San Diego!

In April my sister and I took a girl's weekend to San Diego. We had a blast! We visitied the Gas Lamp District the first night and had some super yummy Mexican food. Baltimore, much like most of the east coast, is a little bit of a Mexican food wasteland... so it was nice to have a taste of home.

 

mmmm... Mexican Food

My beautiful Sister being silly in the Gas Lamp District

  

The second day we went to SeaWorld. We watched pretty much all of the shows. Of course we saw the Orcas, Sea Lions and Dolphins (which by the way are much bigger than I thought they would be, kind of creepy)... but we also saw a Bulga Whale. It was like watching an angel in the water. Now I see why Sailors thought they were Mermaids, they are utterly enchanting (unlike the aforementioned Dolphins).

Beautiful Orca

Me waiting for the One Ocean show to start. 

Angelic Bulga Whale

The third day we went to the San Diego Zoo. EVERYONE says that you need two days to see it because it is soooo big. We saw all of it in a day. It was a nice zoo, but I like Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado better.

Entrance to San Diego Zoo

Secretary bird. He is 3ft tall... SO awesome!

Since the zoo didn't take a full day we had an extra day on our hands. So we went on a Harbor Tour in which we saw "real" sea lions, the Navy Base, a bunch of Navy ships (which we already know I nothing about, but they were cool) and more. We also toured USS Midway which is a retired air-craft carrier. Our Grandfather served in the Navy in WWII and he would have been in this type of ship. It was neat to see all of it and imagine what it would have been like to be him back when he served.

View of the Navy Base from the Harbor Tour, that is a Navy Patrol boat.

"Real" Sea Lions hanging out on the bait traps

Deck of the USS Midway

The Brig on the USS Midway. My Grandpa was quite the trouble
maker in his youth and ended up in the brig at least once.

Even though our feet hurt we still had some time left so we went to Balboa Park; which was beautiful and what I always envisioned California looking like.

Balboa Park

Very intricate architecture elements... breathtaking. 

To me, this is what I always assumed sunny California looked like.

In the end it was an AMAZING vacation and it was wonderful to spend it with my best-friend and sister!

Flying!

Back in April I had the opportunity to take a vacation with my Sister in San Diego, CA. We had a blast visiting the San Diego Zoo, Sea World and Balboa Park, I will have to write a separate post about that. As this post is dedicated to how I got there, FLYING!

When I was a little girl I was TERRIFIED of heights, and a long laundry list of other things. I would plead with my parents to not go over 16 road hill,  which is truly just a hill, as I knew my parents would  lose control and send us off the "edge" to our doom. I remember my telling my parents "two hands on the wheel...  TWO HANDS ON THE WHEEL!" I loved (still love) camping in the mountains but I am surprised my family didn't leave me on the roadside with my over-dramatic fear of crashing off  the edge. I can remember almost exactly when I overcame my fear of heights. Camp Red Cloud, eighth-grade, repelling.  I was terrified, we hiked up what seemed like a mountain and then were calmly told that we were going to repel down it. I am sure the instructors saw my terrified eyes searching for the quickest route to the trail and back to safety... and thus I was called to go first. Shaking and near-tears. I reluctantly hung myself over the edge and climbed over the lip. At first I was super tentative, then  I had to get over an indent in the cliff at which I had to  jump a little. This resulted in having me land face-first into the wall of the cliff. At first I thought I was going to die, right there hung up there like a Christmas ornament. But then the adrenaline kicked in and the rest of the repel went much too fast. I was hooked.

My plane! Yes, I was the crazy
lady taking pictures in the airport.

Since about that time I have wanted to fly, both literally and in a plane, but hadn't had the opportunity. Jeremy had always planned on flying with me. But that wasn't in the cards and thus I made my first trip solo. I was more than excited about the idea. I was also nervous I would miss the flight, but it turned out I was super early and had time to be bored and wander the BWI airport. I sat next to a lovely older couple who were flying to San Diego for a 2 week long Hawaiian cruise. The woman was originally from Russia; her first flight was more than 12 hours long. My first flight was 5 1/2 hours long and it felt like it would never end. We hit quite a bit of turbulence, flying over and through clouds. I was giddy staring out the window. Needless to say it was a fun experience. However it is true, the second time you fly (aka the flight home) doesn't hold the same novelty. Regardless it was wonderful to check flying off my list of things to do.

Sailabration!

Baltimore recently celebrated the war of 1812 bicentennial with their Sailabration! Did you know that the Star Spangled Banner was written at Fort McHenry right here in Baltimore? I sure didn’t until we moved here. Anyways, over 40 tall ships and Navy vessels converged in Baltimore along with the Blue Angels. Since I work downtown right off the water I had the privilege of seeing some of these ships sail into (and out) of the harbor and watching the Blue Angels practice for two days. However since they were giving free tours of active duty Navy ships from around the world we couldn’t help but make a special trip into Baltimore. I knew the city was packed, but we went on a Saturday and packed grew to overflowing.  Since part of my job is to market people to come to Baltimore I couldn't have been more thrilled. However on a much more selfish side, I couldn't have been more annoyed. I am not a people person, especially when you are in mobs of people. As Jeremy says "Put Teresa in a crowd of 10 or more people and she is guaranteed to get annoyed by someone." However my parents raised me right and I behaved myself and we made it to the Navy Ships. I’ll admit; I know nothing about ships... not a thing. So all I can really say is that they were big! And that it was neat to see the dressed ships with our servicemen and women in their bests. We visited a Destroyer and a carrier-type ship... not an air-craft carrier but it’s job is to carry more land type vehicles or something like that... yep you can tell I learned a lot. I was distracted a majority of the time by Blue Angels flying above us, they are more of my style. It was super exciting to watch the Blue Angels fly above the ships, while we were on the ships! Way to go Navy! All in all it was an exciting event and we were glad we got to be a part of it.

Brazilian Tall Ship. There were ships from
all over the world: Canada, Japan, Brazil  and more

The Blue Angels!

I think this is the carrier-type Navy ship

we toured... but I'm not sure.

Since I forgot our camera, these images courtesy of Star-Spangled 200, see more pics at  https://www.facebook.com/starspangled200

Making a mark on Baltimore

A view of  one of "my" sign in the Inner Harbor 

To my one reader, sorry for the delay in blog posts. The last couple of months have gone by so quickly that it feels like we just moved here to Maryland. After five months of freelancing, hiking, stressing and looking for a job. I was offered a position at Meyer Jabara Hotels as their Production Manager/Online Marketing Manager. Meyer Jabara Hotels is a hotel management company with 21 different properties. My responsibility is to design, manage, code and create any marketing (print, web, flash, email, outdoor, etc) for those 21 properties. I am their only designer and at times I really miss my NBM days of working with a team of other designers. But overall the job has been a blast.

MJ's has three Baltimore properties called Harbor Magic Hotels, because they don't have a parent brand, such as Hilton, associated to them I end up doing a lot of marketing for them. When I accepted the job I didn't really think that I would be doing any signage for the hotels. Turns out I was wrong. Thus if you happen to walk around the Inner Harbor or Fells Point you will see my signs. They aren’t the most exciting signs, but it is neat to think that they will be there years from now and that I created them and had them installed. Because MJ is a hotel group I work in a hotel, right in the back office. It is interesting to get a first-hand look at all of the moving pieces of a hotel. I am always afraid a guest will ask me a question or need service when I walk out of the back office, because at the end of the day I don't have any operation knowledge of the hotel. Thus far it has only happened once and the front desk quickly came to my rescue.

The hotel I work out of is the brick building on the right.

The hotel I work at right now is right in the middle of Baltimore's Fells Point. It sits right next to the Harbor. When it is foggy I can hear the Navy Ships’ fog horns. One of their perks is that they have a parking lot that we can use whenever we come into Baltimore. This saves a lot on parking and has helped us explore the city. One of my favorite things about my commute home is smelling the bread from the H&M bakery. It instantly comforts my soul and reminds me of all of the good, simply things in life. 

Fall Memories

The Maryland Fall has been beautiful and wet, I keep forgetting the camera so I don't have any good pictures of it. There are so many trees here and they are all, finally, changed color. It isn't quite as vibrant as the Colorado aspens, but it is much more varied. The weather has been pretty much picture perfect. Wet part of the day and in the 70s. As of yesterday we started to get into the colder weather, winter if definitely coming.

Fall has always been one of my favorite seasons, especially growing up on a farm, the cool down from the hot summer, the harvest time, less chores to do and the start of family holiday time. I always liked picking out the pumpkins for carving... carving them was a different story though. Especially when I had to pull out all of the seeds. Yuck. But we would almost always sit around the table as a family on some October night and carve all of the pumpkins. This was the highlight of Halloween to me. My sister's birthday is Halloween and thus, as is should be, it was mainly a day for her. I don't think my brother or I minded that much. We didn't like a lot of the candy and we were most unoriginal in our costumes. I was usually a fairy and he was usually a cowboy. We would go trick and treating though. and just like most Colorado kids, we had to wear our coats over or under our costumes. I still remember the lady who was a baker for City Market on O Road that would hand out City Market donuts we loved her. Being picky kids I remember Mom and Dad saying, "You take whatever they give you and say thank you." Even if it was popcorn balls, hard candy... or pretty much anything that wasn't chocolate. We also had neighbors who would decorate, dress up and pull scary pranks on kids. Well... scary to me. I remember many a time of running back to the car in tears because I was scared. After we got home the three of us would gather in the living room, dump out our spoils and trade. My sister, the less picky child, would end up with a ton of candy. I remember her having a pillow case full in her dresser. I don't think she ever ate any of the candy it was purely a trophy.  :0)

The Staff

Wyatt supervising. 

Last week was a pretty busy one with a recruitment interview and freelancing. I have really enjoyed being able to work from home. Most likely it will only be temporary, so I am enjoying it while it is lasts. My favorite part is being able to work while the dogs play around the apartment. Bella provides security for my little home office by staring out the patio window at the squirrels and neighborhood cat. Wyatt on the other hand is a very involved supervisor, often he hovers while I work... but I don't mind he usually provides positive reinforcement. It is a pretty well rounded staff, though it does seem like one of us does do most of the work :0)

Its Football Season

It is beginning to feel like fall out here in Maryland. This morning it was cloudy with a brisk high of 53. So like the sane people we are we decided to go to the Bay. Off to the Kent Island beach we go. It was cold but we also had the beach to ourselves. I guess normal people have enough sense to stay indoors. Both dogs had fun, however Bella really capitalized on what the Bay had to offer. She figured out, "I don't need Mom or Dad to throw a stick in the ocean... I can just grab one of these many big sticks straight out of the waves." She hauled out some pretty impressive logs and couldn't have been more proud of herself.

Bella has confiscated the remote and Dad's phone.
"Which channel is Animal Planet on?"

Tired and cold we all snuggled down to our normal Sunday fall afternoon activity. Football, or football for Jeremy and the dogs. I usually end up doing some sort of baking (especially on a cold day such as this), calling family and working on my hobbies. I really do like watching football but I have a difficult time watching an entire game without moving or falling asleep. Today I made cinnamon rolls and chicken dumplings. They were quite good and it made the apartment nice and cozy. Another grand ending to a wonderful October day.