Motownphilly

Well, we survived the road trip from California, arriving to Denver on Friday (more on that soon!). After a quick unpack/repack transition, on Sunday I flew to Philadelphia to start my new job. 

 When I received my job offer, it came with a start date during their annual conference. I was, and still am, pretty excited for the opportunity to experience the largest event I'll be helping to plan. After I accepted the position and was booking my flight to Philly, this song popped in my head and has been there since, thus the name of this post.

Today was my first real day on the job. I spent the better part of an 11 hour day shadowing one of my new co-workers who graciously answered all my questions and introduced me to everyone. I have been warmly welcomed by the entire staff and heard a lot of "wow, trial by fire" and "they're really throwing you in". True, its overwhelming and I have no idea what time zone I'm really in, but I am so thankful for this experience. I know that when it's time to contribute to the planning process I'll have an idea of what they're talking about.

As for actually seeing Philly, I think this photo, taken tonight from the 33rd floor of the Loews Hotel, and quick walks from my hotel and the Pennsylvania Convention Center might be the most of what I see...this time.

Hittin' the road

The time has come, we are saying good bye to the Bay Area and hittin' the road! Brian flew in last night so we can make the trip together. When he moved two months ago we did not have the gift of time, so we made the trip in two days. Thankfully we now have a whole week so we decided to make a scenic road trip out of it!

Today we'll drive down Highway 1 from the Bay Area to Morro Bay, just outside of San Luis Obisbo, and will camp on the coast. Monday we continue down the coast to Orange County to see my family. Tuesday we will leave the coast and head east to the desert to see the Hart family. Wednesday we're heading to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. I've never seen the Grand Canyon so I'm really excited for that! Wednesday night we're staying in Flagstaff with Brian's brothers friend. Thursday we'll head northeast to Durango, with a few park stops along the way. Thursday night we'll stay with the Kruegers. Friday we'll drive the rest of the way to Denver aka our new home!

It has not hit me that in 2 hours I will be on the road leaving California. I have lots to write about my time here but ran out of time to write it all before getting on the road. So stay tuned, but as everyone who reads this already knows...I am so excited to move back to Colorado but will definitely miss my home away from home, California.

Baby Banner Gift Bag

Over the weekend was a baby shower for Chelsea and her little fella, who is due at the beginning of December. Although it would have been so great to be in Durango to attend, it just wasn't possible to get there. More possible was wrapping up some cute clothes and mailing them for the shower!

It's always tricky to mail a gift to be presentable for a shower. You never know if the wrapping will survive the trek. At the advice of IHB, I decided to wrap the items in the adorable tissue paper provided by Baby Gap and mail them with a gift bag to be assembled prior to the shower!

I didn't find a gift bag that coordinated with the tissue paper, so I decided to make my own! I choose a brown kraft paper bag to work with.

You know how I feel about banners, especially for babies (see here and here), so I pulled out this stamp as my inspiration.

To make a baby sized banner for the bag, I cut four banner flags out of this fun blue chevron paper.

Using the Cricut I cut four denim colored circles and paired them with the letters b-a-b-y (using scrap paper from this project).

I glued all the pieces together, lay them out on the gift bag and FAIL. Baby banner is too big for the bag!! I mostly wanted to share this picture to prove that projects do not always pan out as planned, but you probably already knew that :)

I quickly changed my plan and went for round circles and baby fit perfectly! Hooray, tragedy averted!

I punched a small hole on each side of the bag and strung the banner on some twine. I then tied the banner onto the gift bag.

Ta-Da: Baby Banner Gift Bag!

After I snapped this picture, I unpacked the bag and carefully placed all the items in a box. I mailed all the items to Chelsea's mom who kindly re-assembled the bag and took it to the shower on my behalf!

I think today marks two months until we all get to meet Baby Krueger! I cannot wait to snuggle him in this. In the meantime, we can gush over this new cute fella, Dylan Teuber, who was born last week!! Congrats to his parents Lisa & Doug!