So Hip

Last week, my mom came into town to watch the kids so we could be downtown from Wednesday - Sunday for a big industry association event. If you're part of the industry, you are there. Someone in your company shows up. Your fellow manufacturers, distributors and colleagues are there. Typically, I travel to the location (because it's usually awesome) with the kids and explore while the husband is out until early morning hours "networking" with industry folks.

He's been attending for the majority of his time with the company, but this was his first as president. Even more exciting, last year he was asked by the president of the association to be the chair of the planning committee for this year's industry summit. Conveniently located in Chicago and being a young and innovative guy in the industry, he happily accepted. Not a bad resume builder.

And so he planned his tush off. He changed the format of the entire summit and introduced a 3-speaker Ted Talk style event that led to breakout sessions to take in two of your favorites for a deeper dive into their talks. He was one of the speakers to introduce his speakers and be the voice of the association for this summit. One of the guys was an actual Ted speaker and artist, but the others were more on the economist side of things that the industry is used to. Reviews of the event (he planned) have been nothing short of excellent.

I was there for the whole thing. It was so awesome. In addition to matching faces with names, having a load of delicious food and cocktails, being there to take in all his hard work, and sleeping in a comfortable hotel bed without kids waking me each morning, I also got to go on a food tour of the Gold Coast and Old Town with other industry wives. I also stayed up way too late each night "networking" as well and wore heels the majority of the time (that I consider are absolutely without a doubt little torture devices for women). I feel like I'm too feminist for those stupid things. But oh do they look so good.

And guess what? We took our first Uber ride. Seriously, I'm so hip. They even sent me a summary of my first ride with a map, exact (to the hundredth of a mile!) mileage, cost, and a picture of my driver in an email invoice/receipt after. If you want to take an Uber and wanna save yourself $20 on your first ride, I'll go ahead and shamelessly share my code for you all: brandyw508ue and if you use, I get $20 to my account for future rides, too. Not a bad deal. And really, I am sold on the service and will probably never take a standard cab again.

The whole post was really to just praise my incredible husband and how awesome he was in planning a hospitality event for his company that absolutely showcased their products in the best light and shared their impressive history with their distributors. It was just awesomely cool to see him kill it at the whole thing.

Four days away from the kids also meant their Gawbee spoiled them rotten and the littlest is now totally struggling with separation anxiety. Sleep has been rough. Naps have been tough. Leaving her at the gym for that hour a couple times a week has actually gone smoother than expected, despite her reminding me "Mama, [comes] back" every single day for at least a dozen times thereafter. She's clearly anxious. Sleep regression at 21 months totally sucks. Benjamin was just never that attached to me.

We're back in the mix of things (sort of) and next week, plane flight. Savannah adventures await!