5 STATES IN 7 HOURS

Hello friends - I know, my lack of blog posting has gotten out of hand - over a month since my last post and so I will attempt to update you on all things Hewiett that have been happening...

Josh is getting busy with Midterms which will happen over the next 2 weeks - he definitely has Senioritis all over again - and I think I do too?!?. He is excited and ready to start his internship which will begin in May. He will begin his residency (internship) at Huntsville Hospital. Huntsville, AL is about an hour and a half north of Birmingham and we will therefore be moving to Cullman, AL which is a VERY small town about half way in between (so I can keep my job) and we will both commute. We have spent a couple of weekends looking for a place to rent and I think we have found one - more on this in a later post...

I have been traveling a ton for work - visiting lots of job sites for projects installing this summer and next summer. Most recently I went on a trip and visited the great state of Ohio - somewhere I had never been before. We are opening a property this fall that is currently being remodeled. It is in Oxford, OH which is where the University of Miami (Ohio) is. For this trip I flew into the Cincinatti airport which coincidentally is actually located in Florence, Kentucky (also a new destination for me...) And here's where the name of this post comes in - on my trip to and from the jobsite (although I did fly) I had to go through 5 states. On the way there I started in Birmingham, flew through Memphis, landed in Kentucky, drove through the tip of Indiana and finally arrived in Ohio. On the way there I actually got delayed (due to all of the ice/snow in Birmingham) and had a long layover in Memphis so I did not make it in 7 hours... but on my way home I flew through Detroit instead and everything was on time so I actually did "5 states in 7 hours": Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Alabama. Probably way TMI - but I felt like I needed to explain my blog post title :).

The upside to my long layover in Memphis was that I got to have lunch with my best friend Sarah. It was my first visit to Memphis since she lived there and so we were excited even though did not have a ton of time. We had some much needed girl chat time and were both admitedly upset that we forgot to take a picture of our lunch to document the occassion on - you guessed it - our blogs. (Insert mental picture of Sarah and I at lunch here...)

While I was in Ohio, I had to decorate some models again for the complex - our company is remodeling each of the units to include new finishes in the kitchens & bathrooms, paint on the walls and new flooring. I have selected furniture and am managing the purchasing and installation. For the model it was the usual drill - shop beforehand to get items to make the units look "lived-in." I actually did the shopping for this one in Birmingham and had the items put on the truck with the furniture to meet me up there. Funny side story - Josh offered to help me shop for these models since I was by myself. He was excited... 14 buggies at Homegoods later maybe not so much but I think he did a great job. So... without further delay... here are the finished model pictures of the Ohio job that (Josh and) I did last week.

It looks like I will be home for a little while which is definitely a nice break - I will be getting ready for my marathon of a traveling summer with 3 installations in Ohio (above), Gainesville and Baltimore, MD.

Now that February is almost done - Next big event: Jessica's baby shower here in Birmingham on March 12! I am in charge of decorations for the shower and she is having a sweet baby girl. Will update with how it turns out.