What I did this Summer: August

The past couple of weeks I’ve been sharing what kept me away from the blog for four months. Here’s what we did for the rest of the summer.

August Highlights

My oldest son and his family came out for the wedding and stayed with us for a week afterwards.

Family Visit

We went to the beach together one day.

My son and his family enjoying the beach

We had a great time and it made me wonder why we don’t go more often!

They were here for Steve’s birthday and I made a prime rib dinner that we all enjoyed. Dessert was his favorite cake, carrot, from a local bakery.

They went to Legoland and Sea World on other days. All too soon it was our final dinner before they went home.

Business Travel

August brought three weeks of business travel (in a row).

Boston Trip

The first trip was to the Boston area. The only scenery picture I took was on from one of the hotel’s restaurant patio where I enjoyed a peaceful dinner.

Here are some dining highlights from this trip. The top two images are from the The Fix Burger Bar in Worcester, MA. I highly recommend it.

It was a good trip except for the part where I left my personal Bose headphones at one hotel and had to drive an hour out of my way to retrieve it on my way to the airport.

Newburgh

The second week I went to Newburgh, New York. Here I am all dressed for business.

It was a fun and productive trip. Our team had two good restaurant outings. The top two photos are from Cosimo’s and the bottom from Billy Joe’s Ribworks.

I took one photo of the scenery near Philadelphia from my viewpoint in the air.

The last trip of the month was first business and then personal.

Holland and Orlando

The work part was in Holland, Michigan. I found it just as charming as my last visit.

We ate at an Irish pub, The Curragh, the first evening. It was a nice evening so we had an outside table where I had Guiness cheese soup and shepherd’s pie (top two photos above). The next evening we were back at The Seventy Six restaurant where I had shortribs with gouda mashed potatoes and the best salad which was listed as avocado and tortilla.

I flew from there to Orlando where I was to spend the holiday weekend with my grandson and his mom at Universal studios. Well, Dorian changed those plans and I ended up never seeing them as they got in late and I left Saturday at 2 pm. I made the best of my time at the Embassy Suites during my one day stay.

In addition to enjoying the pool and jacuzzi, I went to the hosted happy hour where their drink of the day was a watermelon vodka drink.

For dinner I stayed in and had dumplings and soup. The included cooked to order omelette breakfast was a good way to start my day the next morning. It was already raining off and on but my plane took off on time.

As it ended up, the airport didn’t close on Sunday night but my original Tuesday flight was cancelled.

Certification Results

Since April me and four coworkers have been studying for a professional certification. We all took the test in mid July and had to wait until late August for the results.