Christmas Letter 2011

Friends and Family,

The holiday season is upon us, and we thought we would take the time to say Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year 2012 to you all. We hope this letter finds you well, in good health, and in good company.

The past year has been one for the books. Between our travels, jobs changes, and a variety of "life" in general, we've been staying quite busy. Gina started this year working for a day care, and in June, left that job to pursue her dream of becoming an author. For the past 6 months, she has been working on several projects, including short stories and books in multiple genres, and is looking to pursue publishing in the next year. Paul continues to work for HP as a solution sales specialist on the Microsoft team, and is having a great time doing so as each day is never the same as the last. He is on the road around the US during any given day of the week, racking up over 60,000 domestic airline miles in the last 12 months.

Our travels this year have taken us all over the US and to the UK. In July, we spent several weeks in Los Angeles, as Paul had business there on back-to-back weeks. LA is certainly an interesting city, and we were able to take in quite a bit, including seeing a movie at Mann's Chinese Theater and going to Disneyland. We followed that up with a drive through the Mojave Desert to Las Vegas from LA, visiting family in both cities, and having a great time. In August, we started with a weekend in Chicago at the Lollapalooza Music Festival, then we took a true vacation, and went to Scotland for 2 weeks, seeing some incredible, life changing sights. In Edinburgh, we stayed on the Royal Mile, saw the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which is a military bagpipe and marching band outdoor show, and climbed King Arthur's Seat. We then took a 3-day guided trip to the Isle of Skye, seeing some absolutely incredible scenery, and needless to say, taking hundreds of photos. Upon ending our tour back in Edinburgh, we had the adventurous idea of renting a car for a week, and driving on the wrong side of the road. Paul caught the hang of this surprisingly well, and we had the opportunity to venture to Borders, Stirling, Glencoe, Ayr, Glasgow, and back to Edinburgh during our last week there. Upon our arrival back in the US, we were promptly greeted by Hurricane Irene as we landed in Washington, DC. Thankfully, we got in on the outskirts of the storm, and had an on-time arrival. One last trip we took together this year was to visit some friends in Portland, Oregon in November. Portland is an interesting town - we'll leave it at that. During our trip, we spent some quality time with two great friends, and got to experience the "weirdness" of Portland.

Last, but certainly not the least, Paul has started a new business venture, diving into the world of semi-professional photography. HornPhotography.net opened for business in October, featuring just a few of the many photos we have taken over the past 2 years. Feel free to visit the site, and let us know what you think. We hope you enjoy it!

That's it for now. We're excited to see what 2012 brings! Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year!

Paul & Gina Horn

2010

We just realized that we haven't been posting over the past year or so. We have done a lot of traveling over the past 12 months, so it has been a little hectic for us to update the blog. However, we just got a new Nikon D40 DSLR camera, and have starting using our flickr.com account pretty heavily. We have definitely become much more photographical (if that's even a word!). Here is our flickr.com page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulgina/

We have quite a few trips planned for 2010. We just locked in a trip to Italy in late Sept and early Oct (more on that to follow). Also, we would like to make it to the following places, depending on how things work out over the year:

- Denver, CO

- Salt Lake City, UT

- Charleston, SC

- Chicago, IL

- Las Vegas, NV

Most of these depend on Paul's business travel, but if we can work it out, we'd like to visit some friends and family across the US. Stay tuned for more updates - we'll try to make them more regular this year!

Gina & Paul

April/May Update

Since our last post, we have been to Salt Lake City, as well as Orlando together. Additionally, Paul has been to San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Seattle coming up next week on business. It has certainly been interesting.

In Salt Lake City, we stayed at the Marriott Downtown in SLC, and were out there for a good friend's wedding. Our friend, Paul (and his new wife Jaime!), got married at a really cool garden area on the side of the mountain range, Rose Sachs Garden. While we were in Utah, we got a chance to see the Great Salt Lake (over-rated), Park City (Wasach Brewery was amazing - I recommend Polygamy Porter), the Winter Olympic Park in Park City, as well as Temple Square. We also had dinner at the Red Rock Brewery in downtown SLC. SLC is a really nice place, and we soon found out how nice they are when Gina's Macbook died. Sunday morning, the day of the wedding, we woke up, and Gina's laptop was acting weird. Turns out, the hard drive just died, and we needed to take it into the local Apple Store to get it checked out. Without an appointment, we walked in, and they took care of us. Thank goodness everything was under the Apple Care service plan! Gina was back up and running in a matter of an hour or so! Overall, SLC was a really nice place.

The next trip we took was to Orlando. Paul had a conference in Orlando at the Orange County Convention Center, and it happened to coincide with our 1 year anniversary. Gina came along, and we had a great time! We flew out of Philadelphia, and the night before our flight, we went to the restaurant we went to the night after our wedding, Bistro Romano. Great Italian food! In Orlando, we hung out and went to a few nice restaurants, and on our actual 1 year anniversary, we went to Universal Studios and rode all of the rides. We had a really great time! The rest of the week in Orlando went well - 95 degrees every day, and Gina got to sit by the pool and write while Paul got to put on a 2-piece suit every day and walk 2 blocks in the heat to the convention center. Something doesn't sound right about that! ;-) We stayed in the Peabody Hotel, which was a nice change of pace from the standard Marriott and Westin Hotels. Every day at noon, they have ducks that walk through the lobby and sit by a fountain. Pretty interesting.

After Orlando, Paul had a short 2-day training class in Philly, then he was off to San Francisco. Paul stayed in the Westin St. Francis in downtown San Francisco (which is really nice!), and spent most of his time out there at the corporate offices in Menlo Park, CA. Paul also got up to see Sacramento, which was interesting - he saw where the Governator works! It was an interesting time to be out there with the Prop 8 law being considered by the CA State Supreme Court. Lots of demonstrations, and a flood of people going through SFO airport. Unfortunately, Gina couldn't be on the trip with Paul, but perhaps next time he goes to San Francisco.

Next on the list is Seattle. Paul is supposed to fly out next week, and will be there on business for 3-4 days. If Gina was going along with Paul, she would be going out to Forks, WA, where the movie Twilight is based. Who knows as of now what the schedule will look like, and if Gina can go with Paul, I'm sure she'll find a way :-).

Fun times over the past few months, and fortunately, a major change of pace from the first 3 months of the year! Is anyone else traveling a lot? Any fun trips anyone is taking?

-Paul & Gina

The Travels of Gina and Paul

The months of April and May have certainly presented us with some very crazy times and an interesting travel schedule.  It seems as though we're updating this blog about once a month, so in keeping with tradition, here's a quick update.  We'll provide another one after our travels are all said and done.

We just got back from Las Vegas last night.  We had a great time.  Paul was on business, and Gina got to come along for the ride.  We stayed at the Bellagio, where Paul's conference was, and Gina got a chance to chill around the hotel (too bad it was too cold and not sunny enough for writing by the pool!).  After a few crazy nights, the conference ended, and we headed over to our cousin Denny's house to stay a few days.  We had dinner with Aunt Eileen and Uncle Eric, and also toured the Hoover Dam.  Paul had a blast on this trip, because he got to talk about going to the "Dam Bathroom", or taking some "Dam Pictures".  The list goes on.  Overall, it was a great trip, and we're glad we're home and back with the crazy pets!

Up next, we'll be going to Salt Lake City for one of Gina's friend's wedding.  We're really excited about this trip as it's one of the only cities in the US we both haven't been to.  We will be heading out on May 1st for a few days for this trip.  After that, only a week later, we're off to Orlando, FL for another one of Paul's conferences.  Gina will get to work by the pool (hopefully it's much warmer this time!), and Paul gets to stand in a booth all day in a large window-less room :-(.  Seems like someone is getting the short end of the stick on this one!  :-)

As usually, we love the traveling, and love coming home to the puppy and cats.  Have a great month!  We are definitely planning on have one too!

-Gina & Paul

Update!

Hello Everyone!!

I know it has been FOREVER since Paul and I updated. The two of us have been really busy with things here in Paul and Gina Land. Paul has been spending endless days on the phone with his job and making more power point presentations than I have ever seen. I've been busy writing and editing. Seriously people writing a novel is not easy.

Paul and I do have a busy couple months coming up. We'll most likely be doing one of the things that Paul and I do best and that's traveling. He and I will be headed to Las Vegas, Denver (maybe), Salt Lake City, and Orlando all in a matter of a few weeks. It's going to be craziness and I hope I can capture some of these trips on film. I promise if I do that I'll post them on the flickr account.

The weather in PA has finally decided to get nice as well. We took our puppy, Dafne, to the dog park for the first time and she had a blast. I've never seen her run that fast. Paul and I think we'll be making a lot more trips there now to make sure she lets out all that energy she has inside that little body of hers.

Anyway, Paul and I hope everyone is doing well.

-Paul & Gina

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Friends & Family,

Welcome to the first edition of our annual Christmas Letter. This year, we decided to go with the environmentally friendly option by publishing this online. We'll see how this works, and may do it again next year. If you're interested in visiting our site throughout the year to see what we're up to, please make sure to bookmark this webpage. Now onto the updates.

What a year! If you don't already know, we both love to travel. We have been to many different cities, states, and even islands together. Things started off this year with a business trip to Las Vegas for Paul, followed by a day trip to Jamaica for Gina's birthday! It actually was a Sandals Resorts sales trip, but it gave us 1 day of fun in the sun on the Jamaican beach in the middle of winter. After that, it was off to New Orleans for one of Paul's business trips. Gina got to tag along and have fun in the French Quarter, as well as take advantage of Paul's business team's crazy excursions on Bourbon Street! What a way to start off the year!

A few more business trips later, followed by a ton of wedding planning, and we quickly found ourselves at the beginning of May, just 10 days away from our wedding. Most people reading this letter probably attended the wedding, but if you didn't, please make sure to check out our wedding pictures here. We got married on May 10, 2008 at Toftrees Resort in State College, PA. It was wonderful to have our family and friends in town for this momentous occasion! Just 48 hours after our wedding, we were laying on a beach in St. Lucia. You can see our honeymoon pictures here. Our honeymoon was the best vacation we have ever had! On the last day, we were doing the mental math to figure out how much it would cost to stay for another 2-3 days. We just didn't want it to end! On our honeymoon, we got to take a rainforest tour, go whale watching, take a helicopter ride, have a romantic candle-lit dinner for 2 on the beach, as well as soak up some sun! Sandals is all-inclusive, so it was a great experience showing up to dinner with your drink in-hand, and being able to get up and leave at any point during the meal. We could also order as much food as we wanted, so if we wanted to try something new on the menu, there was no risk. We both probably gained 10 pounds with all the great food and drink!

The summer showed up quickly for us, and for once, Paul didn't have business trip after business trip. We were able to spend the first 8 weeks as a married couple together 100% of the time. Paul had a few business trips in July, following by Gina and Paul taking a trip out west in September. We had the opportunity to visit family in Las Vegas for a weekend, on our way to San Diego for Paul's business meetings. This was Gina's first trip to San Diego, so fortunately we had one of the nicest hotels in the area, the Hotel del Coronado. Now Gina thinks that Paul stays in nice hotels everywhere he goes! Far from the truth! :-)

While we were in Las Vegas, we stayed with Paul's Aunt and Uncle, and they have some dogs, including a little white Westie. Gina immediately fell in love with her, and within 3 days of getting home from San Diego, we got a little Westie puppy named Dafne. We have some pictures of Dafne here. She's a handful, but she's an adorable little puppy. The cats (Google and Yahoo) haven't quite figured her out, but we're making progress!

Somehow, in the middle of all of this, we managed to buy some new furniture - a new large L-shaped couch, china cabinet, and bar. We are pretty sure we have hit all of the checkboxes on the newlyweds list of things to do within the first year of marriage!

A few business trips later, we ended up in New York City the week of Thanksgiving for one of Paul's business trips, and Gina came along. Once again, we had a nice hotel in Time Square, so Gina thinks Paul travels in style all the time (one of these days she'll see the standard courtyard by marriot that Paul stays in on a regular basis :-) ). After NYC, we drove to upstate New York for Thanksgiving with Gina's family, which was very enjoyable. It was our first time both being at Gina's family's Thanksgiving gathering.

This Christmas Season, we hope this letter finds you well, and that you and your family have a happy and safe holiday! Eat well, drink well (responsibly!), and be merry!

Love,
Gina, Paul, Google, Yahoo, & Dafne Horn

Gina's Chicago Trip

Hey Everyone,

It's been a while since we've posted, so I just wanted to give everyone an update. As always, you can view new pictures on our flickr.com website, link here, and to the right. Since our last post, we have been staying busy with work, and in particular, Gina just made her first long trip (over 4 hours of driving) to Chicago! Needless to say, this 600 mile, 10 hour drive, is quite a feat! Gina is working this week in Chicago on her novel with her co-author. Should be fun!

While Gina is off in the windy city, Paul's holding down the fort, making sure the cats and dog play nice. Should be an entertaining week! Check back soon for more pictures and updates!

- Gina and Paul