My life as a grown-up…part deux

I’ve made the grown-up traveling team this year – both literally and figuratively. I went on my first international business trip to Mexico City. I found out that business trips are well… mostly business: ten to twelve hour days, seeing the city from the backseat of a cab, business lunches, and continental breakfast at the hotel. Thankfully, our partners in Mexico are perhaps the most inspirational, down-to earth, and just great people that I have ever met. It was also rad to personally meet the people on the other end of my daily Skype conferences.

As expected, I managed to do some of the usual Paige Beckley finagling on this trip. I happened to be working in Mexico right at the time cousin Chase got married. My cousin also just happened to get married a little north of Puerto Vallarta on a Monday. All of these perfectly timed events resulted in a weekend split between dancing my pants off with my buddies and logging in some beach / margarita drinking / wedding celebrating with family before flying back to work in Mexico City on Tuesday.

Before I knew about this international business trip, I planned to spend Thanksgiving with Connor and the Rudman family in the bay area. It turned out that I worked in Mexico on Thanksgiving and then flew directly to San Francisco the following day. The Rudman family, which I think we can officially call family, postponed Thanksgiving one day so Connor and I could be there. It was so sweet. While Thanksgiving was the real highlight, getting some time to hang out with Connor was also cool. We did a free walking tour (travelers beware the tours are free but the clientele couldn’t be weirder), checked out Sausalito, and just kind of caught up.

When I’m not being an international business woman, I do other grown-up things like support philanthropic causes. Most recently my house and other buddies did the Wondergirl run supporting Girls on the Run. As you may guess by the pictures below, the theme was super heroes. It’s not exactly a black tie benefit – maybe next year, when I’m older.

Ladies and Gentlemen: the original cholesterol sandwich

Ingredients: bread roll, quartered hot dogs, fried eggs, ham, manchego cheese, Oaxaca cheese, cotija cheese, Weinerschnizer (they call it Milanese), chicken breast, jalapeños, sausage, avocado, beans, mayonnaise, tomato, and I feel like I’m forgetting something.

For the record, I did not eat this. But, I know someone who did and to my knowledge he is still alive to tell about it.

Apologies for the graphic photo. I just felt like I needed to share this Mexican sandwich with the world.

My mama and me

Wedding Shot

The scene was absolutely beautiful: the bride, the groom, the ocean, the flags, the sun. A wedding in Mexico is the way to go.

Nerd Alert

David gets the award for finding the coolest places to work. Both this and his last job had free food – a huge plus in my book. Google might have had a free gym and massages but IDEO has a museum and fun stuff to play with.

El Camino a Salsaulito

I post this picture mostly as a point of reference for how much better my photos are going to be in 2009. Additionally, it shows that the weather was awesome.

Gold spandex: standard super hero apparel

These are my roommates. It goes without saying that they are super.

In answer to your question, yes, Caitlin is wearing her underwear on the outside

I didn't get the memo

Apparently we were supposed to take off our “gear” before brunch at Seattle’s finest vegetarian breakfast place.

I can't resist showing off Oliver

Oliver sometimes spends hours with his tongue hanging out. He also sometimes reserves this facial expression for special times – like mocking his auntie when I try to wrestle him to get a diaper on him.

Consider this the appetizer...

In the craziness between trips I'm not sure when I'll get the chance to post the blog about my first international business trip to Mexico City. In the mean time, check out this link to learn about the organization that Simon and I are working to support:
http://mx.youtube.com/user/unkilodeayuda