Wowza yowza what an eventful two weeks I have had. I'll give you the quick and dirty run-down.

1) Went to Chicago for a Sexual Assault Prevention conference put on the the Center for Disease Control. The hotel was fantastic! It was a 46 story Marriott on Michigan Avenue. The bed was really comfortable, the pillows were fluffy and I had a down comforter.
1a) The conference sucked. Rather than brainstorming ways to actually rid our world of sexual violence most of the attendees played a big old game of pass the blame. Waa waaa, who's not pulling their weight. Then they blamed direct service agencies like my own. Let me tell you, missies, I am POSITIVE that I am pulling my weight. Booya!
1b) The big ideas from this conference are just awful. One is to make it trendy to be in a healthy relationship. They want to promote a campaign of "Choose Respect." In keeping with horrid, ineffective public awareness campaigns put forward by the government. (Anybody remember "Just Say No"?) http://www.chooserespect.org/scripts/ I guess the theory is that if the colors are bright enough and you have enough fake tattoos and podcasts you can make anything cool...for about 3 months. The other big idea is to start Sexual Assault Prevention Committees in our community. Yeah, right, just what the world needs...more freaking committees. I couldn't handle another damn committee if I tried.
1c) I ran into Ross Wantland from U of Illinois. Ross is the coordinator of the Sexual Assault Education program there. I met him when I was a Freshman at MSU and Tanya and myself and lots of others went down to Urbana-Champaign to learn more about the sexual assault prevention at the school. It was such a memorable experience. He didn't remember me specifically but he remembered Tanya and he remembered us coming down to visit him.

2) In Chicago I visited the Planetarium (very educational) and the Art Institute. For some reason at the art institute I spent a lot of time looking at portraits of women from 1500-1700. I just wanted to know what was trendy back then, I guess. Apparently it was lacey collars. I shopped a lot, I visited my very first Crate and barrel and H&M. It was discouraging since most of the stores were chains that I could have visited in any mall in America or expensive designers that I have no interest in wearing.

3) Todd and I went to his family's cottage on Lake Michigan and it was so nice. Unfortunately Todd's parents brought the dogs since they stayed with us at the cottage for a couple days. The dogs were really obnoxious. I don't like dogs to begin with so the fact that the dogs were whining the whole time they were there....lets just say the doggies are lucky they made it out alive.

4) Weather was perfect, breezy and sunny. Not humid at all. We went to the beach everyday and splashed around in Lake Michigan. We even went on a dune scooter ride; it was really fun and educational. We got ice cream from the Whippy Dip more frequently than we needed and ate the most delicious Irish potato skins from the local bar. Yum!

5) On our way back to Cincinnati we stopped in Toledo and had engagement photos taken. If you'd like, you can check them out here: http://www.everlastingimages.biz/KimTodd/ I like our photographers, they are going to be great on the wedding day. I am really happy I was able to book them and they keep telling me how excited they are about our wedding locations.

6) When we arrived in Cincinnati neither of us could fall asleep, even though our bed is super comfortable. The bar next door was playing loud music until 3am and we couldn't tell if people were setting off fireworks in our neighborhood or if the noises were gunshots. Maybe it was both. Some of them certainly sounded like gunshots! It's amazing how quickly you get used to the silence.

7) Now I'm back to work. My troublesome co-worker is being passive aggressive with me, as usual. Apparently she was storming around the office, muttering under her breath when she learned that I was sent to Chicago instead of her. Hahaha! I love it! We're all just counting the days until she is fired.