Been awhile since I have written. Since April, we've fallen off of the BFL wagon, been on vacation a couple of times, got another stripe on our red belts in Taekwondo, have found out absolutely nothing new about Japan (besides the fact we can't do anything until September) and we're learning Japanese.

Vacation was great. We went to New Orleans first for the HOW Design Conference. Got sick. But still had fun. The first two days were non-conference days, so we wandered around the French Quarter and took the St. Charles streetcar to the Contemporary Arts area. The Contemporary Arts Center had a great exhibit on comic book art. We then walked to the Garden District (which was a bit of a haul) and walked around in the drizzling rain admiring the houses and yards.

The conference itself was very inspiring. Saw Genevieve Gorder from Trading Spaces speak about what inspires her. She gets a lot of her inspiration from travel and nature. Also had a couple less exciting business-y workshops as well.

Then we went to Idaho for a week to see Denny's parents. The first couple of days were spent laying in the backyard reading. The weather their was fabulous......mild temperatures with a cool breeze constantly blowing. His mom's garden is beautiful and lush. All the flowers were in bloom. The grass is thick and feels good on your bare feet. Nothing like laying on a quilt reading, hearing the sounds of the wind blowing through the trees above. And Gus. Denny's sister Camille's big black lab Gus. Very sweet and friendly and slobbery. Plus, his goal is to be a lap dog.

After hanging out for a couple of days, we packed up and headed north to the Sawtooth mountains for a quick camping trip at Redfish Lake. Sooooooo perfect. Stacey, Jim and Elizabeth (Denny's sister, brother-in-law and niece) met us there. We camped and roasted marshmallows and played games and listened to Denny play guitar ( and Camille and Alex). A nice time was had by all. Denny did however have a slight accident on Alex's bike. He thought he could brake one way and instead ended up throwing himself over the top of the bike and getting scraped up a bit. Poor baby.

Our second "mini" vacation was to St. Louis. More about that later. Back to work for now.

Not too much new here. I've been really busy doing photo shoots and trying to keep up with design work the past couple of weeks. And doing the Body For Life stuff, trying to eat right and work out regularly (and getting up early to do so).

We've heard all good things about Japan. Looking forward to it. Still have a lot to read up on and figure out.

Went to the briefing today. The fellow we met with told me I didn't need to be there. Gave us a bunch of paperwork to be filled out......We both have to get medical clearance and I have to get a passport. Once we turn in a bunch of this stuff we'll get our official orders. The guy wasn't very helpful--we tried to ask the important questions, about our car, about housing, and he kept saying "I don't know, you'll have to ask the TMO for that"--and I had to ask what TMO is (I love how all military folk think I know what all these little abbreviations are). what I really want to know is what kind of internet connection I can get.

Denny came home with a website that had all this wonderful info for us to go through. Printed it all out...now we just have to read it.

We go to get our briefing on the move tomorrow. Looks like it's definate now. Margarethia told me that she'll fly me back for photo shoots and I'll still design the magazine from over there. Henry had already told me that he'll put me on the payroll fulltime and direct deposit the money....just have to work out communication details.

On the Body For Life front, my arms still hurt from Tuesday's first weight training session. Hopefully they will heal in time for Taekwondo testing on Saturday. This is our first red belt testing and we'll have to break boards. We practiced last week and broke on the first try--a very surreal but cool experience.

We are definately 99.9999994599783999% sure that we will be moving to Japan in February next year.

Okay, we started Body For Life yesterday. Getting up at 6:30am. Doing Cardio. And then today I did the arm weights. Not used to the early rise yet. The weird part is that I should be sleepy now...and I'm not. The food takes some getting used to as well. Eating 6 times a day. You wouldn't think I'd get hungry...but I am. I'm sure my body will adjust (hopefully in all the right ways).

Today was our 3 year anniversary. Decided to have a "free night" and went out to eat.

Sure hope I can move my arms tommorrow.

So, I really dislike tech support when they have no knowledge of the tech or the support you need. I won't name the graphics giant tech support that I called today by name (never know who is reading), but when I called and told them my problem, they pretty much weren't listening. I said "I'm having a problem opening a document--the app just quits in the middle of converting". The support-guy said, "have you tried placing the document?" Nope, I hadn't. So we tried it and guess what--not even an option. So he put me on hold for awhile, came back and said "why don't we try opening it" It was all I could do not to say "DUDE...that's why I called in."

Anyway, enough ranting. Denny and I spent the latter part of the afternoon looking at movie trailers online and avoiding that stuff I was supposed to be doing (work anyone?)

Thats all for now.