Time to Catch Up....

Now this is what I call slacking...not in a good way though.  It’s been almost 3 months since we’ve blogged, and I can’t even say we.  Lindsey was holding the torch, and I’ve been slacking...time to catch up.

What has happened in the last three months...some good, some bad.  So what happened...Lindsey’s mom came to town :-)...I went to the US for a business trip and got terribly sick :-(...I also got to go to Japan for the first time :-)...my parents and sister came to town :-)...Lindsey went back to the US for her grandmothers passing :-( :-( :-(...Carrie and Greg came to town :-)  Lot happening.

I’ll see if I can cover some of the highlights.  To start Lindsey’s mom in town.  It was great having her here for the Holiday’s.  She got here a couple days after Christmas, and was here for 2 weeks...the highlight was new years. We didn’t do a good job this year of planning.  We kept changing our mind on what to do, so we had a little shin dig at our place with the three of us, the Seebeck’s and their parents.  In my opinion it worked out well...I think I lost track of the number of bottles of wine we opened, which probably had something to do with it, but we went to see the fire works at the Manly Wharf, and then watched the Sydney fire works at midnight on TV.  Still well worth it. My favourite night though was Garfish and a phenomenal bottle of Rusden Black Guts 2005 that Anne graciously picked up...WOW.  I’m officially a wine snob...I’m trying not to be, but I can’t help it. :-)

 After that, I was on my way to PGi’s (our new company brand) annual sales meeting.  I was a mess the entire time.  I got sick, and was out of commission most of this trip. Although, I still got my presentation out, and it went well.  The tough part was the next leg of my trip was to Japan for the first time. Being under the weather I didn’t explore much, but it was still great.  You may laugh, but my favourite part...there was a little udon noodles place (hole in the wall) across from the hotel and it was awesome.  Ate there 3 of the 5 nights I was there.  Awesome...couple things I did learn while I was there.  Wasabi in Japan is much stronger than it is anywhere else...I didn’t cry when I put it in my mouth, but I came close.  Also, I’m still looking for it, but there’s gotta be a Japanese proverb that says, “Don’t drink Sake with a Japanese man.”  I held my own, but it still wasn’t pretty :-)

How about the parents and sister...the thing I love about my family is they are very relaxed. Good food, good wine, sat around the house a bit...it was great.  Big thanks to Jacs (one of our Aussie friends that’s really from the US).  She was kind enough to take the family on a tour of the botanical gardens...normally I would hate something like that, but after hearing the stories I was actually interested. It’s just weird :-)

Anyway...I guess I should take a breather.  So much more to talk about, but it should give me an excuse to blog again. Good thing Lindsey’s here to keep me in line...at least that’s what she keeps telling me :-)

Hi to everyone back in the US, and stay tuned for more stories.  In the next 9 months we have 6 trips planned (Thailand, New Caledonia, Hong Kong, New Zealand...and more).  Can’t wait....