First Quarter
Drew lucked out with his being in Phoenix and escaped the Minnesota winter each week. In February we celebrated Krista's birthday with her parents in Sedona, AZ. Krista stayed for the entire week and saw much of Sedona and the surrounding area with her parents, while Drew left at the start of the week to rejoin his project team back in the Phoenix area. Drew and Krista did make it up to the Grand Canyon together during their Sedona trip, which was fantastic.
Drew's colleagues in Phoenix attended a Spring Training game together in Scottsdale and played a round of golf in celebration of completing the first phase of their project. While Drew was working hard in Phoenix, Krista was taking part in UnitedHealth Group’s Executive Development Program. Second Quarter
Krista was nominated and selected as recipient for the UnitedHealth Group (UHG) Living the Mission Award for her work with the Allina Hospice Foundation where she's served as a Board Member for the past two years. The Living the Mission Award is a quarterly award, and resulted in the Allina Hospice Foundation receiving a $2,000 donation from UHG.
Work took Krista back to Phoenix for a week in May, and since Drew’s client work was still in Phoenix, we spent a week together back in Arizona! Outside of work, awards, and traveling for work the Spring was pretty quiet for us. We also attended the Allina Hospice Benefit and celebrated surviving another Minnesota winter.
Third Quarter
We loved this summer! We both got back into running and Libby (the Lab) loved getting runs with us in the mornings before work. I wrapped up my Executive Development Program in late June; while I miss the daily interactions with my project teammates, it sure was nice to regain free time just in time for summer. Summer also brought a change at work as I took on a new position as VP Sales Optimization for the UnitedHealthcare Medicare and Retirement team.
In early July, we attended a fantastic family reunion in Louisville where we celebrated Krista's grandmother's 90th birthday.
We then went on vacation and celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary with a wonderful trip to St. Lucia. We went to an amazing resort called the Body Holiday- their motto is “Give us your body for a week and we’ll give you back your mind”. It was fantastic. The resort included all kinds of fitness classes including yoga, meditation, tai chi and even fencing lessons. The best treat of all was the daily hour massage treatment. Quite the dream vacation! And can you believe we found it on a trip to Costco?
We also made a weekend trip to Southern California in August for friends' Phil and Diana Stetz wedding and got to spend time with our good friend Tamara Icenogle who lives out in L.A. now and continues to love her work in fashion and retail. While it was a quick trip, it was great to take some long walks on the beach and catch up with friends in SoCal.
Labor Day weekend Krista’s parents came to visit us in Minneapolis, and unfortunately so did our first bout of cold weather (the temp dropped to ~50 degrees Fahrenheit for the weekend!).
We celebrated Drew's promotion to Manager with Deloitte and his completing another two years with Deloitte since starting back in 2008 after taking a couple years off to get his MBA. We went to the Minnesota State Fair to see a live performance of Prairie Home Companion and while the show was great, we were all a little chilly. I don’t think either set of parents now will plan to visit Minnesota except in June, July and August. We can’t blame them, as we write this in mid-December 2010 we’re expecting seventeen inches of snow and our expected high tomorrow is three degrees Fahrenheit.Fourth Quarter
Drew finally wrapped up his project in Phoenix and started heading to the East Coast to Hartford, Connecticut for his next project. As a new Manager with Deloitte this has been his first official project to be the day-to-day Manager on, and will be completed before the holidays. The project has been a great opportunity for Drew and helped him to further expand his network. For Thanksgiving this year we decided to drive to Dallas as Drew's parents asked him to pick up some of the things we had left in Dallas before our wedding (did I mention we just celebrated our 6th anniversary?). Drew's parents are selling their home in Plano and downsizing since they're finally convinced that Drew and his brother John won't be moving back anytime soon. We had a wonderful time in Dallas and with the road trip! We went through Oklahoma City where Drew grew up and so that we could spend time with Drew's brother John and sister-in-law Shanda, who live in OKC now and are both doing great. We had a great visit in Oklahoma and Texas and wish we could bottle that 80 degree weather for some of the cold winter days ahead. We’re looking forward to spending time with Krista's family this holiday season and hope that you have the opportunity to do the same.
