Working in the STL

Earlier this week, I was away from my family due to having to travel for some work meetings. I used to LOVE traveling for work - networking with my colleagues in person, brainstorming our marketing plan, building new relationships, checking out our sister properties and the competitors. Now? It's just become somewhat of a hassle and it's so hard to be away from my little man even if only for two nights.

My trip in a nutshell:

On Monday, I spent the late afternoon cruising the St. Louis property.  Then I met up with two co-workers for dinner at Kelly English Steakhouse - a new restaurant. It was fantastic. I had a great filet, asparagus, a wedge salad and a couple glasses from a nice bottle of wine {a customer had asked for a bottle for room service, the bartender had uncorked it and the customer never showed up. Their loss = My gain. We had a $115 bottle of wine :} After dinner, I met up with my friend Jess who has been living in St. Louis for the past couple of years. It was great seeing her and we had some great conversation at iBar. She's actually training for fitness modeling....awesome, I just ate all of that food and she is telling me of her "nothing there" diet. But she looks great and I'm proud of her for sticking to something so time consuming and life altering.

Jess & I

Tuesday was a little rough - I didn't make my workout in the morning {surprise, surprise}and I had stayed up past midnight the night before {not normal for me these days}, so I was moving a little slow. Why would I also not want to travel for work...the constant temptation of food and great restaurants!  We met for breakfast at the buffet {I stayed reasonably healthy w the egg white omelet and cottage cheese/peaches}, had meetings all morning, had lunch at the buffet {yet again} where I didn't fare as well, followed by more meetings and then we rounded out our eating our competitor's Italian steakhouse where if you consider a plate full of cannelloni, drenched in marinara and cheese healthy, then I'm healthy as a horse! Afterwards we ended up downtown at a bar district called the Landing and a fun little bar known for it's shot menu {I indulged in only one...I'm not quite the partier I once was.}

Now that is a shot menu!

While I was gone, daddy and Cruzer did just fine on their own...and I'm so proud of both of them! I got many picture updates, some just of little man and others with the fam. I missed out on Ross' surprise 30th birthday dinner at the Drover...yum.

My little Cubbie Bear

Look at Cruz checking out Dominic {w/ Carly & Sicily}

Grabbing my toes like a fiend...mommy LOVES this!

I have to say the trip really went well and we got a lot accomplished.  Would I want to travel every week or even every month for work? Definitely not. Once in a while is just fine by me...