Tales of Traveling Team Members

How's this for a Friday: Spending the entire day training?

Haha. It really wasn't that bad; actually, it proved to be a nice interruption in the typical flow for Lizzy and me. We met at the Eastgate Express office [my original Express home] for a day's worth of extended training, conducted by our corporate ventures. Thankfully, we work for a company with an objective of making continued training well, fun.

express swag!

We also have a company that puts its logo on literally everything it gets ahold of.

So yeah. Lizzy and I are trained, and ready to take over the world, according to our training today. :)

It's Friday, and I'm home now with my little family.

Happy weekend!

xo | cmd

Mini [Making] Macros

Anyone who knows me knows I have a love for photography, for cameras and for anything that can be captured into a picture. Since that's pretty much anything, it's a free range for freelancers like myself.

Tonight was another night with Sydni, which we spent laying low at the house and finishing up some craft projects. It definitely qualified as time very well spent with her, but nothing really worth of a news update.

That is, until Sydni brought my phone to me after she'd been playing on it to show me a picture she took of her food. I thought nothing of it until she said, "Mommy! I picked the little flower button and... and look!"  

Basically, it's a simple picture of a sandwich and some grapes, but Sydni unknowingly turned on macro mode on the phone and snapped an up-close detail shot of her dinner before scarfing it down.

She. cracks. me. up.
Just another small ounce of truth that this little munchkin is following her mama. It's adorable. Great picture, Syd!

It's the little things like this that make it all worth it sometimes.
Gotta love it.

xo | cmd

Rain = Sleep.

It's been raining all day.
Rain makes everyone tired. Like, exceptionally tired. Haha.

To sum up today, here's how I found Sydni after she showered and dressed this morning. She'd gotten her yogurt and was back in her room while I got ready. I came back to find this: 

hahahaa

breakfast complete.. aaaaand... sleep.

This girl's too funny for her own good sometimes. She's my little ham, and on the days like this when we're all cornered indoors by the weather, she's that little bit of sun that I need.

 

I hope you all had a little sunlight in your day today, too, despite all this rain!

 

xo | cmd

What... Happened?

Remember that time about oh, two days ago, when Kalyn and I went canoeing with her sister and some friends?

Well folks, somewhere in the midst of boat-toppling yoga moves and rope swinging, Kalyn and I managed to basically beat ourselves up.

my nicely-swollen, unbendable fingers

kalyn's hail spot bruises

Kalyn's got an issue with one of her fingers, too, and my legs have a couple of bruises that I didn't notice until today. We're a mess.

Haha.
It's only early evening now, and Sydni's passed out already. She went swimming for the day at Mindi's, and didn't even last for five minutes once we got in the car. We had a couple of minutes of promising time awake when we got home, but my poor girl is tired.

It feels like a long week... yeeesh.
Thankfully, tomorrow's Wednesday (:

xo | cmd

Perfection.

It's Monday.
She's back.

my little world.

She is my perfection.
That's all I needed for today.
Happy Monday ♥.

xo | cmd

Cabrew Season Is Upon Us!

Rob and I planned on a trip to church, perhaps lunch afterwards, followed by a day of relaxation.

And then I got this:

welllllll.. okay, fine (:

Really, no begging needed. Rob was still in mellow mode, so he wasn't disappointed to stay back, especially when Kalyn, Jess and Brittany rolled into the driveway in Brittany's drop-top SUV to pick me up. Hah...

Off we were to meet up with Kelsey and her husband Ben at Scenic River. We checked in, grabbed our gear and paired up into our boats for the day.

hear us roar!

This is all too much of a flashback to mid-September 2011 when Kalyn, Becky, Brittany and the other Jess joined us for a canoe trip during what may as well had been a drought. This was a big improvement, both in weather and agenda, and there were no complaints.

We tied down about 15 minutes in along to eat lunch and check out a tiny waterfall spouting out of the hillside.

nature proving God's creative hand!

kalyn!

so.. refreshing!  

waterfall selfies. duh... ;)

Back on the water, about another hour into the experience, Kalyn and I started feeling brave. This meant that we'd reached a point of bravery that convinced us it was a good idea to do yoga in the middle of a canoe. Together.

the abridged version.

^ There were about 25 or so pictures of various stages of our yogi dedication happening - or more like not happening - on the canoe. In our defense, we did actually manage to get all the way up into those headstands at least once each before toppling over and/or out of the boat. ;)

kalyn. me. jess. kelsey. brittany.

I also failed to bring an actual camera for the outing. No good there. My last-minute preparedness was pretty weak today; I realized as soon as I took my shorts off that my bathing suit bottom was inside out. Clearly there was no time for camera-hunting. Haha. My phone battery [a spare of course also forgotten] managed to barely survive the entire outing, but it did its job for a little while.

brittany. jess. kelsey. ben.
hi guys!

There are no pictures of us stopping off at the rope swings. *Sad.
There are no pictures of Kalyn and I getting left in the dust when the other two boats paddled off down river, only to find ourselves making a handful of new friends out of the fellow floaters. *Silver Lining.

There are also no pictures of us in what I'll just call the aftermath of the day: sun-kissed [or beaten, depending on who you ask], exhausted, mildly inebriated and donning the hairdo's of drowned rats. *Probably a good thing.

We decided our last stop of the day would be for food, so we settled on Hahana Beach. Our scraggly water-logged selves fit right in with the sand and sweat-covered volleyball players, and with patio dining at our disposal, we settled in for some grub. Rob joined us, only to leave a short while later just before the sky busted open in one of those angry-looking rainstorms.

We're all home now, cleaned up and ready to call this one a good Sunday. (:
Two weekends in a row on water? I'm not mad. ♥

xo | cmd

Night Owlin'

We're doing pretty well on the whole laying low thing so far.

Today was a day of rolling out of bed when we darn well felt like, staying in PJ's until the early afternoon, and taking our sweet time on everything else after that.

I took to running some errands, which were done at such a leisurely pace that I was almost convinced that they were fun instead of being done out of necessity. Rob lazed around a bit until I got home, at which point he did his deeds for the day by mowing the lawn and weed eating.

Like I said, not too much to report from the bulk of the day.

We decided to get out of the house for the evening. It's funny that we can't seem to sit still even when we try, but I will admit there is an entirely different vibe in the air whenever our missions are crafted out of sponenaeity, rather than extensive orchestration involving like, 15 people.

Ironically enough, we did wind up running with a crowd just shy of 15 people, at least that's how it felt. We hadn't been to OTR in a while, so we opted for that.

out on the town with this guy ;)
love.. love.. love him.

Naturally, that means I'm usually on my own in a mass of derpy dudes; Carolina wasn't available tonight so I was left on a solo mission to keep up with the rowdies. It wasn't hard. These goonies aren't strangers. (:

carolina... where are you.. haha..

take 2.

[*sings the rembrandt's song from friends*]

Oy. Haha.

love you, aweesome nerd ♥

l-o-v-e. y-o-u.

That's a wrap on our sponetaneous little Saturday!
These night owls need to rise n' shine tomorrow for church.
G'Nite!

xo | cmd