Welcome Brody Lawrence

My family has been BUSY!

While I was out last week (and I will definitely post on that), my sister Melissa finally had her baby.  A 9lb 14oz  sturdy little guy - Brody Lawrence.

I haven't had the opportunity to meet him yet, but I will this weekend.

In the meantime, enjoy these photos I stole from facebook. :)

 mama and Brody - feeling great

 little (big) man - can't wait to meet him

big sister

Nighttime

I love nighttime flying for a few reasons... Less annoying people for one. But I also love it for the lights.

Especially when your flight is only 23 minutes and you only fly at 19,000 feet. (only 5,000 more than our skydiving height FYI)

City lights from the sky are so cool.

Skydiving Videos

FINALLY... after hounding the CSC, we finally got online access to the skydiving videos from our jumps in July.

Before I go on my trip, I thought I would share them.  They are AMAZING.

I'm sorry I can embed them here directly, but trust me - they are worth it to watch each of the videos.

It's also important that you watch them in jumping order. :)

MY VIDEO

BROOKE'S VIDEO

AMANDA'S VIDEO

Each is hilariously awesome in it's own way - and I had a blast reliving the day all over again.

ENJOY!

Leaving again

Tomorrow I leave for Palm Springs to work a 7 day conference with one of my most difficult groups I have ever had to work with.  Then, I get 3.5 days to enjoy Palm Springs with Amanda.  Which will basically consist of us sitting out at her parent's pool drinking all day for 3 days.  And maybe some vintage shopping.

See you September 17th!

Goals Update: August

Somehow the end of August just blew past.  I completely forgot to write a goals update.

August was busy - very busy.  I ate too much fried food and cream puffs at the WI State fair, closed the sale of my house, picked out color inspiration for my apartment, hung some artwork (finally), and welcomed a new family member.

On top of all that, I also tried to accomplish things on my list...

1. WORK ON MY 101 IN 1,001 LIST - Nothing checked off in August, but I'm working towards finishing some things.

2. SAY "YES" MORE OFTEN - Definitely.  Last week I actually went out three week nights.  THREE WEEK NIGHTS.  I can't even tell you the last time that happened.  Was I tired?  Yep.  Did I feel a bit guilty because Samson just hung out at home by himself?  Yep.  But was it worth it...ABSOLUTELY.

It made me really glad that I moved back to Chicago and live so close to so many friends.

3. SAVE, SAVE, SAVE - Yes and no.  I had to use a bit to help finish payments for the closing of the house, but I'm back on track.  Luckily, I was able to use most from my checking and leave my savings alone. With the move to the apartment, I've had to cut back a little on what I save so that I can buy the couple of things I need to make my apartment functional, but it's worth it.  I'm most happy about what I'm accomplishing with this.  Like the other week, when I had to take my car in... I didn't have to panic about how I was going to pay to get it fixed!  Progress.

Family Weekend

On Saturday morning, Samson and I trekked up to Milwaukee to hang out with my family and meet little Liam.

It was really nice to just get to visit with everyone.  I'm glad I was able to go up to do that before I go out of town for 10 days.

Here's a few pictures from the weekend - mostly of little Liam (he deserves as much blog time as Kayla did.) :)

 proud mama

 just a little snuggling

 little man

 I should dig up this exact picture of Kayla...  they look similar - though I think Liam looks more like Kevin than Lauren right now.

Auntie with her two peanuts - can't wait for the 3rd to join us!

Apartment Update

On Friday, I FINALLY gained access to the storage area I get in the basement of the building.  Because of that, I finally cleared out my dining room.

It looks so big now that my table looks tiny.

The items against the radiator are pictures that I still haven't decided what to do with.