Vegas with Dave and Kellie with a Surprise visit with Andi and Tara

Dave and Kellie are our best friends from college. We love hanging out with these guys and miss them dearly now that we don't live in AZ anymore. I'm not the best at keeping in contact long distance but with these two we always pick up right where we left off. We have taken many trips to Vegas together, many road trips in college and then a few more upscale trips after graduation. Our last trip was a few years ago for fourth of July but then life got busy and then had a beautiful little boy so we spent more time chilling at home.

Anyways let's get to the point. Kellie and I have been wanting to see Celine for years. When we heard she was returning to Vegas we booked our tickets and our trip to Vegas immediatley!! We were so excited for this trip to have a weekend away and relive old times with our best friends.

This is the four of us many years ago, probably close to 6 years ago... WOW

Here are our attempts at recreating this picture this trip

Kellie and I at our beloved Celine Dion show

Dinner before the show with the boys

Now what made this trip even more amazing that I thought it was going to be is that I found out a week before we left that my best friend Andi from high school was going to be in Vegas with her sister Tara the same weekend. We planned a rendevous at the Flamingo pool on Saturday. Since we had no luck finding lawn chairs in the sun on Saturday Kellie and I splurged and got the 5 of us our own pool bed where we camped ourselves for the day and worked on our tans and beer bellies.

This was one of the best Vegas trips I can remember!!! We all met up the last night to do some gambling at Bill's but Kellie and I didn't last long and made it an early night. I guess were getting a little old but we still enjoyed ourselves.
Note: This is a horrible picture of me and I'm embarrassed to share it but it's the only one I have of the whole crew so I had to post it.

Birthday & Rodeo

This year I was lucky enough to have my mom here with me in Houston on my actual birthday. I took a day off work so we could have a relaxing day together and then we went to see Sugarland at the rodeo with Laurel and Tim. It was a perfect day and I was so glad to have her here for it!!

The Birthday Girl with all her guests :)

This is Laurel and I at the rodeo again a few weeks later, we went with the boys to see the Zac Brown Band

The Houston Rodeo is always a ton of fun and we have lots of guests during the month to share in the excitement!!

Hollywood Beach......Our Favorite Relaxing Destination

Well once again I am very behind on my blogging so I thought I would just start with the beginning which was the February.

Laurel and Greg invited us to join them at her dad's condo in Hollywood Beach for a long weekend in February so we jumped at the chance and we were not sorry. This has to be the most relaxing vacation ever. It is beautiful in Hollywood and while there is lots to do to keep us busy it is still relaxing. Dan's condo has a gorgeous view and is easy to get to, not to mention we have beach access and an amazing espresso machine. Almost every morning I woke up to a latte made by Laurel and breakfast prepared by Greg before heading off to the boardwalk or the beach for the day. Can't get more spoiled than that!! We rented bikes for the time we were there which allowed us to explore the boardwalk and venture in to town for dinner one night where we discovered VINO and had a blast.

Fast forward to July and we just returned back from a fourth of July weekend in Hollywood and once again had a wonderful time. Note: All the pictures are from the first trip:)

A walk on the beach.

The four of us before heading off to the airport....sad day, I hate leaving paradise :(

Tim and I on the Intercoastal after a stop at Billy's for some Stone Crab

VINO is this great wine bar where you buy your wine by the ounce. You get to taste a little of everything and then committ to a glass of whatever you want. We hung out around the red wine area for most of the time but the refigerated case of white wine photographed better

The view from the balcony at sunrise

Before heading out for dinner

Breakfast on the boarwalk the last day!!

Life Updates

Well as of today May 11th, 2011 I officially work at the Ironman Sports Medicine Institute at Memorial Hermann. This is a relationship we have been working on for more than a year now and I can honestly say I am excited to be a part of this new venture. The athletes we have had the pleasure to work with and will continue to work with are amazing athletes and great people who motivate me everyday. Here is the link to the new website if you want to check it out http://ironman.memorialhermann.org

In fact, in other related news I completed my first sprint triathlon this weekend and did great. I placed 11th in my age group!!! The swim was a struggle which I was expecting but I made it out of the water and did great on the bike and run and had a blast doing it. I have been training with my friend Nikki and we hope to log a few more races throughout the summer and early fall. I plan to stick with sprint distances which are 200-500m swims, 12 mile bikes and 3 mile runs. With a husband, work and very needy puppy at home that's about all I have time to train for, not to mention I can't even fathom swimming 500m much less more than 500m.

In other updates I just finished up my second semester of teaching biomechanics at University of Houston Clear Lake. It continues to be challenging but fun. I have been told by my colleague that all the students are afraid of me which I find hard to believe. I told him I'm not scary at all, I'm very nice but I have very high expectations. The next few weeks will continue to be insane here with the launch of our new brand, training courses and the first Memorial Hermann Ironman Texas on May 21st. But as soon as I make it through all that Tim and I are off to ITALY for 12 days and I can't wait!!!

If I can find some time before we leave I will post about our trip to Vegas in April!!

Far too long

Well it has been far too long since I posted and I happen to have a couple extra minutes on hand today so I thought I would give some quick updates. Since our trip to Australia last year things have been a whirlwind.



Taupo continues to keep us on our toes but we love the little guy to death and are so proud of the progress he is making becoming a little man. His favorite thing in the entire world is playing ball. First thing he does after getting out of the kennel in the morning or at night is go get his ball and wait for us to throw it for him. He also loves being by our sides but he waits by the door when he gets tired at night to go to bed in his kennel. I think it is too much work for him to keep track of us all night so he likes sleeping in the comfort of his own kennel where he doesn't have to worry.




My (Kim's) work has gone through many changes and is continuing to do so but these are very exciting changes and she is loving it. Triathlon season kicked off here in Texas the first weekend of April and we were lucky enough to be a part of two fun filled weekends and had some time with the pros. We spent a couple days between the first two races with Chris Lieto working with him and putting on some events for our athletes. Here is our team at the finish line of the Memorial Hermann Galveston Ironman 70.3 Race with Chris Lieto and his son right after he won. I even got to hold the finish line tape!! While I am fairly new to the whole triathlon scene I am really enjoying all the athletes. It was really fun spending time with Chris and his family, they are wonderful people, and I was thrilled to see him win and his adorable so Cayden give him his medal and sit by his daddy for all the interviews. He was a very proud little boy this day.

Memorial Hermann Ironman Texas will be here in a few weeks and I'm sure we will have lots more fun being out at that race and seeing all of our athletes. I am even signed up for my first race this weekend! I'm going to stick with the sprint distances but I am looking forward to the race and more training for the ones I will do later this summer. I have a friend racing with me and teaching me to swim (which is really the only thing I'm nervous about, the rest is just fun). So now work is keeping me busy, happy, and fit :)

As usual our lives are kept busy with work, Taupo and travel and we are just enjoying eachother.

After Ironman wraps up our next stop is Italy and we can't wait!!!

Morten Island

The last 3 days of our trip we spent on Morten Island which is a large sand island in Morten Bay (a long boat ride from Brisbane). We stayed at the Tangalooma Resort which is the only place you can stay on the island it was a little overpriced but you did have your share of activities to choose from. We participated in some archery, badmiton, croquet, a wild dolphing feeding (at night these wild dolphins come voluntarily into the island and they let you feed them one by one , it all started back when the island was home to fisherman who would feed them and they are still coming here is the link to the info if you are interested http://www.tangalooma.com/tmecc/home/)

We went sand tabogganning on this very large sand hill


Diving at these shipwrecks (they sunk these ships just off the shore and we decided to rent diving equipment and squeeze in one last dive). Turns out you are on your own diving so we hauled our equipment on our backs about 1/2 mile down the beach and back.


Last but not least here is the view from our room and our last view of the island before heading back to Brisbane on the boat.

And that's the end, hope you aren't overwhelmed by all the pictures

And now for the best part

While in Brisbane we took a day to go check out all the wildlife unique to Australia. A local referred us to the Lone Pine Sanctuary which was about a 30-45 minute bus ride from where we were staying in the middle of the city but they have a super easy transportation system so it was an easy and comfortable trip. This place was amazing. It was a small private zoo and you were so close to all the animals, you could even pet the kangaroos, and hold a koala under their supervision. My favorite were the baby koalas. Here is a sampling of what we saw.

Kangaroos

Koalas

A large weird looking bird. I tried to get Tim to pet it but he wasn't so sure about that idea. It was in the petting area and we did see other people doing it but this guy looked like he would turn on you without warning.
Wombat
Dingos Tasmanian Devils

Crocodiles

Platypus

Cassowary

Sheep

Sheepdogs in Action
Mommy Sheep Dog and her Pups

At the end of the day it was getting chilly but we stuck it out to watch the sheepdog show and it was so worth it. It was so fun to watch the dogs get into work mode and keep those sheep in line, you could tell they loved doing it. Before the show started they were in ready position and one dog named Tim get sneaking up on the sheep, he was so anxious to get started. Once they had them in the pen they would just walk around and lay down on the backs of the sheep. One of the dogs took a liking to me and jumped up on the fence with his face in my face for the rest of the time expecting to be petted; of course I obliged and he was happy to give me kisses as a thank you.

Next and last stop: Morten Island

Australia Recap Part II

As promised here are more pictures from the rest of our trip.

The last day in Cairns we rented a car and drove an hour North to Port Douglas to check out the rainforest. We stopped in town which turned out to be a super cute little town and made me wish we had a little more time before we had to return the rental car but we were able to do some quick window shopping while I sipped my morning latte. Then we headed off the rainforest trailhead and covered ourselves in nasty bug repellent. We hiked for a couple hours taking our time to enjoy all the neat vegetation and keep a look out for creatures.







We also stopped at the Four Mile Beach and took a nice walk and enjoyed the views


The next day we took the "scenic" train to Brisbane which didn't turn out to be very scenic (oh well, live and learn). Brisbane is just another big city but we managed to stay busy exploring. We spent our first day riding around on the CityCat which is a river ferry that takes you along the Brisbane River to different parts of the city. We had some nice meals down on the river and took in the views.


I'll save the rest for one last post which happens to include some of my favorite days from the trip. Wait and see :)