Mara's Website

I definitely had a busy year this year. I took quite a number of trips, most of which were to visit friends around the country.

In January, my college roommate, Rachel, came out to Colorado to visit. We got to cook pasta (we spent a lot of time in Whole Foods!) as well as go snowshoeing. Unfortunately it was so windy that day we couldn't make it up to end of the trail, but we celebrated for getting as far as we did!

In January, I went to my friends Chris and Andrea's wedding in New Haven, CT. While there, I took advantage of the fact that I was so close to NYC and headed there for the day. I went to see Rent as well as went to the top of the Empire State Building.

In February I made two different trips out to California. One was with my then-boyfriend, Matt, to San Diego to visit his friends as well as one of mine. We got to go to the San Diego zoo, La Jolla, as well as up to L.A.

Two weeks later, I went to San Francisco to visit my friends there. I got to go to Sonoma with my friends for some wine tasting, as well as to Tahoe for my best day of snowboarding ever! (yay for LOTS of fresh powder and nobody else on the slopes!!)

A "hella" cool day of freshies!

Speaking of snow, I got to go to do a few other boarding trips (all in Colorado) including one to Copper Mountain.

In April, Matt, his brother Jeff, and I all went to Mexico together. We got to hang out on the beach, I got to go scuba diving, we went to see a few cenotes (sink holes), and we visited Mayan ruins Tulum and Chichen-Itza.
On my dive trip I followed our guide into a cave and all of a sudden I was completely surrounded by sardines. It was an amazing experience!

One of the cenotes had a tree growing through a hole in the top. Crazy-cool looking!

This cenote was inside a cave with stalactites and stalagmites. It seemed like a bottomless pit and had blind black fish that looked like catfish swimming around in it.

No trip to Mexico is complete without some time spent at the beach!

I had never been to Tulum before. It's so neat looking to see these ancient ruins right on the ocean!

Messing around at Chichen Itza pretending to be the "hook-nose" god!

Once I got back from my trip, I moved into a new job within my organization and I love it! I get to do program management instead of hard-core engineering.

This year I ran my first 10K race. I ran the Bolder Boulder with my friend Peggy and her husband, Loyal. It was a fun race - we even stopped to take a photo with the Elvis impersonator!

At the end of June I took off on a road trip with my dog, Anika, to head out to the Midwest. I stayed with Rachel and her husband, Michael, as well as their dog Dante for a week (being able to work remotely is an awesome thing!). I had a wonderful time and so did Anika!

Almost as a repeat of Rachel's visit to Colorado, we made pasta one night!

I also spent July 4th in Michigan and we went to South Haven (on Lake Michigan) to watch the fireworks. There, we met up with a friend of mine who used to live in Fort Collins, Yvonne, and her husband, family and friends.

I then headed to Indiana to visit more friends I had there. I first went to Indianapolis to visit Karen and Andy (friends of mine from Rice. I sang with them in an a cappella group, the Lager Rhythms).

After that, I headed to Bloomington, IN to visit my friend Arwen and her husband, Brian, as well as her sister, Emily. Anika got a new friend, Dobby!

Next I headed to Kentucky to visit my friend Reecee. Anika got a new friend there too (Maggie).

This summer,my raspberry bushes flourished! My friends, Laura and Param's son, Sebastian is a huge fruit fan, so I brought him some raspberries to eat for his birthday...

I did decide to cut my hair this summer. I love the cut, but to keep it this length, I would have to cut it twice a month. Sigh. Oh well. :)

I also spent a lot of time this year scrapbooking. In August, I went to Hermit Park (cabins up in Estes Park owned by HP/Agilent and available for employees to use free of charge) with my friends Peggy and Laura (and with Anika, of course) and we scrapbooked for the entire weekend. It was a great weekend!

Also in August, I went to my friends, Sara and Lee's wedding in Winter Park, CO. I got to see a bunch of people from Rice that I hadn't seen in forever (since Sara also went to Rice and was at Will Rice College with me). So, of course, I had the Rice people do the "owl". :)

Labor Day weekend I went back to Charlotte, NC for my friends Stacy and Peter's wedding.

In early fall, Rachel and Michael came out to Colorado for the Dave Matthews concert. It meant that I got to see Rachel for a third time this year! Talk about being spoiled!

I also got to make a camping trip down to Aspen this year. I was joined by my friends Sara and Lee (and their foster dog) for the camping part, and my friends Peggy and Loyal for some great aspen-viewing. I made my first visit to the Maroon Bells, and they were well-worth it!

To wrap up a really great year, I served for my second year on the HP Charitable Giving Campaign committee. This year I co-chaired the kick-off committee as well as chaired the balloon-gram committee (we had helium balloons made and sold them with a cookie to raise money). I was a little nervous about how the balloons would work out, so this was the first one I inflated. Needless to say, I was very happy that it worked!

After busting my butt at work and at the charitable giving campaign, I took a trip with my parents to Vegas and then to visit my grandparents in Idaho.

So, that was my year (in summary, of course!). I hope you enjoyed it.

I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season and a very happy New Year!

Love,
Mara and Anika