Training, Training and some me time

This last week I was scheduled for training classes of writing Crystal reports I, II, & III in Denver, since they would have to pay me for mileage to drive every day back and forth and maybe they were being extremely nice by not making me get up early every day and home late they set me up in a hotel for the week.
Monday morning I got up and got ready and finished packing and off to Denver I went. There were 7 people in class the first 2 days. As usual with any training class you always have to state your name, your company and then we had to tell them our experience / knowledge of Crystal Reports. As all of us went around I realized at that point that I was the only person in the class that was not a "computer geek" for lack of a better term. Every other person there was a computer programmer and all I could think of was "great, what the hell am I doing in this class?" and "I can't wait for these people to get frustrated with me slowing them up". Surprisingly though the class that I have taken before and the studying at home on Thursday's (yes, during work hours!) paid off and I was able to keep up with everyone and learned a few new skills. The first day of training we breezed through and actually got out of class by 3pm instead of 4:30. I took a little detour on my way to the hotel (because I programmed my navigation system to 100 Grant St. instead of 1000 Grant St.) and found a liquor store, so of course I stopped and grabbed a six pack for my room, I did have a full kitchen so I thought what the hell! I unpacked all of my stuff once I got there and then pulled out my laptop for a little work, by the time Monday night Football was starting and the Broncos were playing I was already getting antsy for something to do and headed down for happy hour and some appetizers. I stayed there until about half time and headed back to the room and chatted with my mom after her trip to China and then with my brother for awhile and off to bed I went.
Day 2 -
Training was good again that day and I was able to keep up and we got out at 3pm again. One of my co-workers was at a meeting in Denver a few blocks from my hotel and called me up to see what I was up to. So I met him for a couple of drinks and we talked about my class since he is our current/actual Crystal Report Writer. So that was fun and gave me someone to hang out with for awhile. That night I talked to a few of my girlfriends back home and it was so nice to be able to just sit and talk to a friend and really catch up without being interrupted by the kiddos or having ten million other things to do.
Day 3 -
Class started to get a little harder with the intermediate class and also brought in 5 new people all from RTD and more computer people (which were all foreign and I had a very hard time understanding them when they would ask questions, I tried the best I could). That night I definitely needed a beer as my brain was fried! I met the instructors (one was a girl and one was a guy, Dan would have probably had a fit if they were both guys!) from my class for happy hour since they were staying at the same hotel around 5:30pm. We ate supper and I picked at their brains for awhile and then we just chatted it up until around 8:30pm. One of them was from Arkansas and the other from Minneapolis. It was a fun way to kill another night.
Day 4 -
Ugh, the chapters get harder and harder and there are more and more formulas and functions to learn and where the hell do you put this or that and memorize all of this?! Thursday night I went back to my room and laid in bed for an our to decompress and then I actually got out my laptop and went back through a bunch of exercises and activities of building reports to go back over what I had learned the last 2 days. I definitely figured out that I can do these things, but not in a classroom setting where 10 other people are doing it as well, this may be the one thing that I do not have any desire to be competitive with! After I did that I watched some TV and then read a few chapters ahead hoping this would help me on Friday and packed up my bags.
Day 5 -
Are you kiddin me?! I was pre-warned that Friday's class was going to get very technical. I basically made some notes in my book, didn't attempt hardly any of the activities and chalked it up to I will learn it later and I least I had my first overlook at these pieces. With that I got my 3 certificates and was on my way home back to my family and made it out before the snow really started coming down, which I was grateful for. I surprised the kids and picked them up at daycare and Dan had a nice meal cooking for us when we got home. After supper I threw both kids into the bathtub and then I did bedtime for both kiddos tonight. Dan was fast asleep before I even put Katelynn to bed at 8pm.

Just some extras.
My hotel room was amazing. I basically did have a 1 bedroom apartment to myself. It had a living room, dining room, kitchen, patio that overlooked downtown, bathroom and huge bedroom with a California King size bed (I think that's what they are called). I had the government rate for the room which also included free breakfast by room service every morning. Let me tell you - that made my day start out so nice every day. I would wake up and jump in the shower and then order breakfast, had plenty of time to get ready for work (with no kids it's amazing how fast you get ready and don't feel stressed) and have a cup of coffee, eat some breakfast and watch some of the Today show. Class started at 8:30am everyday and the class was literally a 5 minute drive from my hotel. After the first day I started to feel like I got a little piece of me back, the pre-mommy, like the Dr. told Katelynn that day, your mommy used to be Taryn before she was mommy, how true. It makes me want to live in both worlds so if anyone out there knows how to do this please let me know! I think it was really good for Dan to be with the kids for an entire week by himself, it sounds like they had a good time and Katelynn definitely has a better attitude (at least for this first night, we'll see how long it lasts). Dan and I were happy to see each other, although I was hoping to spend some time with him instead of my computer, but it'll have to wait for tomorrow night as the daddy is whooped. Wednesday was Veteran's Day so as a government employee I was supposed to have a holiday, but was at training so I get to take Monday off instead - yeah, some more me time or time to get down and dirty and clean the house!

Mom's Trip to China

Things are going good here.
China is a beautiful – even along the main roads it is like a garden – they love trees, plants, flowers and they love to light them up at night in many different colors. You can go down a main road and they have pots of small trees in them for miles down the center of the roads. Last night at supper we had 15 different dishes- all very good, and today at lunch we drove to a small Taiwan place to eat with two VP’s from I-Shen – we had 10 different dishes than two deserts, coffee and than tea. We met and toured I-Shen and than ate, we were with them for 3 1\2 hours – I was very impressed with the place.
I have tried every dish so far and have done very good with it – even the big, big chicken foot yesterday for lunch and the pig intestine last night!!! Most of the food has been very good. Jorson’s group took us out last night, tonight Edward’s group takes us out. We are going to try to get some shopping in afterward – there are blocks of shops right next to our hotel. Our hotel is in a garden, many of the trees are 100 years old – Suzhou is 2500 years old! The first president Bush stayed at our hotel.
The bathrooms in the restaurant last night and I-Shen today were squatters for the women – not good for old people!!!
Well I have a meeting now so I will talk to you later! Oh – it is 70 out today!

Renee Dickhaus

Happy Halloween

We had a blast trick or treatin' this year. My friend came over and went with us; she made her sponge bob costume (isn't great!). It was so fun walking around with Sponge Bob, all the kids looked and you could hear them say "Look, it's Sponge Bob"! Katelynn was great this year, she ran right up to the houses and knocked on the door and said "Trick or Treat" and always followed with a nice "Thank you". We ended up with our next door neighbors as well which made Katelynn's day to be with her little friends.

The next morning Junior even slept in until 7:45 (6:45 with the fall back), Katelynn was up at 7am, but it was better than 6am!