I haven't forgotten about you

Pictures from Friday night football in Weatherford will be coming soon, maybe tomorrow.. I want to edit and go through them first.

I haven't posted much this week (well at all) because I've just flat out been busy! Things at work have been crazy! I finally finished playing catch up from being gone for the convention a few weeks ago and I've been in meeting after meeting after meeting. I can't complain though because time flies when you're busy! ...and I definitely want time to fly this week because Brandon and I are headed to California on Friday to visit my sister and her husband! We are so excited, and even though Brandon is still in disbelief that he is actually going to California (even more, LA), I know he's going to have a BLAST!

In other news, even though I've been busy, I've somehow found spare time to help another friend out with a blog design! This one was for Jessica. Funny story about her and her new husband, Andy.. I have known Andy for a while now because he is a job superintendent for a general contractor here and was the superintendent on a few of our jobs. I had worked with him on a nearly daily basis, so I felt like I knew him pretty well. I had met Jessica's (at the time) fiance before, but never once put it together that he was the same Andy from work. The weekend we got back from our honeymoon, we were out shopping for furniture when we ran into Jessica and Andy. We were sitting on some of the couches in the store just visiting when it clicked. I stopped and said, "Wait... you're Andy.. like Jeff Luther Construction Andy.. Bonham Elementary?" which he responded with, "yes.. but I don't really like to associate myself with that job when I don't have to.." (it had been a long, stressful, job with vandalism and a lot of unknowns). From then on, working at Bonham was so much easier because I felt like he was my friend!

Jessica is such a sweet girl and grew up in Abilene. She and Brandon have known each other for a long time and were even Young Life leaders together! I was so excited when she contacted me to design her blog! I hope you love it Jessica! (click on the picture for a link to her blog!)

Check out my newest Design

So, I've been making blog designs/custom headers in my spare time, just for fun. This one is my newest one and probably my most extensive one! I made everything from the background to the sidebars and the header! It's fun for me to be creative in other ways while at the same time, helping people achieve what they want with their blogs, but don't know how to do it! Maybe one day I'll do this on the side (and charge a little for it).. you know when I have kids screaming in the background, but for now, I just love doing it and making people happy (for free)!

Katie and her husband Jason have been married for 2 years and last March their lives changed when they welcomed beautiful twin girls, Ansley Grace and Kinley Kate. It was so much fun working with Katie to get what she wanted and even more fun seeing all of the pictures of the babies! Maybe one day, when I'm completely over this cold, I can meet those precious little girls (cause they still live in Abilene)! Katie thanks so much for contacting me about your site!

If you click on the picture, it will take you to Katie's site so you can see all of the things I did!

TASB/TASA Convention

Like I said in the last post, I was in Houston last week for the TASB/TASA Convention. Every year my company has a booth at the convention since we specialize in school Architecture and Interior Design. I am the first full time Interior Designer for the company, so the partners wanted me to go along with them this year seeing as I meet with the clients on a very regular basis. It was funny to me that while I was in Houston, I read my sister's blog and she had just been to a convention and posted pictures of their booth. Christy, I promise I'm not trying to make our booth look more intense.. you should have seen our competition..

A few of the LARGE architectural firms from the area were there, and let's just say the cost of their booth could buy about 3 brand new cars. They were huge, came with a "road crew" and were packed into frieght boxes and loaded into an 18-wheeler after the show.

If I would have been feeling better, I may have taken more pictures, but this is what you get!

This was the first morning before the show began, I'm on the left drinking hot chocolate to soothe my throat. Richard (one of the partners) is sipping his coffee in the middle, and the man to the right is Tim Yaggi. Tim is an Electrical Engineer and is one of our consultants. He owns Yaggi Engineering out of Dallas, and he's my new BFF.

The shoulder to the left belongs to Steve (the other partner) and the guy in the middle is David Perry. David is one of our most recent clients, he came by to say hi. To the right is Richard.

Here is a view from the side. Tim is writing something down on a piece of paper, but what he's using as a table is something that CADCO is known for at these conventions. That is a 1/16" scale model of the PK-12 building that is being built in Robert Lee I.S.D. We build the models in the office for some of our clients. This one inparticular is the one I helped with. I did all of the trees, cars, and people (even though you can't see them in this picture). Back behind Tim (on the wall) is another model of a competition gym in Coleman we did a few years back.

This picture is just of the guys talking, but you can see the scoreboard in the background. When the show was about to start the first day, the buzzer on that thing just went off. Those buzzers are SO loud when they aren't mounted on the wall way above your head! I was really afraid that was going to be a reoccuring thing during the show, but thankfully it only went off when the show was closing.

Here is the other side of our booth and another model. This one is Bosqueville Elementary (near Waco) and this one is actually the first job site I had to wear a hard hat on. On top you can see our business cards and someone's bag--the models work out to be the perfect height to stand and rest your hands on, which is what we did a lot of.

Here is one of the side panels of the booth. To the left you can see a blue hard hat, next year I will be replacing it with my new PINK one courtesy of my dad! There will be a picture of that soon too!

Overall the show was a success, we talked with many current and past clients and got some good leads on some upcoming projects for some other school districts!

I think the funniest thing to me was seeing the trailor we pulled all of the stuff in being pulled by the small Honda Pilot we have for a company car. The trailor was nearly twice the length of the car, and since it's front wheel drive, there were times when you started to go uphill and didn't have enough weight in the front for the right amount of traction and it would give all kinds of warning lights. Not safe, I know, but that only happend if we were sitting at a standstill on a hill and had to then go!

Business Trip

Thursday through Sunday I was in Houston for the annual TASB (Texas Association of School Boards)/TASA (Texas Association of School Administrators) Convention. My company specialized in building and remodeling schools all over the state, so this convention is an every year thing.

Everything was great in terms of the convention (I'll post pictures of our booth tomorrow), the only thing that wasn't good was that I got sick while I was there. No worries though, my mom came to the rescue and stayed with me in the hotel. I said to her, "doesn't it feel good to still be needed?" and I think she agreed.

The main thing I missed out on was dinner. Every year my company will take a couple of school boards out to dinner to show them our appreciation for using us as a firm. This year I was responsible for finding the restaurant and setting up all of the reservations. The restaurant I chose was Vic & Anthony's Steakhouse, and from what I hear, that place is perfect. There was nothing bad to be said about the meal, everyone had a great time--so much so that we will be using them again next year! Hopefully I'll be able to make it to the meal then!

Anyways, we stayed at the Hotel Derek across I-610 from the galleria and it was a beautiful hotel, so I thought I would share with you what it's like on a business trip with a couple of architects.

This is the room when you walk in.

This was the bathroom, I didn't feel the need to take a picture of the shower and toilet for you.. that would be a little odd.

On the other side of the room was a window seat that was more like a couch than anything.

and of course, the flat screen

But even better, was the view I had of the William's Tower (formerly Transco Tower). And you see that CVS in the bottom left corner? Yeah, I walked there in the middle of the night to get medicine.. I was just glad it was that close.

One of the benefits of taking a business trip to Houston is getting to spend some time with family. Everyone in my family has an app. on their phone called Loopt where we can run the app. and see where each other is. On the app, there is a feature called Ping where you can send someone a text message to let them know to run their Loopt and see where you are. When we got to downtown on Thursday and started unloading our booth (a 3 hour process) at the George R. Brown Convention Center, I "Pinged" my brother Jason (who is in law school in Houston). He was a little confused to recieve that from me so he looked to see where I was.. we were 0.5 miles from each other! You can imagine how confused he was since he didn't know I was even coming to Houston!

That night, my dad came to pick me up from the hotel and we met Jason for dinner. It was a lot of fun hanging out and talking about anything and everything! Thanks for dinner dad!

Even though I got sick, I was glad I was able to go to the convention. It's such a priveledge for me to be able to go.. seeing as very few from my company have ever had the chance. Plus, I got to spend some time with my family!

Last Monday

Last week I was super busy, so I didn't really get a chance to post. This week will basically be catching you up on last week, starting with Monday.

Monday night was Round Up for Young Life. Round Up is Young Life's annual fundraiser dinner and requires a lot of organization and help from a ton of different people. We had a HUGE group of kids there, which was awesome! Because of that, our area director promised them he would let them wax his chest on stage at tonight's club. Sick.

Anyways, it was such fun to see all the kids there and they all got a free shirt! Enjoy the pictures.

All the kids stand outside and welcome everyone coming in

Yes they really did make about 60% of the adults run through this victory tunnel. It was pretty awesome!

This is such a special picture. Rebecca, the lady running through is the mom of one of our current leaders and a couple of our kids. Last year right before Round Up, she was diagnosed with a tumor in her ear and couldn't make it. Through the past year she has gone through all kinds of treatment and God has been glorified in her and her family's lives. This year she led the closing prayer and everyone was so happy to have her there again.

Yes, I layed on the ground for this one.

Sometimes I claim him as my Brother..