Boston --> Texas --> Boston

June has been an incredibly busy month and it's no surprise that it's quickly coming to a close. The first week of June brought Devon to Boston (shout out for being the first guest!) and we spent the entire trip walking around in the sweltering heat doing the tourist tour of Boston. Here's a photo of us after our duck tour.

I have to throw this shot of us cleaned up at Brian's party because the duck tour at the end of a 95-degree day doesn't do us justice.


The day after Devon left Stephen and I boarded a plane and got our butts down to Texas. Sure, the temperatures were hotter, but Texas has air conditioning! We went for the annual tube trip with all of our friends and I brought Becky and JP along for the ride. There aren't many photos of the tube trip because I don't have a fancy camera that can go in the water, but here are some gems:

We were locked out of our condo thanks to someone (Stephen!) passed out inside.
Becky and me making the most of being locked out of our condo.
JP passed out on the car ride home. Priceless.
Stephen dining on crack noodles - aka "Blazing Masala Noodles" from Masala Wok. This dish is addictive!

The week after we got back, two of our friends from Texas, Bucky and Dusty (yes, I realize those are SUCH Texas names!) came to visit, and we spent the weekend eating seafood, BBQ and playing flip cup at Ashley's Awesome place in the North End. I won't show all the damage we caused, but here's a good photo of the group of us:So it looks like our visits are done for another week or so now. And we're just about done with the downstairs unit, so our tenants will have a nice apartment to move into next week.

Moroch, You Make Me Proud

I'm prefacing this post by declaring that I'm going to start a second blog. When I originally started this blog I wanted to talk about interesting trends, topics and ideas taking place in my industry, but then I opted to focus on getting through grad school and keeping my parents and friends informed of my MIA status. Besides, there weren't that many interesting things I was coming across in PR and Advertising. But now that's changing, and so I'm going to run a second blog focusing on interesting stories and finds related to my industry. I'll let everyone know when it's up and running so you can see what I live on a daily basis.

In the meantime, I wanted to call out a spot that my old agency back in Dallas, MOROCH, just did for the Travel Channel to promote the new show "Great Weekends" with Samantha Brown. They won the TC campaign just before I left the agency, and I had the privilege to see the great work that was going to break for "Bizarre Foods" with Andrew Zimmern, and knew it was going to be special. Well, when I visited last week I got the same pleasure to see the new SPOT and it's awesome. Special thanks to Adrants for letting me know the spot has launched.

BIENVENIDOS A TEJAS!!!

That's "Welcome to Texas" for you non-natives!

Yep, that's right, I'm back in Texas for the weekend and I couldn't be happier. I flew in on Wednesday evening and had dinner with Laurel, then spent all day Thursday hanging with my former Morochians. Today I'm dining on some Bone Daddy's BBQ for lunch then heading to Austin for our tube trip.

It should be GREAT times and I'll post pictures when I get back home.

Adios!

Volleyball, Take 2

I got some good news/ bad news/goodnews regarding summer volleyball. I'll start with the good.

Good news:
I got onto an independent league - yay!!! I'm playing volleyball this summer, after spending my hard-earned cash on lessons and getting my feet wet with the team I played with this spring. I wasn't sure it was going to happen, so I'm glad I get to hone my skills.

Bad news:
Because there were only 3 girls on the waiting list and not enough men, I didn't get onto the intermediate league I wanted to play on. I got put on the intermediate/advanced team.

Ouch! Talk about a fright fest! Playing with "advanced" people - that's a little scary. I've had to pull my PR "everything-is-good-despite-the-bleak-outlook" mantra on myself and say that this is a good opportunity to play at a higher level and improve my performance exponentially. Which is what will happen... I'm going to be a volleyball all-star!

I already feel better. :)

Good news:
My former teammate from lessons, A, and I are playing on the same advanced team! She was one of the other two girls who signed up for our indie play and got put on the advanced team too, so we've got a buddy system going. And we're planning on playing in open play on Tuesday nights, and with another league that does open play on the weekends. So my volleyball calendar card is super full this summer, and who could ask for more?

So wish me luck on my quest to be an all-star. Naturally, I'll keep you posted on my progression.