Aspen Trip Pictures Like I Promised

I promised you pictures so you could see our Aspen experience with Millionaires Lifestyles. I can't even put into words how amazing the trip was. I cannot wait to go back to Aspen again in both the ski season and warmer seasons. There is just so much to do there that two days just wasn't enough. We packed in as much as we could.

The weekend started on a Friday night upon our arrival. We were picked up from the airport by a driver at the Ritz-Carlton and whisked away to the Ritz-Carlton property. I was amazed just at the sight of the town of Aspen, but I was blown away when we arrived at the property. It looked exactly like what you see in movies when the wealthy head to the mountains for vacation. I couldn't believe we would be staying there and that thought continued throughout the trip.

We got to the suite to find that it was a 3 bedroom, 3 bath suite with Cara and I having our own room. With that room came the best bathroom I had ever seen. It had marble everywhere and there was a switch on the wall that you could flip to HEAT UP THE FLOOR!!!! Of course I played with this the entire trip. There was a nice balcony that stretched the length of the suite and overlooked the heated pool and hot tub. Enough about the room though...

We had lots of events planned. We got to go to a Chef's Corner with the chefs of the Ritz-Carlton. They prepared an eight course meal right in front of us and gave us the recipes for everything they cooked. There was also a bottle of wine with every course which led to some interesting behavior later in the night. :-) We also went paragliding which was a lot of fun. We also got to spend a lot of time just walking around Downtown Aspen and seeing the city.

Enough of me telling you about everything. Just about everything can be seen in the pictures. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as we enjoyed taking them. If you would like more information on how you could possibly have a similar experience with Millionaires Lifestyle let me know and I will get you in touch with the right people. ;-)

Kylee's First Trip to the Zoo

Will and I decided to take our niece, Kylee, to the zoo this weekend. Here are some pictures from our day.


She was so cute, as she got so excited looking at all the animals! It was a lot of fun! It also gave us a 'taste' of parenthood. Boy were we tired at the end of the day!! The stuff not documented in pictures: us figuring out how to open and close her stroller, trying not to feed her too many things Mom and Dad don't want her to have, digging through her diaper bag for necessities of taking care of her, and finally, Kylee opening the bathroom stall door while I was going to the bathroom! Whew! We discovered we still need a little training before we are ready for our own. :) We had a great time though! And Will is completely ADORABLE with Kylee!! I know he will be a wonderful father when it is that time...

The Last Lecture

For the first time in ages I actually read a book for my own personal pleasure. Anybody who knows me knows that I am far from a reader. I pretty much only read magazines and I don't even read those very often. Anyways, I picked up The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon. If you don't know the story about him, let me bring you up to speed.

Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in early 2007. If you don't know much about cancer, this is one of the types of cancer with the worst survival rates. He had done many treatments and had all the cancer removed, but when he returned for a checkup they found numerous tumors on his liver and he was given 3 to 6 months to live. He had a wife and three young children that he knew he would be leaving soon. So he decided to move his family back to Virginia to be closer to where his wife was from so she would have help once he was gone. As he was helping his wife get settled into their new home, he was asked to give what many professors give at the end of their careers, a last lecture. He struggled with the idea of whether to do it or not as he wanted to spend as much time with family as possible, but he decided to do it. There was a catch though, he required that the lecture be recorded so that he would have something to leave behind for his children. This is where his lecture took on a life of its own. The video of his lecture has spread across the web like wildfire. With so much attention being brought to it, Dr. Pausch decided to write a book about the topic of his lecture, chasing your childhood dreams. This book is how I came to know about him.

Even though Dr. Pausch passed away earlier this summer, I feel like I know him now. If you read the book you will know what I am talking about. This man completely captured how to live in his short book. Even as he knew he was dying, he continued to live as if he would be here for a long while. I feel like I am better now for reading this book and I just want to get off my butt and start doing so many of the things I have talked about. Dr. Pausch accomplished all of his childhood dreams by simply going for them and I should do the same. He was a good man and he will be missed.

If you have more interest in Dr. Pausch, his lecture, or his book you can go to www.thelastlecture.com for more information. You can view the entire lecture there and read some passages from the book.

For my nerdy computer friends, please check out what might eventually be Dr. Pausch's legacy in computer science. He created ALICE, a project that uses educational software to trick people into learning how to program. He left it in good hands and it is still going strong.