Inspiration for a hump day

Sitting in my (Erin) office on good ol' hump day, an e-mail popped up on my screen from a friend. The e-mail included a link to JK Rowling's recent commencement address at Harvard - http://harvardmagazine.com/go/jkrowling.html

It is a great speech, truly inspirational (way more so than Elizabeth Dole was at Brad and my graduation - I have absolutely NO idea what she spoke of that day, I just remember it seemed to go on forever and it was really hot outside!). Anyway, some of my favorite quotes in case you don't have time to listen to the whole speech:

• "Some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default."
  
  
• "Personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes."
  


• "Many choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know. .... Those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy."

• "As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters."

A snippit from another quote that I loved was: "I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp." Reminds me of the essay I wrote on my Stanford b-school application but that's a topic for another day...

And now we find ourselves in W'burg

Ok, Tour de America 2008 is finally coming to a close. With next week's trip to Germany cancelled, that means that Brad and I will actually be home next weekend with no weddings or trips or anything else - woo hoo!

But we had one last fun trip to take before the Tour closed ... Williamsburg! We drove down on Saturday morning with the intent of stopping and checking out Kiera and Ryan's new place in Richmond, VA but our plans were stymied when Kiera called to say she had pink eye and was contagious. Figuring we could drive down to Richmond another weekend when the germs were conquered, we decided to head straight to W'burg instead. So we finally got to check out my parent's new house which they are in the process of moving in to. The house is a-mazing! Could certainly use a bit more furniture but everything else about it rocks! Brad especially enjoyed that the 10th hole of a golf course is basically in their backyard so he took advantage of the opportunity to walk on to the course and hit some balls.

We spent the day hanging out with my parents and Sharon and then on Sunday, Kiera (on meds and no longer contagious!), Ryan and Natalie joined us as well as my Aunt Claire, Uncle Pat, cousin Kevin, his wife Kerrie, and their 4 kids - Alanna, Patrick, Collin and Kiera. We had a great day just chillin on the screen porch in the back.

Duke thoroughly enjoyed the 2 long car rides in as many days, walks on the golf course and in downtown W-burg, and being chased by Natalie all day on Sunday. We all returned home on Sunday night exhausted, none more so than the Dukester!

Nein Deutschland!

You know work is bad when you find out that you don't have to go on a work trip to Germany next week and you are super excited! Normally I (Erin) would jump at the chance to travel, especially to a country that I've never been to before, but this trip would have involved lots of stress and not a whole lot of fun. No thank you!

Anyway, we'll just have to save Germany for another time!

This weekend's destination: Austin, Texas!

Brad and I just got back from an amazing trip to Texas to spend some quality time at Casa de Worsham outside of Austin. Seriously, that place is the best playground for adults ever! Highlights of the weekend included:

Mike and Dave both came down from NY to hang out for the weekend. We had so much fun with them and it was great to catch up. We got to spend the first night with them in downtown Austin at a dueling piano bar which was pretty funny. Mike or Dave -- be warned, next time we are telling them that its your bday so that you get pulled up on stage!








Fireworks to celebrate the 4th of July. By the way, setting off fireworks is fun - I definitely missed out in childhood by only being able to get my hands on sparklers. :)

Numerous hours spent on the lake - jetskiing, tubing, waterskiing and wakeboarding (ok, technically no one actually wakeboarded but at least there were a few attempts). Tommy played the role of expert boat driver all weekend and we all had a blast being pulled along for the ride!

When playtime on the lake was over, we brought the games inside and spent lots of time playing Wii on the big projection screen and also had a few rousing games of Beer Pong on the patio. Watch out for Le Anne, she's a ringer!

And of course, at Casa de Worsham, the food and hospitality is always amazing. I swear, Le Anne must spend a month straight in the kitchen preparing all the meals and snacks. It's better than a 5 star B&B!

We always have so much fun down there and the time just flies by - can't wait for the next time!