Sunny Skies, Blue Water and White Sand....

Yes, I am going to the Bahamas!!!! Brian surprised me with a 3 day cruise for a little romantic get away!

stay tuned for a blog update upon my return. Check out my cruise destination over the next few days :)

Katie & Tom (aka Tomkat) get Hitched!!!!

Friday was a busy day! Brian and I both had to work all day and then it was off to Tom & Katie's wedding. Tom and Katie are friends of ours from the ski team! Their wedding was in Shoreview at St. Odilia Parish. They were married by Fr. Nels Gjengdahl who happens to be a friend of Toms from elementary and high school which was kind of neat! The ceremony was beautiful and Fr. gave a great sermon, one of the best I have heard by a catholic priest in a long time. Katie had some of my most favorite songs in her mass and I was excited to see how happy both her and Tom were!

After the ceremony it was off to the Reception at Dellwood Hills Golf Club in White Bear Lake. This was my first time out at Dellwood but the Ski Otters have a lot of events here and it has turned out to be a pretty popular wedding reception venue. We went to the receiving line upon arrival and then to the bar to get a cocktail. Then it was outside for a group picture of all the people that were at the wedding. The photographer took a picture from up above on the balcony. Hopefully it will turn out good! Then we mingled with our friends for a bit before dinner started. Dinner was good and so were the speeches by the wedding party. Katie and tom had a friend walking around taking pictures of everyone and then printing them out so we could put them in a book and write a note...it was a pretty cool idea!!! Then the dance began. It was 12:30 before we knew it and we were shot and ready to head home!!!

Congrats Katie and Tom - hope you are having fun in St. Marteen!!!

SNOW?

This is what we woke up to Monday morning. After only a 1 day weekend, do you think I got up and drove to work, of course not. I stayed in my pjs and worked from home and watched it come down :( Come on 60 degrees please don't leave us yet.

NSHMBA Conference

So I don't often have work events I need to participate in, but this year I got asked to be a part of NSHMBA (national society of Hispanic, MBA's). This event is similar to a job fair, but it is specific for members of NSHMBA only. The interesting thing about NSHMBA is that you do not have to be Hispanic to be a member. So only about 15-20% of the members are actually Hispanic and the rest of African Americans, Caucasians, Hmong, Puerto Ricans, etc...

UnitedHealth Group was actually one of the major sponsors for the event, which meant we had activities starting on Thursday the 8th thru Saturday the 10th. Thursday was a kick-off meeting for a number of the recruiters, sourcers and leaders who would be participating in the event. I was quit excited to see Rosie, who is my colleague that lives in CT. We started on the same day and on the same team back in February of 2008 and from the first time on the phone together we hit if off. It was wonderful to spend time with her during the three days she was here and I really wish we lived closer. After our kick off meeting we attended a Finance Seminar that was put on by leaders at UHG. It was a very interesting seminar talking alot about Health Care Reform. UnitedHealth Group has been at the table in many discussions for the reform, it is a very sensitive subject, one that all Americans should be a part of. Check out our website to learn more: http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/main/generalcontent.aspx?id=997ff2df-71cc-4d13-a8df-87f55588f03d

After the seminar, I headed home to work for the rest of the day and then I was back downtown by 6:30 for our networking reception. This was a part of the evening for the candidates to come network with the companies they were going to meet/interview with the next day. This event went until 9:00 pm and then there was a salsa band and fun event sponsored by Deloitte(www.deloitte.com). We checked it out for a bit and we had some co-workers that rocked the salsa on the dance floor. I, on the other hand, didn't do too hot :) After that it was time to head home for a busy Friday.

Friday came quick. I was back downtown by 7:30 am and the conference started at 9:00. The doors actually opened at 8:50 and it was a flood of candidates rushing to get their resume and introductions done right away. Going into this event, I knew there was not going to be a lot of Clinical candidates, so I helped direct people to the right recruiters in our booth. The event closed down from 12-2 pm for a Siesta and I ran to lunch with Rosie and my friend Erin who works at Target. Since I was down town i needed to make the most of my visit. We had lunch at Vincent A Restaurant (www.vincentarestaurant.com) which is one of my most favorite places for lunch, it is also where Erin and Mike had their wedding reception! After lunch it was back to the conference til 6. Then a few of us went to Nami for dinner (www.namiminneapolis.com) Nami is a sushi restaurant, again one of my favs! We went to go grab a cab as it was a bit too cold and far to walk considering we had to be back at 8. We ended up piling 5 people into a town car and off we went. The driver was interesting to say the least and as Ouraphone put it, "and the white girl" in the car :) We gave the driver strict instructions to pick us back up at 7:45 and he was right on time. Our evening event was VIP cocktail reception from 8-9 with live music, food and drinks and then from 9-11 it was open for all candidates that came to our booth. We had many leaders from our company come by too. It was a fun but very long day. I got home by about 12 am and jumped right into bed. Brian was headed hunting in the morning so the alarm went off at 4:15 and I could not fall back asleep. I met the girls downtown at 7:30 for a quick breakfast at Hell's Kitchen (www.hellskitcheninc.com) and then it was off to the convention for the last day!!! After the convention was over we went to the Independent in Uptown for dinner and a much deserved cocktail. I was finally home about 11:30 Saturday night and fell fast asleep.

It was great to meet some of my peers that I never work with daily, I ran into some old colleagues and we are going to get a good amount of hires out of the convention, so in the end, it was definitely worth it! See you in Chicago in 2010!!!

Happy Anniversary!!!

Happy 4th Anniversary Melissa & Scott!!!

I cannot believe it has been 4 years already!!! Time sure does go fast :) I hope you enjoy your day and your dinner out tonight!!!!!



Love you both!!!!


Don't kill me for the super old picture!!!! (hehe)

Lake Carlos - Camping in October

Well as my post last week said...we were off to Lake Carlos again! We had this camping trip planned in September and changed it to October. Two of our favorite couples, Matt & Jenni and Dan & Melissa were our company for the weekend. Matt & Jenni had to drive separate as they had to leave Saturday evening, but we sure had fun while they were there.

We were finally ready to go about 5:30 on Friday night. We got up to the lake and started a bonfire right away it was Chilly. Melissa and Jenni started the fire and then Jenni started to grill burgers as we were all STARVING :) The boys were busy putting in the boat while we arranged things in and out of the RV!!! We ate dinner, made some drinks and hung out around the bonfire. We had so many laughs but managed to make it to bed fairly early as the boys were going to start fishing early (aka 7:30 am) but not before we roasted many marshmallows! Us girls woke up Saturday morning and sat in the RV and drank our coffee and Baileys and chit chatted. Brian texted me when they were getting ready to head in so we started breakfast. I made Carmel rolls for the first time and had some fun with the dough!!! After breakfast Jenni, Matt, Brian and I went out fishing and didn't have much luck. We came back in around 3 or so and then went to the Outpost Bar up the road for lunch/dinner and watched the Twins game. We went back to the campsite and hung out for a bit and then the boys went fishing for a bit longer before Jenni and Matt left. Saturday night the 4 of us had a few more drinks and just sat around the bonfire and laughed and roasted some more mallows. We went in the RV a bit later and played some comical rounds of Apples to Apples before heading off to bed.

Sunday morning :( our last day. Dan and Brian headed out again in the morning to do some fishing. Melissa got up and read her new book and I slept until 10...I was tired. We had breakfast and then all went out fishing. Melissa and Dan caught a bunch of Northerns, including a few that we lost and the one the ate Melissa's hook and snapped her line. We headed in fairly early, made lunch and packed up and it was time to head home.

We had a wonderful time and will definitely be making this an annual trip (maybe not always in October though!!!!)

TWINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After an intense 4 1/2 hours the Twins pull off a WIN! It has been awesome to watch the determination that the team has to continue going. It will be an intersting series with NY over the next few games, but fun to say the least!!!!

Camping in October...

Yes, it is the 1st weekend in October and we are going camping. It is going to be cold and chilly, but we have had this trip planned for months (originally slated for Sept 11th) we had to move it to this weekend.

The nice thing is we will have the RV with us so we will have heat. I am a little unsure how fishing will be considering I am sitting in the house shivering because we don't have the heat on. More updates to come when we return.

Where are we headed?????