Work Travel

Near the end of July, I attended and presented my work at conference in Atlanta. It was hosted at Marriot in downtown. It was super luxe. I don't think that I have ever stayed somewhere so nice. It was somewhat uncomfortable to me.

View of downtown Atlanta from my window.

I'll forebear from telling you all about the fascinating ideas and work that were shared, but I will tell you about my presentation experience. I presented on Tuesday. By mid-morning, I was already starting to get the gitters. So, I spent the lunch hour in my room practicing my presentation until I felt comfortable with it. Public speaking is so unnatural for me. So unnatural that my body starts to revolts. I realized that before I speak publicly, I get the twitches. My eyebrows started going up and down uncontrollably along with my ears. It took a good amount of control to keep my body from shaking as I stood and began my speech. It is a miracle to me though that everytime I speak after the first couple of sentences my body relaxes and I can settle into my speech. 

Wednesday morning, I left for the airport, even though the conference went on for 2 more days, so that I could see Joslyn run in her marathon. However, the following week, I start getting these e-mails from my adviser and my funding source congratulating me on winner the paper competition at the conference. I missed the award ceremony since I left early and had heard nothing about it.  So, I was skeptical. A couple days later, someone from contest contacts me and tells me that I won 1st place in the student paper competition! I was really so surprised. There were so many good presentations and I feel fortunate that the judges were inclined to like my presentation despite my twitches and gitters. 

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The first week of August, I spent in Cleveland at an electrochemistry workshop. I got to meet a lot of new people working in different industries. Probably the best that I got from the workshop was a better understanding of where people with different backgrounds are coming from.

I tried to get out and see as much of Cleveland as I could in the evening. The college campus that I stayed was stunning. It was such an interesting blend of historic and modern buildings. I loved the contrast.

This was the hotel that I stayed. It was renovated  from a 1910 mansion.

Right across the street from the hotel was a beautiful, botanical garden 

Modern & historic in one shot

One evening, I went downtown with some people from INL to check out the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame.

According to my high school friends, I looked exactly like this photo of John Lennon in high school

The King! Did you know that her served in the army?

Janis Joplin's car

I loved seeing all the handwritten lyrics. Here's Tom Petty's "Stop Dragging My Heart Around" Can you recognize some of the words?

ZZ Top's display was definitely the most eye-catching.

Michael Jackson's glove!

Right before the coolest display of the whole museum (Beatles/Rolling Stones), my camera died. Bummer.

Here are some photos that ripped from my INL buddies:

They had a wall of signatures of all Hall-of-Fame inductees. Eric Clapton was up there like 5 times with different groups because he is amazing.

Afterwards, we walked around downtown Cleveland. There were some cool building and interesting people

Summertime

It's been a great summer! Here are a few pics from our fun times.

Devin made a little lake in the back yard for the girls on day

Sprinkler under the tramp with friends

Myla was crawling all over the library during story time, trying to take all items that were left unattended.

This is frequently my view

"Mom, I me a rhinoceros."

Her hair is something else when she wakes up. Look at how hard that sticks out!! It is a nightmare to brush through, but it makes me so happy every morning when she first wakes up. Veena also went through this phase of eating breakfast in Myla's high chair.

Hanging out with her cousin Noelle

Eating and wearing cherries. Yum!

Stroller Queen!

Veena Monkeying around. The costume box never gets old.

We visited Marmar Beck and Papa Greg's studio and toured their apartment. It's coming along nicely. Cambry was mostly excited to climb on the furniture boxes.

Myla loves stretching up to plink on the piano. 

Taking a break from the hardships of childhood to relax in the pool. 

Cousins Gweny and Hagen- just 4 months older than Myla

Myla will grab whatever she can reach. Fortunately, she can't quite reach the TV yet.

I told Veena to get in the car one morning, and she said. "Just a second. I me fishing." 

One afternoon we had lots of Airhart cousins over, and Veena brought a book out for me to read. Hadley volunteered to read it to her, and Veena loved it.

Water table fun with as many cousins as can fit!

Veena finally got a new bike, after I ran over her little tricycle in the spring. I was waiting for it to be a potty training reward, but that doesn't seem to be happening any time soon...

Jame and Michelle had us over for dinner. We ate on the driveway. Myla was pretty intent on showing how big she is, the darling girl. We looked about like this when the Bing truck drove by taking street view pics of our neighborhood. Hopefully in a few months we'll be on the internet in a chain mail showing white trash street view houses. haha.

I drove the girls to deliver some stuff to our friends around the corner. I looked over at Cambry in the front seat to see this. haha! 

Oh the tape!!! I keep hiding my masking tape, but Vienna keeps finding it and taping up random things. see that leaf taped to her seat?! She taped my pillow to my bed one day. She taped her toothbrush to the toothpaste one time. She tried to tape Myla's hand so Myla would stop grabbing V's book. It's so funny to see how her brain works.

Cambry is always asking me throughout the day, "Can I tape this? Can I cut this? Should we glue it?" It's almost like in her mind, most of the world's problems can be fixed with these three solutions.

Here she is getting her craft on with the tape.

Grandma Ber came for dinner recently. We had a great time with her. She brought the most delicious chocolate mousse for dessert. Cambry approved. She brought a fun book to read to the girls. Before it was even over, Veena went downstairs to the bookshelf and brought a big stack up for her to read. haha. Grandma was a good sport and read them a couple more books. We love having her in our home.

I was folding laundry and looked over to see Cambry in a nest inside a basket, and both of them making these goofy faces.

One Saturday night we road our bikes over to Iceberg. The shakes are so enormous, one mini shake was enough for the entire family! It was great family fun.