to use his new table top CNC mill. It became clear pretty fast that it wasn't going to be super easy to learn how to use it so he let us borrow it and take it to the surge shack. After a day of playing with it I got it down pretty well, and as you can see from video its pretty awesome. 

This week was Jessi's last at her internship with the Living Bank. I'm glad she's done there, as I pointed out she was only spending about 30% her time doing actual social work. The rest she was just doing office tasks that might fit in to macro social work, but probably more into office assistant, which is why they may not be allowed to get more interns.

We took time off of studying and working to go to the church's fundraiser for the youth camps. It was a lasagna dinner with a desert auction afterwords. We made banana pudding,  and it sold for $30

Bang Head Here

I've been following this Anti-Stress regimen for the last few weeks. It's been working miracles

 It's been another crazy week. Until the semester is over I don't think we will be able to even breath! We spent most of the weekend working and doing homework, but got to take a break for a little while to fill up on some puppy love! There is this place called K-9 Angel Adoptions on West Alabama and Shepherd that has tons of dogs for foster care and adoption. Our last interaction there wasn't great. I was so taken in by the adorable little puppy faces that I threw a tantrum until Lewis agreed to let us foster for a week. They provide the food, the leash, the kennel, everything. So it should have been a really easy, low stress arrangement. It didn't end up being that way. The puppy, Gabby, who was so quiet and sweet at the shelter became a needy crybaby as soon as we got home. She cried all night (we didn't sleep) and in the morning would cry if she lost sight of us for a second. Now, I know this is common when caring for animals, but technically we are not supposed to have animals in our apartment and could have gotten in a lot of trouble. I had to miss work to stay with her and in my sleep deprived state started seriously questioning ever having children. We ended up calling our contact at the shelter who had fostered Gabby before and she was able to take Gabby for the rest of the week.
After that we took a break from the shelter for a while. This weekend though, we just needed some furry cuddles! Look how adorable these guys were! I was half tempted to want to bring one home with me, but I'm not that quick to forget!

It's been a beautiful, sunny weekend and I am so excited for the semester to be over so that we can relax and enjoy it!

This year in travels... so far

Its been quite a crazy year for me in travels. I spent New Years in Logan Utah, then later in January I was off to an expo in NYC. My plane got caught in a crazy storm, and after hours of circling and a failed landing attempt we landed in Albany New York. Then I had to catch a train down to NYC. It was insanely cold, one of the coldest days of the year for NYC.

Two weeks later if was off to Miami for another conference.

Miami Beach Sunrise 

Our booth at M2M Evolution 

Then 2 weeks later it was off to LA. Jessi and I took a trip to visit Robertas and then a trip up the coast to stay at Pismo Beach. We fell in love with SLO (San Luis Obispo) Definitely a place I could spend a lot of time. We also stopped by the Santa Barbara Police Department to say hi to Gus and Shawn. 

A week later my Mom and Randy came down to visit. We had a great time visiting baby elephant at the zoo, saw alligators at Brazos Bend, and took a walk on the Beach. We also made amazing crepes. 

The Very next week we took off for San Francisco. We took a motorcycle ride up the coast, it was so much fun!!

At some point in all of this I took 2 trips to Arkansas to visit the oil field and also Puerto Rico.

Also we got our scooter up and running. Its also a lot of fun.

This week I've been mostly working on our new iPhone App. Jessi is almost done with her first year of grad school. In a few weeks we will be going back to Utah for Mother's Day. We can't wait!!

Playing Catch Up. Again.

We have rededicated ourselves to updating our blog again! Now I have the task of playing catch up. Where to even start?

Protest in support of the Ukraine

Pretend I'm not dressed like a boy.. The blossoms are really pretty right?

This semester in school has been pretty rough for me. I haven't really been able to "get into the groove" with this new crazy schedule and mountain of homework and am so excited that in just a few weeks it will be over! Along with all the craziness at home, we have been traveling like madmen! Last year Lewis worked his magic so that we earned enough airline points to qualify for a Southwest "companion pass" so that every time he flies somewhere I get to come for FREE!!! Plus, we have a mountain of points (and airline cash from getting bumped) so travel has never been easier for us.

Art installment at Herman Park

The first week of February I was able to tag along with Lewis on a business road trip to El Dorado, Arkansas. We spent the night and then I hung out in a coffee shop doing homework for four hours until Lewis was done with his meeting. Sadly, Lewis came down with something during his meeting and was able to barely keep it together until I came to pick him up. He was so sick I had to drive the 5 hours home.

Two days later (!) we were on a plane to Las Angeles! We had a great time hanging out with Lewis' good friend Robertas, who is a professor at USC. He encouraged us to drive up the coast and visit a city called San Luis Obispo, which was interesting because Lewis' mom was born there and he has said several times he wanted to visit there! We found a cheap hotel at Pismo Beach and were so blown away at how beautiful it was there! We were equally charmed by San Luis Obispo (SLO) and decided that if it were ever a possibility we would love to move there!

Pismo Beach

Hike to Bishop's Peak in SLO

Morro Bay

We got back from LA on Sunday and the very next Saturday and Sunday we were so excited to have Lewis' mom and Randy come and visit us! We ate at Maggiano's, visited Brazos Bend State Park, went to Galveston, and went to the zoo.

Unexpectedly, Lewis and Dane's company got invited to present at an awesome tech conference in San Francisco… The very next week! Lewis and I flew in two days early so that we could explore San Fran over the weekend. We spent a few hours visiting the bridge but decided that the next day we would be more adventurous. We rented a motorcycle and rode across the bridge and up the coast. Everything was so beautiful it was almost indescribable! We rode through red wood forests, misty headlands and around windy cliffs. That night we got in an argument with the front desk lady at our hotel because we parked the motorcycle in the parking lot. The policy at the hotel was that all cars had to pay $20 to park overnight… Unless you were driving a hybrid. We hadn't even parked the bike so that it was taking up a parking spot, it was completely out of the way. But the lady still said we had to pay the $20 because it wasn't a hybrid. Then Lewis started arguing with her because it gets way better gas milage then hybrids but she was still firm and nonsensical. We ended up moving it right outside the parking lot. The next day I got to help set up for the conference and then flew home so that I didn't miss any class!

Valentine's Day crepes 

Less than two weeks later it was spring break and we got to spend a few days in Puerto Rico :) It was such a magical trip! We swam in a waterfall in a tropical rainforest, kayaked around a bioluminescent bay, snorkeled with sea turtles, saw Old San Juan, and spelunked in a cave!

Condado

Tropical Rain Forest! 

Old San Juan

Spelunking in Cueva Ventana

Ouch!! I stepped on a sea urchin.. or two

Two days after we got home I pulled this little guy out of my foot

Since then we have been trying to calm our lives down a little bit :) Last Friday night we went down to Crystal Beach with our friends Jeff and Rachel to have a bonfire and cook tinfoil dinners! It was such a fun night and we will be so sad when they move back to Utah soon! :( Right as we were about to leave, we were trying to put out our fire with sand and Jeff filled up a water bottle with ocean water and went to pour it over the sand. As he was pouring we saw that the water was glowing bright blue!!! We all looked at the ocean and saw that each wave that rolled in was glowing! We went and splashed around and, sure enough, there was bioluminescence in the water!!! We asked a security guard on the ferry as we were going back if he had ever seen the water glow. He was like, "Oh yeah. It glows off and on." What?! Why isn't everybody talking about this?! Anyways, it was a great night and we got to spend the rest of the weekend listening to conference and talking to family.

At the Japanese Gardens

Piano Bar in downtown Houston (Howl at the Moon)

We picked up this beauty from a friend who cut us an unbelievable deal! 

It took a minute to get it running again, but it was worth it

It's a Stella, but we call her Sammy

Lewis and Dane's first office building being torn down. RIP Caroline Collective! 

I did say I was playing catch up right? These are the AMAZING tres leches cupcakes Shonee and I made over Christmas break and that I want to make again very soon..

View of downtown from Lewis' new office

This is validation for every time I say I want a pop and everyone makes fun of me

At the Kite Festival at Herman Park