This has been a crazy busy week: from Friday night through Saturday afternoon, we were in Holland, for our wedding tasting and a few other wedding "errands," and from Sunday through Wednesday I was in Jacksonville, Florida for work.
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| My room view from the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville |
What I've been up to this week:
- Traveling to Holland. We left around 2pm Friday, and got back around 7 or 8pm on Saturday. The main point of the visit was for our wedding tasting—the company that owns our venue also owns eight other venues, and they had three opportunities for this, but we wanted to go to the one at our venue (the other two were at different venues). We also had dinner at New Holland Brewery that Friday, and on Saturday I checked out a salon that I ended up booking for bridal hair and makeup, as well as for my bridesmaids and possibly family. In between the tasting and the salon visit we also stopped at Holland State Park for literally five minutes, as it was super cold out (about 20 degrees) that day.
- Traveling to Jacksonville, FL. I was there for the ECRM conference—this was my third ECRM, the other two being in Destin, FL and Chicago last year—and I had about 15 appointments per day with companies (think "speed dating" appointments, as each appointment was 10-20 minutes long) to find out what new products they were showcasing, which I then write about, for work. I didn't get to leave the hotel much although I did have dinner with cousins who live nearby, which was nice (they moved from MA to FL many years ago, and the last time we probably all saw each other was probably like 1999!). The conference was held at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville, which was also super nice—a long time ago I status-matched my Caesars Resorts status to MGM Gold to Hyatt, and this was the last month of the Hyatt status, and it paid off, because they gave me a river view room (see picture above).
- Dining out. On Friday night, we went to New Holland, which is always great. On Saturday, lunch was at our venue in Holland—it was interesting to see it in the winter (Holland is cold in the winter! Unsurprisingly ...) but it was still very beautiful. We also stopped by Fazoli's in Lansing, which is becoming a tradition, on the way home—there are no Fazoli's left in Metro Detroit, unless you count Monroe, and the Lansing one is about 1h15m to 1h30m into our ride home, which is perfect (only about 1 hour left in the drive after that). They also have unlimited breakfast which is delicious. On Sunday, at BWI (Baltimore) airport, I had LeeAnn Chin for lunch, aka a knockoff Panda Express, in between my layover at BWI (I flew DTW to BWI to JAX, on Southwest), and on Monday night, my cousins took me to a place called BB's, in Jacksonville, which was tasty.
- Watching TV shows. I have been continuing my Love is Blind binge, and I also started Feud: Capote vs. the Swans on Hulu during the plane ride home—a few people had recommended it to me, and it's very good, especially the acting/actors involved in it. I finished Love and Beth on the plane to Florida, and that was also a good watch, on Hulu with Amy Schumer, and Young Sheldon is now back, which is exciting, although it's also the last season (which is sad; I love that show).
- Watching movies. No time to get to the cinema this week, unfortunately, but I watched Five Blind Dates on Prime, on the way home from Florida, and that was actually pretty good. It was a very cute rom-com, made/based in Australia, and I'd probably give it 4/5 stars—it came up on the Prime home screen for me, and I had never heard of it before.
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| Holland State Park |
