New addition to our family

We just got a puppy! His name is Ollie and he is almost eleven weeks old. He is a maltese/poodle mix (maltipoo). He is a very sweet puppy. He weighs less than 2 pounds. He is too young to be potty trained so we are always busy following him around waiting until he is ready to go potty.

PDC 2008

I spent the week in Los Angeles at Microsoft's annual Professional Developers Conference. MPi was nice enough to send me and Jeff Phillips, another development manager I work with (it's a pretty expensive ticket). We've been asking to go for years, but have never been able to before.

I guess I'm a geek, because I loved the conference. It was great to get a preview of all of the new technologies that are coming out. It opened my eyes to a lot of opportunities I should be able to take advantage of in my career.

One of the fun things they do is an attendees party. This year, it was at Universal Studios. They reserved the park for PDC attendees, and we could do, eat, or drink anything we wanted for the entire night. It was strange being able to just grab food, play games, and go on rides without having to pay anything.

MPi Spouse Appreciation

MPi held its annual Spouse Appreciation event, where the spouses of the employees are invited to participate in an activity along with the employees. Lina and I missed last year's event, which was held at Color-Me-Mine, but this year they decided to hold it at the same place.

Color-Me-Mine is a place you can go to paint and decorate your own pottery. Lina and I chose to paint a small tray and a candle holder. Our vision was a lot grander than our execution, and we learned that the activity was a lot harder than it looked.

Our pottery turned out ok, though. It looked a lot better once it had been fired.

Lindon Days Scramble

I decided to enter the annual Lindon Days Scramble golf tournament this year. Jeremy Jensen, Jared (don't know his last name), Nate Putnam, and myself made up the four-man team. The tournament was held at Sleepy Ridge in Orem. This was the first real tournament that I've entered, outside of men's league and company tournaments.

It turns out that Nate, who I had never met before, competes in long drive competitions, and was able to drive the ball 350+ yards. That helped. He was able to drive a few of the par fours. Though I wasn't hitting it that far, I had a good day and was able to contribute quite a bit.

At the end of the day, we finished at 15 under, which was good enough for third place out of 26 teams. The winning team posted an amazing 20 under par... pretty tough to beat.

Stadium of Fire

We decided to go to the Stadium of Fire show at Lavell Edwards stadium this year to celebrate the Fourth of July and Lina's birthday. Glenn Beck was the emcee, and the Blue Man Group and Miley Cyrus performed, followed by a big fireworks show. It was quite a show, though Lina and I probably didn't enjoy Miley Cyrus as much as the thousands of tween girls in the crowd.

Mariners Diamond Club

On Saturday, April 28th, Lina and I had the chance to be part of the Mariners Diamond Club as the Mariners played the Kansas City Royals.

One of my old college roommates, Jared Booren, had two extra tickets that he got through his company. Jared and his wife, Charlotte, drove up from Oregon. Lina and I flew to Seattle from Salt Lake. We met at the game and had a good time.

The highlight was the Diamond Club. We showed up an hour or so before the game, where we treated to a gourmet buffet at the club. Everything was included with the ticket. The door from the Diamond Club led us right to are seats, which we directly behind home plate, just a few rows up. From our seats, we were able to order any food that we wanted... and we ordered a lot.

The Mariners lost, but we didn't mind so much, as the experience made it worth the trip.

Caleb Turns 30 in St. George

Lina surprised me with a trip to St. George to celebrate my 30th birthday. We were able to escape some of the cold northern Utah weather for a few days.

The trip included golf at Southgate golf course, where Lina scored her first birdie!

As part of the surprise, our friends Nate and Jenni met us for dinner at Outback.