Here we go...

First two days in the new job, done. If it's any indication of what the entire experience is going to be, I'm definitely not going to get bored. I work with a very sharp and hard working boss, and I think it's really going to keep me on my toes. My goals for this new job are simple, work hard, work smart, work long when necessary, and stay focused. I'm excited about the job, the people, and the new opportunity. There's a very cool energy and excitement around the company - not just how things are today, but how they're going to be very soon. I'm definitely digging the new gig!

Nice to have some cool fall weather, but last week went a little far. Cold, rain, and even some snow in the higher elevations reminded us of the changing seasons of Utah. It's back to cool but sunny days now so all is well, but we sort of just look at each other with dread for the coming winter.

St George Marathon

Angela and I took ourselves down to St George last weekend and ran the marathon. It was so cool to see many old friends and family members who always seem to complete our STG experience. It just wouldn't be the same each year we go down if we couldn't count on seeing Matt & Sheri, Jason & Sara, Jen & Darek, Kirk & Julie, Melissa, Uncle Mike, Tiffany or others of the Colton clan, and many new friends.

Angela did absolutely great. She beat her previous best time by more than 7 minutes, and qualified for Boston, which has long been a goal for her. She struggled with cramping at the end, and feels like she gave it everything so was very satisfied. I was proud of her.

And 1/2 hour later, I crossed the line. It was my worst time by about 22 minutes, but it was actually a bit better than I was expecting and I was happy with finishing. It sort of sounds like an excuse, but the fact that we only found out about 4 weeks before the marathon that we were in didn't really give me a lot of training time. Fortunately Angela had already been running a lot and was much more prepared. I, on the other hand, was not really ready but excited to get another one under my belt. This was my 9th STG, so next year will be my induction into the 10-year club, which I'm quite excited about.

So this week is dedicated to closing out my work in my Imagine Learning job, and preparing to start my new job at Domo on Monday. I'm super stoked about the change, other than the fact that I'll miss many of the people with whom I work at IL. It feels like a really good move and I'm anxious to get going.

Mom and Dad were in town from Chile for a week or so surrounding General Conference. It was great to spend some time with them as they came down to Provo for a visit, and we had a big dinner up at their house one Sunday. My personal highlight of their visit, though, was taking an afternoon off work and going fly fishing with Dad up at the cabin. The fishing was not great, but it was a beautiful day and I can't think of anything better than being on the river with Dad.

Brig finished off another soccer season last week, and I enjoyed being one of the coaches. There were too many kids on the team so it was hard at times to get everyone in and out, but all in all he loved it and had fun. Morgan has started back into her swim team after an end-of-summer break. She's working hard at it and continues to improve her times. Kennan takes tennis and dance, Micah takes tumbling and dance in addition to cheerleading at school. Busy days...

Big News

We have felt really good about our move to Utah. We are grateful for the good job at Imagine Learning that brought us here and provided me with many happy relationships and challenging work opportunities. We have also at times experienced the phenomenon that we went down a path that felt right, only to have something else come along shortly thereafter that felt better - sort of like the initial thing got us on the right path, and prepared us for the second thing. That has happened again...

About a month ago I was invited to interview at a confidential company. I declined, stating that I was happy where I was, and not caring that I didn't know who the company was. More info followed, however, and it became immediately obvious that I probably needed to at least have some conversations with them if for nothing else than just a networking opportunity. So over the course of the next few weeks I met a few great people, including the high profile founder of the new company, and then last week they called offering me a job.

It has been a very hard decision. Not because I didn't want the job, not because it's not an amazing opportunity. Only because I feel loyalty to the people at Imagine who have been great to me and are wonderful to work with. As we went through the process, we realized that if it was only the people that were holding us back from accepting, that probably wasn't the right reason. We started considering the job seriously later in the week and by the weekend we had confirming feelings and we knew. So I signed my acceptance letter and within a couple of weeks will be working for Domo Technologies.

The number one question I've been getting upon informing people of the change is "are you going to move?" Fortunately, no! We love our new home, our neighborhood, and our friends. The job is in Utah County, and will quadruple my commute time, but I definitely feel like it's worth it. It's been tough giving the news to my boss, our CEO, and to my team. They've said nice things about me, threatened physical violence and vomit, and realized they'll be just fine in the end. They're good people, and have shown that yet again in their congratulations and genuine concern for us.

So on to new things, which is always really exciting to me. Can't wait to get going!

Mid September catch up

Man, you take a month off from writing in your blog and you barely recognize it when you come back. That's actually literally true ... Google upgraded the interface to blogger and I likey.

Wow, so much going on. I'll try to fill in most of the big holes, although I'm certainly going to miss some cool stuff. Since I wrote last, these are the highlights:

Micah started cheering at Timpview football games. I love to go watch her, and catch a bit of football at the same time. She does great and is actually quite good at the cheerleader thing. I definitely have my eye on all the mongrel boys who sit and scope out the cheerleaders...

School started. Micah likes her classes and friends, and is balancing cheer with some other outside activities. Kennan is a big 6th grader and I think is thriving in that environment. Morgan is her usual happy-go-lucky self and does well at whatever. Brig started kindergarten and has been loving it - no separation anxiety or tears whatsoever, just happy to go to school. He had a traumatic episode this week though as he threw up in class. He hadn't been acting sick, but we knew he had been playing with some neighbor boys who also threw up suddenly. He called me after Ang picked him up and I think the trauma of it caught up to him as he only got out "hi Dad..." and he broke down in sobs. I felt so bad for him.

We've continued to build some great friendships in our ward and neighborhood. It's so nice to have great people around us. I also went off sweets for a couple of weeks and that helped me feel good about my will power. I'm not trying to lose weight necessarily, just wanted to make some small changes.

Ang and I found out a couple weeks ago that we have been granted admission to the St George marathon in a few weeks. Some good friends here in Provo have contacts at the race, and they got us in. I think I'm happy about that, although I haven't been training and even though I think I can finish a marathon at this point, it's gonna be slow and painful. Ang of course is going to rock the house...

I finally finished my third furniture project - our master bed. I have to say it looks pretty darn good, and happy to say it's very solid. Now that that's done, I feel like I can get to some more house-related projects, like cleaning and organizing the basement and the garage. We're still trying hard to coax little minutes of work out of our landscaper. The "few weeks" job has turned into the "few months" job, and we're just anxious to get it done and stop having to worry about when it'll get finished. I guess you really do get what you pay for.

I've had a lot of work things going on that are a little outside of the usual day to day schedule. My favorite was playing in a golf tournament with some cool guys from work up at Red Ledges in Heber, a Jack Nicklaus course. We've also had meetings and events at Sundance and Park City recently, so it's been nice to break up the work days that way.

Memorial Day weekend was really fun. We went up to the cabin just with our little family on Friday night and Saturday, and it was spectacularly beautiful up there. I got out on the river for some fly fishing - didn't catch a ton but LOVED it. I also took the kids up to the reservoir for some early morning fishing... actually, Morgan and I went early in the cold, and the rest came later. Again, not a lot of fish action, but fun to be there with everyone. We also played tennis at the cabin. Monday was a fun hike to Stewart Falls above Sundance with our friends the Weights.

Finally, I went to Austin last weekend with Dave, Nate, Dan, and MattMax for the BYU-Texas football game. I kept saying to everyone all along that I was more anxious to eat at Chuy's and Rudy's than I was even to go to the game. Believe me, my favorite restaurants didn't disappoint - it was awesome! The game was great in the first half, frustrating in the second half, and we lost by 1 point. Oh well. But we also got to stay with a very generous old friend from MBA school, Jeremy Allen, and it was really cool to catch up with him and his family.

Summer of Visits

When we moved to Utah we thought we might still have a good chance of seeing many of our friends because lots of them come through at some point. We had no idea our summer would be this fruitful with visits. We've caught up with old friends we haven't seen in years, spent time with friends we still see often, and everything in between. We've been so blessed with great friends everywhere we've gone.

So here's a list of all the friends we have seen this summer, whether they visited us or we visited them. These are all the friends that we have seen (or will see still) all or part of the family (his doesn't include Angela's trip back to CA with the kids).

- Baughs
- Fairbanks
- Hursts
- Trammells
- Werners
- Packards
- Lyons
- Williamsons
- Cutlers
- Maddie Healy
- Madi Wheatley
- Tangs
- Mortensens
- Claphams
- Greg & DaNel Jones
- Mike & Shauna Smith
- Jeremy & Amy Allen
- McNamaras
- Lohners
- Mabeys
- Fullers
- Sharps
- (hope I didn't forget anyone)

That list spans friends from CA and TX, with some old BYU friends mixed in. It's been amazing to see everyone and find that all are doing well. And yes, it's been a busy summer.

Yard update

Our house is growing up...

... and lots more still to do.

This week starts the Tour of Utah professional cycling race. We've never been in Utah before when this was happening, but I've been to the Tour of California when we were there. The cool thing is that they take the race through many of the cities and communities, and one of the stages happens to finish right around the corner from my office building. Not only that, but someone from work just handed me a VIP finish line ticket, so I guess that means I'll have a decent view of the action when they come across the line in what should be a sprint finish. Very psyched!

I rode 61 miles on my bike Saturday, and loved every mile (well, the second to last mile was a little painful...). I rode from our house up to Thanksgiving Point, jumped into the ULCER century ride for about the first 30 miles or the course, and then rode home from south Provo. It was great to get good solid time in the saddle without killing myself on big climbs, and it was fun to ride with a few small packs, although I got to the start a little late and was really only left with mostly stragglers to pass when I started. Made me really remember how much I love riding my bike! Only thing that would've made it better would've been riding with Dave.

The family's all good - just soaking up the last couple weeks of summer. We all went to Seven Peaks Saturday morning and had a fun time until all the crowds came and it got hot. Luckily we have season passes so we felt great about leaving and coming back another day once we'd gotten our fill. Other things we're planning are a hike to the Y, hopefully a cabin trip, and if our yard gets done soon enough, a BBQ or two in the back yard.

Adios!

After lots of preparation and a million "last" events, Dad and Mom officially left for Santiago, Chile yesterday. We've known this was coming for a long time, but it's always seemed off in the future and it's very strange that they're now gone. As you can see from the picture, they shouldn't run out of supplies... I'm pretty sure that's a record for number of large suitcases taken on a flight.

The great thing about their time away is that they get to come back a few times a year. As we've explained to many of you, they will return each October and April for LDS General Conference (about a two week stay each time), and then they'll return home each July for a month. So it's not like a mission where they can't come home at all. And the hope is that at least Angela and I will be able to travel down to see them while they're there. May be too expensive to take the whole family...

And to leave you with one final thought, does anyone else crack up at the thought of my mom speaking Spanish???

"That guy..."

You've all seen that guy - the one at the gym who just can't take his eyes off himself in the mirrors. Sometimes he's somewhat surreptitious about it, other times he's enamored and doesn't care who knows it. I became that guy on Saturday, if only for a brief moment... Angela and I went for a run together in Deer Valley despite the fact that our hotel was sitting at the top of a gnarly hill. We ran a loop that took us down and then back up, and then we were chagrined to find out we'd only run 1.5 miles. We opted to finish the run on the treadmills in the fitness center, so we started running, and I have to tell you, I was downright flattered with my own legs while I was running! I yanked my shorts up sumo style and marveled at how I could see all kinds of cool lines in my quad muscle... yeah, I know, I didn't think I had it in me either! So there I was, checking out my Jan Ullrich legs as I ran, and I'll be darned if I didn't catch Angela stealing a few glances as well :)

OK, so we had a great weekend. This was our 17 year anniversary trip, and we stayed at the Chateaux at Silver Lake in Deer Valley for two nights, no kids. We ate really good food, watched a movie, ran, played tennis, shopped at the outlets, ran into some old friends, and went to a great outdoor concert featuring Idina Menzel and the Utah Symphony. So much fun, and very relaxing, although we would've liked to sleep in Sunday morning instead of getting up to make it back to church on Sunday. Oh well, the 3 hour naps on Sunday afternoon caught us all back up...

Late July. It's Hot.

We had a killer family reunion last week with all my siblings, their families, my parents, and Grandpa Richards. We rented out this amazing lodge up Hobble Creek Canyon called Spring Haven - hello!!! Huge, luxurious, beautiful, remote but close to civilization ... pretty much everything we hoped for. Highlights were: an impromptu game of 7-man brothers version of 21 (like 1 on 1, only with 7 guys) in the sweet indoor bball court, water fight with all the kids and most of the adults, Amazing Race BYU campus edition (ok, that's a gratuitous self-promotion because I planned this one - but it really was fun!), bike rides with the bros (even though I was feeling sick Saturday morning and couldn't go on the real ride), golf at Hobble Creek where everyone played well, great air conditioning in the rooms, hanging with the fam, delicious food, and much more.

On Sunday we went up to Dad and Mom's ward as they spoke before leaving to Chile next week. Matt and Rebecca were also blessing their baby there so we all participated in that. They were great talks and a great blessing, but unfortunately that won't be the prevailing memory of the meeting. The deacon who was passing the sacrament, standing right next to me, threw up all over the place. Luckily I heard the freight train coming up the esophagus and moved quick as a cat over into Angela's lap so didn't get sprayed, but it was still horrifying for all involved. I'm sure the poor kid felt terribly humiliated, but I wasn't too happy as I got down on my hands and knees with baby wipes and cleaned it up. Angela said Elder Bednar on the stand was smiling as he saw me cleaning...

The landscaping on our house is moving along slowly but ... well, slowly pretty much sums it up... I was very excited to go home for lunch today and see the sod going in - that's some tangible progress! Can't wait to now get the patio poured so we can start grilling and chilling. Pics to come as things continue.

Summer's been hot, and surprisingly more humid than I remembered Utah being. Not always, but some days have been downright muggy. The last couple of days have included explosive late afternoon monsoon storms that are spectacular and cooling - I admit I like them as long as I'm not out on my bike or something like that.

Still happy in Provo...

Work Whiteboard

The kids visited my office the other day and left some messages behind on the whiteboard. I like to leave them up as long as I can because it reminds me that even when there are problems at work, there's still something more important at home.

The crazy summer continues and it's really hard right now to find our family rhythm. I'm sure everyone else struggles with this too, but between all the other time consuming activities, it doesn't leave a lot of family home time. But the summer must go on!

Blogging for Two

I admit it, I was almost ready to throw in the towel on this whole blog thing. I haven't been updating very faithfully lately, and it hasn't been as fun for me to feel guilty about not posting, rather than keeping up a steady stream of posts like I used to. Besides, I never really know if anyone is out there reading ... crickets? do I hear crickets?

This week we had a great visit from our longtime friends Craig and Krista - college roommates of mine and Angela's way, way back when we were at BYU. They live in Colorado now and it's always fun when we catch up, however infrequently. I was surprised and very happy when they started talking about how they read the blog, and thus they know a lot about what we've been doing recently. It was kind of gratifying to know that we at least have two loyal readers. So it is with renewed vigor that I attack this blogging thing again - if only for Craig and Krista. C&K, it may just be you guys and me, but I'm going to still try and entertain you guys (and in the process probably only entertain myself...).

A couple of great things lately:

1.  11 pm Tuesday night we noticed the front tire on our Expedition was completely flat - thanks neighborhood construction nails in the street, appreciate it. So I pulled the very dirty spare tire out from under the car, put it on after an epic battle with the jack and lug nuts, and was kind of proud that it took me less than an hour to change a flat. I took it in to Mike's Auto Tune & Tire in Provo to repair, and here's what will secure my business for the rest of my Provo life: not only did they offer to put the tire back on the car right away after fixing it despite lots of customers, but then Mike waved me off when I pulled out my wallet and told me to have a great day. Never mind the thousands of dollars I've already spent there, that $15 plus tax just sealed the deal...

2.  The Tour de France is picking up steam and I'm hooked hard. It helps to have an arch enemy, someone to cheer against, the Yankees of the peloton - and I have one this year: Alberto Contador. I don't like him because he tested positive for doping, I don't like him because last year he spat upon time honored traditions of cycling to not take advantage of your rival's mechanical misfortune, and I don't like him because, well, I don't think I need any more reasons. So on day one, he got caught up in some crashes and lost more than a minute to the other real contenders, and just like Mike's $15 above, I was instantly interested. Nice that someone's downfall makes me so happy, huh?

3.  Finally, Micah, our sweet little girl, turns 14 years old today. What?!?!?! Yep, it's true... My gift for her this year was a brand new, hand made, Pottery Barn replica bed (Pottery Barn inspired, yes, but much better quality if I say so myself!). It's been fun to build, but tough to finish off. I wanted to get it set up for her birthday, so last night as she was out with Angela doing late night errands for her party tonight, Morgan helped me set it up as a surprise for her birthday. It makes me really happy to do stuff like that. I love her very much and am so proud of her, while at the same time wishing she wasn't growing up quite so fast...

The 4th

We had an awesome 4th of July holiday weekend. It was the perfect mix of everything good ... fun family time with both sides of the family (BBQ with my family, Sunday dinner w/ Angela's family), lots of great friend time (Thai dinner and outdoor concert date with the Mitchells, ,

It started off with a great Friday night date with our friends the Mitchells. We went to Thai food and then to the outdoor rooftop concert in downtown Provo, which was a lot of local artists singing Beatles songs (quite well I might add). Saturday morning was early for us all as we picked up Micah and Maddie Healey from EFY at 7am, and then we went over to watch all the hot air balloons launch for the Freedom Festival in Provo. Our favorite for sure was the Darth Vader balloon! I guess as you can see in the photo, it's also true that pigs can fly... After seeing the balloons we all went to all-you-can-eat french toast (with the killer buttermilk syrup) at Magleby's Fresh. We sort of broke the rules a little bit by accidentally ordering too much food and having to take it with us rather than waste it.

There's nothing like a bike ride on a full stomach, so I immediately headed out after breakfast on a great 40 mile ride up Hobble Creek Canyon. I wanted to check out the lodge where we'll be staying for our Richards family reunion later this month, so I rode up there. Should be really fun. In the afternoon we did some projects around the house - I painted Micah's bed, we unpacked more boxes, set up a desk in our office, and I think I caught a few ZZZ's on the couch while watching Stage 1 of the Tour de France.

Evening was awesome. We headed to my parents for a super fun BBQ with all of our family who's in town. The food was spectacular (especially the ginormous hot dogs and the Day's Market donuts we brought), everyone was happy, and it was fun to catch up with all the brothers. There was a huge firework display at Eaglewood golf course, but we wanted to come back and see the Stadium of Fire show in Provo with our friends, so we left just in time to miss the traffic but still make it to Provo in time to sit with our great friends the Neymans and Davis's on their driveway and watch the firework display. We were SO happy to not have to drive in traffic afterwards but just be able to walk around the corner and be home.

On Sunday Ang and I got set apart for my our new callings - Ang is Activity Days leader, and I'm in the YM Presidency over the Deacons. We're both excited about the callings and happy to be working with young people. Sunday dinner was at the LeBras' where we enjoyed good food and hanging out for a while with family. That evening we went over to Kiwanis Park to help set up the finish line area for Monday's Freedom Run races, our friends are in charge of it so we wanted to help them out.

Monday morning saw Ang and me running the Freedom Run 10K. I was having stomach problems throughout the night - maybe the chicken curry from Sunday dinner? - and that discomfort unfortunately carried on throughout the race. It was still fun though, and we're glad we did it. We collected the kids and then met all our friends down at the parade, where we were amazed at how big the parade was. It was fun to see, and we were grateful for the huge trees that kept us shaded, not to mention the Davis's business office that provided bathrooms and soft chairs when needed. The BBQ afterwards was really fun, and also another great way to miss all the traffic. Later on Spencer and Molly's family came down to see our house and hang out with us for the evening, which included some swimming at the neighbors and JCW's burgers and shakes. That evening was Culdesac of Fire, where the whole neighborhood gathered - in the rain as it turns out - to eat desserts and watch people light off newly legal big fireworks in the street.

And then it was back to work on Tuesday ...

Couple Good Books and a Decent Table

I recently finished reading an amazing book: Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand. It's a biography of former Olympic Athlete, WWII bombadier, and Japanese POW, and I couldn't put it down. I was blown away by the unbelievable experiences he had in his life, and I HIGHLY recommend the read. Very well written, which just added to the incredible story of Louie Zamparini's life.

Another fascinating book that I'm currently reading is called The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind, by William Kamkwamba. It's an autobiographical account of growing up in Malawi, and how this boy learned how to do things that changed his life and culture. Some of the most interesting things to me thus far in the book were relating to the African superstitions prevalent in underdeveloped countries - often things that could be explained easily, but once they latch onto supernatural explanations it's hard for them to see logic or common sense in the explanations. Also incredible to me was the devastation that one bad season can have on a country that exists solely on the back of growing crops... and the ingenuity this boy showed once he internalized the drive to pull his family out of the primitive crop cycle.

And finally, in an admitted moment of self-congratulations, I would like to announce the completion of our kitchen table. Lest I get ahead of myself, Matt Maxfield was very, very helpful with this project and deserves most of the credit (along with my Dad), but I'm still very proud of the final result and the work I had to do to finish it. Of course it's not perfect, and it does have blemishes, but it's still a pretty good product, and it's just nice to have a kitchen table! Now on to the beds...

Summer

Well let's see... In the three weeks since I last wrote, we've had some great things going on. In as summary form as possible, here are the highlights:

--Our 17 year anniversary, which passed with little fanfare, to be celebrated properly later this summer when we can catch our breath
--Micah and Kennan did awesome in their dance recital - super amazing dancers especially considering they haven't had too much formal training
--Dave and I competed in the Ironman Boise 70.3 race. We both did better than we expected, and were super thrilled with our times. Dave beat me by 2 minutes, which was fine by me because we both did well. I was very pleased with my swim and bike, but extensive leg cramps sort of impeded my ability to finish strongly like I had wanted. All in all, awesome to do it with Dave, to spend time with he and Mere, to have Ang and the kids come support me and set an amazing standard for loud cheering every time they saw me, and great staying with our friends Greg and DaNel and their great family - their three boys were amazing with Brig!
--Micah went on Trek with our stake and loved it
--Ang, Micah, Morgan, and Brig drove to California for the week (currently there). Kennan stayed with me to then go to a week school camp up by Sundance.

So I've been home this week, and I've used the time to try and finish some of the furniture I started months ago. I've got the dining table stained and ready for clear coat - the goal is to have it upstairs and ready to go when the fam gets home from their trip Saturday night... couple more days of work should do it.

I'm going to a black-tie dinner tonight up in SLC. It's an awards gala dinner where our CEO is a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year. I picked up a tux yesterday and it should be interesting... Thought I'd take a couple hours beforehand and squeeze in a round of golf with my brothers in the afternoon - looking forward to that!

I've been grateful to our CA friends for their continued friendship to all of us. Each time Angela calls me from her trip she sounds very happy, which makes me happy. I've also been grateful for our new Utah friends - they've already made our lives better in being here.

Happy Birthday Angela!!!

This is always a great day to me every year - June 6th. Yeah, it's Angela's birthday, and yeah, it's a happy day of celebration. But really it's all about the fact that on this day each year, Angela pulls within one year of my age, so when people ask how old we both are, she's just one year behind instead of two. Yep, I have a completely objecting and non-selfish way of looking at things...

Seriously, Angela's the best! I'm so grateful for her in every way. Even when she's not perfect, she's great. I've been taken aback recently about how proud I am of her. I'll be watching her in public - while she doesn't know I'm watching - and just marveling at how amazing she is. I'm one lucky guy.

Wow, wow, wow

Brig has said probably five or six times over the last two days: "I can't believe we live in our own house!" I can't believe it either, to be honest. This move is a culmination of lots of work, lots of miracles, and lots of waiting. We're absolutely thrilled to be in a beautiful home, in an awesome neighborhood, in a great ward, in a good city. We count ourselves very blessed.

You know I like lists, so here's a list of projects and things we've accomplished over the last month or so:

• - ran tubing and electrical for central vacuum system with the help of a friend in the ward
• - ran speaker wire for our sound systems with Cameron
• - arranged interior insulation for sound proofing
• - laid out, taped off, and painted five coats of paint on our beautiful hardwood floor in the entry hall
• - researched, price matched, exhaustively comparison shopped, and purchased washer and dryer
• - did the same for refrigerators (kitchen and garage), mattresses, and a BBQ grill
• - built a king bed, a queen bed, and a big dining table with the help of Matt Max and Dad
• - primed and painted the garage walls with the help of Cameron
• - acid cleaned the garage floor and sealed all the garage floor seams
• - epoxy'd the garage floor with the help of the whole family
• - got bids and designs for landscaping
• - Trips to Home Depot, Lowe's, Kwal, lumber store, RC Willey and other furniture stores = at least 30

So now we unpack some boxes each day, and we love sleeping, eating, and playing in our new home. It will probably be months before we hang any pictures and really settle in with nothing to do, but it already feels like home. We have lots to do, but somehow it's much easier to get it all done and feel excited about it when it's for your own home, not for your landlord's!

Um, forgot that...

So in talking all about our busy weekend last week, I neglected to mention two of the most important things: Morgan's 9th birthday, and Mother's Day.  That was not because of a lack of love for those two special people, it was simply because I'm an idiot, and my simple mind has a hard time thinking about more than one thing at once.

So we had a fun day for Morgan.  I didn't participate in all the festivities, because that would've required me to get brightly colored toenail paint.  But I did submit myself to the Justin Bieber movie as part of our family celebration for Morgan, and we had a fun dinner at Pizza Factory.  It was so fun to see Morgan happy and loving the attention.

Mother's Day was a bit less celebratory for Angela, unfortunately.  With my ox firmly entrenched in the mire (a biblical reference that helps me feel better about having had to paint the floor on Sunday due to a strict Monday deadline), I spent many hours, both before church and late into the evening, at the house finishing up the floor.  Church was good, my long afternoon nap was great (nothing like telling the mother of your children you love and honor her by taking a two-hour nap... sheeesh), and it was really fun to go to dinner up at my parents where many of my siblings gathered for my Mom's final American Mother's Day for a while.  (and I feel like I should explain the nap thing ... I had been working on the floor until 1am three nights straight, and then was up at 5:30 Sunday morning to try and get more done before church, so Angela was very understanding...)  See below for my Mother's Day gift to my dear wife...

Also, here are a couple of links to YouTube videos of Micah's last two performances for Centennial Idol.  I particularly love the first one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlkLQmxOTu4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwDlbx-amdE

Busy Weekend Coming Up

It's dang hard just to keep up with my life, let alone with this blog.  So that's my excuse for not being more active in writing.  We've had a good week, but I'll admit it'll be very nice when life slows down a little bit. Aside from the normal hustle and bustle of life, we also had a fun date with Mom and Dad on Monday night, Kennan's Hope of America concert on Tuesday night, I went to SLC to build more furniture Wed night, last night Angela and I were at our new house until after 1 am working on our latest project (more below), tonight Ang and the kids are going to a play in Bountiful followed by a sleepover at cousins while I work on the project again, tomorrow we have a niece's baptism, a baby blessing, an important rugby game and BYU rugby alumni even, lots more work on the house project, and other stuff I can't even remember.

So the house... it's going great, and scary fast.  I say scary because it will reintroduce us to real life - mortgage payment, utility bills, home maintenance & repairs, etc. ... and we can't wait.  Our friends in CA built a beautiful house a while back and they had an artist come in and paint a really cool pattern on their hardwood entry floor.  Angela got it in her mind that our house will just not be complete without doing something similar at our place, and so I was commissioned as the artist in charge of ruining the beautiful hardwood floor ... err, painting the floor.  Here's a tip for all you aspiring floor painters - the actual painting is the easy part.  Laying out and scaling the pattern, and then taping off the floor, were 5 hours worth of back-breaking labor last night.  I'm not kidding, I feel like I ran a marathon yesterday.  I'm sore, tired, and grumpy because I have to go back onto my hands and knees tonight for sanding and then painting a second coat.  And all this without the sure knowledge that it will actually look somewhat decent...

We could be in our house in two weeks.  Yep, less than three months after breaking ground, we are doing final walkthrough next week, and we should close the following week.  Did I mention we're excited?

Micah found out today that she won Centennial Middle School's "Centennial Idol" competition, that included singing a number of songs over weeks of eliminations, until she competed in the finals yesterday.  It's no surprise to us, but we're happy for her because it was fun for her to show her talents.  Kennan and Micah were also in a dance competition with their cousins and dance teams last weekend, and -- somewhat surprisingly to me -- they both brought home first place awards in their team's categories.  Both are good dancers, but the thing that sticks out to me are their genuine smiles and happiness at doing something they love.

Morgan took first place in her most recent swim meet in the IM, and didn't win in butterfly but she was competing against much older kids in the 12 and under division.  Frankly, I'm just impressed she can swim 50 meters of 'fly...  She's a super good little swimmer and we're excited to support her in daily workouts.

Brig is officially outgrowing his clothes.  He was walking around today in jeans up to his ankles, and a t-shirt that had to be size 3 - up to his belly button and hugging his armpits.  Ok, it wasn't quite that bad, but it's definitely time for new gear.

This is already much longer than I planned.  I'm out.

Go! Fight! Win!

Micah recently tried out for the Sophomore cheerleading team at Timpview.  Yes, I know she's only in 8th grade.  Yes, I know she'll only be a Freshman.  But I guess that's the way it's done.  Micah has told me in the past that she's good at faking like she knows what she's doing in things like dance.  Well, I have to report she's come through again... She made the team.  She was very excited, and we were too because we just didn't think she really had a chance given that many girls have trained for this specifically for many years.  It's cool to see that she was able to put her mind to something, work hard at it in a compressed time frame, and then succeed.  Now I guess we find out if we should've been more careful with what we wished for...

A Quick Visual Update

 My Saturdays and evenings project with MattMax and my Dad ... this is just the first of hopefully many

 Still work to do, but you can now see what the exterior colors will be

 The kitchen cabinets are in.  Countertops, appliances, and stain on the floor will finalize the look

Love the railings

Good Times

I love Spring break. Everyone gets significantly less stressed because there's no school, and it usually means a fun trip somewhere. This year the fun trip was back to Los Altos. We drove out there the Saturday before Spring break so we could go to church at our old ward. That was awesome. It wasn't that we felt like returning heroes or anything like that, we just felt so comfortable with the people who we've known and loved for years and years. We stayed with our friends the Baughs and the Fuchs, with kid sleepovers at the Hursts. Of course we wish we could've spent more time with more people, but we did our best. I left on Wed morning to come back to work, but the highlights for me were: hanging out with old friends, going to church in our "home" ward, the Giants game with Brig and Jason & Jack Hurst (even though they lost), seeing Stomp, and an epic bike ride of 75 miles up and over the mountains and down the Pacific Coast Highway to the beach in Capitola.  As I said in the title ... good times.

Our house is coming along great. As you can see from the pictures, it's starting to take shape and reveal its character. So far we're very pleased with all the things we chose to do, within the context of trying to keep within a budget. They continue to tell us we're right on track for a late May completion.  Nice!

If April showers truly do bring May flowers, then we're definitely going to have a lot of beautiful flowers in May, right before the flood waters wash them all away.

Happy Birthday Brig!!! ... and other stuff

Brig turns 5 years old today.  I know I've said this before - probably most of our kids' birthdays - but he already seemed pretty old to me so it's actually a little weird he's only turning 5.  He doesn't know this yet, but he's going to be getting a brand new bike, which I put together in the basement last night.  He's going to be super psyched. He's such a good kid, and we love him like crazy.  I love it when we hang out and do stuff together - he's definitely my little buddy.

Morgan came home and announced that she took 2nd place among the girls in her class 1/2 mile run at school.  It wasn't until later that I learned she ran it in her Ugg boots... she said she forgot they had P.E. that day, so she didn't wear good shoes.  It makes me laugh to think of her running around the track in big furry boots.  Wonder how she would've done in flip flops...

This Saturday we're loading up the car and heading home to California for Spring Break.  Everyone's very excited to see friends, and to be back in sunny CA.  We've been fortunate to see some CA friends in the few months since we moved to UT, but it'll be great to spend more time with many of them and renew our friendships.

And speaking of friendships, when we were at Conference on Saturday morning, we ran into the Smiths - our very best friends from Texas!  It was so amazing to see them, and we arranged to meet up with them on Monday evening as well.  Great to catch up - it was just like picking up where we'd left off.  We're so grateful for amazing friends all around the country.

House update: base layer of stucco is up on the outside of the house, sheetrock is completely hung and they're just mudding and taping today.  Some neighbors went way above and beyond the call of duty to help me for 11 hours on Saturday (much of which I wasn't even there for) to run tubing and wiring for a central vac system we decided at the last minute to put in.  I'm actually looking forward to being out of town for a few days so lots will happen between visits to the lot.  One thing we worry a bit about though is just being there to catch small slip-ups.  We've already caught a few, like they put our sliding back door in backwards, and they put arches in where they weren't supposed to go (big no-no for Angela), and a couple of other small things.  They're doing a great job, but moving so fast that things are bound to get jumbled.

Pics and Progress

I love this photo I took last Saturday as Morgan and I were skiing the back mountain at Sundance.  She's a nearly fearless skier, and I had a lot of fun taking her on some "daddy" runs, or something a little harder than we'd been doing.  She's good enough that I could say, "meet you at the lifts", and then we'd both just go.  Lots of fun, and we're going to close out our Sundance season tonight as we go night skiing on the final weekend it's open.

A few people have recently asked for new photos on the house.  This is the latest, although as soon as I take a picture they do something new and exciting, so they're almost instantly out of date.  Today they're pouring all the concrete - driveway, front stairs, front walkway, back patio, etc.  They've also stacked all the sheetrock inside, and they'll start that today as well.  We're going to put insulation in the interior walls over the weekend to help with sound.  Electrical is pretty much done, plumbing is pretty much done.  I'll have to start showing some inside pictures so you can see progress while the outside doesn't change much.

This is the back of the house - a view I don't think I've shown yet.  Those five big windows in the middle are all on the high family room wall, and it's going to be spectacular in the morning when the sun shows through!  The back sliding door is now on, so there's no longer a gaping hole, which incidentally is where Brig likes to pee out of every time we go there.  We should probably stop that before long, but then again it might be good for the soil...  There also used to be five dead or dying pear trees that bordered the neighbors driveway in the back - those are gone now too.

We're looking forward to Conference this weekend.  Our whole family except for Brig will be at the Sat. morning session to watch as my Dad speaks - watch for Elder Richards, should be good.  He told me he wrote 18 different talks before finally settling on his final topic.  At least he'll be prepared for anything.

Cheer for ... (gulp) ... Kentucky!

And so it comes down to this.  58 March Madness games complete, and now I stand alone at the top of a fairly large bracket competition - 62 people - with one very cool prize awaiting the winner, an iPad2.

Our auditors sponsored a bracket challenge for many of their clients, and for fun a couple of us from the office entered our brackets (at no charge).  My philosophy is to go with the higher seeded teams except where I have solid reasoning to choose otherwise, but then to pick a couple of substantial upsets to big teams, which, if they actually happen, will tend to separate me from the pack.  This year I chose Kentucky upsetting Ohio State, who was the team most experts had tabbed as the pre-tournament favorite.  I didn't pick them to win it, but I figured that if they pulled the Sweet 16 upset, it would give me a good chance of standing alone.  I was right.

Now with the Final Four set, most brackets are in shambles because all the #1 seeds have been eliminated, and two complete underdogs have made it this far.  That's all well and good, but for me it all comes down to the match-up between Kentucky and UConn.  If Kentucky wins, I win.  If UConn wins, "mike_fozz 2" (whoever that is) wins.  So despite every fiber of my being gagging on the concept ... GO KENTUCKY!!!!!!!!

If you want to pray for me and Kentucky, I'm sure there's some good justification out there, somewhere, to do so...

Make up your mind...

I'm talking to the weather - make up your mind!  I'm SO ready for spring, and we get enough warmish, nice-ish days that it's starting to feel like it's here or on its way.  And then we have rain and gray cloudiness like today...

The house is coming right along, and it's fun to watch it shoot up.  I walked through this morning on my way to work and was very happy to be able to envision what it's going to feel like and look like.  One thing that's starting to stress me out though is our lack of furniture.  I have these grand plans to build a bunch of it, but I'm starting to realize that actually takes time, and we will be moving into the house maybe even as early as two months from now.  Sheesh, I better get started!

It will be fun to see some of the Baughs today as they came to Utah for a funeral.  Angela can't wait to hang out with Amy, and the girls will have fun with their CA friends for a while.  Busy, busy weekend ahead of us.  We're headed skiing for probably the last time (during the day that is, we still have one more night skiing trip planned next week for FHE) tomorrow - we were shocked to learn that Sundance closes for the season next weekend.  I guess they're ready for spring too...  We also have Anne's baby blessing, Micah and Ang are going to the General YW conference, and who knows what else.  I don't have to worry any more about fitting a BYU basketball game in there, although I am sort of interested in what happens in some of the games tomorrow - if Kentucky pulls off a stunning upset of Ohio State, things could get very interesting in one of my pools.

We're starting to find some fun new friends.  Ang and I went to dinner this week with a couple who are fun, and have Bay Area experience.

House progress...

This is what the house looked like yesterday morning ... not a piece of lumber in sight.

This is what the house looked like at 6:30 pm yesterday evening ... basement completely framed, floor on, garage walls up, and 16 guys working simultaneously on other walls.  Nice.

Leftovers

The sign of a great weekend is lots of leftovers - sure I like food leftovers, and there are some of those, but more than that I mean leftover good feelings, leftover fun memories, and leftover energy to attack the new week.  So I guess that means this weekend was a good one...

When you have a big extended family like I do, it's hard to get everyone together on a regular basis.  But when you can swing it, it's always fun.  We had a great family dinner, celebrating five recent birthdays, and eating some amazing food.  OK, the bulk of the food was all really good, but the frosted orange rolls were downright amazing.  Even Angela had three...  It was fun to see the family, and catch up with everyone.

I took Brig to the BYU-Utah rugby game up at Rio Tinto stadium on Saturday.  Man would I have liked to play on that ground when I was playing for BYU!  The Cougs dominated the game, as I expected them to, but it wasn't a pushover, it was a physical match with some darn good play by BYU especially.  Brig liked it, and I love having him go with me to stuff like that because I hope to see him out there himself someday.  We ran into some of my old teammates and friends, which was really cool, but it would've even been better if Spencer was there with me.

I got outside on my bike on Saturday for the first time since our move to Utah.  It was heaven!  That's something I've really missed about California - year round riding.  I would've liked to go farther, but in the end I was really happy with 22 miles at a pretty decent clip.  It seems like I have pretty good legs already, thanks to running and to some garage trainer sessions.  Can't wait for consistently better weather to get out there lots more this spring!

I have a new project.  Furniture.  As we watch our house start to go up, it's time to start thinking about filling it with stuff we need (or want, let's be honest).  We visited my sister and her husband in their apartment yesterday because he's been an animal in my Dad's garage workshop, building multiple pieces with some very nice results.  So I wanted to see what he's done, and get some ideas as to what I can do for us.  I've definitely got some fun ideas and can't wait for some weekend trips up to the workshop.

Finally, I've been meaning to write about our friends the Werners for a few weeks now, but I keep either forgetting or not writing in the blog for days.  They're our friends from Los Altos who also have a nice home here in Provo.  We're excited because they're planning to move out and live in their home, so it'll be fun to have some CA friends here.  We had a breakfast with them a few weeks ago and it was great to catch up, see their home, and think about more associations in the future.  Sean's a fire/police man in Santa Clara and may have to commute back there for a while until he gets on the force in Utah, but he's got a pretty good schedule that will allow him to do it.  Hope to see more of them.  (and, I love their kitchen table ... speaking of furniture...).

Huge Bundle of Awesomeness!

Yesterday afternoon, March 2, 2011, digging commenced on our new home!  It seems like we've been waiting forever, so we're super psyched to have ground broken and things underway.  It's right on the way to and from work, and in fact we'll be able to see it going up when I drop Micah off at school, so I'll post periodic updates.  We expect it to go up pretty quickly, and it'll be fun to walk through and see the progress.  Very excited and a little nervous...

Also, I mentioned previously that I'm getting Lasik.  After my prep appointment this morning, I'm officially scheduled for next Friday morning, 3/11, which is great news.  It was kind of a grueling process today as they had to first assess that my eyes are now making enough tears, and then they had to run a whole bunch of other tests to make sure things were good to go.  My eyes have been doing better making tears, but I didn't want to take any chances, so when they put the tear strips in my eyes and left the room, I worked hard to make sure I was tearing up.  I couldn't really get any good tears going by thinking of the kids, so I resorted to physical "persuasions", repeatedly punching myself in the nose, and then finally going to the ever popular nose hair pull.  It worked.

So the whole reason for doing Lasik now is that I've been having problems with my contact lens in my right eye because of some previous and recurring infections.  Well, that's rearing its ugly head again because the scarring on the eye from the infections is going to force me to have one procedure on the right eye - which takes lots longer to heal - and one procedure on the left eye - which will heal quickly, so at least I'll have one good eye...  The other bummer is I can't swim for a couple weeks post surgery, but small price to pay, and it'll give me a chance to hit running and biking harder.  Anyway, I'm excited about all that too.

And in the not-so-awesome category, we've still got our taxes hanging over our heads.  It's time we just bite the bullet and do them, but we're pretty sure we're going to have to pay, so while it will be good to know the damage, I'm not anxious to fork over our $$$.  Oh well, nothing we can do about it ... that's legal anyway.

Kennan

Our beautiful Kennan turned 11 years old last week.  Yep, I said 11.  I know, it's hard to believe - she's growing up.  It was really fun to celebrate with her, and I could tell she was very happy to have family and friends around her on that special day.  She woke up to balloons and birthday signs, and we had muffin tops as a fun replacement for our traditional donuts.  She took Sundance suckers for all the kids in her class, which probably made them happy it was her birthday too!  Then that evening we had a fun dinner at Pizza Factory - with the amazing garlic breadsticks on a stick - and then opened presents before eating our free (BYU bball tickets) Magleby's chocolate cake.  I've had some good chocolate cake in my time, but that cake might just be the best ever.

Kennan has blossomed in the last year, for sure.  She exhibits a fun and often quirky sense of humor, filled with funny impressions, well-timed movie quotes, and a touch of dryness that goes over well.  It's awesome to see her "perform", because it's often unexpected.  She's a sweet girl with a ready smile and hug.  I love her very much!

Lots Going On

We've had an amazing last few days.  Many of our great friends from California came to Utah for Ski Week, and were kind enough to include us in their plans.  We stayed with a big group in a lodge/cabin up Big Cottonwood cabin by Solitude Ski Resort, and it was very fun...crowded, but fun.  Getting up there Saturday night was sketchy as it was snowing very hard, and we had only a vague idea of where the cabin actually was.  But we made it, and it turned out to be fun to have so much new snow (25 inches that day and night).  We skied Solitude on Monday, Presidents Day, and had a great time.

On Tuesday evening we also visited some very close CA friends who were staying at The Canyons - a bit of a drive, but totally worth it.  So good to see Jared and Becca and their family.  We ate dinner, hot-tubbed, talked, cleaned up puke, and had a later-than-we-should-have-on-a-school-night fun evening.

Then last night we met the gang for a trip to the BYU basketball game (which the refs did their best to completely take over), which was fun but another late-ish evening.  So now we have some very tired kids, and I think the next couple of days will be all about school and recovery.

I may have mentioned on the blog a couple of times over the last 8-9 months that my eyes and contacts have been bothering me pretty badly at times.  The struggles have continued periodically, and it's finally become necessary to think about other options.  So after a few Dr visits, lots of eye drops to overcome blepharitis and lack of tears, I'm now scheduled for Lasik on March 11th.  There's still a decent chance the Dr will decide to wait a little longer, but I'm hopeful we can just get it taken care of.  Fingers crossed...

Kennan had a fun project at school this week called a Wax Museum.  All the kids in her class picked a famous historical figure, wrote a biographical sketch, put together a costume and booth, and then would hold a pose until somebody pressed their button to speak.  Kennan did Althea Gibson, one of the first black tennis players to win a major tournament.  She enjoyed it.

Quick Hitter

I put in a reservation for my BYU football season tickets next season, and I'm psyched about it!  I always vowed that if/when we moved back here, that's something I would definitely do - and thankfully Ang is on board.  Should be fun to spend a few Saturday hours with Brig (or others) at the games.

No new news on the house.  Reportedly the new plans with all our changes are almost done at the architect, and then they'll go over to Provo City for permits.  We can't wait until they get started so we have something tangible to see and follow.  Plus I want to see how big the house footprint will be on our lot.

The exercise has been going pretty well the last couple of weeks.  I haven't missed any days for a while, and I'm happy with the consistency.  Pretty soon it's going to be time to start into two-a-days as I ratchet up my training for a heavy triathlon schedule planned for this summer.  What makes it all about 10 times better is daily training check-ins and periodic race chats with my brother Dave - he's the best.

What's that smell?!

It's dutch oven lunch day today at work, so all the current and former scouters have brought in their best dutch oven food creations. I happily have designated myself as a QA tester. And with about an hour to go until we're called down to lunch, the smell has permeated the whole building, and I've got a puddle of drool next to my keyboard (ok, not really, but it smells dang good).

The other current smell that seems to be lingering around me is chlorine. I've been swimming a few mornings a week (I DON'T recommend waking up at 5:20am and going out into the freezing cold to drive to the gym!), and thanks to the highly chlorinated pool, I'm having a hard time ridding myself of traces of chlorine, no matter how many times I shower.

Morgan's suffering right now because she slipped on the ice last week at school and has a very sore tailbone. It didn't help that last night she slipped coming down the stairs in her footy pajamas and landed on the aforementioned ouchy. It's sad to see her hurting. Kennan seems to be finally getting over her sickness, probably thanks to the antibiotics we got her on. I hope no-one else gets sick or hurt.

You know how I said we made final decisions on our new home construction last week?  Well, we had three days to make additional changes, and thank goodness for that, because thanks to my amazing Mom, we realized there were things we could do a little bit better than we had planned.  So Angela's rushing around furiously today trying to make some final decisions on colors, textures, etc., and it looks like a few things that we had second thoughts on are falling into place.  There are a couple items I had to remind myself that it makes sense to spend some money on because we'll really want them in the long run.  That's hard for me to do...

Anyway, fun weekend.  We took the kids skiing at Sundance, and they all did great.  Each of them has their own likes and dislikes, and skill levels.  I was particularly pleased with how Brig did - his second day of skiing ever, and before too long he was going down the whole run by himself.  Angela's a great ski instructor!

We also hung out with the Richards clan on Saturday and Sunday, which was particularly nice since we hadn't been able to see any of them yet.  It's great to be close to family.

It's Friday, It's Sunny, I'm Happy

Last night I helped my brother-in-law unload a trailer full of sheet rock so he can finish the basement bedrooms which will become our 'home' for the next 4-5 months.  The sheets were 16 feet long, and the heaviest thing I've moved in a long time.  It actually felt good to get out and do some manual labor, but I'm really glad I don't have to haul sheet rock or plywood on a regular basis.

Speaking of sheet rock and other building supplies, we officially signed the documents with Ivory Homes on Wednesday for the construction of our house.  We're very excited and anxious for things to get going.  They say it will take about 6 weeks to get permits through the city, and then they'll break ground as soon as they have all of that in place.  Then it will go up pretty quick ... they estimated we could be in our house by June, which would be outstanding.  Seems like a long way off, but I'm guessing it will actually go fast because we have so much going on.

I officially signed up for the Boise 70.3 half Ironman this coming June.  I'm very excited to do it, especially since I signed up last year but knee surgery derailed those plans.  I have a lot of work to do over the next 4 months to get ready, but I'm super motivated --- and it really helps that Dave is doing it with me!

Finally, I was at the "Jimmer" game on Wednesday night with Angela.  We had awesome seats from a family member, and it was really amazing.  I've never seen the Marriott Center that loud, and for the Cougs and Jimmer to perform at that level in such a big game was incredible, if a little unexpected on my part.

Winter Wonderland

I'm gazing out my office window at the first real winter snow storm we've had since moving to Utah.  Kind of cool actually, except that we had some driving plans today that are being somewhat interrupted.  As I mentioned in a previous post, it's been quite warm (Angela and I went for a run at lunch yesterday and were both plenty warm in long-sleeve shirts and shorts), so I guess this is a reminder it's still January.

In the 'best news of the week' category, I found out we have two tickets to go to the BYU-SDSU basketball game yesterday.  Not sure it gets much better than this... #9 (BYU) vs. #4, the Jimmer Fredette show, 22,000 screaming fans in the Marriott Center... looking forward to it.  If common practice holds true to form, my being there automatically dooms BYU to a loss, but what the hey...

Mom and Dad came down to Provo last night for a rendezvous at the BYU Creamery with the our family.  It was really fun to see them, and we can't wait for this weekend's Richards family gathering.  We've been lucky to spend ample time with LeBras's, just none yet with Richards, so it's time.

And finally, our final construction meeting on the building of our new house is tomorrow morning, so it's good that "we" will have finished making decisions.  I'm sure we've picked some great stuff, but I couldn't exactly tell you for sure...

"Jab this metal spatula in your eye..."

My old running friend and I used to have a routine during long and painful runs.  When one of us was hurting, the other would pick up a stick and "Jab this stick in your eye and you'll forget all about your knees/feet/whatever".  Well, today I actually tried that, and I didn't like it.

OK, a little background.  I've been having trouble with my eyes for about the last year.  I've been getting eye infections and have had difficulty with my contact lenses during that time.  So we finally decided I should go in and see if I was a candidate for Lasik - I was very excited!  Turns out though, that I have two problems.  The glands around the eye are supposed to secrete three different fluids - tears, oil, and something else I don't remember - that all work together for the benefit of your eye.  Apparently, I have problems with the tear production, in that I don't produce enough, and with the oil secretion, in that it's too thick and just clogs up the pores in my eyelids rather than lubricating my eye.  So I'm on a whole slew of eye drops to combat both problems, but in the meantime, they said I had to go to an "Ocular Hygienist" to have my eyelids expressed.  Little did I know what I was in store for.

It was all sort of serene at first - they laid me down, put a nice warm towel over my eyes, had spa-like music playing in the background, and had me lay there for 15 minutes.  Then just when I was feeling pretty good about life, they came in and the real fun started.  They inserted a metal spatula inside my upper and lower eyelids, and then proceeded to scrape the outside of my lids vigorously to squeeze out the excess oils from the pores.  Visualize your tender eyelid being compressed forcefully between two metal objects...  I guess the good thing was that I was able to generate tears.

Spring already?

Hmm, who was it who said this Utah winter thing was going to be so bad?  It's mid January, up in the 40s, sun shining, and I went for a run at lunch with shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt on.  Maybe it's not as bad as everyone thought?  (I know, I know, I just jinxed it - we're now in for the worst, coldest, winter on record, starting tomorrow).

Our furniture was delivered this morning, and apart from a few big items that didn't fit down the stairs into the basement, and also besides the fact that we took up a little more of the basement than our kind hosts expected us to, I think all went generally well.  Problem is, we now have to do some serious sorting down there to find boxes of things we need now, need in the next few months, or don't need at all until after we move into our own house this summer.  Let the "spring cleaning" begin!

And most importantly, the girls all started at their new schools today.  I can't wait to hear how everything went - hopefully they all had great days and made lots of new friends.

Leaving Los Altos

I chose the picture at the top of this blog to signify the journey our family is making through very important, formative years.  Yesterday, we took a literal journey away from things and people we love, toward things and people we also love.  It was difficult, it was gut wrenching, it was heart breaking, and it was exhilarating, exciting, and renewing.  And it was the first time I'd been able to just sit down and concentrate on one thing (driving in this case), without worrying about packing, moving, cleaning, etc.  A friend texted me somewhere in the middle of Nevada asking how we were doing.  I realized I had been singing The Eagles at the top of my voice for the last half hour (much to the chagrin of Angela and the kids), and it made me smile that I felt happy.

Man, I feel bipolar...

So we made it to Provo.  It was dark and raining, and there was a reception party of family waiting for us.  Lots of excited kids, a happy Angela to see her family, and one exhausted overwhelmed Dad - it took me a while to want to even get out of the car.  It felt so weird that we were "home".  We aren't sure we like the sound of that yet, but we're happy and ready to take on lots of new things.

And to our families, who probably wonder why we're acting so weird when we should be super stoked to be moving home close to everyone (we are, don't get me wrong...), please just understand that we left a part of our collective family heart in Los Altos, California.  It's just going to take us a while to learn how to function without that piece.

We love you to all our family and friends, past, present, and future.