It has been a while bloggers!

Well I have been traveling like crazy and haven't had anytime to update the blog...so here goes my story from where we left off. This is going to go quick - so only 1 pic per activity!

(From oldest to newest events)

1. Stephanie and I went to Postsecret again...It was interesting again, but pretty much th

e exact same speech. Follow the secrets at

www.postsecret.com

2. Heidi'

s sister had her baby: Mikayla Rae Wilson. Born on October 10, 2009. I drove all the way from Carbondale to see the event and we waited until 4 am for blast off. Congrats Jack and Cally.

3. I went on an amazing vacation to California! I saw several celebrities including: Con

an Obrien, Jay Leno, Bob Saget, a couple Piston b-ball

players, Drew Carrey, John Stamos, etc, etc... I saw Beverly Hills, tons of cool b

eaches, Hollywood, etc. You can see all of my pics on Facebook!

4. Towards the end of my trip in Cali, I decided to take a road trip with someone I met out there to Vegas. I stayed with him for a few nights and checked out all of the hote

ls! It was really neat.

5. After California, I drove to Michigan with Heidi to celebrate Thanksgiving. She met my whole family for the first time and we went to Grand Haven for a day. Here is a pic.

6. Next, I went to Texas to work. I have been flying back and forth every week. I will be down there until the end of March. I am enjoying all the food, hotels and reward points! Texas is a very nice place to be. Here are the Fort Worth Stockyards. We ate here a few nights...

7. I am now officially a Hilton Diamond VIP! I can't get any cooler in the Hilton employee's eyes than this... 50% bonus points on all of my stays!

8. Heidi and I just got back from Michigan again. We went up there for Christmas. It was fun to catch up with friends and family. We did a lot of fun things including skating with Jim and Alisha at Rosa Parks Circle...

9. Tomorrow we are going to Decatur to celebrate Christmas with Heidi's family....then I am off to Texas again. What will 2010 bring for us? STAY TUNED.....I might post again next year!

-Tim

Hilton Honors VIP Milestone

Last night proved to be an important hotel stay at the Hampton Inn. I crossed over a significant travelers milestone and was upgraded to a Hilton Honors GOLD VIP! With my upgraded status as a very important person, I am able to access and indulge in some of the finest amenities Hilton has to offer. I am regularly greeted with a personalized VIP letter welcoming my stay. Kevin Morrey, General Manager, stated "We look forward to serving you and we look forward to seeing you again next time!" In addition to the letter, Kevin often leaves chocolates, Doritos, a bottled water and the Southern Illinois Travel Guide in my room. Kevin goes on to say, "If, for any reason, your Overall Stay with us is less than outstanding, please let me know about it personally."

In addition to these small favors, my new status opens doors to a host of additional benefits including:

- 25% bonus points.

- automatic executive floor upgrades upon check-in

- access to executive lounges

- airline miles

There is only one more level to achieve! Diamond VIP.

Despite my accomplishments and VIP status, the hotel forgot my wake-up call this morning...

Fall Party & Pumpkin Decorating

This past Saturday, I went to the Fall Party with West Side Christian Church. We ate a lot of food, watched Illini football, played games and decorated pumpkins! Here are my 2 masterpieces. The first one I call "vomiting cyclops" and the second is "squash in distress"! lol....I had too much fun. Everyone thought they pretty cool and creative.

One of the girls at the event created this video of our decorating:

http://animoto.com/play/eaK8CaSwvRNDxuUdriw34w?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=one_click_share

Postsecret!

This past Tuesday while working in Edwardsville, IL, my co-worker Stephanie and I attended a Postsecret event at SIUE. The founder of www.Postsecret.com, Frank Warren, travels around the country to campuses and shares stories about his artistic blog. Frank shared with us many stories and secrets that he has come across since starting Postsecret. He also opened up the microphones to the audiences for them to share their secrets and stories. The event was extremely interesting and emotional. I would recommend seeing this event to anyone. I have been following the Postsecret blog for a few years now, so it was particularly interesting to hear Frank's story about how he started it and how it has changed his life.

When we arrived at the event, we were planning on watching it from the 'overflow room' because it was sold out and you needed SIUE ID cards to get tickets in the first place; however when we arrived, they were giving out more FREE tickets and we ended up sitting in the second row!! It was awesome!

Weekend in Chicago.

Last weekend Heidi and I caught up with Jim and his wife Alisha in Chicago. We had a good time walking around, eating at Giordano's pizza, having some Cheesecake Factory and going for a good bike ride in the morning.

We need to make this an annual event with all the hotel reward points I'll be getting this winter! Here are a few of the pics:

“Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – Seneca

So I'm going to be traveling every single week starting this weekend until the end of March 2010!

It should be interesting and hopefully I will have many things to blog about. I got Skype and a camera if you want to keep me company at my hotels...

Here are my destinations (not including many stops at the St. Louis Intl Airport and weekend trips back to Springfield to see Heidi and friends)

1. Chicago, IL (this weekend)

2. Edwardsville, IL (work)

3. Carbondale, IL (work)

4. Southern California (Vacation!)

- L.A.

- Orange County

- San Diego

5. Grand Rapids, MI (Thanksgiving)

6. Fort Worth, TX (work)

7. Decatur, IL (Christmas)

8. Grand Rapids, MI (Christmas)

9. Fort Worth, TX (work)

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

Downtown St. Louis

We also had fun walking around downtown St. Louis....

The State Fair on Sunday was cool, but I didn't have my camera and can't find some of the pictures that I wanted to post from Facebook. At the Fair we saw our friend Jeremiah sing in his group (he is well on his way to American Idol this year), we watched a high dive show and watched a Christian rap group called Grits.

City Museum - STL

While we were in St. Louis on Saturday we went to the City Museum. It is a really old shoelace factory that is turned into a playground for adults and children. They have all kinds of crazy things to climb on, slide down and very small dark tunnels to crawl through. It was so much fun. There is an indoor and outdoor section to the 'museum'. On the top of the building there is a bus, a huge praying mantis and a ferris wheel.

Forest Park and Art Museum - STL

I finally have a some time to update my blog a bit....this past week I worked over 60 hours and have been staying extremely busy with friends. Last weekend was a lot of fun. Friday night was the surprise birthday party I already blogged about, Saturday Heidi and I went to St. Louis for my birthday and Sunday we all went to the State Fair to see our friend Jeremiah sing in his band.

Here are a few pictures of Saturday in St. Louis outside of the art museum and around Forest Park. The park is almost as big as central park in NYC and includes the art museum, the zoo and much more.

"Surprise" Birthday Party

Last night a ton of my friends from Hope Church attempted to surprise me with a birthday party!!! It didn't exactly work out as planned seeing how I ended up working until 9PM on a Friday night! They all thought I would get out early because it is Friday, but yesterday happened to be one of the biggest 'due dates' for our GAAP packages. Heidi ended up just telling me over the phone that everyone was at my surprise party waiting for me...so I left work at 9PM, ended up hanging out at the party for about 45-60 minutes and had to work for another 1/2 hr because my work was due at midnight!!!

It was fun while it lasted! They gave me a couple cards and the balloons pictured here. The party was for Sue Brinner too, so everyone was able to celebrate without me anyway. Sue said she was REALLY surprised and had no idea!

It should be a fun-filled birthday weekend. I am leaving soon to go to St Louis today and will be going to the State Fair on Monday, so I'm sure I'll have a few more exciting things to blog about.

Cheers!

I SURVIVED SPRINGFIELD TORNADO 2009!

These pictures are from the Springfield State Journal Register of the tornadoes that came through Sangamon County this afternoon. I was working at the office and had to go downstairs to take shelter. We were suppose to go in the bathroom; however it was much more fun to stand in between the glass doors and watch the crazy storm blow through. I took a video with my phone, but can't upload it. :( Here is the article I got these pictures from:

http://www.sj-r.com/breaking/x1373192379/Sangamon-under-tornado-warning

A few pics from the Mat Kearney concert.

This concert in STL was really awesome. I knew pretty much every lyric to every song he sang. I took a bunch of videos with my camera, but they don't have very good sound or video quality...so it just doesn't do it justice.

This is outside the venue. It was sold out. The place is called The Pageant.

He walked right by me.

This is taken with my camera....but they were taking pictures of people and uploading them to Mat's website.

Excited for the Mat Kearney concert on Monday in STL!

I just booked tickets to Southern California!!

but the vacation isn't until November, so more to come!