Texas

We've been in Dallas, Texas since Wednesday evening for a weekend of wedding festivities and two days of work squeezed in for me. Colin is a good friend of Brian's from Urbandale and he met his beautiful bride Sangita in College at Notre Dame. Brian was pretty much in heaven spending 3 days with his high school buddies - it's really cool that this group has stayed so close despite going to different colleges and living all over the country. I really like his friends - they've been so welcoming to me over the years. They're a very entertaining group to be around, especially after a few cocktails.

We stayed at the Hotel Adolphus downtown Dallas - beautiful historic hotel in a prime location. Thursday was nice and relaxing - we spent the evening at the bride's parents gorgeous house in Arlington and then the boys stayed out exploring Dallas establishments. When he got home at 2am all he wanted to do was rub my tummy and talk to the baby - he's lucky it was so damn cute that I couldn't get mad even though I had to get up early and head to work on Friday.

The boys headed out for a man day Friday and spent the afternoon at SpeedZone racing on souped up go-karts and drag racing. I headed out to Irving for a work meeting with the manager of the Texas Region - she is my absolute favorite to work with - just a lovely lady. I made it back downtown to head over to the rehearsal dinner at the Nasher Scuplture Center - such a stunning place for an event, and it's where Colin proposed. It was a touching evening full of toasts and the food was amazing.

Saturday was another early morning for me as I headed back out to Irving for a work event. Rushed back downtown for the wedding which was beautiful - a very cool mix of a Cathlolic Ceremony and Indian traditions. The reception was at a historic mansion and was exquisite. The drinks were flowing and the dance floor was packed. I'm not a big dancer normally, but it was about the last thing I felt like doing sober and pregnant. Luckily I was more than entertained by watching everyone else bust a move as the drinks took affect - Brian pulled out some interesting moves I've never seen before ;) When we got back to the hotel Brian insisted on walking to the hotdog stand that he had stopped by each night after bar close for a late night snack - he was one happy camper.

We had to be on the road at 5:30am this morning to make our flight. We did get to drive by where Kennedy was shot and the Cowboys old stadium right before they blew it up so even got some history in on this trip. Luckily we got upgraded to a direct flight so we got home at 10:30am instead of having a long layover in Atlanta and landing at 3:30pm.

It was a great vacation for Brian - glad he got a crazy weekend with his best friends in before baby arrives. It was nice that I was able to get 2 days of work in so I can save my PTO for baby, but it didn't feel like a vacay for me - pretty stressful running back and forth. I didn't get much sleep and was on my feet way too much so it caught up to me today - I'm achy all over, have puffy feet and hands and hope these charlie horse type cramps in my calves go away soon - major ouch. I took a glorious 4 hour nap which helped a lot - wish I could do that every day!