True New York Experience

Last month, Kevin's company -- Huron Consulting Group -- had their 5 year anniversary. It was rather momentous, as they were formed from the ashes of Arthur Andersen, and have gone on to be a wildly successful company. To celebrate their 5 year anniversary, they got to ring the opening bell at the NASDAQ. The company drew names to determine the 20 people who would get to participate...and Kevin was one of the ones chosen! Here are a few pics he took at the event, and if you go here you can see official photos taken during the ringing. The NASDAQ is right in Times Square, which you can kind of see in the second two pictures. Enjoy!

Two Weekends Running...

For the last two weekends we have been going non-stop! And while we had a fantastic time, we are so ready for a weekend of laying on the couch doing nothing! Fortunately, that is exactly what this coming weekend will provide.

For Memorial Day weekend we flew down to Atlanta with our friends Matt & Laura to meet up with Hicks & Dana -- former New Yorkers who relocated back home last fall -- and Kevin & Marcie -- other former New Yorkers who moved to Pittsburgh, but are about to become New Jersey-ans. We had been planning this weekend since Hicks & Dana moved back to Atlanta. Dana's parents have a lake house outside Atlanta, and we took it over for the weekend! We spent 3 days in swimsuits playing in the lake...swimming, sunning, tubing, skiing, wakeboarding, barefooting, jet skiing, etc. As Dana was the chef, we ate like kings all weekend. We played hard, and got home late Monday night absolutely exhausted.

Here are a few pics of Kevin trying to get up on the barefoot boom that was extended off the side of the ski boat...

Here's Hicks showing how it's supposed to be done...

After getting home from Atlanta with Matt & Laura late Monday night, the four of us turned around and flew to Maine on Friday night. Matt & Laura grew up together in Portland, and have been together since about 7th grade, when apparently, Matt was the coolest kid in school (according to Laura). Matt is, I'm sure, the only person on the planet who would choose to to go back and re-live 7th grade because it was so great. I would personally choose to wipe those awkward Junior High years from my memory, but whatever.

We were scheduled to catch a 9:40 p.m. flight from JFK that got us into Portland at 11:20 p.m. We got to JFK at 8:00 p.m. so they guys could check their golf clubs. Friends, our flight finally took off at about 2:00 a.m. Seriously. They said the delays were due to weather, but we couldn't see any problems outside. When we found out the next morning about the terror plot to blow up JFK the day before, we wondered if that had been the hold-up. Sure, that makes sense...people are trying to blow up the fuel lines at the airport...let's keep as many people stuck there as possible! (No one worry -- we were never in any danger!)

All of that to say, we got into bed in Maine at 4:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. Then, we had to get up at 4:00 a.m. Monday morning to catch our 6:00 a.m. flight back to NY so everyone could go to work. 48 short hours. But in those 48 hours we hung out with Matt's parents, got the grand tour of Portland, Scarborough, Cape Elizabeth and Freeport, we visited the LL Bean store, the guys played golf, the girls went to the Old Port Festival, we ate lots of seafood -- mussels, scallops, lobsta rolls, seafood chowda (that's how it's pronounced in Maine) -- we went to an osprey sanctuary and visited light houses. It was fantastic! We had chilly weather, which was great after leaving New York in 90F and 90% humidity. It was a very homey weekend. We loved it!