Chicago

I was in Chicago for training last week. We stayed about 25 miles from the city and the training was also out of town as well. I flew out Monday, had training Tuesday through Thursday and was scheduled to come home on Friday. The original plan was to have training on Friday as well, but we put in a killer 12 hour day on Thursday and finished up training so we would have Friday to do something downtown.

We drove into Chicago and paid $16 to park and walked down the Navy Pier and walked back. We didn't even buy a hotdog. We did drive by the fountain that is in the opening credits of Married with Children. As soon as I saw it that music was stuck in my head.

Next we went to the Sears Tower. We paid $19 to park there and $16 to go up the elevator to the top. It was worth it though. That is an impressively tall building. When you are outside you look at it and think, "yeah, that is tall and is taller than the other buildings" but you really appreciate it when you go up and are looking down at the other buildings around. I was looking down at one building and there were some people on the roof. The people looked tiny, then I looked down to the ground and those people were teeny tiny! It really was quite a sight. I also saw the new Trump Tower that was being built. The winner from the first season of The Apprentice chose that project as his prize, so it was neat to see.

My next two training trips coming up are in Powell, Tennessee. I've never been there, and it could be cool, but I think I would rather go back to Chicago to see more since we didn't have much time at all to do fun things.

I've been sick this week

So I was home Monday, tried to go to work Tuesday and realized I shouldn't have and came back. At some point during the day yesterday Rikki, Sydney and I were sitting at the computers with Syd on my lap. She wanted to see pictures of Ashton so I opened them up.

You know how you can cycle through the pictures with the image viewer using the arrow keys? Well, I was cycling through these pictures of Ash where I took a bunch of pictures one after another so when we went through them it looked like he was moving his arms and changing expressions. Add some music with a beat from the daddy beatbox and we had a dancing Ashton. Sydney loved it! She was cracking up so hard over it. It had us all laughing. It was a really fun moment, however breif it was.

What's in a Name?

(9:40:02 AM) Jake: http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=3365164
(9:40:16 AM) Jake: Turns out 'Ash' is not such an odd name after all
(9:48:13 AM) Darin: i just hope he doesn't have 3 Ash's in his class
(9:48:24 AM) Jake: you know, that's not impossible
(9:48:41 AM) Jake: but eh, it's a good name - he'll be 'Ash B'
(9:49:06 AM) Darin: or Ashtrick
(9:49:18 AM) Darin: but we'll call him * for short
(9:49:35 AM) Jake: lol
(9:49:56 AM) Jake: Hi, I'm *, and this is my uncle @~
(9:50:02 AM) Darin: hehehe

Hello from Darin, Rikki, Sydney and Ashton

Just wanted to say Hi to everyone and be an example on the new blog. We were very glad to have everyone come for Ashton's blessing last Sunday. And sorry we missed those who couldn't come. Everything went well and we had a good time.

Rikki, Syd and Ashton went to the Aquarium with LeeAnn, Jamie and her kids yesterday. I was at work and couldn't go. We tried to go visit them that evening but things just didn't work out and we stayed home.

Rikki is getting ready for a big boutique in the morning where she will be selling lia sophia jewelery and selling the remainder of her Finder's Key Purse inventory. We hope it goes well for her and for me as I'll be stay at home dad for the day with both kids.

Here are a couple pictures to appease the grandparents.