A Quick Work Story

I don't usually write about work on here, but I couldn't help but write a quick blog to say we won Pepsi. The advertising agency I work for is sometimes more demanding than others, but for the past 5 months we have been going nonstop so this pitch came at the end of a tired time. Blood (papercuts mainly), sweat (lots of it) and tears (luckily only a few), went into the pitch, not to mention lots of late nights. I went with the pitch team for the final presentation and it's the first trip I've been on as the only representative from New Business. I got to travel with the people in the company that I admire the most. It was incredible. Absolutely everything went wrong, but what I was so, so happy about was everything was fixed by the time the clients showed up, the meeting went flawlessly and we WON. Such a great feeling.Rob Schwartz, Carisa Bianchi, Lee Clow, me, Joe Shands

October Fun

Brian actually agreed to do the Mud Run with me this year! The Mud Run is a 6 mile race on a marine base where you run, crawl and swim through mud. It’s my 3rd mud run but it was by far the most fun. Ashley Burnett came down from San Fran to run it with us and we also had Katie Rockwood and Jeff Dickson on our team. I’m pretty sure we came in close to dead last.Other October fun… We went to a Neil Diamond concert, which was way more fun than I thought it’d be. Who knew??? Thank you Kim & Byron for opening my eyes to the wonder that is Neil. And I gotta say – he was moving and shaking it an impressive amount for being 67.

Speaking of looking good for their age… we went to a pumpkin patch out in the middle of nowhere with Laura & Andrew Skanchy and saw Cindy Crawford with her husband and 2 kids and DANG she looked good. I’d love to say it was just the guys that couldn’t take their eyes off her but Laura and I definitely got an eyeful as well (in between bites of kettle corn). AND word to the wise – the corn maze at Moorpark… NOT EASY. I know what you’re thinking… it’s for kids – how hard can it be??? HARD. We split up from the Skanchy’s to race to the finish and after about a half an hour we gave up and went out through the entrance. Pathetic, I know. Even Cindy & the kids made it.

BRIAN BECOMES OLDER & WISER. Or maybe just older… Brian hit the big 3-0 and I think it’s fantastic. We took the excuse to go hit up Palm Springs for the weekend with some friends. (Looks like his long stay in NYC did have its advantages… thank you Hyatt Hotel Points!) We played 4+ hours of golf, and by we, I mean they – I just drove the cart which actually ended up being more fun, Brian only fell out of the cart once, Laura was a champion for only have golfed twice and Andrew stole everyone’s money. We also went hot tubbing, pooling, lounging and played some tennis… as Tom Hung put it, we were one bingo game away from being 60 year olds. We had a GREAT time.Tom's gift to Brian... a canvas painting of himself. The only people who will be surprised by this, are the people who have never met Tom. HALLOWEEN
This year we had a seriously Halloween dilemma. What do you do for Halloween when you’re married and don’t have kids???? The annual Petersen’s Halloween house party had been cancelled which had been our easy out. That left us with the singles ward party. Call it pride but we refused to let that be our only option. So we got together with the Skanchys and decided to go to West Hollywood for what could possibly be the biggest Halloween Party in the nation. They block off 1.5 miles of the main street and cram Halloweeners (no pun intended) onto what becomes a massive parade of costumes. We went as Juno & Paulie Bleeker. You can imagine my mother’s excitement that I went as a pregnant teenager. She had serious doubts that anyone had any idea who I was supposed to be, but I have to say we had serious celebrity status as we walked up and down Santa Monica Blvd. I have to say, my mother was won over as well once we got this photo to her. Who wouldn't love those short, especially golden shorts?? Derek, Krista, Andrew, Laura, Ali, Brian
Papa Smurf & Smurfette, "the depression," Juno & Paulie Bleeker

I'm a Babcock!!!

I'm a Babcock!!! How awesome. And I have to say, alphabetically, (among other things I’m sure) Babcocks have their advantages. BAB is a much better location than SWE.

Other great things that have happened to me/us since I became a Babcock…

JUNE = HONEYMOON in Kauai, Hawaii and I swear Kauai is Hawaiian for relaxation. We spent time on all 4 coasts, saw the Napali Coast via catamaran, went snorkeling, hiking, kayaking, “beaching” & “pooling” and ate our weight in Tiger’s Blood shaved ice.

As you can see, it was more relaxing for some than others.

JULY = HOUSE. You get back from the honeymoon and you’re so relaxed and so glad all that wedding work is done. And then you realize you have all the post wedding stuff to deal with. Getting me fully moved in, setting up the new place, dealing with registries, and writing thank yous. So for better or worse – we spent most of July on our house. (We call it a house but don’t be confused – we definitely live in an apartment.) Not sure if you can even tell what it looks like from these photos but we’re happy with it.

AUGUST = FAMILY. Oh I love family. We were lucky enough to get to the spend time with some of both of our families. We started off the month with a much anticipated trip to San Antonio to surprise Brian’s nieces and nephew. Do kids get any cuter than this??? If you said yes, you're a liar and you know it. We had so much fun with the whole family.
After we got back, Eric and Kate (my little brother and sister) came out from BYU to visit for a couple days. LUCKY FOR THEM, they came out on the day of my work summer party so we played arcade games on the Santa Monica Pier, rode the rides and won some prizes. Some of us were winners and some of us were losers. In case you're confused, Kate was NOT the winner. And I'm pretty sure she stole that dinky stuffed animal for the picture so she wouldn't have to stand there with nothing in hand. She also managed to get sticky cotton candy all over Eric's stuffed dog... jealous much???

SEPTEMBER = NEW YORK. Probably one of the most unfun things that’s happened since we got married is Brian left for a whole month for a work assignment in NYC. Somehow, he doesn't seem too sad in that picture. Don't be fooled, he missed me like crazy. While he was gone, my work got insanely busy and I was working until the wee hours of the morning most nights which is pretty much the definition of not fun. Not that it was all bad… I did meet Brian in Utah one weekend while he was doing a recruiting trip and we got to go to a BYU game. The weekend after that, I met him in NYC for some serious sightseeing, and we got to visit Dave & Anika Carlson & their new baby Charlie, which was Awesome with a capital A. We miss them!!! Here I am at Mary Poppins - doing the dew to avoid doing the drool after my red eye. Brian and Dave!! Together again. So cute. And a kiss for baby Charlie. The cute & mysterious blonde is Anika.

OCTOBER = too much fun. So much fun in fact that it'll have to wait for another post... Coming soon.