go, go, go

i left for dallas monday evening around 7pm. a fitness center needed some help with some accounting issues so i went down to help out. it reminded me of my audit days and my auditing experience sure helped me solve the problems and figure out how to implement new processes. of course nothing can be solved in three days, but i feel like i accomplished what i intended to, and that feels GOOD! i might be seeing more of dallas in the coming months...but i guess i'll cross that bridge if/when it comes. i do know that i worked 10 hours on both tuesday and wednesday and i didn't get to my hotel and in bed on monday night until midnight or so. by thursday afternoon i was EXHAUSTED. i went into work early friday and left at 4pm. what i REALLY wanted to do was have a relaxing evening reading a book or watching a movie, but nope, we had a camping trip planned.

i came home at 4 and immediately went upstairs to pack my clothes and help load up the jeep. an hour later we were off for wild water state park, about an hour and a half north of the cities along the st. croix river. we camped with a bunch of paola's friends and some of her friend's friends; there were 13 of us around the campfire on saturday night! i do want to pause and and promote wild river state park, though. it was my first time there and i was impressed! it was beautiful, clean and HEAPS of activities to choose from. we tried to rent canoe's, but they were fully booked, which i was totally bummed about, but instead, we went for a short mile and half hike to a beach area and played there for the afternoon. it was fantastic. dogs were allowed, so of course, phoebe had a blast chasing her ball all afternoon, i took some time to take pictures and paola and few others swam. when we got back to the site a bunch of others had arrived, so we basically...ate, drank and were merry :)

we got up early this morning so i could get back and do laundry from the weak, shower and clean up and then i hopped on my bike and rode into the office to do more work. since i was out for 3 days doing other work, i have WAY more than is humanly possible right now, so i wanted to at least get a few things done so i'm not working 12 hour days this week. i really wished i could have spent the afternoon canoeing and enjoying the park more, but i'm SO glad i got some work done. i'll be thanking myself monday morning!

around 5pm, paola met me at my office and we loaded our bikes into the jeep and headed over to the highland park reserve in bloomington, not too far from my office. we got 20 miles in and discovered some awesome trails!! - for running, blading and biking. there is also a super cool park area where you can picnic/grill and rent canoes or kayaks. we will definately be hitting this place up again. i can't believe i hadn't been there before. i had been to parts, by the ski hill, but not where we were today. it was good find to end our week....or, should i start the week ;)

this week FLEW by, and, um, it's august people...o.m.g.! here we come monday and let the july month end close start!