New Adventures

This last Monday we decided that we would try out our local disc golf course. They just redesigned and rejuvenated it (Which we didn't realize until we went to print out the map of the course.) The course was really busy. Probably, because it was a beautiful Monday evening, and the course had just reopened two days before with a tournament. 

Daniel did all the disc throwing, and I just walked along behind holding his bag and a water bottle for me. I decided that an excuse to walk around and get exercise, as well as spend time with Daniel, was a good reason to do disc golf for our family home evening activity. (Plus, I was promised orange julius for a treat if I came along and had a good attitude. Who can say no to a homemade orange julius?)

This week I also decided that I would make a diaper change pad cover for Baby Girl's room. I looked at the pricing and it was mostly a equal that way, but Daniel said "it will give you something fun to do while I'm at work and that is worth something." So we ran down to Jo-Ann's and picked out some fabric. I have the hardest time picking out fabric -- we were probably at the store for an hour before I decided.

These are the pictures of my project. As you can see, I picked out a pretty, but safe little pattern for the fabric. Fortunately, they turned out cute and perfect for a baby girl!

Vacation Part 3: Visiting the Calls

I know what you're thinking (or at least, I know what I'm thinking): "Really, a vacation trilogy?  It can't have been that epic!"  Well, they decided that the Hobbit could be made into 3 movies, so what's to say we can't make this a trilogy?  Or what about the Odyssey -- wasn't that about a trip (a very long, terrible 'trip')?  Ours was a pretty good vacation so no hating on our trilogy.

After spending an awesome several days at my house, we headed up to Idaho to visit with Elissa's family.  Elissa's dad hooked us up with a good mechanic that fixed our air conditioning in our car (which, until that point, had been broken but we thankfully hadn't needed it really) for tons cheaper than anyone said here in Austin (and found the real culprit instead of just replacing the most expensive part first).  That was about all the work we had to do -- the rest was fun.

Elissa and I went to Gossner cheese and met up with a friend for ice cream.  This was definitely the first time I've ever seen a chocolate-dipped cone that actually looked like it might be worth the extra money, and it did not disappoint.  After visiting for a while, we headed back to Elissa's place where we saw yet another of her friends for lunch (unfortunately, I was still full from ice cream and the lunch was delicious).

On the trip we also discovered that a nearby state park (to which Elissa's family could go for free) had a pretty neat disc golf course.  We decided to check it out and get some discs so we could play.  Kyle, Elissa's brother-in-law, is into the sport and was able to give us a few pointers while we all struggled to try for par on a hole (if I recall correctly, only Kyle got par once).  We spent longer playing than we meant to and I had forgotten sunscreen, which meant that for the rest of the trip I had to avoid the sun because I'd turned pretty red.

We did lots of other fun things on our trip, but those were the ones that come to mind as I look back.  Hope you enjoyed the vacation posts!

Vacation Part 2: Visiting the Larsens

We got to Daniel's mom's house on Friday the 3rd. We got to see family right away, which was really fun. Saturday morning we had a get together to see our Utah friends while we were in town. It was fun to see everybody there and catch up. Saturday Daniel's family threw me a baby shower. They had cute decorations and yummy treats. They gave Baby Girl lots of clothes and other good things. I'm pretty sure she'll be the best dressed baby on the block. Saturday night, we decided that we needed to get some sweet pork while we were in Utah valley so we piled into the car and headed to Costa Vida. It was a busy exciting Saturday.

We also got to enjoy one of my mom's famous (well I think it should be) family dinners on Sunday.

Monday was pretty boring as we spent most of the day looking through Daniel's old things and deciding which things were going to come to Texas with us (don't worry, Daniel picked me as part of the 'going to Texas' pile).

Tuesday some of the family came back over for game night. It was fun to play and to see the nieces and nephews some more. Generally, to the nieces and nephews, we are the weird aunt and uncle who come into town once in awhile who they really know almost nothing about. That is okay, I guess; just a bad consequence of moving away.

It was good to see everybody while we were in Utah. It was a good visit.

Vacation Part 1

So our blog is now three weeks behind. We decided that it was probably not best to post all over the internet about how we were gone on vacation. (Not that most of the internet thieves are probably checking out blog out to see if we are leaving valuables around our house for them to steal.)

On the first day of our vacation, we drove up through Oklahoma and stopped at the Oklahoma City Science Museum. When we were planning the vacation I knew that I kind of wanted to go to a museum and an excuse to get out of the car. I also knew that Daniel probably wouldn't want to wander around and look at boring displays after being in the car for hours. So, I found a great compromise: a hands on science museum! They had lots of fun displays to touch and look at. We even ended up seeing some cool pictures of fractal art that Daniel snapped some pictures of.

We spent the first night in Kansas, and when we woke up, there was snow on our car! On the 2nd of May!?! I was just glad that we decided to put in coats, just in case. It was crazy, but we weren't complaining because our car AC was broken. A little cold is better than really hot when your car doesn't air condition.

This trip we also decided that we would start collecting pins for the states we have been as a family. (Daniel's mom collected spoons, and on our last trip we got a New Mexico pin from our geocaching adventure.) We had no problem finding Oklahoma or Colorado, but Kansas was a different story. We probably stopped at a dozen gas stations and stores trying to find a Kansas pin. One or two stores had displays with almost every state except for Kansas. We even looked at places on the border on the Colorado side to see if they had anything, and they didn't have one either. Daniel is pretty sure the moral is that Kansas has no state pride.

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!