Trip to Barcelona - March 2-6th

I traveled to Spain on March 2nd. CogState asked me to work in a sales booth for them. It was fun to go somewhere so exciting and different, but the trip was not without it problems!

First....did you know that they speak Spanish in Spain? haha Thankfully, I bought a study guide and my high school Spanish came back pretty easily. I managed to get around with a combination of broken Spanish mixed with English and lots and lots of charades!

The worst part about the trip was that our booth actually never made it through customs - so we had to sort of "make" our own from scratch (while not speaking the language) by going to stores and buying things. Keep in mind, that our competitors and the other businesses at the conference had these amazing, and very professionally done displays (some had cocktail tables with candles on them, some had flat screen TVs, several had live plants and flowers!!)...so this was more than a little embarrassing. But...we did the best we could by purchasing a projector and some table cloths and showing slides on the wall of our (bare) booth. We just tried to be very friendly and outgoing and actually made a lot of friends through the process. The booth (or lack thereof) ended up being a pretty good icebreaker!

The best part of the trip was getting a chance to meet Cindy, someone who I have worked with for a year, but never met in person. She is really nice and we had a great time together.

The weather was not cooperative. It was extremely windy and sort of cold (about 50 degrees). The food also left a little to be desired (for me) because I was expecting something more like Mexican food...but there was nothing like that even offered on any menu I saw. Instead, every place had seafood...but not JUST regular seafood...every dish had like 12 kinds of seafood in it (including clams and mussels and octopus and all kind of other chewy things).

I did watch several really good movies on the airplane. I would highly recommend "August Rush" and "Becomming Jane" to anyone who enjoys a good drama.

Trip to New Orleans

On Tuesday the 19th I flew to NO for the American Heart Association's Stroke Conference where I was presenting some of my research (2 reporters even stopped by and wrote articles about what I presented!). This meeting was followed by a NETT meeting on Friday night and Saturday. Forest caught up with me on Friday night (killed time in Harrah's while I was working). Sienna stayed home with Grandma Jeanne. They had a great time and even cleaned up the house and returned $30 worth of bottles (only Grandma Jeanne could manage this!). They also went to Great-Grandma Seilers for a day and got to see a few of the cousins and aunts.

Forest and I had a great time in NO! It was nice to get away from the cold weather and school/work for a few days. Saturday night was probably the most fun. We hit Bourbon Street (let's just say that I am sorry I didn't bring my camera!).

Using remote control

Sienna loves her birthday gift from Heather and Alex (and so do we because it's realistic enough that so far she thinks it's real and will use this one instead of changing the channel of the TV on us -or us having to take the batteries out of the real one to KEEP her from changing the chanel on us!!).

Opening gift from Aunt Heather and Uncle Alex

This posting is mainly for Heather and Alex. I made this (and the other) video for you and tried to email it, but couldn't because the file is too large.

New Favorite Cup from Grandma Caveney

Sienna got this pewter cup from Grandma Caveney. Here she demonstrates how to use it.

Sienna opens gift from Grandma Jeanne and Grandpa Mike

I could not get more than 1 video to load per blog post - so here is 1 of them - 1 more to come!

Sienna's 1st Bday!!

We made it a whole year!!! Sienna went to daycare for most of the day. We took ice cream cups and all the kids sang happy birthday to her (caught on video). She ate ice cream for the first time and LOVED it! Forest and I both left work early and we got to spend several hours together as a family (a rare thing these days) playing, opening gifts and eating cake (see pics). Sienna got lots of great stuff for her birthday. Great-grandma Seiler, Grandpa Ned and the Leodler's sent $$ (which we will save for her and use to start a savings account for her when she is old enough to understand what that is all about). Grandma Jean and Grandpa Mike sent a package with new shoes, a really cool pillow guitar that actually plays the radio and an ipod, a white turtle neck and a really cute white outfit. Grandma Terry sent a neat pewter set (bowl, cup and spoon) in the mail. Aunt Cheryl sent Sienna a Jayden look alike stuffed animal that is really adorable!!! Aunt Heather's gift is "in the mail". The Logans are coming over on Saturday to deliver their well wishes in person. We bought Sienna a shoe rack, toy organizer shelves and some clothes. After gifts, we had cake. I made a ladybug cake. Very domesticated, eh? After Sienna went to bed, Forest and I stayed up driking wine and watching the hours of video that we had taken over the past year. It's really amazing how much she has changed in such a short time!