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.