The Baranko Family: Travel Spurt

I rarely travel for work, but it just so happened that I had two business trips almost back to back, and the two days I had in between Matt and I already had personal travel planned. So that meant that I was gone from the babies from Saturday to Friday, so a whole week! It was definitely the longest I had been away from them, which was hard, but the time went by so fast it wasn't too bad. I went from Atlanta to Chicago to Austin, TX for a wedding then to Dallas, then San Francisco, then finally back to Chicago.

My job is going really well lately and I'm really enjoying what I do. I have interesting work and (aside from the aforementioned trips), I have really good work/life balance. I'm a Marketing Director for Walgreens, and I'm in charge of the brand management and ongoing marketing of our Walgreens brand overall, as well as our loyalty program Balance Rewards and our new financial services brand called Balance Financial. It definitely keeps me busy. Here is a picture I had to take for an all department meeting, its supposed to be me "balancing" all my roles! I was in Atlanta, Dallas and San Francisco at focus groups to learn about how Walgreens and Balance Rewards can better evolve to be even more relevant to our target audience.

Matt and I went to Austin for Mark Goble's wedding. Mark was an usher in our wedding, and he was Matt's roommate in college. Mark and his new wife Lisa are such fun and caring people, we were so glad we made the trip to celebrate them. They actually live in NYC, but Lisa is from TX. Matt's whole group of guy friends from college are awesome in that every one of them makes the trip to attend each other's wedding, no matter where it is in the country. So at every wedding there is a reunion and party with all these good friends. Mark is kind of known for being the life of the party, and he didn't disappoint at his own wedding. The wedding was a blast. They had picked a gorgeous venue, an Italian style villa with tons of outdoor areas and gorgeous sweeping views. Unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worse on their wedding day, plunging from 75 to 25 in the course of one day! It actually was snowing during their ceremony - very unusual for TX this time of year. But Mark and Lisa took it in stride, moved the wedding indoors, and everything was still gorgeous and really fun. The photo booth was a highlight:) Katie and I had a blast hanging out, it really is so convenient that our husbands are friends.

Get together the day before the wedding at Top Golf. Beautiful warm, sunny day!

Dinner out in downtown Austin

Drinks at the outdoor bars in downtown Austin, felt like vacation that's for sure!

The morning of the wedding we went down to the hiking trail by the river, but the cold rain put a bit of a damper on the outing.

Lunch at the most famous barbecue place in Austin - The Salt Lick Grill

Yum….meat

Lisa and Mark getting hitched

Justin, Laurie and baby Mya. Justin was a groomsman and Mya was the flower girl.

Braving the cold for a few pictures

Peekaboo!

Mr and Mrs Goble!

This looks like we're conjoined twins which makes us laugh

Wolfpack!

These three guys were so into Mya, it was freakin' adorable.

Katie & Mike Brinker, one of our faves who we don't see often enough!

Purdue groom's cake

Photo booth antics

selfie

cutting a rug

Gorgeous send off for the happy couple

Post party pic

Bloody Mary's hit the spot! I was in the mood for a little spice since I was in TX and all!

While in San Francisco I took a couple hours during my downtime to be a tourist. This is the top of the "crooked street". I hadn't been to SF since I was 16 years old and there for a swim meet. I definitely want to come back as a real tourist, and go to Napa too!