Elvises, Jogging and Rain!

We woke up to rain this morning. That was nice. I was just happy to wake up in my own bed and know that I have no more travel planned until January! Whoohooo!

Texas -- Dallas to be exact -- was actually a fun couple of days. We stayed in an awesome hotel, like the fanciest hotel I've ever been in. Each night while I was out "bonding" with my new colleagues, the nice staff at the Joule Hotel put white slippers by my bed on a white towel, and a caramel chocolate on my pillow, and the remote control on a tray by my pillow, and a bottle of water by my bed, and they pulled the sheets back so it was easy to get into bed. Oh, it was nice. I really enjoyed that. A lot.

My coworkers from Des Moines are a fun bunch -- four of us were on this trip. We met up with colleagues from Dallas, Denver and New York offices. It was a leadership training thing. A lot of BIG egos in that room.... But it was fun to meet them.

We stayed in downtown Dallas and that was pretty cool. I've never been there before. Ate at some great restaurants and on our final day (Friday) we had time to wander around a bit and guess what was happening right outside our hotel door?!?! The Texas State Fair Parade! It was super fun. We had actually walked down several blocks to see "The Grassy Knoll." Kind of morbid of me, but I totally wanted to see it. There was a nice JFK monument there. And the Texas school bands, cheerleaders, motorcycle-driving Elvises and all sorts of fun things were lined up for the parade. Super festive and fun!

Landed in DSM at 4:55 p.m. Friday, ran to the boys school and picked up my two favorite sons, ran to daycare and picked up my favorite little redhead who was as excited to see me as I was to see her, and then we drove to the house, picked up Shawn and headed north to Nevada for a birthday party.

And today we all slept in, woke up for a leisurely breakfast, cleaned up the house, watched TV and then went for a walk this afternoon.

And here's the amazing part. We jogged on our walk!! Seriously, I jogged! It was only three times for a very short amount of time but still, it counts! All this travel and business meals has been murder on my diet... But I still managed to workout on Wednesday in Texas, not Thursday, but then again on Friday so hooray for me!