Trip to Oman

We had our annual trip to Oman for a strategy session and team building trip (aka boondoggle) including spouses (yep Steve got to go too). This year we went to a brand new resort Sixsenses that doesn't officially open for another few months.
It's tucked away in a place called Zighy Bay located in Musandam Oman. The resort was built next to a small 1-family village and it took 8 months to build a road over the steep mountains to get building materials into the area.
Each room is built to look like a small house in a quaint village and each room has it's own private pool. The weather was too hot to spend much time outside so we decided this was a great opportunity to take an Arabic cooking class.
Our chef is originally from Lebanon and has traveled all around the middle east cooking in high-end resorts. He taught us how to make the traditional Arabic Mezze which includes hummus, fattoush and babba ganoush. Yummy!

CC Wedding Extravaganza

So I had another business trip to NY/NJ to work on the final preparation for my upcoming major project. We are hopefully days away from being awarded a very exciting design project....more on that when I win.

Lucky for me we timed the meetings to coincide with Chris Fischer's wedding which was in upstate NY. So after a couple days of very productive meetings I hopped in the car and took a NY Country drive. The weather was fantastic and all of the trees were changing color which was great (we don't get a lot of color other than brown in Doha). Mariah couldn't make it as she was on a business trip to London (previous post).

The weekend started with a round of golf, cigars (fresh Cubans via Doha), and beers. Fun times! The wedding itself was a great event (http://weddings.theknot.com/pwp/view/co_main.aspx?coupleid=4744184025649752). Chris really found someone special in Sharon, I couldn't be happier for him.

I had the chance to catch up with old friends that I hadn't seen in years. The Beta Five were all there: Zach, Jay, Eric, Chris, and myself. It had been a long time and definitely made me nostalgic for old times. To my amazement both Zach and Jay have little daughters now and both have another one on the way. In addition I was able to catch up with Matt and Becca, Chip, and Koch. Good times all around.