Recently

I almost titled this post "Lately", but I immediately  started singing this 90s ballad in my head, and had to nix that from the start. You're welcome for getting it stuck in your head too.

Now that we have that out of the way, I am not going to waste my time or yours apologizing for taking 3 weeks to craft a blog post. It happens. I am sure you three religious readers will forgive me. Maybe. Hopefully.

At any rate, since my last post many exciting things have happened! Allow me to enumerate them for you (with as many accompanying pictures as you and I can both stand). Ready, set, go!

Lucy turned 4 years old! I cannot believe this little puppy is now 4!

Lucy at 6 weeks old - her first weekend at home with me & Harris

For her birthday we spent the afternoon at the park, and then took a ride. It was a glorious day for a little pup!

Little Goose - we love you so so much! You make our lives so happy every single day, and you are the cutest little dog in the world!

The weekend after Lucy's birthday, my best friend, Erica, her hubby, Michael, and their puppy, Loki (aka Lucy's boyfriend) came into town for the weekend! It was so wonderful to spend time with them, and get to share our home and town with them. We tried to cover as much of downtown as we could, and just enjoy our time together. I can't wait for them to come back for another visit!

That next week, I went to New Jersey for a few days for work. Additionally, after almost three years of traveling to Jersey on the regular, I have decided that Princeton is the only part of the state I would deem pretty. 

This logo always makes me think of the circus, anyone else?

That next weekend my little sister and her beau came into town to celebrate her 20th birthday! Holy wow I cannot believe my little Kayla is 20! We had the most fun weekend celebrating and just spending time together! She requested a strawberry birthday cake with hot pink frosting, which resulted in the pinkest cake in the world!

Lucy and the boys were tired! Who am I kidding? Kayla and I were probably passed out right beside them.

Kayla's Birthday Video from Courtney Ligon on Vimeo.

It was also Halloween while they were here!

The week after that, I went to Texas for the week. It was long, and I didn't take any pictures. I know you are disappointed. Oh wait, I forgot. I took pictures of my super bourgeois hotel room the last night. I stayed at the Grand Hyatt at the airport. When I opened the door to my room, I thought for a moment someone was in the room because as soon as the door opened, the tv turned on, started playing music, and showed this message:

The shades also started opening, electronically. And then I took this picture:

And then I ordered sushi and a martini from room service. The sushi was delicious. The martini too strong. Such is life.

I got home from Texas last Friday afternoon, and then left for California for my monthly mentoring circle meeting first thing Monday morning. Harris also started a ridiculously long work stretch this past weekend, and is still going strong. Le boo.

This month's mentoring meeting was hosted by yours truly. So naturally, I made everyone go to California. I mean, why not.

Sunrise from my hotel room. Mountains in the background.

Sunrise from the other side. Ocean in the background.

Pink starfish! First time I have ever seen one in nature!

View from our boat tour.

Sea lions and seagulls going for some fish being thrown from the docks

Sea lion!

A Maersk ship being unloaded. Not the Alabama, FYI.

My mentoring group after our boat tour.

At the top of the Port Authority building in Long Beach.

After our session, we decided to do a little sight-seeing, and hit up Beverly Hills and Hollywood!

Tory Burch

Cartier. They started rolling out the red carpet as we walked by - I wonder who was coming in!

Chanel

Loving the palm trees. Guess they aren't palmettos in Cali?

Bugatti parked on Rodeo

Couple stars from Walk of Fame

Something was going on at Grauman's Theatre (now known as TCL theatre, FYI). We didn't spot any celebs, but we saw the paparazzi and the red carpet, so SOMEONE was there!

Dolby Theatre (aka the Kodak)

Phew. Okay, if you actually made it through all of that, congrats to you! As a treat to you for being so resilient, I have saved the very best for last! Drumroll please....

Harris got a promotion!!!!!!!!!

As of next month, he will start training for his new position, which he will assume January 1st. He will be leading a team, and, most excitingly, will be working normal office hours: Monday through Friday, 8am - 5pm. We could not be more thrilled, and I could not be more proud of him!!! This has been an absolute blessing, and the answer to many, many prayers! He is so excited about the opportunity, and we are both excited to have some normalcy in our lives! I can hardly imagine having my hubby home every night, and weekends together! Ahh...so wonderful!

With that, I will bid you all goodnight. I hope to be better, and to write before 3 weeks pass us by again...

Catching Up

How is it possible that it is already July?! I honestly don't know where the past month went. Well, I do - celebrating, traveling for work, and so on, but, seriously it went by so very quickly. The weekend before this past, was so much fun! Thursday night, the Norfolk food trucks kicked off their new business with a little celebration on MacArthur Square. Of course we had to go check this out, and neither the tacos nor the (overpriced) cupcakes disappointed! Also, we were fortunate to have my parents in town to celebrate my Mom's 50th birthday! They got in late Friday evening, which means we sat around catching up until everyone was ready for bed. Saturday, my Mom's actual birthday, we got up, headed over to the Bayou Bugaloo (yet another of the Norfolk festivals!), enjoyed some cajun food (including our messy attempt at crawfish - still not sure they are worth the effort), drank some strong Hurricanes and some dark, dark beer, took a boat ride around the harbor, and then headed home once our feet were tired and we were starting to get a little rained on. We then ventured out for a sushi/hibachi dinner downtown, and then came back home for more drinks and pie! How awesome of a day was that! I will share the recipe for the "Lime in the Coconut" pie I made my Mom (she requested a coconut pie rather than a cake for her birthday, but my Dad doesn't like coconut, and both of them love key lime, so this was a win-win!), but for now, here are some pictures.

Our yummy food truck tacos!

Do you see this excitement?!

Mmm...pb and red velvet cupcakes

The chocolate was a bit too rich for me, but hubs enjoyed it!

Lucy is ready for a visit from the grandparents!

Lime in the Coconut Pie! Recipe forthcoming

A little weirded out by its eyes.

This crawfish was as big as my Dad's hand!

Birthday girl in her birthday beads! And, we bought those - promise!

Mom & Daddy!

Hot, sweaty, but loving the festival life

Mom and Hubs on the boat tour

See those clouds rolling in? Yeah they opened up on us right after the cruise.

Daddy trying his first sushi

Isn't my Mom adorns?!

After the weekend of wonderfulness, I took a Sunday night flight to Dallas/Fort Worth, where my co-workers and I spent a busy, busy week in training, meetings, a conference, and so on. It was a good week, but it was exhausting! Especially when there are customers involved (which certainly was the case this week), our days usually start around 5am (if you have any hopes of getting a workout in), and don't end until about midnight. There is an ungodly amount of food and alcoholic beverages, and not enough sleep for the likes of this lady. Fortunately, I have some really awesome co-workers, so shout out to you guys for keeping me sane, and letting me pawn drinks off on you when I was too done to keep up, and the customer kept buying them for me :). Also, major shout out to the husband for not only holding down the fort, taking care of the Lucy-pup (who promptly decided upon my departure that she should definitely eat two chocolate protein bars out of Daddy's briefcase - she's fine, no worries - I am pretty sure they were imitation chocolate at best), and working his crazy schedule, but for also being kind and patient with me during my 972 rounds of "I just want to come home now!".

My one and only picture of the week -
a valet claim ticket because we lost our physical copy

Luckily, albeit not without delays and complications, I made it home late Friday night to a pup who was happy to see me, and a husband who bought me beautiful flowers, and was equally happy to see me when he got home from work Saturday morning!

Beautiful flowers!

I had grand plans of doing absolutely nothing on Saturday, to which I succeeded tremendously: Lucy and I laid around Saturday morning while the hubs slept - we watched some TV, movies, snuggled on the couch, took a walk, and otherwise did nothing. Glorious. After the hubs woke up, we snuggled and caught up on our previous week in more depth, which was even more glorious. I finally got out of my PJs around 5pm in order to shower and go pick up Thai food for an impromptu date night picnic in the park with Harris on his dinner break. Afterwards, Lucy and I were in bed before 8pm and asleep around 9. My body is thanking me! Sunday I did my "Saturday things" - groceries, some cleaning, and the like. Harris and I took in an afternoon showing of World War Z before he had to go into work. My thoughts on it? Meh. It wasn't a super scary zombie flick (thank heavens! I am such a scaredy cat), and as I told Harris, I didn't think it was bad. I just didn't think it was good either. My vote is to wait until you can watch it at home. Save yourself a buck or two.

After all that, I am certainly glad that this week contains a holiday, and that, because of aforementioned holiday which then causes many folks to take vacation, it should (hopefully!) be a pretty tame week all in all!