Summer's almost here

Hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day. Mine was pretty low-key. I stayed home and did some studying and chores around the house. I did do a little reading out on the balcony to take advantage of the nice sunny weather.

Last night was Reese's 1st/Layla's 2nd birthday party. Lots of cute little babies and toddlers in attendance. Sebastian was so cute - when anyone asked him what his upcoming little sister's name will be, he replied "shh! it's a secret!" :)

I remembered this weekend that I've been wanting an area rug for my living room for some time now, but haven't gotten around to really shopping for one. I think the room could use a shot of some color and pattern:

Living/dining room 

I want to do some traveling this summer or fall. It's been a while since my last "long" trip (Spain in summer 2002 to be exact). I've taken several weekend trips since then, but nothing major. I found this widget that creates a map of the states you've visited... there's a lot more of the country I have yet to check out!


create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Idolized

Congrats to the 2005 American Idol, Carrie Underwood! I'm not ashamed to say that I've followed AI religiously all season :) and Carrie was one of my faves from early on, so I'm glad she won. I am also happy that Bo Bice made it to the finale, he rocks!

In other, more personal news... Lori is in Greece now! And having a blast I hope. Also, cousin Jay from San Diego was in town over the weekend. He came for a friend's wedding and stayed over at my place. It was good hanging out with him. We got to see Lori off at the airport on Saturday before the wedding, then Sunday I took him to Wrigley Field for the Cubs-Sox game. So I got to experience some of the pre-game festivity without actually going to the game. :)

Work has finally calmed down this week. Ken is back from his vacation too, so I'm not holding down the fort by myself any more.

Looking forward to Memorial Day weekend. I have no big plans, aside from little Reese and Kayla's birthday party (he just turned 1, she's turning 2) on Sunday, plus some homework (meh). It'll just be nice to have the extra day off. Hopefully we'll have good weather. It was awesome this past weekend.

And away she goes!

Lori and her pal Amanda left for their study program in Greece today! I hope they have an awesome time. I have so many fun memories from when I studied in France and I think everyone should spend some extended time abroad at some point.

Jay is in town for his friend's wedding. Last night we dined at the Parthenon in Greektown. Tomorrow he is going to the Cubs-Sox game ::jealousy:: ... there is rain in the forecast but hopefully it will hold off till after the game. Rhoda is also going to the game so they may try to meet up before or after. Then we'll be having dinner at my parental units' house tomorrow night.

Some time this weekend or next week I hope to meet up with Brian who I think is also in town now. I don't know if he has my new phone # though, and I don't think I have his (oops).

I was having trouble resolving a bug this week at work. My PM suggested that I call Guy, who was on my team just before he left the company, and who had worked on the system for years. He figured out what was wrong within minutes after I showed him the error message. :-) I was sure that I had messed something up when we did our database reload last weekend; it turns out that one of the users overlooked something when she set up one their exchange rate files. Doh! I'm glad it wasn't my "fault" but I should have been able to figure that out sooner. Oh well, at least the client is back up and running again!

Here there and everywhere

It's been an even-busier-than-usual couple of weeks. Lots of schoolwork, and the past week at work has been hectic too, since we just released a version of our application for one of our clients. I had to do a bit of work from home over the weekend, even. But, so far today it seems like everything's up and running fine, so whew.

Lori came home last weekend; the move-out from her dorm went pretty smoothly, as did the drive there and back. Now she's busy packing for her study abroad thing in Greece. :) I got her a digital camera (Nikon Coolpix SQ, via eBay) for her trip.

This weekend will be pretty busy too... Jay is coming to Chicago for a wedding and is staying with me from Friday to Monday, Lori is leaving on Saturday, and my old work pal Brian is also going to be in town. This on top of the usual schoolwork and chores, etc. It will be nice to see Jay and Brian though.

Speaking of school, I signed up for one class for the summer quarter (just the first 5-week session): Management of Information Technology (an MIS class). Hopefully it'll be pretty easy, considering I work in I/T. :)

Fun with the fam

The past several days my aunt and uncle from San Diego have been in town (they left for home this morning). They arrived Wednesday but I did not get to see them till Saturday because of school stuff (ugh). They stopped by my condo with my parents and another aunt and uncle, then we walked over to the Greek Islands restaurant near my home for a delicious meal. Sunday, we all went to church, then hung out at my parents' house afterwards for more food :) and then the parents busted out the karaoke machine. I abstained from singing (hehe) and instead took photos and helped them pick out songs.

Yesterday, my parents took the Californians downtown for some sightseeing. It was cold out, but reportedly they had a good time (and ate a lot). My aunt who is from EGV also went along, and this was her first time seeing a lot of the downtown stuff, herself, even though she's lived in the area for years. :)

In other news, I have a lot of homework due again this week for both classes - mostly group stuff. On the bright side, I managed a 90.5% on my Accounting midterm that I took on Friday (yay).

This Friday, my mom and I will be driving down to IU to help Lori move out of her dorm for the summer. Hopefully the weather will be nice. Lori will then be home for a couple weeks before she takes off for her 6-week study abroad program in Greece. I'm still thinking about visiting her while she is there (Rhoda is definitely going, and my mom and aunt are considering it too). That would be fun. I have to figure out my school and work schedule though. I haven't been on a "long" vacation since Spain in 2002, so I'm due. :)