From beer tents to tattoos!

That's right. It's all downhill from here.

We spent a few days in Indiana last week and Elle was easily influenced by her "older" BFFs -

Evie and Annalise (ages 8 and 5 1/2).

Check out her arms.

She was super excited to be like the big girls. This influence didn't stop at the "tattoos" though. All week she wanted to sit on the big chairs at the dinner table, go head first down the slide (Mom put a quick stop to that one...), and hang from the zipline in the back yard (with a lot of help from grown ups)!

A closer look at her "art".

Man, if she ever did go to the slammer, she would get beat up with this ink!

Thanks for letting us invade for a few days Jenni, Jim, Evie and Annalise!

St. Patrick's Day!

After enjoying a few days of 80-degree weather in DC (who expected that??), Elle and I were off on another adventure. Unfortunately, the weather was not what we had been getting used to at home. Try 50's and rainy. Oh well - since I was locked away in a windowless conference room, I guess Elle was the only one who had to suffer through it!

After my meeting finished up today, we went out exploring with a few of my consultants. Elle was lucky enough to get to experience her first beer tent on St. Patty's Day! She was very excited by the stamps we got after they checked my ID (still says I am 28...), the huge tv screen showing a soccer game and the guy making balloon animals!

So, where was this magical land of rainy weather and beer tents? 

Portland, Oregon!

Our free time this weekend also included a Lebanese restaurant - Elle enjoyed the tabbouleh - and a local establishment where she tried corned beef from my yummy ruben - she preferred my fries though.

Our trip out here was pretty good and I am crossing my fingers for the long return flight tomorrow. At this point, I am still having her sit on my lap. But, she is really interested in having her own seat on the airplane. A few weeks ago she kept pointing at the lady in the middle seat saying "Elle sit, Elle sit". Fortunately, the lady was a good sport about it!

Ahhhh, can't wait till she is a teenager! :)

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Where in the world is Rancho Mirage?

About 11 miles southeast of Palm Springs, CA.

That's where we've been since Sunday. I had a conference to attend here for the last few days.  As usual, Elle was the hit of the event. She received a "first time attendee sticker" and they cut out a balloon from the decorations for her on opening night. If I told you what the conference was about, you will probably fall asleep.  Fortunately, it finished up around lunch yesterday so I took Elle out exploring.

We ended up at a desert zoo called the Living Desert. It was pretty cool - Elle has been interested in giraffes lately (thanks for the inspiration G&G Brown!) and they had a 4 month old one! We also pet some goats (of course), saw some ostrich, camels, meerkats, a bunch of other cool animals and rode the carousel - and we only saw half of  the zoo!

This is a giant concrete gecko. She had fun trying to walk on his tail.

They also have a playground area. Of course she found the sand and water area. They also had a slide that went through a big "cactus", a big "spider web" to climb on, and some "burrows" for you to crawl through.

I didn't take any pictures of the real animals but they did have some cool sculptures all around of the animals that were near by.

It wasn't a huge place but we were there about 2.5 hours - would definitely go back if we ever are in the area again.