Cincinnati

We got to go to Cincinnati last week! We left Wednesday afternoon and returned Saturday night. Brock spent most of the day Thursday visiting P&G. Our hotel didn't have a free breakfast, so we tried to find the closest fast food restaurant to eat for breakfast. Arby's was a block away so we ate there. The Arby's crowd was a little scary. I think it was a hangout for all of the local homeless people. P&G was just a few blocks away, so we walked instead of taking a taxi (we didn't have a rental car). We just assumed that Brock would be working in one of the two towers of the main building, but when we got there, we were told that he needed to go to another building. In front of the buildings are well-maintained courtyards. I wanted to take a lot of pictures, but I hate looking like a tourist, so I tried to be subtle. I also thought it was bright enough outside to not use the flash on my camera, but all of my pictures turned out grainy. We got to Brock's building early, so we sat in the lobby and warmed up. It was really cold and windy that day. Each day we were there got slightly warmer, but it was much colder than the 8o and 90 degree weather we've had here in Texas. When I left the building, I walked a different route back to the hotel. I wanted to see if there were any better restaurants around us besides Arby's. I wanted to explore, but it was just too cold, so I went back to the room. I watched tv, ate lunch at a pizza buffet called Snappy Tomato, finished a book I was reading (Skipping Christmas, not that great), and talked to my mom on the phone. I walked back to P&G around 3 to meet Brock. He came down with someone to get me so I could come up and see where he'll be working. Everyone was very friendly, and the office was colorful. Brock said that 6 of the people that he'll be working with are from Venezuela (he went on his mission to Venezuela). He'll be an assistant brand manager for ethnic (or multicultural) marketing of household goods like Febreeze and other brands that I don't know off the top of my head. That means he'll be marketing these products to different specific ethnic groups within the US like Hispanic or African Americans. I think he's going to like it a lot. I hope he does. That night we went exploring. We walked down to the river. It was unpleasantly cold at times, but we still had fun. We saw a shopping center across the river in Newport Kentucky, so we walked across the "Purple People Bridge" which is a pedestrian only bridge to "Newport on the Levee". We went into Barnes and Noble and got a hot chocolate from Starbucks. (First time Starbucks for both of us. We're not the trendy type.) We then ate dinner at Moe's, a southwestern restaurant, which was okay but not so good that we would choose to go there again. Then we watched a movie, Dan in Real Life. It was good but slow. It was the type of movie that I would love to watch by myself at home, but with Brock with me, all I did was worry about him not liking it.

Friday morning we had a guy drive us around to look at apartments. We found a few good options, but at this point, we're not picky at all because we know we're not going to be in an apartment long. Plus, we've lived in the cheapest apartments we could find for the past 3 and a half years, so we'll take anything. He dropped us off at a restaurant, Rafferty's, in Florence KY for lunch. We had an hour to eat. Forty-five minutes went by and no food, so we left. Our realtor met us in the parking lot. She didn't know it was us standing there, and she was on the phone. The first word I heard from her was the "d" word. She was so embarrassed when she realized we were standing right next to her and heard what she said. It was pretty funny. She was nice, and she drove us around northern Kentucky to look at homes. She had to pick up her kids from day care before she took us back to our hotel that night. There were 2 cute little blonde boys who said some pretty funny things. That night we went to a BBQ restaurant that someone from P&G told Brock we should try. We didn't realize how far away it was, and since we had to take a taxi, we paid about 80 dollars for the experience including the trip there and back and the actual food. The barbeque lived up to our standards, so we decided it would be okay to go ahead and move there. :)

Our realtor picked us up again Saturday morning and we looked at some more houses in northern Kentucky. After all of the ones we saw, the first one is still our favorite, and we're thinking about making an offer on it in the next few days once we figure out what exactly we're getting ourselves into. Our flight left at 4:00 that afternoon. We had a layover in Dallas and got on our tiny little propellor plane to College Station. The weather was windy and raining, and I the pilot thought he would try to dodge every cloud. Needless to say, I was a little freaked out, and I'm not sure if I want to fly into or out of that airport anymore. Patrick and Amber were nice enough to leave Stake Conference early to pick us up from the airport (or we were mean enough to allow them to do that). They left right as Jeffrey R. Holland was getting up to speak. I feel SO bad about that.