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Monthly Archives: November 2011

//November

Angela Arrive in Japan and PTC!

Angela arrived in Japan safely and happy today!  She’s pretty worn out from the flight and is trying to make sure she sticks to the daytime/nighttime schedule over there so she can minimize the jet lag she’ll feel.  With a 15 hour difference and loss of time, it will be tough, but we know she’ll have a GREAT time!  We “Skyped” with her and had a great chat!  Technology is so wonderful!  It’s amazing at how far it has come even in the last 10 years!  🙂  She was excited to see mom and dad (obviously they felt the same way about her).

Back at home, today the kids were off school, so I was able to go to work and they stayed at home.  They did a great job taking care of each other, and Sarah was very responsible in taking people where they needed to go.  When I got back from work, I had to go to Parent/Teacher Conferences for Sarah and then took Kirstyn with me to hers.  It’s great to know that other people think our kids are great as well!  🙂

By |2011-11-29T07:15:05-07:00November 10th, 2011|Home Life, School|0 Comments
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Angela Leaves for Japan and PTC!

Today, I took Angela to the airport and she started on her LONG journey to Japan!  She is really excited to go, although not totally excited about the long trip.  She said she wouldn’t know what to do with herself traveling for 17+ hours with no children!  🙂  She flew to LA and then jumped on a plane for Tokyo from there.  We can’t wait to talk to her when she arrives!

That said, I am playing Mr. Mom for the next week!  😐  I’m really excited, but there is much to do, and I will still be working from home some of those days as well.  We’ll see how it works out!  Tonight, for example, I had Parent/Teacher Conferences to go to for both Brittany and Zach.  They went very well and I had great discussions with their teachers.  They were all jealous that Angela was on her way to Japan, and they were stuck here!  🙂

By |2011-11-28T14:22:20-07:00November 9th, 2011|Home Life, School|0 Comments
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Indian Prairie Scholar Award!

Tonight, Sarah was awarded the Indian Prairie Scholar Award.  Throughout Sarah’s high school career, she kept up her GPA to qualify for this prestigious award.  Indian Prairie Scholars recognizes seniors who have maintained a GPA of 3.6 or greater throughout their high school career.  The ceremony took place in the Metea High School auditorium, and there were about 180 kids that received the award.  That is absolutely outstanding for how competitive the environment is here and how difficult the classes are!

Sarah was there with a few of her friends who also got the award to.  It’s great to know that Sarah has such great friends that have their priorities straight and know what they want to accomplish!  Way to go Sarah!

By |2011-11-28T14:15:10-07:00November 7th, 2011|School|0 Comments
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Feed My Starving Children

Today, our Ward had a service event at Feed My Starving Children.  The youth decided they wanted to head this up, so most of the participants were youth.  We had a great time and packed enough food to feed 53 kids for a year (I think).  It’s always a good feeling to go there and help out.  We also made sure that they had hung our Mormon Helping Hands shirt we gave them during our last visit on the wall of the warehouse along side all the other shirts (including the Grant Thornton shirt we gave them when we did an activity there).  🙂

By |2011-11-26T07:41:59-07:00November 5th, 2011|Church|0 Comments
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St. Raphael’s Coach Party

Tonight, I went and hung out with all the St. Raphael’s coaches for an evening of pizza, beer, and chat.  Every year, the football league has a coaches party to thank everyone who helped out during the season.  The pizza and wings were great, but unfortunately, they just assumed that everyone drank beer, so they didn’t even have any bottled water or pop.  I was pretty thirsty when I left, but I had a good time, and met some of the other coaches and chatted with them.  🙂

By |2011-11-26T07:36:29-07:00November 4th, 2011|Home Life|0 Comments
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Return Home from Napa & Kirstyn Concert

Today I flew home from Napa and was really excited to see the family!  The boys were probably the most excited!  I really love to spend time with them!  I almost didn’t make it home on my intended flight, however.  I changed the car pickup from the hotel to a half-hour earlier (6am) which I’m glad I did.  The hotel was about a 90 minute drive from the airport, and this morning, we hit bad traffic at the Bay Bridge.  When I got to the airport, I had about 30 minutes until my flight left.  Fortunately, I got through security pretty fast and got to the gate with about 10 minutes to spare!

I wanted to get home on time because Kirstyn had a chorus concert tonight that I didn’t want to miss.  She did a GREAT job and she loves to sing.  It may be a hard decision for her to make whether to sing or to play her clarinet in high school.  The concert was great and Kirstyn even had a speaking part in it as well.

I think Kirstyn has always been one of those who always likes to perform, no matter what the audience is.  At home, she’s really quite the performer!  🙂  Great job Kirstyn!

 

By |2011-11-27T04:50:10-07:00November 3rd, 2011|Work-Related|0 Comments
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Meetings, Wine Tasting, and YWIE

Today, I woke up and had a wonderful, elegant spread for breakfast.  The meetings went very well and I learned a bunch about what we were doing right and a TON about what we were not doing as well as we should and should fix.  The people there were a great help!  We had participants from McAfee, Bank of America, Citadel Investments, Chevron, and a couple more.

After the meetings, we went out into the countryside and visited 3 vineyards for wine tasting.  The folks at Autonomy felt bad for me when they found out that I didn’t drink.  I was fine with that and told them so.  I had a great time learning about the process (enough to know the reasons why I wouldn’t want to drink in the first place) 🙂 and hanging out and having a great time with everyone.  Silver Oak was the first winery we visited.  It was very elegant and also very commercial.

Everyone had a great time drinking the wine and re-filling their glass over and over.  🙂  Not sure how much everyone drank there, but it was a few bottles.

The next place on the list was Tres Sabores, a small family-owned and totally organic winery that was WAY different than Silver Oak.  They didn’t have nearly the technology that Silver Oak had and they actually pressed their grapes by hand.  It was a really fun tour because it is such a small vineyard.  We got to eat some grapes off the vine, and go into the cave in the side of the hill where they put the barrels to age until ready.  The lady (and owner) was really excited to see us.

The last place we went to was called Nickel and Nickel.  It was by far the largest, the most impressive, and the most beautiful.  We also ate dinner here.  When we arrived, they gave us hors d’oeuvres and we stood around a couple of fire-pits enjoying the night sky (I realized how much I missed being out where you could see stars at night)!  🙂  We then took our tour.  Their barrel storage area seemed about the size of a football field, and it was all underground and totally temperature-controlled.  The whole winery looks like an old working farm.

After the tour, we went into the red barn (above) and ate dinner.  It was one of the most elegant and fancy dinners I had ever eaten.  Because we were at a winery, the first thing everyone noticed, was that there were 7 wine glasses around each plate!  🙂  They were very accommodating to me when they found out I didn’t drink (I was the only one, by the way).  They brought me sparking water and juice.  The dinner was absolutely AWESOME!  We had amazing Filet Mignon, surrounded by a ton of appetizers, soups, and incredible dessert.  After dinner, everyone was able to take the wine list and order their favorites to have shipped home.

Meanwhile, back at home, the girls had Young Women in Excellence.  I was really sad that I had to miss it.  It was the first one that I have ever missed.  They did a great job pulling together what they worked on throughout the year.  This year, they asked the moms what flower each young woman represented, and so Angela was up there a bunch in front of everyone talking about how wonderful each of her three daughters are.  🙂  I dont’ have any pictures, but if I do find any, I’ll post them!

Well, I’m beat but not drunk from all the wine!  I’ll sleep well tonight.  Tomorrow I fly back home and am excited to see my family!

By |2011-11-26T07:28:38-07:00November 2nd, 2011|Church, Work-Related|0 Comments
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Trip to Napa and Driver’s Ed!

Today, Brittany started driver’s ed!  Yikes!  She’s really excited, but we are pretty nervous!  😐

We know she’ll do great, but the issue is that she tends to be a little more distracted in driving than Sarah is.  Her big issue is that she’s addicted to music and thinks that she has to have it on all the time.  I have a feeling that we’ll have to disconnect the radio in the their car so that Brittany will concentrate on the roads.  🙂  I’m sure she’ll be fine.  I think we were the same way when Sarah got her permit and started driving!  🙂

Also, today, I took off to Napa California for an executive briefing and technology discussion with Autonomy, one of our vendors we work with.  I’ve never been to the Napa Valley before and it is beautiful!  The weather is great too (upper 60s, low 70s)!  The hotel (the Auberge du Soleil) is absolutely incredible!  It is more of a resort than anything else!  When I got there, they checked me in, took took me on a golf cart tour of the property, and then dropped me off at my villa which is stunning!  🙂

There are a ton of perks and amenities here.  Everything in the room (snacks, food, etc.) is included free of charge, the pool area is absolutely gorgeous, there is a walking trail around a sculpture garden, a spa, jacuzzis, a relaxation pagoda with a Japanese garden, and much more.  I even have access to “borrow” 1 of 3 convertable Mercedes Benz vehicles to take a spin around the countryside with!  I wish I had more time than just this afternoon and tomorrow, or I would take them up on it!

How’s that for cool!  I guess everything is not “really” free, as the price of the room is around $900 per night!  😐  The service is impeccable and everyone really goes out of their way to make you feel important.  Far cry from a Motel 6, eh?  🙂  I heard that just 2 days ago, Julia Roberts was staying there for a getaway.  Just missed her!  🙂

I wandered around the property, enjoying the weather for the afternoon, and taking a ton of pictures.  The main house in itself with the pool area below is breathtaking!

Obviously you can tell I don’t stay in places like this too often, right?  🙂  After my stroll and relaxing afternoon, I went to a reception and dinner and met everyone that had come to the briefing.  It turns out that there were only 6 other companies represented, so it was quite the small gathering.  Dinner was absolutely outstanding!  We had poached main lobster with brown butter, orange, apple, and hibiscus for starters, then we had our choice of Fairytale Pumpkin Soup or Hopper Shrimp Risotto.  For the main course, we had Lock Duart Salmon and Spiced Local Lamb Loin, and for the dessert, we had Toasted Vanilla Angel Food Cake with strawberries and vanilla ice cream and Crisp Filo Wrapped Chocolate Dumplings with tarragon ice cream and arbequina olive oil!  Yum!

I met some great people and am looking forward to the meetings tomorrow.  It will be interesting to find out how these companies use the technology that we use and how we can better use it ourselves.  Well, I guess I’ll close for now and go to bed while eating the dark chocolate-dipped and dusted almonds they gave me for my “turn-down” snack.  🙂

By |2011-11-24T06:16:08-07:00November 1st, 2011|Home Life, Work-Related|0 Comments
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