Wordless Wednesday

Fairy Godmother

I was in Michigan for Easter weekend, visiting Christine, my best friend since childhood and her two adorable children (and my godchildren), Sophie, 2 1/2 years old and Graham, one month old. Graham's baptismal service was that Saturday evening, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything!

I hadn't seen Sophie in about a year, so I didn't really expect her to remember me. But that didn't stop us from becoming fast friends. She is the cutest, smartest and most imaginative 2 1/2-year-old that I've ever met. She's very into the Disney princesses, as many little girls are. So when her grandma told her that her godmother was coming to visit in a few days, she asked, "Godmother? Like a fairy godmother, like Cinderella?" (except in her world, it's pronounced "Sister-lella.") She met me at the airport, and as soon as we got to their house, she ran and got her Sister-lella book, flipped to a page of the fairy godmother, and said, "See, it's you!" So the whole weekend I was the fairy godmother, and I did my best to live up to those high expectations.

Her baby brother Graham is the prettiest baby boy ever. He is a very content baby, and I got to snuggle him a lot. Sophie didn't seem jealous of him, in fact, she would often say, "Graham so cute," and "I love baby Graham." They both made me melt!

The most amazing thing happened the morning after I arrived. Sophie had a swimming lesson that morning, and when we got home, we played the matching game and then we started to do a puzzle together. In the middle of doing the puzzle, Sophie all of a sudden sat up and said, "I tired, I go sleep now," and she marched upstairs and put herself down for a nap, right on schedule. This blew me away, and Christine later told me that she does this quite often! How awesome is that? Sophie would also just randomly say things like, "Mommy, I so happy," and when she had a favorite dress on she'd say, "I so pretty," while twirling around. Cute. Cute. Cute. I only wish we didn't live 1500 miles apart, I would love to visit more often.

"No photos! No sitting! No breathing! No fun!"

Long-lost blogger here! Lots to catch up on, so hold on tight, 'cause here we go!

So when we last left off, I was in travel limbo and desperately trying to get to Ecuador for a few business meetings. The airline denied us boarding due to "weight restrictions," which I now believe is a bunch of B.S. I think what really happened is that they overbooked the flight, and because we were traveling via frequent flyer miles, they decided to give our tickets away to a "paying" traveler. I raised my voice, but refrained from screaming, and we reluctantly left the airport to try again for the same flight the next day. Alex, who is fluent in Spanish, had to alter our hotel arrangements and reschedule a meeting thanks to the lovely mishap at the airport.

We arrive at the airport the next day a full FOUR hours before our flight, to allow ourselves plenty of time to handle any other hiccups that may come our way. We get up to the counter, and it's déjà vu. They start talking about weight restrictions again, but this time Alex receives a boarding pass, and I am told that I'm on standby, and must check-in at the gate. So we wait, and wait and wait for someone to come to the counter at the gate. It's now less than an hour before our flight is scheduled to leave, and I still don't know if I have a seat or not. Much to my delight, I receive a boarding pass very quickly and am finally able to breathe a sigh of relief.

We had been in the air for about 1.5 hrs. when the captain came on the intercom with an announcement. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I don't want to alarm you, but we are experiencing an electrical problem in the right engine. It's nothing to worry about, but we are going to turn around and go back to Houston and put you on a different plane to Quito just to be safe." SERIOUSLY?!? I must have been slightly delirious by this point, because I remember barely flinching at the news. So another 1.5 hrs. back to Houston, and then we're told that we're too heavy to land, because we still have too much fuel, so we have to fly around Houston for an hour or so to burn off some fuel. Just what Houston needs, more jet fuel in their already polluted air! We finally land back in Houston about four hours after we took off. They got everyone on another plane pretty quickly, and we took off for Quito ... again. It was about 9:45 p.m. the second time we departed Houston, and it's a five hour flight to Quito. Knowing that we had a 9 a.m. meeting the next day, I tried to get some sleep on the plane, but that is never good sleep. Quito is one hour ahead, so we landed at about 4 a.m. and got to our hotel about 5 a.m. I finally got to bed at 6 a.m., and woke up at 7:30 a.m. for our 9 a.m. meeting. Yikes! Needless to say, I was sleep deprived the whole trip, and running on adrenaline the whole time, I think.

We had two meetings on Tuesday and two on Wednesday. Two of the four meetings were almost completely in Spanish, so Alex and I had to go back and forth with the translations. We ended up landing an account at the last meeting, so we were excited about that.

There wasn't much time for sight-seeing, but one of the buyers and her husband graciously took us to the downtown historic district of Quito for dinner and to show us a few of the sights one evening. It was dark, so the pictures aren't the greatest, but at least we got to see something other than office buildings while we were there.

Alex and I were constantly making fun of how strict some things were there. I was scolded for taking pictures at least twice, scolded once for sitting on a curb (in a parking lot, not even on a street!), we were constantly asked to show our IDs, and not only did I have to show my ID when paying for breakfast, but they also asked for my passport! So the running joke was, "No photos! No sitting! No breathing! No fun!"

Eventhough the trip was fast and furious, I really enjoyed Quito. Here are a few photos of my journey:

Travel Update

I should be in Ecuador right now, but I'm still in Houston, blogging from my hotel. Due to weather issues, they did not allow any more passengers on the plane after "x" number had already checked in. I have a feeling that we barely missed the cut-off. It all sounds ridiculous to me, but whatcha gonna do? Sooo, please pray that tomorrow goes better for us! I know everything happens for a reason, but I'm bummed that this means one less day of fun in Ecuador. :(

Vegas Trip

This is my first attempt ever at blogging – so please, bear with me! As unsure as I am about my blogging abilities, I’m excited to do this, because I think it's a great way to keep in touch with friends and family near and far. I'll start with our most recent trip. Kent and I went to Las Vegas October 4th-7th courtesy of our good friends Sadik and Angie Dalal. We went to celebrate Sadik's 30th birthday. They were very generous and flew us first class and put us up in a beautiful room at Planet Hollywood. We ate (a lot!) of amazing food, saw a mindblowing show called LE RÊVE at an aquatheater and, of course, did some gambling. I had been to Vegas once before with my parents for my 21st birthday, but this was Kent's first time. His very first bet ever, in his life, was on his lucky #9 at the roulette table. He bet $5, and he hit it! Talk about beginner's luck, right? It pays 35 to 1, so needless to say, he had an amazing first bet! I convinced him to ride the rollercoaster with me at New York, New York and we screamed like little kids. There is a ton of construction happening on the strip right now, namely the CityCenter which will be a massive resort, casino and convention center. It was an awesome, much needed vacation! Thanks again, Sadik & Angie!