October 12, 2008

This past few weeks have been fast and furious. I have finally completed all of the coursework for my MBA including the final Business Plan project and the final presentation. On October 1, 2008 my group; Jennifer L. Bean, Saye Maye Cole and I did our final presentation for African Market Inc. in Kansas City, which is an actual business that Saye Maye is starting selling West African Foods and other African items. It was a very interesting project and I learned a lot from working on it.

As soon as it was over I left and went to Kansas City to catch a plane to Dallas, TX at 9:05 pm. I got to Texas, got my luggage, caught the shuttle, rented a car and drove over to Fort Worth, TX to the Historic Hilton Hotel in downtown Fort Worth. It was beautiful. I was extremely tired.

Thursday morning I got up early and walked to the ACRW (American Council for Railroad Women) Conference at the Marriott hotel about 6 blocks away. We had very interesting speakers in the morning, and in the afternoon we got on a bus and went to the railroad yard just outside of Haslet, Texas to see the intermodal yard and go up into the tower. After that we went to BNSF headquarters in Fort Worth and took a guided tour of the NOC (Network Operations Center), then we took another tour with the Art Curator of BNSF of many of the southwestern paintings that are owned by the railroad. We even were able to go into the CEO's office and see the mural that is painted on one of the walls in his office--that was cool.

Thursday evening I attended a banquet with a very interesting speaker from BNSF that is the CIO (Chief Information Officer). She is the mother of four and a very successful business woman that came to the U.S. as a small child, a very poor refugee. She has worked hard and gotten a good education and worked her way up. She was quite an inspiration.

After the banquet I met my son John and his girlfriend LaVita and took them out to eat at Chili's in downtown Fort Worth.

Friday was another filled day at the conference. I had to get up early, check out, get the car, drive to the Marriott and find another parking space. We had speakers all morning, then a Texas barbecue for lunch. After lunch we had a communications seminar all afternoon. I learned that 'Actions' really do speak louder than words. We talked about many differences in the way men and women communicate. It was a very interesting seminar.

After the seminar, I drove over to the Casa Manana Theatre and met Laura, Jeremy and Kirsten where we purchased tickets to Sleeping Beauty, then went to dinner, then back to the play. Kirsten was a little scared at first, but it was her first play, and she soon got the jist of things and enjoyed it. Afterwards she met Sleeping Beauty and Prince Charming and got their signatures on her play book. Grandma was very happy!

We then drove to Laura & Jeremy's house in McKinney, TX arriving very tired and went straight to bed. Saturday morning I got up and gave Kirsten the tutu that I made for her and gave her her new pink winter coat and ballerina jammies--she liked them all. We played around for a while and then I left to go to Oklahoma and see my mom and dad.

I dropped by my friend Steve Christiansen's house to tell him good-bye as he is moving to Houston, TX from Norman, OK. I went out to my mom and dad's house and visited with them. My dad is doing well after his prostate surgery on Thursday 10-2-2008. He was doing so well in fact that he wanted to go out to dinner. I drove them to my dad's favorite place in Norman--Golden Corral. My sister Iva, her husband Cole and boys, Sam and Jerry came as did my niece Ciera. We had a nice dinner and conversation. After dinner Iva and Cole and the boys came over to Mom and Dad's for a while.

On Sunday morning I got up very early and left about 6am to drive back down to Texas to Laura's house. I arrived in time to watch General Conference with Laura and Kirsten. Jeremy was not feeling well. After Conference I helped put the zipper in Kirsten's Snow White costume for Halloween. I packed up, and we drove to Dallas to meet John for lunch. After lunch I drove to the airport in Dallas, turned in the car and caught my plane back to Kansas.

Wow what a whirlwind week!!!

The best announcement from Conference was that we are going to be getting a new Temple in the Kansas City area, which will only be about an hour away instead of over three hours away. That will be so wonderful!!