Whale of a Tale: It's been a while

It's been a while and a lot has happened over the last month, so I’ll try and catch you up.

I went on a few work trips, one to Paris and London and one to Boston. Paris and London were fun, but too much time away from my babies. It was nice to explore the sights and spend time with my mom, but I was really ready to come home when I did. We took the non-stop flight from Salt Lake to Paris, leaving on a Friday evening arriving in Paris on Saturday at 11:30 am. After not sleeping more than 10 minutes on that lovely 10 hour flight, I was ready to sleep, but the rule I follow when traveling so far outside of my time zone is to just, no matter how tired you are, spend the day awake, then sleep all night. It sort of worked. We walked all over for a few hours, ate some food and then about 5:00 pm decided we were too hot (it was as hot as I assume Hell is) to continue so we would take a small break, then go to dinner. I did some work then couldn’t stay awake any longer and fell asleep. About 8:30 my mom and I walked to a corner bar and had dinner, which was so nice. It was finally a little cooler outside, which we hoped meant it would be cooler in our room. No such luck. We had no air conditioner, no fan and a window that looked across at another hotel room. Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep in that hellish heat. I took two cold showers, hoping that would cool me down. About 3:30 am I decided I needed assistance sleeping and took something and finally slept until 9:00 got up and promptly laid back down and went back to sleep until 11:00. I woke up refreshed and ready for another day of walking, eating and exploring. We walked all day, stopping for a few photos and food. Dinner again around 9:00 pm and the next day I went to work and my mom went off to explore and enjoy Paris. This was the tenth trip to Europe for my mom and my fifth journey, so we were all in favor of doing things we had never done and relaxing, which I think we accomplished.

After working in Paris on Monday, we traveled to London on Tuesday for work on Wednesday. We then traveled back to Paris on Thursday and spent Thursday evening and Friday relaxing. We caught the direct flight home on Saturday, leaving at 11:00 am getting home at 2:00 pm. It was so wonderful seeing Natalie and Phil and even though I was exhausted, I stayed awake for the welcome home BBQ and to play with Natalie. I still don’t think I’ve recovered.

After being home for a week it was back to the airport for a quick two-night trip to Boston. Had great sushi for dinner one night and then dinner at a friends’ house the last night I was in town, which was the highlight of the trip. The first night I was in Boston Phil called to tell me that Natalie wasn’t feeling good. I felt horrible. The second time she has ever been sick and I was out of town. Don’t know what was wrong, but she threw up one time and had a fever for two days. Poor baby! One saving grace for Phil, was that she slept through the night the entire time she was sick – what a good little sicky.

I’ve been home for almost two weeks, which is the longest I’ve been home at one time in over a month! However, I leave for Minnesota tomorrow for two nights, so the streak ends.

In other news, Natalie is talking more and more and still keeping us busy. She is so much fun and still a sweetheart, with a very strong will. She is still (knock on wood) sleeping great for naps and nighttime – which Phil and I are very happy about. She has also discovered a love for lemons and limes. It is very funny to see her screw up her face as she licks them.

We also celebrated Auntie Laura’s birthday by having bbq and banana cream pie. She was nice enough to let Natalie help her blow out the candles. While we were singing to Laura, Natalie was just smiling and looking around at all of us with this look of pure joy – she thought we were singing to her.

Godfather and Auntie are traveling this week and we are very much looking forward to their return. Natalie loves them both so much and recently had a great adventure when they took her to Silver Lake, where they found and chased a few squirrels. We met them and had dinner up the canyon, and by the end of dinner Natalie was ready for bed!

We were up at the cabin over the weekend and bought her a swing for the porch. She loved swinging and having the attention of mom, dad, Grandma (gram) and Grandpa (gramp). We went on a few walks, played on the porch, and chased squirrels.