A Lake Weekend with the Girls

As Charlie mentioned in his post yesterday, this past week we were apart because Charlie was at a training in Atlanta.  I was in need of some girl-time, so I found a relatively cheap flight back to Ohio.  I know I have only been living in Jersey for 2 weeks, but I just couldn't help myself to jump on an opportunity to see so many of my college girl-friends.   Several of my college girl-friends (Rachel, Shannon, LisaW, Ashley, Cathy and LisaB) had planned to go to our friend Rachel's lake house in Northern Indiana.  So I flew into Columbus and caught a ride with our friend Cathy to the lake house.  We had a great time relaxing on the lake, reminiscing about old times and we celebrated our friend Lisa's 30th Birthday.  Here are some pictures.

A move to Jersey, then a week away from home

(Posted by Charlie)

Charlie was teaching a training in Atlanta all week - Sunday night through Saturday night, so this was a week apart - unfortunately, so soon after our move to Jersey :(

If you're keeping score at home, I have had quite a bit of travel this year. Not even counting our move to New Jersey, I've spent two and a half weeks in Dallas, one week in Atlanta, and have a two day stay in Boston coming up. Naturally, I've taken advantage of this travel and been to a Rangers game, a Mets game (to new Citi Field), and a Braves game. Naturally, the Red Sox have a home game Tuesday night - and I plan to attend my fourth different park of the year.

Katie made the best of the week and booked some travel of her own - she joined in on a trip with many college friends to a lake house in Indiana. Pictures of her trip to follow tomorrow when she gets back... 

This also meant it was the first time we ever boarded our dog Griffey, but he seemed to have a good time in the long weekend at Day Care camp - at Best Friends Pet Care right across the New York border http://www.bestfriendspetcare.com/ctr_chestnutridge.cfm. According to Griffey's report card, he had a friendly wrestling match with Earl the Pug and Delilah the Westie. Regardless - I was glad to pick him up on Sunday afternoon.

Like a ride at Cedar Point!!!

I enjoyed teaching training (instructing recently promoted senior associates) - I hadn't been to Atlanta before, except for Delta flight layovers. I got to eat the "Best Steak Ever" - a Porterhouse from Morton's across the street from the Marriott Marquis.

This hotel has a 47 story Atrium, and I showed my maturity, age, and wisdom by taking multiple rides up the glass elevator up to the top and looking over the railing - quite a dizzying experience.

As mentioned, I went to the Braves game on Friday night with a couple of KPMG-ers from the Columbus office. Heading there a little early, I got to take in some of the sights at the ballpark - Turner Field. This is an interesting park - it was first used for the 1996 Olympic Games, then turned into the Braves' field. I saw the landing spot for Hank Aaron's record breaking 715 homers - one of the most historic moments in baseball history! There is a parking lot where the old park (where Aaron hit the homer to pass Babe Ruth) used to be, and a marker there. The Braves also had a museum which houses the ball and bat used by "Hammerin' Hank" to hit the historic home run.

 

This makes 19 of 30 parks for me The game was a great time - Atlanta won 3-1, keeping in order with the home-team winning percentage I always seems to see. The fans were really intense and loud - they did the "tomahawk chop" throughout the game, which reminded me of the 1990's when the Braves were really good. Billy Wagner struck out the side in the 9th to record his 400th career save for the Braves. Only 5 pitchers have reached this milestone, and I've seen 2 of them reach it (Mariano Rivera being the other). And both times, I didn't realize it until the end of the game. Anyways, here are some pictures from the game...

Turner Field Entrance

Aaron statue outside the park

  

Leaving the Buckeye State for the Garden State

A few months ago Charlie accepted an assignment with KPMG at their corporate headquarters in Montvale, New Jersey. We were both excited for this opportunity because it meant a new adventure for the both of us. Neither of us have ever lived outside of Ohio, so we braced ourselves as much as possible for life on the East Coast. We put our condo on the market and started to pack up all of our things. The movers came on Wednesday June 9th and loaded our entire condo into a huge semi-truck. Charlie was working in Dallas that week, so I picked him up from the Columbus airport on Friday and we went over to the vacant condo one last time. It was sad leaving our first home but we are excited for our new adventure in Jersey. On Saturday, we put Griffey (the dog) in his travel crate and headed East for the 10 hour drive. We made lots of stops along the way to let Griffey out and walk around but we eventually made it to our hotel in New Jersey late Saturday evening. On Sunday, we went over to the house that we are renting and did some cleaning. The house is located in a cute little town called Ramsey, New Jersey and we found out that they have a farmers market every Sunday in the Summer. So we walked to the farmer's market with Griffey and explored the town. On Monday June 14, the movers arrived with all of our furniture. It took them all day to unload the semi-truck. After a long day, Charlie brought home some New York style pizza and a bottle of wine to celebrate our 2 year Wedding Anniversary and our first dinner in our new home. Luckily our DVD player was easy to find so we plugged that in and watched our Wedding DVD. Overall the move went really well and we are excited to start exploring the Garden State (New Jersey..in case you didn't know) and the Big Apple.