NCAA basketball comes to Detroit!

I was lucky enough to recieve a few suite tickets for Sunday's Elite Eight game at Ford Field from one of our vendors. I took Gary and his buddy Larry to the game with me. I'd never been in a suite at Ford Field, they are really nice! Complete with leather stadium seats! It was a great game and cool to see how they transformed a football field into a basketball court!

As you can see, there was a lot of people wearing red! Rumor has it that Davidson gave students with good GPA's a bus ride to Detroit, free game tickets and paid for two nights hotel! Looks like a lot of them took them up on their offer!

Triple Date!

Saturday night Gary and I went on a triple date with Amanda and Courtney and their boyfriends. We went for dinner at PF Changs (one of my FAVS!) and then went bowling at The Novi Bowl. I actually didn't do to bad, I consider a good game breaking 100! And of course we then had to end the night with some karaoke. Even Gary got up and sang!

The girls bowling!

Gary and I watching karaoke

Gary singing, what else, Lynryd Skynryd! Yes, I made him wear those stupid glasses but it wasn't my idea for the beer mug hat!

In like a lion, out like a lamb?

Is it really supposed to be doing THIS at the end of March???

Easter Weekend

Friday we had lunch with Gary's family for Easter. We went to Three Brothers and I had amazing french toast! You know I love breakfast!! Friday afternoon we headed out to the west side with a "quick" stop at the outlet mall in Howell. It's funny how Gary was the one who wanted to go, and I ended up the only one buying anything! Once we had left the outlet mall, the weather was getting really nasty. We ended up turning around and the 20 mile drive back to our place took over an hour! We decided to wait until the morning and I'm glad we did!

Once we actually got to my parents, we visited with my Aunt Paula, Grandma Pat and Les, my sister and the boys for the afternoon. Chase wore Gary out playing "ramp head" (using Chase's head and a yard stick as a ramp for his matchbox car)and wrestling.

Logan's new thing is that he has learned to clap. I just missed the clapping part and as you can tell from the video, I couldn't persuade him to do it again. I've realized I hate my "video voice" and know that a few of you will agree.

Saturday night we went over to my sister's house to play a little Rock Band. It's a lot of fun but I wouldn't suggest trying to sing a duet! The game didn't necessarily like our rendition of Dead or Alive. We even got Gary to sing!

1st Annual Mullen Renunion

Last week, Gary organized the first annual Mullen renioun. You have to understand that previously, our office was more like a big group of friends rather than simply co-workers. A lot of those people have since left so we thought we'd all get together for happy hour. It was great to see some familiar faces that I haven't seen in a while!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

I know I'm a little late, but I kept forgetting my camera cord at home! Gary and I went out with Larry and a few of his friends to celebrate St. Patty's Day on Saturday night. We've been trying to get out and meet new people as a lot of our friends seem to be busy doing other things lately. We ended up at O'Toole's, very appropriate for St. Patty's Day! Here is a picture of Gary and I sporting green!

Get to Know Kate!

My sister tagged me in her last post to fill out the following survey...so here it goes!

10 Years Ago:

I was 15 years old, a freshman in high school. At that time, the freshman class occupied the upper level of Cityside Middle School, so we got to rule the school one more time before we had to face all the upperclassmen. I was a cheerleader for the freshman basketball team and hung around with Katie and Miranda constantly, we were pretty inseparable. We called ourselves the Thrilling Three-O. As my sister can attest to, our idea of fun was loading up on Mountain Dew and Pixie Stix and making silly home videos. My favorite is still the Spice Girls Wannabe music video featuring Scary Spice (Katie), Sporty Spice (Miranda) and Baby Spice (me). I'm still waiting for those videos to come back and haunt me one of these days.

Things on my to-do list today:

1. Get an oil change
2. Go to the gym
3. Make mashed potato casserole
4. Visit the funeral home for Gary's friend Brad's mother-in-law
5. Drink some green beer in celebration of St. Patty's Day!

Three Bad Habits:

1. Biting my nails when I'm nervous or stressed out. I'm stopped for the moment, my nails are actually pretty long right now! The habit is bound to return sooner or later, I'm sure.
2. This is kinda gross - but most of you know I'm quite the belcher! Such a lady...I know...
3. I also have a bad habit of not being the tidiest person and I'm also a bit of a pack rat...I have a hard time throwing stuff away, especially clothes and shoes that I KNOW I won't wear again.

If I suddenly became a billionaire:

I'd quit my job for sure, and open my own stationary/custom printing shop. I'd also make my mom quit her job and recruit her to be my partner! I would also help my dad open up his own Tae Kwon Doe Studio because I know that's one thing he is incredibly passionate about, I'd buy my sister's house so she didn't have to worry about it any more, I'd set up a college fund for both my nephews, I'd take an extra long vacation, traveling to every corner of the earth and I'd buy a house (or two, or three) somewhere warm so my family could come visit during the frigid Michigan winters!

Five Jobs I've had:

1. Dairy Y
2. American Eagle
3. Express
4. The Buckle
5. Crown Motors

Five things people don't know about me:

1. I color code my closet - from dark to light and also by season!
2. I love to bake, but hate to cook.
3. I cry at EVERYTHING (thanks mom) - books, movies, commercials, sporting events, I even cried reading my sister's last post!
4. I'm an out-of-control perfectionist! I'm trying to convince Gary to buy another set of silverware (we already have settings for 12) because I can't stand the thought of using mismatched silverware if we have more than 12 people over for dinner!
5. I am a total scaredy cat! I hate scary movies, I don't like to be home alone, I used to run up the basement stairs at my parents house afraid of what might be behind me and I absolutely refuse to go on the Countdown to Extinction ride at Disney's Animal Kingdom! Those dinosaurs scare the CRAP out of me!!!!

My turn to tag! I'll tag Mrs. Julie Simon!

Mother/Daughter Weekend

This weekend my mom came to visit. Friday we stayed in and watched a movie as I was quite tired from traveling. Saturday we went shopping all day! It was great to have her here, we definitely shopped til we dropped!

I took this picture of her because we thought Chase would think it was SO cool that Nana got her picture taken with Spiderman!


Thanks for everything Mom! It was FUN!!

Glad to be Home!

So I'm back from Salt Lake City and I couldn't be happier to be home. I didn't sleep that well all week and was busy all day long at the conference. Salt Lake City is beautiful though, and it was even somewhat warm!

I was able to get a few good pictures of the mountains on our way into the city.

The conference was at a beautiful hotel called the Grand America.

However, trying to save the company money, we stayed at the Little America across the street. There was definitely a difference...

We even got to see a celebrity. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Mr. Lance Armstrong was one of our keynote speakers. He had an excellenct message and was quite funny as well.

On Wednesday night, we were provided some entertainment. We went to a place called The Depot which is an old train station and wathced The Flight of the Concords. They've got a show on HBO and they were fantastic! Really funny guys from New Zealand who do a comedy routine with their guitars.

During our last session, I got a little stir crazy and decided to walk around for a bit. It was way too nice out to be couped up inside all day. I think this is an old city building...

Salt Lake City, Here I Come

I'm leaving tomorrow for Salt Lake City, Utah for the remainder of the week. No, it's not for pleasure, it's for business. I'll be attending a web analytics conference, sounds like fun, eh? We'll see...should especially be interesting because it's a subject I don't fully understand yet. Lots of foreign language words like Meta Data and Multivariate Emails. I think I'd enjoy myself a bit more if I were going somewhere warm and sunny! I'm sick of the cold! Is it Spring yet? Someone please tell me it's Spring!