Thunderstorms

Our last trip took us around the midwest and we spent four days seeing some of the largest thunderstorms, I've seen in 7 years of flying! The storms stretched in a line from Canada to Texas (up to 50,000 ft) and caused major disruptions to air travel...

By day three of these storms, passengers and airline employees were becoming grumpy. We were in Wichita, Kansas and we had said "good morning" to a gate agent who then totally ignored us... it was 5 am and then we waited for yet another storm to pass.

Then the rainbow appeared and through all the delays and grumpiness we realized, there is always a good from a bad... as Dolly Parton said, " if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain." Please don't ask how we (meaning Simon) know that quote...

We then decided to take pics of Carrie in our airplane... there were no passengers on board yet! She even smiled, even though it was 5:30 am, 3:30 am California time.

One of our layovers was El Paso , Texas... This is our view out of the hotel.... Ciudad Juarez , Mexico. We would have been tempted to go and visit, but the presence of 5000 Mexican soldiers fighting the drug war there right now, kind of deterred us!

And so concludes yet another glamorous week of flying in the airline industry....

Canada

After years of traveling to Canada, here are some things we love about this strange but wonderful place, :

1. French Fries served with gravy...

2. Ketchup Flavored chips...

3. Stronger Stella Artois served in large glasses!

4. random french tv shows..

5. umm....?

Ok so we ran out at number 4. Sorry Canada, but its better than nothing , right?

Our visit to see Audrey Kate Greywoode!

Simon and I got to fly out and visit the Greywoodes for a couple days...

Audrey's parents for some reason trusted us enough, so we ended up baby sitting Audrey for 2 days when they went to work.

We had such a great time with her and enjoyed every minute that especially didn't involve a diaper change.

Simon was a natural, while I was just trying to figure this whole parenting thing out. I think I decided that it's doable.... in the future.

Audrey showing off for her Uncle and Aunt.

Uncle Simon is already wrapped around her finger!

Simon serenaded Audrey and she loved it! She also liked helping play the guitar as well as dance along!

We don't think she liked us doing this, but look how cute she is!

A day out on the town with her parents too!

Glamorous Winnipeg

In case you've wondered what we do on overnights, here is a brief synopsis of what adventures we come across....

We recently had a glamourous overnight in Winnipeg, Canada...... we got picked up in a taxi to go to the hotel, and when we opened the curtains to look at our view, this is what we found...... we're not quite sure if it was a dump site or a construction site. Either way we are pretty sure that there was a homeless person living in a shack outside the hotel....... but for the record, the sunset was amazing!

And for our relaxing evening we made spritzers! Our hotel was in the middle of nowhere and we also had a relatively short overnight so we didn't have time to go outside the hotel.

We are happy though to be in Winnipeg in the summer.. usually when we come here it's in the winter and temperatures can reach -30 degrees celcius! Stay tuned, more glamorous layovers will be shared.

Hello Earth Day, top this!

So Simon and I have begun our long, slow journey to beautify our backyard.

This is before.....

After.....

Step #1 we decided we wanted to plant a few trees around the edge of the fence to bring in some green.

That quickly turned to 4o trees!

We decided... mostly based on cost, that Simon and I would plant the trees ourselves. The man that delivered the trees, smirked when Simon told him we would be doing it all ourselves. I think he laughed as he drove away.

Ten planted, only another 30 to go....

When I say "we" planted 40 trees, Simon definitely had the hardest part. Digging 40 big holes in the hard clay ground.

And of course, yard work in rainbows.

It took 3 days to plant all the trees and it makes such a difference to the yard. But, looking beyond that, Simon and I would like Earth Day to know that we are done for the next 40 years. We planted our trees and want to get recognition that we helped "Mother Earth".

*By the way, Carrie did do her share of yard work, however Simon was too dirty to take any pictures.

Wedding Mystery...

Okay, it's been over a year and this mystery has not been solved....

Simon's suit jacket he wore to the wedding went missing. And, he ended up with someone elses.

So, if for some reason you read this and might know where this missing jacket might be, we'd greatly appreciate it. We think it was a Hugo Boss.

The jacket we have is a Joseph Abboud, from Nordstroms. It is a bit small for Simon, so we presume that missing jacket might be a bit big for whoever has his. Both jackets were left at the head table.

And no..... he was not drunk.

California is the Best!

Carrie and Katie