Vacation - Day 2 (June 1)

Today was another great day. Megan woke up early, as usual. When I heard her familiar call, "DAAAAAD," I looked and the clock said 5 am. However, something about being in Hawaii made it much better. Being Sunday, we couldn't/didn't turn on TV or anything, so she and I just went out onto the lanai and enjoyed the ocean breeze. We also got to watch the sun rise - or at least see the sun's light fill the sky (since our room looks to the north). I snapped a couple shots of the sun peaking through as it came over the mountains.


We had PLENTY of time before Church, so the girls had a nice, quiet breakfast outside of bagels and "pink butter" (strawberry cream cheese).



We attended the Lahina 1st Ward. It is a nice little building that always sees and welcomes tourists. I've heard members talking during prior trips to the Islands that the ward often has 50% or so of its sacrament meeting attendance comprised of visitors. We saw quite a large groups of fellow plane-travelers who came with us yesterday from SLC. After church, we took a few pictures outside. (They are on someone else's camera right now - I'll post them when I get them.)

Quiet time was very quiet and peaceful. I took an afternoon nap for the first time in ... I can't quite remember how long it's been - probably since the days my Mom made us! Then it was on to dinner. Mom handed out assignments to everyone (which is a must when you've got to feed 21 people). We were in charge of slicing some fruit for fruit pizza dessert. I'll just say that everyone delivered tonight and it was all delicious. As Mom put it, "1 out of 14 down."


During the afternoon and evening, I took some pictures of the amazing views from my parents room. First is a picture of Black Rock, where the Sheraton is. Then it's just an awesome view of the ocean. In the distance, from left to right, you can make out the islands of Lanai, Oahu, and Molokai.


After a little Disney DVD Bingo in Mom and Dad's room, Grandma offered to take all the older kids on a walk to the fish pond. The little kids wanted to go too, so we all went. We walked far enough for the kids to get some energy out, but not too far that we had to carry them home.




Another good day was had by all. Megan scared us a little tonight. During family prayers, we were sitting on/around Katelyn's hide-a-bed, when Megan did a typical fling-from-sitting-to-lying-down on the bed. I knew something had happened, because when Cassi picked her up, she did her usual "don't breathe because I hurt myself thing." Admittedly, I wasn't paying a lot of attention to Katelyn while she prayed. But I did peek a couple times, once to see blood all over Cassi's neck (where Megan's face had been. So we took a pause on the prayer and went to the bathroom to take care of Megan's bloody nose. Our only guess is that she hit her face with her hand when she flung herself backwards. After the shock wore off, and she was cleaned up, she started acting like usual. Dad came down and checked her pupil reaction and said she would be fine. When that was done, we finished prayers, watched "Meet the Robinsons" (one of Megan's, and my and Cassi's favorites lately). Then it was lights out. It didn't take long for the girls - they were pretty tired. Cassi even commented about how she could be exhausted at 9:30 pm? I think she's still just so excited to be here. But then, so am I! On to Day 3!

Vacation - Day 1 (May 31)

Today we got up early and made our way to the airport for a two-week trip to Hawaii. The girls are all very excited!


Despite the 6-hour plane ride, everyone did very well. We weren't the only ones with with a group of kids either - I heard the flight attendants saying it was probably the most kids they've seen on a flight before. We just kept the pretzels, crayons, and DVD's coming.


When we got here, the wind was blowing pretty good, so we decided to start our swimming days on Monday
.

But nothing could keep the kids (or us) from taking our shoes off on the beach. Of course we took a minute for a quick Christmas Card picture.


We also got to see what I hope is the first of many beautiful sunsets.


It was a pretty long day, but in the end everyone was just glad to be in paradise.

Girls like to talk...

I was putting Katelyn to bed the other night, and she thought she wasn't tired yet. She then started telling me stories about the pretend bath her Mickey doll was taking in her bathtub. She has always been a talker, but this time she explained why. She told me "Girls talk a lot, Dad. And I'm a girl. I have a lot to say." I told her that was great, but if she wanted to keep talking, then I had to leave. If she wanted me to stay on the floor next to her bed for 4 minutes (because she's 4 years old), then she'd have to zip it. This worked, and very soon she was out like a log.

Life update (work, house, etc.)

Sorry it has taken me so long to post again. After my trip to Arizona, I emailed both VCommerce and CareFX to follow up, but have not heard back from anyone. It seems that is the new way companies like to tell someone they're not pursuing you anymore...silence. So, we have decided to accept Novell's offer to work remotely, and thus are now just focused on selling the house and looking for the right one down in Arizona. Our last chat with the realtor told us that the market in Utah is as it is elsewhere, slow. People are apparently more worried about the economy than about buying our house. Cassi thinks it's rude, so I guess we'll just have to be patient. We have had 3 people come through, but the last of them was about 3 weeks ago. However, the weather is just starting to get nice, so we're hoping that will get people in a more buying mood. Plus, the green grass will look better for selling than the snow-topped roof will.

On the family front, we had Megan's 2nd birthday last Sunday (Cassi will post pictures of that later), and we're all gearing up for Easter this Sunday. So far, I'm just doing OK in my March Madness brackets, but I've been so out of really following sports for so long, that I'm always surprised to get any points.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Say "cheese!" Megan loves taking pictures and saying "cheese" (she also loves to eat cheese, although I've recently discovered she only will eat Tillamook cheese). We love our little Megan. She is almost 2 and growing up quickly these days. She has finally decided that talking is a good thing and it helps her get what she wants. However, she has not discovered yet that even though she says what she wants doesn't always mean she gets what she wants. (Terrible 2's are just around the corner!)



Katelyn is as her shirt says, "totally charming." She is getting pretty excited to move to Arizona. She completely loves wearing short sleeves and skirts. She hasn't quite gotten it yet that when it is 25 degrees outside and a blizzard that you shouldn't wear short sleeves (I've also had to hide the flip flops, or that would be another issue). One day in the car running errands, Katelyn asked me the cutest questions. She said, "Mommy, how are we going to get our big red car on the airplane?" She knew we needed to have our car in AZ, but we have only ever flown to AZ. I then explained to her that we would drive our car all the way to AZ, which she then responded with, "that's crazy, mom. We can't drive all the way to AZ!" She finally accepted that we could drive our car to AZ and that it can't go on the airplane.



I simply love my adorable kids. Sure, there are moments when there are just too many girl emotions running through the house, but all in all they are beautiful. Megan is finally getting to the age where she and Katelyn play really well together. I love listening to them play and laugh.

One (Long) Fine Day

Ok, so here's what happened during and since my Arizona trip last Thursday. To recap a little, I had two interviews scheduled until the day before, when another company (Vcommerce) replied to the resume I sent them. We had a phone interview and then set up for me to meet with them on Thursday morning.

I got up at 3:52 am, put on my best suit, and was out the door by 4:30. My flight left on time at 7:15, fortunately before the snows came in and left a few inches over Utah. I arrived in Phoenix, picked up my rental car, and headed to Scottsdale to meet with Vcommerce. They had a nice office space, and I met with the manager over Production Support in the "Star Wars" room (there was a life-size "Han Solo in carbonate" sitting in there). He also brought in an engineer who was recently on the same team to "talk tech" with me. I think the interviews went well. The position, for those interested or confused by the title, is basically to make sure the servers and programs running their money-making software stays up and running. And, if something goes wrong (or I notice something is going to go wrong soon), then we dive in and find out what it is and let the developers know how to fix it. You have possibly used the company's software before without even knowing it. They handle online transactions for Target, Overstock.com, MTV, newegg.com, and others. They have a piece of software that customers see when they shop at those websites, and a back-end piece that makes sure the orders are processed correctly between the suppliers, shipping, and customers. Anyway, we had a good chat and I think I'll hear from them with whatever their next step is this coming week, maybe by Wednesday.

Next I grabbed lunch and headed for GoDaddy.com. I was probably most excited going into this interview, and most deflated leaving it. I tend to judge a company on their website, and GoDaddy's website is a bit chaotic, but I think they are a pretty stable company. Well, the chaos continued on the inside. The inside of the office was pretty sloppy for a business, for my taste. I noticed the carpet probably wasn't the cleanest, and the walls needed to be repainted. The office space seemed a little like a labyrinth, and the security desk at the front reminded me a little of the pillboxes in the banks in Guatemala. My interview didn't go at all as I thought it would. It seems they were looking at me for a different position, and had some preconceived notions about me based on where I was coming from. I felt a little attacked by one of the interviewers, but not at all about my qualifications for the position I was there for. They seemed to want me to prove why I wanted to work there, rather than see if I was qualified and show my why it would be great to work there. Needless to say, I don't really expect to hear from them, and don't anticipate accepting an offer from them if one did come.

The GoDaddy interview got over early, partly because one of the people they wanted me to interview with was out with the flu, so I raced over to Mesa and stopped for about 5 minutes with my Grandma-ma and Grandpa, and then another 2 minutes with Mom, Amy, and Baby Rock (Brock, Amy's 5-week old). Then I raced back to Scottsdale and made it to CareFX just in time and had about a 2-1/2 hour interview. Their office was also very clean like Vcommerce. This company creates web portals for physicians to use to see hospital patient lab results (or other information) from anywhere. My dad and Cassi said this is pretty cool technology. I interviewed with a handful of different people, each quizzing me about different areas of my technology knowledge. I think the interview went pretty well overall, and should hear something from them before next Friday.

After that interview I fought through traffic to go return the car, where I met up with Dad, and we went over to the airport and ate dinner at a Chili's they have there. We got to talk about the interviews and stuff for about an hour and a half or so. It was fun to hang out there with him. Then I went through security, to my plane, and went back home, arriving in Springville around midnight. Somehow I made it through the day without spilling anything on my suit. Don't ever say miracles don't happen in these latter days! :)

I feel like I should call this last part the epilogue. Our story continues to Friday when I got back to work at Novell. I met up with my manager and some coworkers in the hall and we talked about what had happened the day before at Novell. Then someone asked how my day was the day before. I said it was fine. My manager asked if I was in Arizona, and I said yes, and that I had been interviewing (I don't try to rub in anything with Novell as to my plans for departure - I've tried to let my manager have as much information as he wants me to give him). He invited me to come to his office. When I got there, he said he and his manager were talking about opening a requisition to replace me during the day before's staff meeting. Someone in the group asked if they thought I could work remotely, and long-story a little shorter, they have informally offered for me to work remotely from Arizona. It seems I can have the best of both worlds. I can continue to work for a manager and with a team I have really enjoyed, but also I can move to Arizona and enjoy that experience as well. Nothing is official, and I still have these two companies out there possibly preparing offers for me, but it was a great surprise for me. I've thought before about working remotely from Arizona, but never thought it would be an option for me. I don't know yet what will happen from here, but I'm excited about my current prospects, and I'm thankful to be valued so highly by my manager. I have to say that I feel we're being blessed right now as a family. This is a crazy time for us, and a huge decision, but one we're trying to make carefully and prayerfully. Cassi and I both got to go to the Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting this past Saturday, and I really enjoyed all the counsel given. A lot of it spoke between the lines to me. I think I'll have to put that into a separate post. I'm thankful for inspired leaders and the help of the Spirit. Your continued prayers on our behalf are deeply appreciated. And of course, any comments on which job you think sounds the best (or anything else) would be fun to read and consider.

Oh, one more thing. Our house officially went on the market (as Katelyn says, "our house is on sale!") last Tuesday morning. You can see our listing here.

To move, or not to move...

Dear family and friends,

Many of you know that we have been itching to fly south to Arizona for more than just the winter. The near record snowfall recently on my driveway only encourages my migratory urges (we are, after all, Partridge's). On Monday, January 21, I sent out resumes for 8 positions at 5 different companies. I had phone interviews for 3 of the positions (1 at CareFX, and 2 at GoDaddy.com) last Thursday and Friday, and now will fly down for two in-person interviews (1 with each company) next Thursday.

Cassi and I are really excited for these opportunities and hope things work out so we can soon thaw out in the Valley of the Sun. Katelyn is especially anxious to go "where [she] can wear short-sleeves all the time." (I told her that Hawaii is about the only place I know of where that might actually be true, and she seems OK to "settle" with Arizona.) My impression from the latest talks with these companies is that this in-person interview is the make-or-brake time for an offer.

We ask you to keep us in your prayers, and perhaps include us in your fast this Sunday. Thanks in advance for all the support and inspiration you have each been to us.