Spreading the word...

Our company has not really be impacted by the economic downturn....we are always busy, we are opening a new facility in Singapore...and the time has come to start spreading the word about IM Flash as we are HIRING!

Jen headed to RIT in Rochester, New York for a recruiting trip. RIT has a Microelectronics Engineering degree program that educates/trains students specifically in the semiconductor field. This was the first time IM Flash had ever shown representation at a career fair at RIT so we had LOTS to tell the students about! The recruiters wanted to make sure they had "real engineers" on hand to explain to the students about what we do...so that is how Jen was able to get involved.

RIT held the career fair in the "field house". The place was HUGE:

I have to say I was quite impressed how organized the RIT staff was for this event. They had all the booths set up with our shipped boxes already at our tables. They had breakfast and lunch provided to us (dang good food too!). They had so many student volunteers walking around asking how they could help....one of them even went and found a box of tissues for one of the ladies from our group! Here was our booth:

Our sweet "goodies" to give away. When I was in college these were the things you always looked out for as a student...cool FREE stuff. Surprisingly the students didn't really take them. The people that took most of the freebies were professors and other employers!!

Here was our team for the RIT trip, left to right - Robin (recruiter), me (engineer), Angie (engineer), Nikki (recruiter) and Chad (engineer) who was taking the photo.

Jen had a blast. Lots of interested students to talk to. We were even able to meet with the director of the Microelectronics Engineering department and he gave us a tour of the labs they had for the program. It brought back so many sweet memories of my college days. The trip was short....but I did make (and kill) a friend at my hotel room:
Nothing like a finding a spider as you are taking a shower.

Logan is 9 months old!

Yup - it is true....Logan is already NINE MONTHS OLD! Here were his check up stats:

Height = 29 inches = 75th percentile
Weight = 20 pounds 10 ounces = 50th percentile
Head = 45.5cm = 50th percentile

Logan is still quite the happy baby. He flashes his killer smile every chance he gets! His bright blue eyes catches all the ladies around him. He is quite the crawler. Has been for about three weeks now. He started with the army crawl, then the knee crawl and now he does the monkey crawl (on his hands and feet). He pulls himself up to whatever he wants and is barely starting to cruise the furniture. He is VERY active. We can hardly hold him because he wiggles so much and wants to just go explore. We moved his crib to the basement to force him to sleep through the night (we can't hear him cry out loud as much when he is in the basement)....so far so good. He is LOVING every bit of "real food" we give him. He still has NO TEETH.

When dad is in charge....

This is what you come home to see...

A two year old hoodlum! Only a woman/mom would notice all this:

- mismatched clothes (this is NOT what he was wearing before I left the house)

- sideways baseball hat (apparently Zach's location of choice)

- Zip ties on his wrist made to be "bracelets"

- temporary dinosaur tattoos on both forearms

- fruit by the foot in hand (apparently his third?)

I can tell Zach enjoyed every minute of hanging out with daddy!!

Pulling Up

Flames!

They started painting the flames on THUNDERPIG!!! Woot woot!

Geek Week 2010 @ Park City!

Every year Jody makes the trek to Utah to catch up on old times and to play video games with Dustin.. They used to do this every week or two when we lived in Austin and now call their annual gathering "Geek Week"! This year they gamed in style! Since Jody's trip overlapped with Dustin and Jen's family vacation to Park City they were able to spend a few days at the condo rather than at the house! They played hard but made time to relax and enjoy the sites as well!

Here is Dustin, Jody and Glen riding up the chairlift... Glen stayed on the lift and went to the top of the mountain while Dustin and Jody made their way to the zip line.

Can you believe it? Not a single person in line! Awesome! Lets do this!

For being Jody's first time, he jumped into that zipline seat without a problem! What a rush!

After the Zipline we headed over to the Alpine slide.. The only thing between us and 3000 feet of winding concrete was a tiny sled with a hand brake in the center..

I of course let Jody go first so I wouldn't have to hear him screaming in fear as he raced down in the track beside me.. ;-) Just kidding Jody.. I would never do that.. I made it my goal to beat you to the bottom.. Just so the next round you would blow the socks off of my previous track peed record.. lol!

After hitting a few rides, we were heading back up the mountain and crossed paths with Dad as he was coming back down from his trip to the top of the mountain!

So we had to take him on the next big ride.. The Alpine Coaster! This is one of the only graity-propelled roller coasters that I know of.. It zooms you through the mountainous twists and turns at speeds up to 35mph!! I believe it too.. We were cruising!

This is the ride up to the top.. You can see Dad and Jody (well part of him you can see)

We also took Jody to the Olympic park to watch the US, Canadian, and Australian free style skiers practicing.. We watched them for FREEEEEEEEE! Not too many places you can go these days to watch something like this without spending a penny. Coool!

Jody looked like a natural in this sled.. Who knows, maybe we'll see him at the next winter games? Look for a guy with a luge outfit with a joker across the front of his speed suit.. heh heh..

This is the ski jump where we watched several athletes do some crazy aerials.

Wave to the camera and say "Mom check out the insanely talented skier jumping over my hand!"

Ok that looked fun, I had to take a picture too.. My skier was doing the "superman"..

As you can see we had a great time in Park City.. I didn't get any pictures of us playing video games in between all of this fun, because hey lets be realistic.. Who wants to see pictures of two grown men sitting on a couch eating pizza and playing Halo, Army of Two, God of War, and Uncharted 2? Wow.. now that I typed that all out, thats pretty impressive! We played a lot of Vids!! Git yer game on!!! And get ready for next year's Geek Week! It'll be here before you know it! hah!

Marriott Mountainside - Day#3

We were very impressed at all the activities they had planned at this Marriott Resort. The kids center always had things to do and toys for the kids to play with. This morning we went down and Zach picked out a ceramic piggy bank to paint. He chose a robot!

While we were in Park City Zach kept pointing out the local buses and said he wanted to go for a ride. So after the kid activities at the resort we rode the bus to downtown Park City (5 minute ride) for a street fair festival. The first thing we spotted was an airbrush tattoo booth. Zach picked out a dinosaur stencil and picked the colors green and black. The artists were surprised at how calm Zach was.....I guess they didn't know it was probably his 20th temporary tattoo and he had done airbrush before.


Right after Zach's tattoo was finished - he turned to Jen's mom and said, "grandma - you get the snake". Grandma got a big smile on her face and let Zach pick the color of the snake tattoo - he chose Pink and Black.....

Turned out pretty sweet, eh? Zach was all giggles and smiles when he saw what it looked like when it was done. The tattoo artist liked it so much he even took a picture of how it turned out! We roamed the streets looking at all the different booths, grabbed some lunch and then decided it was time to head back as the kids were ready for naps.

Once everyone had a bit of a rest - the women headed to the outlets for a bit of shopping while the boys had a bit more fun. Dustin took Zach on the Alpine slide. Zach was SO EXCITED to go on the chair lift and then go on the slide....he was a passenger on the slide with Dustin.

Of course Logan was being all cute...

We finished off the day with dinner at our favorite place in the newer part of Park City....

Marriott Mountainside - Day#2

Today was the day to hang out just outside the resort. It was the mountainside park area. They had an Alpine Slide, Alpine Coaster, a Zip Line, some kid rides and the chair lift. Dustin bought the all day pass so he could ride everything as much as he wanted. Jen bought a ticket for the Alpine Coaster.


Dustin taking the chair lift to go on the zip line...
Once he got to the zip line area there was quite a long wait....
Of course after waiting about an hour, who comes along and cuts in front of EVERYONE - Shaun White and his camera crew. I guess this is as close as we will get to seeing an Olympic gold medalist up close and personal!

Then it was time to hit the pool with the kids and Jen's parents. Our kids love water...so this was a perfect way to end the day!

Marriott Mountainside - Day#1

Time for a quick family getaway....we had one of our timeshare weeks to use and decided to head up to Park City (only 40 minute drive to the resort from our house). We stayed at Marriott's Mountainside Resort - literally right next to the alpine slide park area....nestled right next to the mountains. This was the view from our 2 bedroom villa:

The fall colors had already started changing and it was peaceful and just beautiful!! The villa itself was really sweet too. Jen's parents came with us so the 2 bedroom villa was the perfect size for four adults and our two kids. Here is one bedroom:

Here is the living room:

The kitchen/entryway (yes that is Logan chilling on the table):

Master bedroom:
HUGE tub in the master room with a separate shower/toilet room:

We arrived ~4pm. Just enough time to getting unpacked, explore the resort a bit, and find a Mexican food place for dinner! Logan LOVED his rice and beans at dinner.....

We are VERY impressed at what is available to do at this resort. They have activities scheduled all day long (for both kids and adults) at this place....we are kind of sad we are only staying for three nights -- we want to stay for the full week!! Zach had this HUGE smile on his face when we were walking into our villa.....you could tell he liked it. He keeps calling it his "home".

Utah State Fair

Today we hit up the Utah State Fair. We've been trying to go the last three years but this is the first year we actually made it! The weather cooperated - high of about 83 degrees today. We were a bit worried at the beginning of the day because this is what Zach's reaction was to EVERYTHING....

He was tired...but nothing a Capri Sun couldn't fix! Once the kid had some juice he was out and about exploring. We hit up the animals. Logan liked looking at the birds.

Jen liked this rabbit. It kind of looks like a lion.

And of course there were the cows....these cows were so pampered. They were getting shaved and bathed...I don't think we have ever seen such CLEAN COWS!

Zach got to ride this train....

And his cars....

Of course the choppers....

No fair is complete without foot long corn dogs! We all ate them for lunch.

After lunch it was time for the GIANT SLIDE!!! Dustin and Zach went THREE TIMES!

Logan started getting a bit jealous....he wanted to bust out of his stroller and have some fun too...

So we checked out the kid farm area. Logan got to ride an (stuffed) sheep:

Then it was time for tractors. I think Zach was the only person under the age of 30 looking at all the tractors and getting in them and such. He wouldn't sit in any one tractor for too long as the seats were so hot from being in the sun.

Logan started dazing.....and FINALLY fell asleep.

So we tried as best we could to use up the rest of our ride tickets. Jen and Zach went on the Ferris wheel.

Zach also swung the mallet at the muscle meter hammer game - the kid is strong ;) He was able to ring the bell!

We didn't last long after that.....we headed to the car (after 5 hours at the fair) and Zach was out in about five minutes.

We had an AWESOME time at the fair and were glad to have Jen's dad in town to go with us!