April Update

Scott turned 32 early this month so to celebrate we went to Lumiere Place, the new casino in downtown St. Louis. We ate dinner at its buffet to enjoy all-you-can-eat crab legs and then walked around to see the bright lights and listen to the dings of the slot machines. We resisted to gamble away money (which is good ,since we are on a budget.) The weather during the rest of the weekend was beautiful so we did some spring cleaning and washed our cars. As for Scott's birthday gift, I planned a trip for us for later in the month. It is kind of a mini-vacation to get away for a little bit and not think about work.

We had Nico and Ines over for dinner to celebrate the fact that both Ines and I got new jobs. Even better than just getting new jobs, we are going to working together in the same group. Her and I are new Global Planners in Seminis (Monsanto's Vegetable business.) So we popped open a couple bottles of wine. While dinner was cooking, we played "Risk." It was a pretty competitive game and the boys would argue that it wasn't fair, but Ines won the game with myself in second. The boys egos were a bit bruised so they demanded a rematch, but that would have to wait for another weekend. After a big ole dinner and 3 bottles of wine, it was time to call it a night!!!

So more about my new job... like I said I am a global planner for vegetable seed. More specifically, I am responsible for production planning for leafy vegetable. Leafy is exactly what you think: lettuce and spinach.


(click on the picture for more...)
Scott's birthday gift was a trip out to Rocky Mountain National Park. We go almost every year for a few days of hiking and relaxation. So after work, we headed to the airport. Lucky for us, Scott's upgrade went through so we were traveling in first class! We had a layover in Dallas, where thunderstorms delayed our connecting flight to Denver. So we sat at a bar for a couple hours and then headed to our gate. This is where we sat and sat and sat... finally at 2:30AM we left Dallas. By the time we were in our hotel in Denver, it was 4:30 (or 5:30 Central time). We were beat!!! The next morning, we woke up and enjoyed some breakfast, coffee, and the USA Today. We leisurely drove to Estes Park and checked into our cottage. It was already late afternoon so it was too late to start a hike. The next day, Scott and I enjoyed the days with a 6 mile hike up to Deer Mountain... it was a very difficult day as the altitude made me feel like a kid at fat camp! I couldn't catch my breath at all. On our third day of vacation, we spent it relaxing, catching up on the news, sleep, TV shows, sleep, and sleep. My feet were killing me from the day before we we took it easy. On our last day, we did another 6 mile hike up to Cub Lake. It was quiet and peaceful. We packed some sandwiches and fruit for lunch where we enjoyed it sitting on a rock. The view was spectacular. It was a great hike to cap off the relaxing weekend.