Work Travels to Germany

One of the more enjoyable aspects of my job is the occasional opportunity for interesting travel.  In 2014 I had the opportunity to travel to Frankfurt Germany a couple times to take witness interviews for some internal investigation work I was doing.  Of course the main purpose of the trip was work but I was able to stay an extra day to see some sites on my first trip and also was lucky enough to be there during the famous Christmas festivals so I was able to enjoy those a bit at night after the interviews were finished.  Here are a few photos from around Frankfurt during my first trip and then taking one of those red tourist buses around :-).  First up, here is the hotel I stayed in (The Steinberger Hotel):

The room was great and I loved the touchscreen bathtub!  You just set it to the temperature you want and turn the water on to fill it up.

Then up next are pictures from my walk around old town Frankfurt when I first arrived:

Dinner with my team after the interviews (this was our dinner on the second night...we had given up on German food by that time and went for Italian--we were NOT fans of German food):

 My co-worker Melissa and I hung around for an extra day and took a tour bus ride around Frankfurt and then took a train to this CHARMING little town called Heidelberg outside of Frankfurt.

 Love that the windows open in this skyscraper! That would be awesome in my building.

 And now on to Heidelberg.  I highly recommend visiting this gorgeous town and its beautiful castle if you are in the area.

 Europe AND an adorable Christmas store...The only thing that would make this better would be Reed :-).

 And I had to include a photo of this super quaint little bookstore.  It just feels so European.

And these next couple photos are from my second trip when the Christmas festival was going on :-)

Well it's definitely not as fun without Reed but certainly better than sitting in my office in Dallas all day and I certainly enjoyed flying first class (my firm bought business but I seem to have pretty incredible travel luck and got upgraded both times! Though business still would be awesome to Europe...).  Hopefully looking forward to more exciting work trips in my future.  Maybe one of these times Reed can meet up with me ;-).

Summer 2014 - Part 2

We had a special visitor all the way from France! Audrey was visiting some friends in Louisiana for the summer and was able to come out to Dallas to spend a week with us. Tracie came out to spend time with her and us as well. We had a great time showing them around Dallas, seeing some sites and eating some good food. 

We ate at our favorite pizza place, Cane Rosso, walked around the American Airlines Center, saw the Old Red Dallas County Courthouse, the Grassy Knoll, and the Dallas Museum of Art. It was a lot of fun showing them around.

Shortly after, Audrey's little sister Clemence flew into St George to stay with the Wyson's for about a month. We traveled to Salt Lake for Jared and Sydney's wedding which was great. We stayed up in Park City, spent some time around Temple square, rode the Alpine Mountain Coaster, and had a great time in Utah.

Then we headed down to St George for some fun at the lake. Dana and Jason took all of us out on their boat to do some wake surfing and work on our tans.

It was Clemence's first time out on the boat so she was a little scared at first. She worked up the courage and decided to go on her knees at first.

Then, she got really brave and decided to try it for real, as long as I got in and helped her. After some failed attempts, she finally got up and left me in the dust (as you can see below). She was sooo excited.

Natali got in as well, and decided she liked wakesurfing on her knees better than standing up.

And here are Dana and Jason with Lucas. They just seem like they could live on the lake. 

The newlywed couple!

And Dana got out and showed us how it was done.

Back in Dallas, I decided to put some of my free time to good use. BYU was doing a thing where they dropped a "BYU Box" in different cities every day before the football season. I parked downtown waiting for the drop and I was able to snag it in front of the American Airlines Center after some snazzy driving (and possibly some illegal parking).

We decided to go over to Fort Worth and check out what it had to offer. If you visit Dallas, but want to get a little bit more cowboy feel, the place to go is the Fort Worth Stockyards. They have Rodeos every weekend, trick riding shows, and long horn cattle drives through the streets. There are also all kinds of shops and restaurants to check out.

We headed over to see the Fort Worth Water Gardens. I really wanted to cool off and jump in, but I resisted. Very cool to see the huge amount of water everywhere.

And here is what we call a mountain here in Texas. Yeah, we miss the big mountains of Utah, but who needs Mount Timpanogos when you have something like this, am I right?

Natali and I headed down to Austin to catch the BYU v. Texas game.  Before the game we were able to catch some sights and eat some food. We found a great restaurant right on the river with some great Hawaiian-Mexican food (yes, that is a thing and it is amazing).

We walked around and inside the Capitol building.

We also saw the Austin Art Wall. We can definitely see why they say "Keep Austin weird."

Then we headed to the game. And yes, it was awesome. I had never heard 100,000 fans as quiet as that day. It was amazing to be there in person and see Taysom's legendary hurdle over the Texas defender.

The look on the Texas fans' faces says it all (well the score does too).