April Date

I know all of our regular readers are probably on the edge of their seats each month to find out our "Mystery date Christmas date" Well don't worry! We didn't forget about the date, and now I'm going to give you the update you have been waiting for since last month.

This month was one of the dates I planned. It was Daniel's birthday month, and I wanted to do something special. Conveniently, one of the local colleges was putting on The Importance of Being Earnest as one of their last shows of the season. We bought tickets in advance and got great seats! We used Daniel's free birthday hamburger at Red Robin to get a meal, and then we headed downtown for the show.

The production stayed pretty true to the original play, and Oscar Wilde still gets the laughs today like, I imagine, he did back when he wrote the play. No need to do a lot of changes if the material already serves the purpose of making people laugh without explanations. The cast did a good job, and we really enjoyed our night out at the theater!

Lots of Work

This has been a crazy busy week, but there have been lots of good things about it.  First off, we were invited to a housewarming party with one of my coworkers.  Since his house is about an hour drive away (I'm not sure how he deals with the commute), we decided to carpool with my cube-mate.  They made very good BBQ and had fun ridiculously-large version of normal games (like 2x4 jenga, which I was going to show a picture of but don't have it yet).

I've been really busy with work.  I have been working on validating a design and getting 2 different 1 hour presentations put together (I was co-presenting both of those, so I was only responsible for about half of each). Elissa explained last week.  The presentations are put on by other folks in R&D, and the bar is set pretty high (not that people need to make moving speeches, but that people need to really know the subject matter they are presenting on).  In addition to having 2 presentations to give, I was trying to finish validating a design before we ordered a new revision of the prototype board, and the timing happened to coincide with NI Tech.

On Tuesday, I finished up the validation I was trying to do, which was really nice.  And I came home feeling very productive, wanting to finish up some of the projects around the house we have been meaning to do.  We got some pictures hung up, put up some miscellaneous organization stuff, and put up some cup holders we've been meaning to install.

Today was the big day for my presentations (I know, 2 in one day, that sounded rough to me too).  But, we did our best to prepare, and when the time came, the presentations went rather smoothly and I think people came away feeling like the presentation(s) had been worth their while.  As a side note, they gave me a cool polo which I get to keep.  All in all, definitely glad I did it, but it was super-stressful and I don't know if I want to do it again any time soon (at least not 2 presentations during the same week that semi-critical validation needs to be done in).

Daniel's Birthday

This week Daniel has been really busy at work since Tuesday, so I'm going to tell you all about his birthday. First, I think you should know that, I'm pretty sure he had a great time, and that he really appreciated all your birthday well wishes!

In the morning, we went to a neighborhood garage sale. I would say that it was pretty informal. If you wanted to participate, you just set up on your driveway, and the people would come around and see what you had. The neighborhood association advertised so there would actually be people that would come buy all the stuff.

We managed to bring home a lot more than we expected. For $25 we got all this stuff! For his birthday, Daniel got a rotary cutting mat (for puzzles), the last two Harry Potter books, and a new game (Literati). We also got a rocking chair, a jewelry box (for me), a shower curtain for upstairs, a coffee table, and a couple of boat pictures. Added bonus not pictured: We also got to meet some neighbors around the neighborhood!

Then we watched all the sessions of conference. It can be easy to forget how amazing it is that we have prophets and apostles who talk to us every six months! Perhaps small consolation for Daniel because conference weekend means no time for parties!

Since then, Daniel has been pretty busy. Besides just working on his regular "super secret" project this week, he is also preparing to co-presenting two different presentations at NI Tech next week. (NI Tech is basically an employee seminar put on by Daniel's company. Employees put together presentations about the cool things that they found, learned or engineered during the year. The other engineers come sit in and learn new techniques and ideas for future projects.) So, Daniel has been busy preparing his presentations this week. As his favorite (and I assume cutest) guinea pig, I can tell you that the presentations are getting better all the time! I think he'll be glad once they are over with though!

Easter Treats

I know this post is on my birthday, and I'm not mentioning anything about it.  Don't worry, Elissa will tell you all about it next week.

This last week we each had our book groups.  I decided to host for the boys' group this month, and since it was close to Easter, we decided we'd make our birds' nests a little early and make a big one for treats that night. We talked about The Prodigal God, which was a thought-provoking take on Grace which contrasts with the way we LDS folk tend to think of it.

We also decided to go ice skating (we originally planned to go before we got sick earlier this month) as part of our pre-planned 'Christmas' dates.  We had fun but wished we'd asked specifically for hockey skates, because we didn't realize they had those to rent at all and I don't like figure skates.

Easter was also good -- we did a "fancy" dinner with ham steaks and au gratin potatoes (Elissa's family style -- which is cubed instead of scalloped).  It was a good meal and we had lots of leftovers.  Hope you all had a good Easter!