Summer 2007
Summertime in Livermore again with daily temperatures in the 30's (C) and another 6 months gone by. It's been a great year so far. Visits from Matt & Amber with kids, Steve Alcorn, Peter Cooper. Mum and Dad are visiting for Christmas year. We are also camping in Yosemite this summer for the first time as a family of 4.
Sally is keeping fit and healthy and now officially in the "athlete" fitness category. She had a great trip to Santa Barbara at the start of the year with Shannon and Kasey from San Luis Obispo, and in April spent another weekend relaxing in the city with a group of friends. Since Polly has finished pre-school for the summer Sally is spending long days at the pool with the kids relaxing and having fun. After some recent high intensity workout phases she has now cut back on the gym to 4 days / week and feelsl much better for it. Yay for the rest days!
I was promoted at work in February to Systems Software Group Manager. I have a team of engineers reporting to me working on embedded control systems and data acquisition systems. I am also doing project management for the OCT product I was working on since I started last year. This all keeps me very busy and I write very little code these days. It's all good and I'm enjoying the job. I've been racing (road bicycle) actively this year - I upgraded to Category 4 and I've had a few top 20 finishes. The races typically have a field size of 75-100 and I'm always finishing with the pack or in the first chase group so I'm happy with my progress this year. I only have 3 more races planned for the season and I'm treating them all as groundwork for next year. I have a few big climbing trips planned with Tom over the summer in the Sierras and we are planning for an expedition to Aconcagua (Argentina) January 2008. Better start training (23000').
The kids are great. Polly is on the swim team. She qualified for the swim team by swimming a full 30 m lap of freestyle with perfect side breathing... and ever since then she would prefer to be a mermaid all session and stop to chat with the coach about this and that. I don't think the coaches care and we certainly don't - she's having fun! She's doing freestyle, backstroke, breastroke and butterfly. While she's not in the water, she loves doing projects, cutting and pasting, painting, writing stories, making cards and tickets and toys. She starts school in September and she will love it. She makes friends very easily and always gets invited to playdates and sleepovers. Polly also took her training wheels off her bike earlier in the year and is a very strong cyclist now! It's so nice to ride with her and not listen to that awful rattle of plastic wheels anymore. Only a few crashes so far. I'm teaching her to play hockey and baseball.
Henry is at an adorable age. We appear to have survived the power struggle phase he was going through as he turned 2. He can still be a little monster and especially has the occasional sharing issue with Polly but generally he's a good boy. He's talking alot, nowhere near toilet training, loves books, love movies, sings very well. He's trying to swim but not quite there yet. He can jump in from the side of the pool and turn around and grab the wall. But if he pushes off into the middle of the pool he just waits there floating on his tummy until you come get him
Henry has a great baseball swing and on the rare occassion he connects can clear most of the back yeard.
Thats all for now. We should have some good trip reports on the camping and climbing trips by the end of year. Hope to hear from you all soon.
Sally is keeping fit and healthy and now officially in the "athlete" fitness category. She had a great trip to Santa Barbara at the start of the year with Shannon and Kasey from San Luis Obispo, and in April spent another weekend relaxing in the city with a group of friends. Since Polly has finished pre-school for the summer Sally is spending long days at the pool with the kids relaxing and having fun. After some recent high intensity workout phases she has now cut back on the gym to 4 days / week and feelsl much better for it. Yay for the rest days!
I was promoted at work in February to Systems Software Group Manager. I have a team of engineers reporting to me working on embedded control systems and data acquisition systems. I am also doing project management for the OCT product I was working on since I started last year. This all keeps me very busy and I write very little code these days. It's all good and I'm enjoying the job. I've been racing (road bicycle) actively this year - I upgraded to Category 4 and I've had a few top 20 finishes. The races typically have a field size of 75-100 and I'm always finishing with the pack or in the first chase group so I'm happy with my progress this year. I only have 3 more races planned for the season and I'm treating them all as groundwork for next year. I have a few big climbing trips planned with Tom over the summer in the Sierras and we are planning for an expedition to Aconcagua (Argentina) January 2008. Better start training (23000').
The kids are great. Polly is on the swim team. She qualified for the swim team by swimming a full 30 m lap of freestyle with perfect side breathing... and ever since then she would prefer to be a mermaid all session and stop to chat with the coach about this and that. I don't think the coaches care and we certainly don't - she's having fun! She's doing freestyle, backstroke, breastroke and butterfly. While she's not in the water, she loves doing projects, cutting and pasting, painting, writing stories, making cards and tickets and toys. She starts school in September and she will love it. She makes friends very easily and always gets invited to playdates and sleepovers. Polly also took her training wheels off her bike earlier in the year and is a very strong cyclist now! It's so nice to ride with her and not listen to that awful rattle of plastic wheels anymore. Only a few crashes so far. I'm teaching her to play hockey and baseball.
Henry is at an adorable age. We appear to have survived the power struggle phase he was going through as he turned 2. He can still be a little monster and especially has the occasional sharing issue with Polly but generally he's a good boy. He's talking alot, nowhere near toilet training, loves books, love movies, sings very well. He's trying to swim but not quite there yet. He can jump in from the side of the pool and turn around and grab the wall. But if he pushes off into the middle of the pool he just waits there floating on his tummy until you come get him
Henry has a great baseball swing and on the rare occassion he connects can clear most of the back yeard.Thats all for now. We should have some good trip reports on the camping and climbing trips by the end of year. Hope to hear from you all soon.
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