Going to the ballgame!

If you knew me well, you'd ask "What? You went where? To a ballgame??"

Wer mich gut kennt wuerde jetzt fragen "Was?? Wo warst Du? Ballgame??"

Yep, I don't like sports. Not a fan at all of watching any kind of sports. I think the only time I will actively push the remote to select a channel that is playing some kind of sports is during the Olympic Games (Gymnastics can be fun!), or during the Soccer World Cup when I'm cheering on Germany.

Ja, ich mag keinen Sport. Ich mag es ueberhaupt nicht, jegliche Art von Sport im Fernseher zu gucken. Ich glaube die einzigen Mal wo ich bewusst den Sender mit Sportuebertragung auswaehle ist waehrend der Olympischen Spiele (Gymnastik ist doch toll!), oder waerend der WM wenn ich Deutschland anfeuere.

But other than that, I do not watch any sports. Ok, I have to admit I also haven't participated in any sports.

Aber ansosten mag ich einfach keinen Sport gucken. Na ja, ich treibe auch keinen Sport.

When I met hubby I was soooo excited to hear that he - as an American guy - does not like to watch sports either! Yippeeeeeahhhh! I think I hit the jack pot! No football, no baseball, no basketball... yay for me!! Instead, he watches other weird stuff that I don't like to watch, but that's another story.

Als ich meinen Hubby damals kennengelernt habe, war ich soo entzueckt zu hoeren, dass er - als Ami - gar keinen Sport guckt! Ja, ich habe das grosse Los gezogen! Keinen Football, keinen Baseball, keinen Basketball - yay fuer mich!!

Stattdessen guckt er sich anderen komischen Kram an, fuer den ich mich nicht begeistern kann, aber das ist eine andere Geschichte.

So why did I go to a Baseball game?

Warum bin ich also zum Baseball Spiel gegangen?

Because I have a really cool employer... who gave us free tickets, free parking, free food vouchers, and a Baseball cap came with each ticket! I was even allowed to bring my baby (ok, only because others cancelled, but yay!). That's probably one of very few times you'll ever see me with a baseball cap. Not that I hate them. I just don't have many around, and my hair is so thick that unless I put it in a ponytail the cap will rise high, and I think my head is just too big for a cap period. 

Weil ich einen echt coolen Arbeitsgeber habe... der uns Freikarten gegeben hat, Parkplaetze umsonst, Essen umsonst und es gab sogar ein Baseball Cap mit jeder Karte! Ich durfe sogar mein Baby mitbringen (ok, nur weil andere Leute abgesagt haben, aber super!) Das ist warscheinlich das einzige Mal, dass man ein Foto von mir mit Baseball Cap zu Gesicht kriegt. Es ist nicht so, dass ich sie hasse, aber wir haben einfach kaum welche, ich hab so viel Haare dass die Muetze ohne Pferdeschwanz total hoch sitzt und ausserdem ist mein Kopf irgendwie zu gross fuer eine Muetze.

I wasn't the only freak who brought her kid :) my boss brought his son, my peer brought his son, others brought their sons... hmm, noone brought their daughter. Anyway, the parking was great - right across the street from the stadium, we had awesome seats almost at the front, and we had $11 each to spend on all sorts of junk food! I took the day off so I could bring Julian, and he kind of had a good time! He was busier playing with the cool seat that folds up and down, and playing with coworkers around us. By the end of the day, I could have easily given him away to my coworker, he would have gone with her! Not that she'd ever be able to pry him off me.

Ich war allerdings nicht der einzige Freak, die ihr Kind mitgebracht hatte, mein Boss hat seinen Sohn gebracht, und andere Kollegen kamen mit ihren Soehnen...hmm, niemand hat eine Tochter mitgebracht. Auf jeden Fall waren die Parkplaetze super - direkt vor dem Stadion, wir hatten super Plaetze ganz weit vorne, und wir haben je $11 gekriegt, um uns alles moeglich an Junkfood zu kaufen. Ich hab mir den Tag freigenommen damit ich Julian mitbringen konnte, und er hatte schon ein wenig Spass gehabt. Er war eher mit den tollen klappbaren Sitzen beschaeftigt und hat mit Kollegen gespielt. Am Ende des Tages haette ich ihn an meine Kollegin abgeben koennen, er waere sicherlich mitgegangen! Nicht dass sie ihn aus meinen Haenden gekriegt hatte.

Oh, our team won - Tampa Bay Rays. I had no clue what I was watching. I think I kinda annoyed my coworker sitting next to me with my silly questions.

Oh, unser Team hat gewonnen - Tampa Bay Rays. Ich hatte keine Ahnung was da vorlief. Ich habe meine Kollegin neben mir sicherlich mit meinen dummen Fragen genervt.

Hey - there is me with the cap on! Julian wouldn't wear his. He was busy licking his hand. Yes... my son licks his whole hand instead of just his messy doritos fingers.

Hey, hier bin ich mit Baseball Cap! Julian wollte seinen nicht tragen. Er war damit beschaeftigt seine Hand zu lecken. Ja... mein Sohn leckt seine ganze Hand anstatt nur seine schmutzigen Doritos-Finger.

There he is throwing peanuts... my coworker decided to have him throw peanuts at her, so she could catch them with her cap. Revenge is coming when she has her grandchildren.

Und hier schmeisst er gerade Erdnuesse... meine Kollegin hat ihm Erdnuesse in die Hand gedrueckt, damit er sie zu ihr schmeissen konnte, die sie dann mit ihrer Muetze auffing. Rache kommt wenn sie mal Enkel hat.

Me with a "say cheese" kinda grin - even though Julian didn't want to cheese it up.

Ich mit meiner "Say Cheese" Grinse - obwohl Julian einfach nicht Cheese sagen wollte.

I needed proof that I was ACTUALLY at the stadium. BTW, Julian's has been using the word "actually" since last week. I always have to giggle when he does. "Mommy, me want my water please. (pause) Actually, me want my milk now please."

Ich brauchte einen Beweis, dass ich WIRKLICH im Stadion war. Und die story oben laesst sich nicht gut auf deutsch uebersetzen :)



Almost Friday!

Took my supervisors out to lunch at Acropolis today as one of them got a promo starting next week. I love this place! Afterwards we stopped at a cute Yogurt place, one of the sups treated the group, yum!

Dinner for Julian tonight was Pad Woon Sen and Bamee Goong!! He loved it! Followed by caramel ice cream and a hot dog lol I did offer him healthy baby carrots but he didn't take one bite. At least he had broccoli for lunch together with a whole peanut butter jelly sandwich and two bowls of cereal as an afternoon snack. And a whole bottle of Pediasure before bed.

After Julian went to bed I made myself a pizza as we still had dough in the fridge from Publix. Plain with salami and red onions and omg sooo delicious!! I saved half for lunch tomorrow! Must do this more often! Publix had a BOGO deal, but really I just need to practice and make my own pizza dough. Flour, water and yeast... can't be that hard right?

Good bye Cleveland!

After an all day Six Sigma Training class, which was actually really good, I ended up curled up in my hotel room bed again, reading my Kindle, taking a hot bath with my "Lush" bath salts, and ordering Room Service. Our professor was such a breath of fresh air... so young but so smart and accomplished. She looked like in her mid 30's only, has her PhD in Organic Chemistry but is working in Quality Consulting.

After the training class we all drove to Mally's, a local Ohio chocolate store, and the line was crazy as everyone was there buying chocolates and chocolate covered strawberries for their sweethearts. I bought chocolate covered caramels for my hubby, and a little Squirrel holding a heart and some chocolate for my baby :) One of my coworkers bought chocolate covered strawberries for all of us, and two boxes of chocolate covered bacon for her husband!

Dinner consisted of( I didn't take a picture like I usually do) - linguine in pesto, prince edward mussels in white wine broth, chicken cordon bleu soup and a side salad. Yes, I was completely stuffed afterwards.

Breakfast was quick and topped by a chocolate covered strawberry from my sweet coworker, then we headed to the airport. I actually managed to download another movie on iTunes last night, even though I was seriously doubting that I woudl be successful after I checked a few times and it told me I had 1600 hours left until the download was complete!! I just left the iPad to download overnight hoping the connection speed would improve at one point. I was lucky! So I was able to watch "Definitely, Maybe" on the flight home... what a cute movie!!!! So adorable, a romantic movie right up my alley!

So this is me leaving the hotel in the morning - you can't see but it was snowing!

And this is what greeted me in sunny Florida... 78 F!!

Once at home I took off with my hubby to look at new homes again. Really just the ones I looked at Friday since we wanted to be able to look at them together, so much easier to determine what we like and what we don't like. The good news: we like and dislike the same things! No bad news :)

Then we picked up Julian together... what a treat for him! We wanted to stop by Carraba's to see if they would have any openings for dinner, but at just a few minutes after 5pm they already had a line out the door, so we just stopped by Village Inn and had our Valentine's Day family dinner there :) As long as we are all together, we don't care where we eat!

Oh, this is what waited for me at home today :)

Including two cards from hubby and baby... my hubby knows how much I love cards!

 Happy Valentine's Day everyone... how did you celebrate?

Hello Cleveland!

After such a relaxing and fun Saturday with my baby I had to leave him early today to travel to Cleveland... on a Sunday! Uuugh, I hate having to give up my weekend for travel! But at least Julian is just home with Daddy, so he's in good hands. It was still hard to leave him.

It was surprisingly cold this morning in Tampa... 39 F! I was glad I wore a long sleeve sweater, long pants and my boots since it was supposed to only be 25 F in Cleveland with some snow today.

First I stopped at Panera to get a nice toasted whole wheat bagel with cream cheese and a hot Chai tea Latte. I got to the airport way too early, but that was okay, I'd rather be early and sit down and read or shop than be late and worry about not making it. I got myself ready last night, downloaded a movie on iTunes to watch on the flight, and downloaded a bunch of magazines, both German and US magazines, and a few new books on the Kindle. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever get to read all of my books on the Kindle??? There are just too many cheap and free books!! And I keep downloading them! I have close to 300 books on the Kindle now, many of them free or costing less then $2.99.

The direct flight was without any turbolence, I only napped during takeoff and landing and avoided talking to the annoying guy next to me, who tried to talk to me even as I started watching my movie on my iPad and already had my earphones in... and he saw that I had to take them out to hear him! The movie was "Double" with Richard Gere and Topher Grace... pretty good! And I was able to finish it on the flight!

I was excited to use my new suitcase with 4 wheels :D so now I was able to just roll it upright instead of having to drag it behind me on two wheels. Very cool and convenient! And I managed not to have to check my bag, which was hard since I only took miniature version of everything... lotion, facial cleaner, etc. I was brave enough to trust that the Hilton Garden Inn would have reasonable Shampoo and Conditioner for me!

Apparently it had been snowing since Friday so when we got there, everything was white... beautiful! And it was pretty cold at 25 F!! I got into the rental car with my two coworkers who flew up with me... and yes, I had to throw a snowball at one of them, hehehe.

Usually I love going out to dinner with my friends and coworkers when I travel for my job. Time to explore something new, new hip restaurants, trendy new food, a little gem of the city, then have a cocktail or two, a glass of wine after dinner, enjoy the company and have a great, great time. But this time I just wanted to be a hermit in the hotel room. I also wasn't quite as close to these coworkers than some others who I actually am friends with outside of work, so it made it easier to stay in.

I changed into my pyjamas (we got to the hotel just a little after 4pm), had a great Skype date with one of my best girlfriends in Germany who told me everything about her new love interest, then watched TV (the Grammy's were on tonight, and since Whitney Houston just died last night it was full of tributes to her... gosh when was the last time I watched the Grammy's??), in between surfed the Internet and Facebook on my iPad and ordered room service. The company spoils us anyway with our dinner allowance, so I enjoyed a juicy steak with a soup and salad and an ice cold diet coke lol. No alcohol for me tonight!



Work can be so much fun!

We celebrated one of my supervisor's birthdays at work today. She actually grew up in Vienna, speaks German, but has been living in the US for many many years (came here as a teenager). Surprisingly, we do not speak German with each other at all! I guess it's too weird if you are used to speaking a certain language with someone and much harder to switch than you imagine.

For example, my sister and I grew up speaking German with each other... to this day we communicate in German, and it's really awkward for us to have to speak Thai with each other even though we both speak Thai fluently and use it without any concern when we speak with our parents and the rest of our Thai family and friends.

My sup's team of course know about her German background, and decorated her desk with pictures of David Hasselhoff LOL of course I had to play along with that one!

When I called all of my supervisors into my office for a "meeting", the birthday girl was the last one to walk in to a room full of us, a birthday cake, a balloon and "I've been looking for freedom" blasting from the radio, hehe.

Yes, all of you in Germany... and I know all of my friends know this song!!!

So here's to cultural diversity :)

And to David Hasselhoff! (No, I wasn't a fan!!)

Happy anniversary!

To me!

Today marks my 11 year anniversary at my company, wow! Hard to believe... time just flies. Seems like just a few years ago I graduated from college, or got my MBA. When I think of the actual year and count back how many it has been been I am always a little shocked... ok, I admit hugely shocked at how old I am!!!! I graduated from college in 1997... and got my MBA in 1999. Uuuugggggh, that's 13 years ago??

But you're as young as you feel! That's right!

Hehehehe... taken at my MBA graduation in 1999!!

(Actually I walked in December 1998, I only had 1 more class to finish
in the spring of 1999 but that's when I "officially"graduated with
all credits)

Fun times!