Fitton Family

January 2011

2011-01-22T22:12:00Z

I really dropped the ball on my blog. 2009 and 2010 we lived in California happily and uneventfully. In Sept 2010 we moved to Germany. At that time Sally started blogging about our lives here. We'll live here for 2 years while i have a work contract here on a new project with Zeiss. We all love it in Germany - our first white Christmas!

November 2008

2008-11-24T05:05:00Z

I kept on thinking if I wait another month before I write this I might have some interesting news, but the months go by and nothing happens. Well actually lots of stuff happens but then I'm too tired to write it down The last update from us was Summer 2007 so I'll try and hit the high points since then. The family trips year this were camping in Tuolumne Meadows (Yosemite), Mendocino, Napa. I also took the kids on a few climbing trips and a snow shoeing trip (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=44011&id=705473887). I'll try and get photos up on Facebook or Google or somewhere - I'll send out another email when that happens. We are spending Christmas this year in Hawaii so we should have great photos in the New Year.

Sally got a job as a swimming teacher for infants. She is really enjoying it apart from the fact her uniform is a swim suit! Ha! She is working really hard at the gym these days and right now she is injury free. At the start of 2008 I finally convinced Sally to try cycling on the road and she got into it. We bought her a nice bike in time for her first long distance event and now I can't stop her. Sally spent most of the summer riding with friends and doing centuries (100 mi) and metric centuries(100km). As it gets colder and darker here she is spending time indoors on our rollers. I took some good video footage... http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7222265588346158082

Henry started pre-school (kinder) this Fall. He is 3 and will be 4 in December. He loves school and made friends easily. The academic part is not coming naturally to him but he's got the play time part down. Well he can write his name and spell it out loud and he recognized letters now. He can count to twenty if he's playing hide-and-seek but not under any other circumetances. He's so cute the teachers have to adore him anyway. Henry is riding his little bike with training wheels, he's doing well in swimming and enjoying it. He pretty much doesn't stop moving fromt he time he wakes up in the morning to the time he lies down at night - very active and a LOT of energy. His blonde hair is starting to darken now and he's he's invited 3 or 4 of friends over for his 4th birthday in December for a Spiderman/Batman/Superman party. Next year he think will be a Pirate party.

Polly is doing awsome in school. She is 7 in December and in 1st grade now. Academically she is scoring at late 2nd grade level and her teacher loves her. However at home all she talks about is chasing boys at recess!! We were not expecting that in 1st grade. Over the summer she swam in the local swimming league again for the team at our gym and she did very well - she loves the water. Into the Fall she decided to join the USA Swim league to represent the same team in the under 8's. She's only competed in one meet so far and she was quite sick unfortunately (it turned out to be Pneumonia!) but she still managed to come first in her 25 yard backstroke heat. She is still enjoying gymnastics and she completed the Mt Diablo Challenge with me for the third year in a row this year and we got our best time 1 hour 42 minutes (or thereabouts) - there is a photo of us on our facebook site (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=959581&id=705473887&ref=mf).

Also on Facebook I put up photos of my Aconcagua trip (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=42817&id=705473887&ref=mf). Yes, we went to Argentina as a team of 4 - unassisted. Tom summited but James and I turned around at about 21,500', 1500' from the summit. I have been thinking about the advantages of the guided trips and I think the key is being fed a yummy breakfast and dinner (and not having to hump all that gear up to 19,000' for the high camp). Instead, being unassisted, we were pretty tired by summjit day and I was having trouble eating anything. You can see the edema in my face on one photo i took in the tent at 19000'. I hated the taste of all my food by then. On that trip I came home at 157 lbs and that was after I'd spent days recovering in Mendoza eating goat, lamb, beef and everything else I could get my greedy hands. Thats about 13 lbs lighter than what I started at on that trip.

Transitioning from that expedition into my racing season was very difficult because I had lost so much cycling condition so once again I had a pretty poor year of bike racing, with my best being an 11th at Orosi Road Race and a 19th at Panoche Valley Road Race. I'm still avoiding criteriums and I seem to do quite well in climbing races with downhill/flat finishes. I usually get dropped on the climbs so a climb at the finish line is bad for me. Next year will be my year! I am training much smarter in the off-season now getting ready for next year and Sally got me some coaching for my birthday which is really helping. I also joined a big well funded team sponsered by Wells Fargo (www.c4racing.org) so I will have some team mates to work with now.

I'm still working at Zeiss. I took a sideways move into the Chief Architect position. It's pretty good, i now have no direct reports so i don't do performance reviews or hiring. But I get to lead the design of all the cool new products we work on. The down side is more exposure to the company politics. I am enjoying flexible working hours and fitting in my training during the week.

Summer 2007

2007-06-15T04:17:00Z

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.

A New Year

2006-12-30T05:11:00Z

It's the end of 2006. Polly just turned 5, Henry just turned 2. We spent Christmas with friends in Cayucos, just north of San Luis Obispo on the California Central Coast. I tried unsuccessfully to surf a few times but the waves were too big. Lots of good road cycling and mountain biking though. The kids loved it and we played on the beach every day. Sally caught up with some of her friends and had a great time.Apologies to those of you we didn't catch up with this time through.

During the last half of the year we hosted John and Julia for a month, and later Paul and Sandra. We took Mum and Dad (John and Julia) to San Diego for a week and discovered Lego Land. We all had great time. Polly and I also introduced Dad to Yosemite (which Polly has only just stopped calling "My"semite or My-yosemite because she thought I was saying "Your"semite). It seemed like all our guests enjoyed their stay and we hope they come back and visit again soon! Throughout the year we also had Peter Cooper visit for a night and Steve Alcorn visited for a night or two also. Guests are always welcome, let us know if you are a trip via San Francisco - keep in mind Qantas and United fly direct into SFO now.

Sally is fit and strong and starting to contemplate endurance events as long term goals to her well earned fitness. Looks like we may add another bike to the collection. She looks awesome and feels great but is completely addicted to the gym. Sal has strengthened her friendships with Nicole and Julie (old neighbours from Pleasanton), and Shannon (Cayucos) and spends lots of time with them shopping, working out, eating and drinking. Sally's Gran (May Krahnert) passed away this year and we thank Pat for all her hard work back home looking after May's affairs. I know Sally wishes she could have helped out.

Polly turned 5 and has 6 more months at Pre-K (equivalent to Kinder') before she goes to school (equivalent to Prep) in the summer. She's doing great at school and is starting to read and write. She has nearly completed the junior swimming curriculum and is working on laps of butterfly and breaststroke, diving and racing turns. Perhaps in the summer she may join a team - I don't really know how that works yet. She tried Judo/Jui Jitsu for a month or two and she loved it but we were not very happy with the school or the teacher so we dropped that. She has gone back to gymnastics and LOVES that, and has really excelled at it. Polly loves fairies and princesses and rainbows.

Henry turned 2 and is talking non-stop. He gets some really long sentences out too! It's very funny. Sally thinks he has a lisp but i don't hear it. He's so funny and such a pain in the ass at the same time it's very frustrating, but he makes us laugh a lot. He is also in swim lessons and goes underwater and holds his breath, and can climb out the side of the pool. We are so happy with Polly Gymnastics that we are going to try Henry their also. We had to pull him out of music for that (this all costs way too much money) but we figure we can sing to him and beat a few drums and it's all good. Henry loves dinosaurs and Polly - and called her Poppy until just recently but I still like to call her Poppy now and again - it was such a cute nickname.

I'm still working at Carl Zeiss Meditec. The honeymoon is definitely over! The saving grace is that the hardware team is world class, the hardware is cutting edge and fun to work with, and they love me. Oh, and the commute is still 10 minutes. I also met another cyclist at work and we ride at lunchtime so thats cool. I entered 2 road races last year and finished towards the back of the field. For 2007 I have joined the local racing club and I'm planning to enter about 6 different races. I did climb Half Dome with Tom at the end of September via Snake Dike and that was a great adventure. So I'm pretty much getting everything done that I'm talking about doing and having a great time while being a pretty good Dad at the same time

No travel plans for 2007 yet but a trip to Australia is on the horizon. Please stay in touch with us and send us your updated contact information if you have recently moved as we hope to hear from you and catch up next time we get back home.

Happy New Year from Nick and Sally, Polly and Henry.

Heat wave

2006-07-18T03:33:00Z

It's summer in Livermore and the last few days have been hot, really hot. 103 degrees F (39 C). But we just crank that aircon harder and life is the same indoors Welcome to California.

The kids are great. Polly will be 5 in December. Polly is swimming laps of the pool freestyle and working on backstroke and butterfly. She has recently discovered mermaids and now prefers to spend her swimming lessons under water. It's summer break from pre-school so Polly is enjoying being at home all day with Henry and Sally.

Last week was a nature camp at the local reserve and coming up is ballet school for a week. So she's a busy girl. Her Nana and Grandad are visiting in August and Polly is beside herself with excitement. After the summer, Polly has 1 more year of pre-school then off to big girl school. We can't believe how quickly she is growing up.

Henry is quite the character, he will be 2 in December. He is as tough as nails, throws himself off everything and will try anything once. He can say "up please" as a question for all occassions - pick me up, put me down, get me my milk, get me that snack, put my shoes on, where is my ice-cream... you get the picture.

We are working on his vocab and he's trying to talk - but he's not there yet. He loves being outside and he loves being wet. He has started sleeping with his teddys but he doesn't seem to mind which one, he has even taken his soft toy emu to bed a few times - thanks Pa! The first thing is says in the morning when he wakes up is "Poppy!" because he wants to play with Polly, but she usually sleeps much later than him so he walks past her room with his finger up to his mouth saying "shhhhh". We are just starting the power struggle phase with Henry but
he doesn't seem to mind being sent to his room to read a book and contemplate his problems so thats helping us stay relaxed.

Sally looks fantastic. She is working hard at the gym and very strong and fit. Her knees are doing great and she has really done a great job recovering from knee surgery last year. As usual she is over committed to mums club stuff and park days and hanging out with friends, and other activities - but somehow she manages to keep waking up each day, although I bet she could sleep for a week if I gave her the chance.

She spent a great break in Vegas earlier in the year and has visited friends back in San Luis Obispo. She has also completely landscaped the garden and it looks awsome. I am ashamed to say I don't have many photos of Sally in the last year - but I will correct that over the coming months!

I have been busy as usual. I climbed Mt Shasta in May, via Casaval Ridge - we had perfect weather.

I have done a few backpacking/fishing trips and I'm enjoying getting back outdoors over the summer. I climbed Mt Shasta with a new friend Tom, and we are planning to climb Half Dome later in the year and then a winter ascent of Shasta or another fourteener (> 14 thousand feet). I have been doing a few 100 mile bicycle rides, one followed stage 2 of the Tour de California and ended with a Category 1 climb, it was a great event. I plan
to start road racing this year and next year do road racing and time trials - time will tell if I really follow through with this plan I resigned from Molecular Devices and got a job at Carl Zeiss Meditec, 10 minutes down the road in Dublin. This week is my second week and I love the new job. I am writing device control and data acquisition algorithms for an OCT device (Optical Coherence Tomography) which can image the retina. I already feel like
I'm making a good contribution which feels great. The people are really nice, the technology is cutting edge, the commute is awsome - I am so happy I made the move from MDC.

Mum and Dad will be here in 3 weeks and we are all taking a trip to San Diego. They are also taking a trip to Canada. I will take Dad and Polly to Yosemite so Dad can watch her rock climb and we might go fishing while we are there. I can't wait for them to get here.

Well that will wrap it up for this note. More news in Autumn or Winter - best regards from Nick, Sally, Polly and Henry.

The Start

2006-01-14T19:31:00Z

Welcome to www.fittons.net. This will be a collection of stories and photos from our family.

Contact Nick if you would like the hi-res version of any photo here to print.