every great trip must come to an end

when thursday morning rolled around, we were ready to rock and roll-because that's what rock stars do (no modesty there)...granted, i wasn't the rock star, i was more moral support than anything...and answering questions for some of the participants during hands on time.

the great thing is that the ucf campus was only two minutes from our hotel, so the drive-short and sweet (basically that means an extra 5 minutes to sleep...) when i awoke, i took a quick shower and realized that my bathing suit was still wet, so i made a little contraption to blow dry it while i was in the other room being productive (playing alphabetty-i'm here to tell ya that word games are like crack...)

we got to the ucf campus, in orlando and, as had been explained, they were set up and ready to go! sabrina hooked up her computer and we got the handouts ready to go, as we heard a tapping on the observatory window from above-it was dr. campbell, so we waved in momentarily she joined us and gave hugs. she is a very down-to-earth lady and the gals who work with her are great-very cheerful and helpful in every way!

participants began arriving and partaking in the beautiful panera spread, while we did trouble-shooting to make sure that everyone was connected and ready to go. sabrina has a great connection with this group-a few were returners; it's always nice when the participants can appreciate your humor! i love watching people in their element-i would have loved to see this one in a classroom with kiddos-i can only imagine! it was a treat, and by the end of the session, some of the first arrivals (who had arrived a little disgruntled about the whole being there and being mandated to use istation at their school), as they walked out and i was gauging how it went, said they were actually pretty excited now that they could see how it was going to be of value in their classroom as far as grouping students and addressing the particular needs-they expressed interest in returning for a deeper data session once they had some data points! that's when you know your job has been done-sabrina brought it and they got it.

once questions were answered and the room cleared out, dr. campbell and her gals joined us for a pleasant lunch-she asked about my travels in central america and shared some of hers. during the entire conversation, i got a sense of deep integrity and was thankful for how personable she was (which i'd already been informed of-she was great). she had to depart to take a conference call, so we finished some work stuffs and then decided to get outdoors-we plugged in 'union park' and the nav took us in some crazy circle and landed us at a post office and storage area-not a park. so we drove around until we found our own "park" and sat there for awhile (we had quite a bit of down time prior to our flight home), and discussed mums (the making of them), evolution and a host of other great topics that included laughter i'm sure...then we plugged in the address for the airport and we were off.

got some snacks in the airport and found a spot far enough away from the peasants, put up a little fortress wall to people-watch (okay, it was really just our carry-ons, and we were just putting our feet up-don't mind that we were wearing dresses #ladylikeisanattitude)

once we got on the plane, sabrina napped for a bit...and as i sat there, i looked at this exhausted, beautiful friend and my heart swelled about three sizes as i thought about the sacrifices of being on the road so much, and seriously they are...so i made a vow then and there to become a faithful prayer warrior for my friends who travel and are away from home-that God would protect their relationships, give them rest, bring peace, provide time for family in beautiful ways and keep them safe. it certainly isn't for the faint of heart and i know some of the trainers have been going pretty much nonstop for months...hopefully we'll be able to help alleviate some of that stress soon!

home was a welcome sight-i would be leaving to pick up the boys from their three week stay at mom and dad's on saturday.

if you know people who travel a lot, regardless of the type of job they have-pray for them! while traveling can be fun, there are lots of lonely hotel rooms out there and everyone can use an extra thought from afar!

julie

in between quantitative reasoning and data interpretation, you will find me, mouth slightly ajar with a blank stare

if i told you i was studying again today, would you think my life was dull? well, right now it is!
i gave the boys a bath, which is always a feat when i try to more than one at a time! bruno likes baths, chaco is not a fan. for chaco, i think it's mostly that he hates the hair dryer at the end. i'm pretty sure the noise gets to him. but once i have them mostly dry, they are maniacs and they run into my room and up onto my bed and bury themselves in the throw blankets. it's actually rather endearing.

after a little more studying and getting my answers wrong, chaco and i took a walk,

it's finally fall at our apartment! (today and tomorrow)

then i dropped him off and i took a longer walk. i went back to my new park where they are still adding to it.

on the way to the park, the branches of this tree were hanging over the sidewalk and they were fuzzy-which at first i thought perhaps pussy willow branch? but then, as i was researching (aka stalling from studying) i found that they are more of a northern plant, so this tree....not sure what was going on.

captivating little water feature (especially on a day as nice as today was!)

and then this massive contraption pollutes the entire view! yuck. it's monstrous! the little white box up there in the intersection has an air-conditioner in it-i mean...it's probably big enough to have a party in.

they also have a 'wildlife sanctuary' on a little island across the walk. but all it had was some dead grass. i don't know how they intend to promote it to the wildlife to get them out there, but i don't envision too much wildlife choosing to cross the sidewalk to get to the little island.

it was pretty empty at the park except for a biker, another walker and a lady reading on a bench. any one of them could have been cia. (obviously just kidding), but do you ever premeditate how you will defend yourself were the need to present itself? today i did. i was thinking about what would i do first if someone approached me with a vicious dog. and the first thought was go for the eyes first then take out the human's knee....(self defense-over thinking things, but better safe than sorry, right?)

well, it's time to get back to the book and reason quantitatively.
julie