Chicago

The "Windy City" exceeded my original expectations by far! Although it's a large, bustling city, I was continually impressed by how calm and inviting it proved to be. I'm accustomed to the extremely fast-paced and always in a hurry daily life of Dallas so this was a welcomed change. There is so much to do and see here! In Grant Park, you can visit the Bean (pictured top right - inside of the Bean) then take a short train ride to Willis Tower, formerly known as Sears Tower (pictured top left) all in a day! Along the way, be sure to stop at Navy Pier to see the boardwalk and take a water taxi over to taste some Chicago deep-
dish pizza!

I also got to experience my first huge music festival, Lollapalooza! It was incredible, and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys

lots of good music with an awesome city scene backdrop for three solid days! We got to see Muse (my personal favorite), Flogging Molly, Explosions in the Sky, Arctic Monkeys, Foster the People, Noah and the Whale, Two Door Cinema Club. One of the best parts was catching up with a few old friends and meeting new ones. Can't wait to pack up my DSLR and head back to Chi-town!

Time To Play Catch Up!

My dear friend Claire reminded me that I am indeed lacking in my blogging. So to quickly fill you in on the recent (and not as recent) trips and adventures, I will combine them all into this post.

Austin

Love.this.city. The tag line for the city is "Keep Austin Weird." This just about sums up the mentality and culture of the people who live there. I have never heard one person, young or old, have anything negative to say about living there. If you haven't had the opportunity to grace the bars along 6th Street, take a dive in Hamilton Pool, walk the steps of the state capitol, or partake in a hangover feast at the Oasis, then you're missing an essential item on your bucket list. Annnd...my roommate and I may have gotten tattoos on one of our memorable Austin trips. One other must-see while in Austin is the Congress Street bridge. Every night, millions of bats leave from under the bridge to go feed. It draws quite a crowd as shown in the picture below. The restaurant shown to the left is the Oasis. Note all 4 floors have an awesome patio that looks over Lake Travis. The picture below on the far right is taken from inside the cave at Hamilton Pool.

Nashville

Part of my recruiting territory while working for the University of Alabama at Birmingham was Tennessee. This gave me the opportunity to spend weeks at a time in different cities throughout the state. Nashville and Chattanooga were my favorites. I got to know some really awesome people on these trips and venture out to see what these cities had to offer. Some highlights of Nashville are Broadway Street (The Stage is one of the most popular night spots) and the farmers market (which is my favorite place to be during the fall). I also got to capture one of my favorite photographs on one of these trips (piano keys picture below).



Virginia Beach

So the purpose of planning this trip to Virginia Beach was for Echo and I to run the Rock n Roll Half Marathon. To our disappointment, after months of training, we both got sick a few weeks before the run (Echo got swine flu and I got walking pneumonia). We still went on the trip even though we didn't complete the run. The trip started off with us missing our flight from Atlanta to Newport Beach so we were stranded in the lovely Atlanta airport for 5 hours. With nothing to do, we finally decided that we deserved a massage. In Virginia, we went to the boardwalk and the beach. I loved how people biked a
lot and became obsessed with photographing bikes at the time. Although the trip went nothing like we expected, Echo and I still made the best of our time away from our everyday lives.


Cancun
Ahhh...my favorite place I've been to date. I absolutely fell in love with Cancun. The all-inclusive hotel may have had a little to do with that! ;) All you can eat and drink? Yes, please! The beauty of the beach in Cancun is breathtaking. It was not at all what I expected. When someone mentioned Cancun, I would instantly revert to MTV Spring Break. Pleasantly, it was nothing like that. Quite the opposite in fact. Quiet, peaceful beaches, friendly people, beach volleyball, and excellent food. My friend, Pablo, showed me the interior parts of Cancun. I enjoyed eating and shopping at the locals places. And it definitely helped to have someone fluent in Spanish while negotiating prices at the market! We also ventured to Playa del Carmen, Akulmal, Tulum, and Cozumel. Playa del Carmen is a more touristy beach but had a very cute cobblestone street lined with restaurants, bars, and souvenir shops. Akulmal is a hidden gem in Mexico. It is a more residential town where many people from all over the world come to retire. It was incredibly peaceful and almost zen-like. The picture to the right is of a pathway leading to a gorgeous, small lake full of colorful fish that the residents frequently use for snokeling and scuba-diving. The picture to the left is our massive amount of food from Pablo's favorite bakery in Cancun. He remembered his father always taking their family to this restaurant and wanted me to taste all of the amazing food it offered. Please note the omelet that covers the entire plate with a whole avocado sliced on top. YUM!!!

Washington D.C.
Although I had been to Washington D.C. once before, it was nice to visit some of the historical sites again over a decade later. My high school friend, Joel, relocated to complete his MBA at Howard University so I was able to catch up with him while there as well. We visited the White House, Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial. My favorite site to see is the National Cathedral. Incredible architecture and beautiful stain glass windows that tell the stories of the Bible. One stain glass window has a piece of the moon in it!

New York
For Thanksgiving 2010, I went to the Macy's Day Parade in New York City. I was excited to check this off of my bucket list! It was freezing and eventually started sleeting but totally worth it. We took the train from Washington D.C. to NYC and arrived around 6:30 am. We thought that was pretty early considering the parade started between 10:30-11:30am. We were wrong. People had been camped out since 4am to get a spot along the fence! I have never seen so many people all in one place at once. Jessica Simpson, Joan Rivers, a dude from Glee, the Roots, and Kanye West were some of the celebrities that rode on the floats. Some teenage girls made a sign for Kanye after the Taylor Swift incident which he found just as amusing as we did. His people even came over to take pictures of the sign! After the parade, we walked 30-something blocks to Central Park then to find Serendipity. I had been to New York before and toured all of the other parts of town but had not been to Serendipity. To my dismay, it was closed for Thanksgiving. We did get to finish the day in Times Square before heading back to D.C.


Las Vegas
Part work/part fun trip. Every year, the university that I work for, Parker University, hosts the largest chiropractic seminar in the world in Las Vegas. This year, they asked me to be their roaming reporter to get feedback from seminar attendees, interview exhibitors, and catch people on the red carpet at the Gala. Although we were exhausted by the end of every day, it was a fun job to do. I got to meet the lead guitarist for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and motivational speaker, Nick Vujicic. Echo and our friend Kacie came out to spend the weekend with me. That's when the fun half of the trip began. We went to several hotels along the strips and danced in lots of their clubs. My personal favorite was Rain in the Palms. We also got to go to Studio 54 which Echo and I were excited about. We went to see the newest Vegas hotel, the Cosmopolitan, where we practically ran smack into Snoop Dogg! My favorite part of the trip was going to see my first Cirque du Soleil show, Ka.

Los Angeles
This was my first trip to California. And I must throw a shout-out to Virgin Airlines for completely surpassing any other airline in quality and style. We even got invited to sit in the cockpit of the planes by the pilots! We went to visit our friend, Kacie, and two other friends from San Francisco came down for the long weekend as well. I didn't know what to expect so I was pleasantly surprised by pretty much everything there. Kacie lived in Huntington Beach which is awesome! You can be sunbathing on the beach then look to the east to see snowboarders on the snow-capped mountains only an hour away! If that isn't perfect placement, I don't know what is. We went to the beach, walked on Santa Monica pier, and toured LA. We saw the famous stars, the Hollywood sign, and even found the Zoltar machine that was in the Tom Hanks classic BIG! Although we were very sad to leave California, the best part of our trip happened at the airports. At LAX, we met Michael Emerson (Ben from Lost) and at DFW, we met Travis from Cougar Town!



PHEW! That wraps up my travels from the past year or so. I will try to keep this updated as I go on trips from now on instead of having to spend 3 hours updating this thing!

"The world is my canvas, and I paint it beautiful." - WDN

Skiing!

Oh.my.gosh. Utah is absolutely breathtaking! I fell in love with everything about it. The clean air, the fresh snow, the active lifestyle, all of it. I even learned to love skiing! It was my very first time on skis, but fortunately I picked it up quickly. Partly due to the fact that I accidentally went down a blue run on my first day!

We stayed in Park City, Utah which is picturesque! Everywhere you look is postcard worthy! The first day, we went skiing at Park City then the next at Deer Valley. We decided we liked Park City better so we went back there for our last day. We crammed sooo much into our quick trip! We visited the Utah Olympic Park which had memoribilia of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Speaking of, the snowboarding and skiing portions of the Olympics were actually held on the mountains we skiied! So we were able to see jumps and courses that had been for the games. We went to Main Street every night in Park City. It looked like Christmas even in February. There were lights everywhere- on trees, buildings, strung across the streets. Main St is lined with bars, restaurants, art galleries, and shoppes.

It was definitely hard to leave. People are so incredibly friendly there! I'm from the South, and I can honestly say people were happier and more friendly there than even back home in Alabama! When people are nice to you that work in the airport, you know they must love their lives! :) If you ever get the chance to choose a skiing destination, I highly recommend Park City, Utah. Although I'm not an expert by any means (seeing as this is my first ski trip), the popular consensus among visitors was that it was on the top of their list as well.

Helllllloooo...

How ya durrin??

So, I've been meaning to create a blog for a while now. But I most certainly think it will be useful now that I've moved back to Dallas! Yes, I know...I've moved yet again! What can I say...I'm a gypsy at heart! :)

So let's catch everyone up to speed in my ever-changing world...

So round 2 in Dallas has been going splendidly well. I'm excited for the present and the future here. I have grown even closer to friends I've had here and met new interesting people since being back. Additionally, I have transferred from my Masters in Communication Management program at UAB to the Master of Liberal Studies program at SMU (Southern Methodist University). This program is much more interesting to me and encompasses many disciplines that I am passionate about. It also has several study abroad options available which you know strikes my fancy!

I started a new job at Parker College of Chiropractic (http://parkercc.edu/). I am the Coordinator of Alumni Relations. Everything about Parker College excites me, and they treat their employees like GOLD! We get free chiropractic care, free vet visits, discounted massage therapy, plenty of vacay time, and discounts of health supplies like vitamins, minerals, etc. With my job, I have several opportunities to travel to seminars hosted by Parker and conferences for professional development. Although I loved working on the admission/recruitment side of higher education, I'm definitely excited to be on this side and put to use all of the knowledge and experience I've obtained so far in my career.

So needless to say, I'm thrilled to be back in Texas and that things are going so smoothly! (Knock on wood!) I have some trips planned in the future with one starting tomorrow- UTAH!!! I don't make new years resolutions, but if I had it would be to travel somewhere every month in the year 2010. So far, so good!

Thanks for taking the time to read my update. I will (hopefully) keep this pretty up to date! And as you all know...with lots of pictures! :)

xoxo