Camping with the 08s

It's late and I should go to bed, but I need to write a few words about this past week before too much time has past by. Why was last week so special? Well, there are many reasons.

Since family comes first I have to tell you about Julia. She made really good progress on her potty training this week and she also went to her first sleep-over this past weekend! Even more exciting, a couple of weeks ago she got her first real golf club. It's an eight iron and she is getting pretty good. She loves her golf club! At night she wants to take it into her bed, and she gives it a hug and kiss goodnight. Mark and I are really looking forward to taking her out on the golf course to start spending some quality family time golfing, could it get any better?

Second, I got a very surprising, and very happy, phone call from my really good friend Rita giving me the good news that she had gotten not only engaged, but also married! Congratulations Rita and Dave, we are so happy for you!

Third, my best friend Arin turned 30 last week. Welcome to the club Arin, I look forward to celebrating your birthday with you during Thanksgiving!

I also received some incredibly sad news about the tragic death of my former plant manager who was also an LFM alumni. It is difficult to grasp that someone who did so much for so many people is not here with us anymore, the loss is tremendous. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.

On a more uplifting note, the LFM class of 08 was in town last week for their internship midstream review, and the week culminated with a joint camping trip in Vermont for the LFM class of 08 and 09. Both Mark and I went camping on Friday night (hence Julia's first sleepover), and I went white water rafting on Saturday. It was tons of fun to hang out with the 08s and get to know them better. They are really a fun group! I look forward to spending more time together in the spring when they get back from their internships.

Other than that, classes are moving along quickly, sometimes way to quickly. I'm struggling to keep up with all the work, and I think it's just going to get worse, ouch! Talk about needing to take charge of my work life balance. I have become much better at planning my time this fall, it is a necessity if I'm going to have any time outside of school. I try to emulate my friend Jens superb planning skills. Although I doubt I will ever get to the point where I sort my grocery shopping list by isle and make 2 weeks worth of grocery shopping in ten minutes like Jen and Mike do. Incredible!

One thing on my plan is to go running more consistently. Tomorrow morning Mark and I are going out for a much needed run, it's been two weeks since I last went running. It's difficult to believe that last year at this time I was training for a marathon! Hopefully I'll be able to get back in shape, but likely not until next summer when the internship starts and I have more time to run. I have to be realistic, it's just not going to happen now while taking nine classes this fall.

Ohh, I almost forgot, we got our tickets to go back to Sweden in October for Katarina and Fredriks wedding! I am so excited to see my friends and family again. I am definitely going to make sure I go running when I'm home, Lidingo has some of the most beautiful and best running trails I have ever ran! Well, its time to get some well needed rest before another busy day tomorrow.
PS. To Mrs O, your son is doing well and says hi, he also had fun at the camping trip!

Some more pictures from this summer

Golfing in New Hampshire

Marks beautiful follow through

At Crane beach with Julia

Fall semester has begun

The fall semester starts this week. Well, it really started 2 weeks ago with 1 week of Sloan pre-term classes and 1 week of Sloan Orientation. I didn't attend the pre-term classes; I needed a week away from school and chose to spend some quality time with my family instead. We had a great week! I hung out with Julia; we went to the beach one day (I will post some pictures later) and she loved playing in the sand and water! Mark and I took a mini vacation at a golf resort in the New Hampshire mountains. We spent two nights there and played a total of 72 holes of golf. Time well spent! I didn't play very well (I shot in the low 80s, mark shot in the high 70s), but I enjoyed just being on the golf course with my hubby, and the weather was nice and the views were beautiful.

Last week was Sloan Orientation week. We got to meet the rest of the Sloanies (the other MBA students) and we got to meet our new teams for the fall semester and do some team building. So far I like my new team, I think we will work well together.

This weekend I got to hang out with my friends from Colorado Springs (although most of us don't live in Colorado Springs anymore since the plant there is shutting down). My friend Ruth had her bachelorette party here in Boston so I got to see her, Janelle, Drey, and Zac. Zac didn't attend the b-party, he stayed with us and hung out with Mark and Julia. Julia was really really excited to see Zac, I haven't seen her that excited in a long time! The b-party was tons of fun, but was bitter sweet. I really miss our CS friends, it's really sad that we all had to move away from CS. On the positive side, I can look forward to meeting them again at the wedding in February.

Got to go to bed, tomorrow is registration day so I need to meet with my Civil Engineering advisor in the morning to get my fall classes approved. Hopefully he will be OK with me not actually taking any Civil Eng classes until the spring semester. I will find out tomorrow.