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By Amber, on May 20, 2012, at 10:22 pm 
Hello again! Seminar month is finally over and I’ve just about recovered.
My last seminar was in San Antonio. It ended on a Thursday, so Mark came out to join me and we spent the weekend in a killer suite at the Valencia. This was the view of the River Walk from of one of the windows in our turret:
Highlights included dining next to the river at Boudro’s, the mushroom appetizer at Biga on the Banks, and passing Betsey Johnson on the River Walk. The only real low was the power going out shortly after midnight on our last night and still not being restored before we left! The water from the tap doesn’t get all that cold in Texas once the weather warms up, but it sure feels cold in the shower! The hotel was very generous in their compensation, though. I’m just glad we had all those windows and didn’t have to get up before the sun.
A few more San Antonio pictures:
Mark was taking my picture in the garden behind the Alamo and this bird took issue, puffing up and squawking furiously:
Next photo catch-up: Mother’s Day!
By Amber, on April 29, 2012, at 10:00 pm My sister asked me if I were ever going to blog again. I’ve just been so busy attending and coordinating seminars hither and yon that every Sunday I’m either packing for the next one or recovering from the previous. I haven’t been to Toastmasters in several weeks and I’m going to miss another this week.
The seminar that I held was in Chicago. I never get seem to closer than Cicero when I go to Chicago, so since I was in charge, I booked the event downtown. Mark was able to join me after it was over and we walked all over the place, including two unsuccessful attempts at the Sears Tower (I called it the ‘Willis Tower’ when speaking to my Chicago-native officemate, and he pointedly said, “The what?” Now I really don’t know what to call it!).
I was surprised by how much I liked Chicago despite having to drag my cool-weather clothes back out of the closet and the fact that it’s impossible to have nice hair in the relentless wind. It’s clean and pretty, with flowers everywhere. If it weren’t for the whole winter thing, I think I could live there. I’ll definitely visit for leisure again.
Photo time!
I took that photo from the Navy Pier. The slogan for the Navy Pier is “Go a little overboard.” It should be “Great if you’re under eight.” Great views, but not much for adults except the beer garden and the boat tours.
More after… Continue reading Seminar Season
By Amber, on February 19, 2012, at 10:00 pm 
Since we both had to work on Valentine’s Day this year, we decided our gift to ourselves would be a fancy weekend in a hotel right here in downtown Houston! It turned to be a perfect weekend to stay in one place, with incredible thunderstorms passing through on Friday and Saturday.
We checked into the Four Seasons on Friday evening and headed downstairs to dinner at Quattro. Truffled fries, veal cheek bolognese, lava cake, oh my! I was glad we didn’t have to drive home because I was so full from the amazing food.
Saturday we started with an amazing room service breakfast and spent the rest of the day in the spa, enjoying massages and having the fourth-floor outdoor whirlpool to ourselves. We finished the day with another room service meal. You can get 24-hr room service at the Four Seasons (required to earn a five-diamond rating from AAA), which is awesome — not that I can stay awake late enough to need it after a spa day. What is it about relaxing all day that makes me so tired?
I was probably most excited for brunch today, which was even better than I’d imagined. There was a breakfast station (eggs, bacon, french toast, etc), a dessert station and a savory area (it requires you to walk into the kitchen, which is interesting) that appeared to have some of everything offered throughout the hotel: seafood, Italian, sushi, meats, cheese & charcuterie. I usually like to keep to traditional breakfast foods before noon, but I had to try some grilled chicken, pasta and bacon-wrapped quail.
I would pretty much like to live at the Four Seasons now, please. The room was elegant, quiet and comfortable, and the service throughout the hotel was befitting of royalty. I wish the spa had a little more going on as far as relaxation areas, but that’s all I would change.
It was finally sunny and pleasant today, so after we brunched and checked, we wandered over to Discovery Green to walk around and sit in a butterfly garden. If the weather were always like this, I would never want to live anywhere else! Finally we made our way back to the hotel to get our car, but not until we wandered through the new downtown Phoenicia Foods and picked up a little something to take home.
It was an indulgent weekend, but we won’t be able to do this kind of thing when Mark is in school, so we’re enjoying the flexibility now. Hopefully we can squeeze in one more weekend like this before then!
By Amber, on January 8, 2012, at 9:28 pm I really didn’t mean to extend my blogcation through the first week of the year, but as it goes with one’s workout routine, the more time you take off, the harder it is to get back to it. I have the sore muscles to prove it.
We spent the last week of 2011 in the Seattle area, where Mark grew up. We stayed with his parents for most of the week, but we did spend one night out at the Salish Lodge, which is a place we visited the first time we met in person. This time we booked a fireside couple’s massage, a rosemary-mint scrub, and had a romantic dinner by the dining room’s original 1916 fireplace. Dinner was amazing — we ordered the chateaubriand and the kitchen decided it was too small after they’d already begun cooking it, so they sent us a plate of Washington cheeses and started a new one. It’s amazing that we were able to waddle back to our room after that meal. Of course, it didn’t stop us from enjoying an equally amazing breakfast in the dining room the next day.
A view of the fireplace in our room, from the cozy bed:
Note that housekeeping left while turning down our room for the evening:
Preparing to leave the next day:
Salish Lodge is a pretty amazing place, and worth a visit if you get a chance. If you book a spa and meal package like we did, the value is excellent.
On the way back to Mark’s parents’ house, we stopped in Seattle so I could see Pike Place Market. I saw it on my first visit to Seattle, but that was years ago and this time I came prepared with a camera!
Come inside for more after the jump!
Continue reading Hello 2012!
By Amber, on November 27, 2011, at 8:48 pm I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! Mark and I drove out to Hill Country to visit my parents and my sister. Most of us don’t especially care about the whole turkey thing, so we had another seafood boil. (Dear Williamson County: we know there is still a burn ban, so we did not use fire.)
(Maybe we used a little.)
Observe the festive tablecloth.
I usually stay behind the lens when we all get together, but I made an effort to get into a few photos this time!
Okay, that’s enough nice pictures. Want to see what it takes to get them? Continue reading A Texan Thanksgiving
By Amber, on November 20, 2011, at 8:00 pm Last year in Santa Fe, I saw some beautiful paper flowers but didn’t know how I would get them home. I’ve kept an eye out for them everywhere since then, but to no avail. This year I decided they were coming home with me even if I had to hold them on the airplane! Fortunately it didn’t come to that, as we went to pay and discovered that the vendor ships for a very reasonable fee. They arrived last week and yesterday I finally arranged them. I wish we had bought twice as many, but we’ll just have to buy some more next time we visit.
Birds of paradise are one of my favorite flowers. For about the same price as real ones, these will last much longer!
 I have been envisioning these white callas in that vase ever since we bought it! Perfect. That framed picture, by the way, is a card that we bought during our first trip to Santa Fe. I think it was the very first thing we bought.
As an aside, you may have noticed that I have slipped to two posts a week. I am trying to correct that but the prognosis for the rest of the year is poor. Also, my 365 project is so hopelessly messed up that I am just waiting anxiously for the darn year to end. I keep missing days, and then I procrastinate posting what I have, which only wreaks havoc on filing them correctly. So there’s that. The 52 Project it is for 2012!
By Amber, on November 13, 2011, at 10:00 pm I missed my post on Thursday because I was on my way home from my latest boondoggle. I was visiting some customers in Massachusetts and Maine to see what they need from one of my projects. I had a good time, but spending 14 straight hours a day with other people is very tiring for an introvert like me. I think I’m caught up on alone-time now, so I can show you where I went!
Boston was the first stop. I held my camera out the window and shot perpendicularly so I could show you Marriott’s definition of waterfront:
I would have shown you the actual view from my window, but all I could see of the tiny marina past the trees and parking lot was a few masts. My crazy coworkers then walked me what seemed like miles all over Boston’s brick sidewalks in stilettos (the best part was walking on my toes over the open grating on the Charlestown Bridge), but I have to admit that dinner at Bacco was so good it was worth the pain. The view of Boston’s tiny streets and sidewalks from upstairs is super charming! Try the gnocchi.
The next morning we brought a trunkload of pastries to a customer in Boston, provided some technical training, and moved on.
There were old trucks:
Recent snow:
Giant turbines:
Tiny pastries:
We also met a rather stoic moose at a rest stop in Maine. My coworker posed with one of our stations behind him:
Speaking of moose, when we got to our customer in Maine, we heard a little story about one of the managers going moose-hunting with a poorly adjusted scope and doing this to his pickup:
I did a little quick photoshopping so my coworker could award him ‘sportsman of the year’ that night at the fleet seminar:
Don’t worry, the honoree got a little prize for the cost of his pride!
I really liked the view of the Penobscot River from our hotel in Bangor:
And on our way back to Boston, of course we visited the moose again. I told him about the truck and I’m pretty sure he smiled.
All in all, a successful boondoggle. I got lots of good information from the customers and now I can really start my most exciting project in earnest. I think it could have me traveling a lot in 2012!
By Amber, on November 8, 2011, at 10:00 pm On our last full day in Santa Fe, we went up to the Marble Brewery Tap Room to enjoy a beverage (beer for Mark, chai for me) and enjoy the rooftop view of the Plaza.
We were treated to some entertainment while we sat up there. There were the men on horseback:
There was the impromptu Gotti brother dance-off (they later moved to the little covered stage on the other side of the Plaza):
And then there was a very special custom Thunderbird that circled the block a few times to display what its hydraulics could do:
Wait, we need a close up of that:
I think the metal plate behind the backseat says ‘Dave’s Fantasy.’ I’d say Dave is fairly imaginative.
By Amber, on November 6, 2011, at 5:30 pm Santa Fe is not a big town, so you can only walk the Plaza and the adjoining streets for long before you start to feel like you’ve seen everything five times. This year we decided to spend an afternoon soaking up a little extra culture at one of Santa Fe’s art museums.
The New Mexico Museum of Art has a small but vibrant collection of pieces by New Mexico artists, making it a great way to use a couple spare hours. Allow me to share some of my favorites!
 'Indios' by Ray Martín Abeyta  'The Awakening' by Agnes Pelton  'Dark and Lavender Leaf' by Georgia O'Keeffe  'Winter Mountain Cycle No. 4' by Howard Cook  'Deluxe Samba Pulling Bambi' by Carol Sarkisian Continue reading New Mexico Museum of Art
By Amber, on November 3, 2011, at 10:23 pm Last year we rented a casita in a residential neighborhood, and this year we stayed in a hotel in the middle of everything (the hotel was very nice and cozy, btw, but bring earplugs in case you face the alley, because the garbage truck comes on Monday at 4 A.M. And just FYI, some of the rooms at La Fonda face that same alley).
Our room had a large shared balcony with spectacular sunset views and I took full advantage of it! I know that someone else’s sunset photos all look alike, so I will limit myself to just a few of my favorites.
I turned up the saturation just a hair in the first and second photos, but the others are straight out of the camera.
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