Denver update

OK, this is way overdue.  Thanks Bonnie for getting it set up.  Now that I now how to do it, next time will come WAY faster.  

Not quite sure where to jump in.  So I looked at all my recent photos on my phone and I'll use them to give you snippets of life in Denver.

We can get discounted ski tickets before the season begins - we have been about 5 times this season and still have some passes remaining even though temperatures have been in the high 70's this weekend.  Below I'm on the lift with Sam and Neil on Christmas Eve.  Both boys started pretty conservative this year, but with Sam certainly better.  They have both been about 7-8 times in their lives before this season.

Here we are, later that evening.  We had  a woman and her daughter from our ward over for Christmas Even dinner, the traditional bread, cheese, and milk by candlelight.  Christmas was fully anticipated this year, Neil and Josie especially were crazy with anticipation and excitement.

Travis!  Do you remember this game?  The Braithwaite's had it and we loved it - I think it was your favorite.  It is "Hotels".  We bought it for Neil for Christmas this year - they are not in print anymore so this is somebody's set for 25 years ago.  It is interesting to play it now as an adult, it is a lot like Monopoly but the Strategy is not that complicated.  After about the first 6-8 rounds it is pretty much 100% luck, depending on the roll of the die.  Since it takes 1-2 hours to play, it usually ends with much misery, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.  Neil promises every time that he'll be OK if he loses, then when he does it is the saddest thing you've ever seen.

From the "top view" here, the sleuth can also detect that in this particular game, mom joined us, and we played downstairs with some fresh oven baked cookies and (pictured from the top) milk.  

Neil has turned into our game lover.  He also got Monopoly and I also gave him the original Stratego (40 piece) game.  The new Stratego games are cheaper and only have 30 pieces on each side.

Sam and Neil are both playing chess now too.  They are getting better, and both really enjoy it.  When I play Neil I give him a starting advantage - like I play without my queen, or without both my rooks.  Neil showed some creativity the other day - I came down and he had set up the entire board with Lego Star Wars characters.  I was impressed!  He was proud of himself.

We have gone to two Colorado Avalanche Hockey games.  IE bought 4 season tickets - we won't do it again, because sometimes they are hard to use well... for example, we've had cancellations a couple of times that have allowed us to use them at the last minute.  You can't tell but these are pretty good tickets - row 16.  I took just Sam and Neil at the end of January.  Then last night (March 14th) we had seats again.  Kathryn and I tried to find another couple for a double date - but in the end we couldn't find anybody, so we took the boys and left Josie and Jensen home with a babysitter.  It was fun.

This picture is on the home screen of my phone right now.  I took a "family selfie" at family member's-only night at the Science museum.  Kathryn's dad gave us an annual pass for Christmas this year.   We went on a cold night in January - spent most of the time in two exhibitions:  one was looking through their live telescopes, we saw a comet, and we also saw Neptune, which I had never seen before.  It wasn't impressive, but still cool to see to the outer reach of the solar system.  The second area was where the photo below was taken - in the dinosaur exhibit.  They have quite a team of paleontologists and nearly all the work they are doing is with fossils coming out of southern Utah, including some new species.  The kids were pretty fascinated.  Fun to have that resource so close to us here.

The last weekend in January we had the annual "Klondike Derby" for all Boy Scouts.  Sam turned 11 in November and, if you didn't know, got his Arrow of Light certificate that month (exciting!).  I have mixed feelings about scouts - it just feels outdated and it is a lot of work and leader commitment to it in the church seems to be diminishing some, which means more burden on parents to do it, and it seems like I've got enough things to hassle Sam about (piano, spelling bee, soccer, etc) to not have to chase down where things are with his Scouts advancement.  All of that that is long-hand for saying that I've done basically nothing since November.  But parents/boys were invited for the Klondike.  We went up in the mountains and caught a break on the weather - the low was about 20 degrees and there was no wind.  Last year it was right around 0.  I slept in my 15 degree rated sleeping back with like 3 layers of warm clothes on and still froze.  The activities the next day were fun, and I think Sam enjoyed it, even though none of the kids in our ward came (we combine with another ward and it was all them plus Sam).  Here's a picture.  Doesn't he look great?

By the way, I am Cubmaster.  I planned the Annual Blue and Gold Banquet that we completed on Feb 24th, it is a relief to have done.  We made it "Oscar's" themed (it was two nights after the Oscars), we had Hors d'ouevres for dinner and watched three movies that each of the dens had made.  I think it went really well.  Kathryn helped out, as did many others.  Turns out that having a popcorn machine and a chocolate fountain is pretty much all you need to guarantee success at Cub Scouts.  Sorry, no pics.

Winter has been very mild, to say the least.  In January we had two days in a row at 70 degrees!  We had lots of days in the 50s and low 60s.  So Josie learned to ride a bike.  Bless her heart.  She has a little balance bike on which she long ago mastered the art of balance and steering.  But pedal bikes are completely different, I guess.  She got the hang of it really quickly, but her confidence was very low and on the second day we did it (after she successfully rode on the first day) she passed several people who were out on a beautiful Saturday afternoon walk and she was just HOWLING about how she couldn't ride a bike... just as she cycled right past them.  Finally I made her stop so she could get a hold of herself - we were both about to have a nervous breakdown.  Then she got distracted by some pine cones while we were talking and 2 minutes later she was climbing back on the bike all excited to go find some pinecones.  We did 3-4 laps through the neighborhood, looking for pine trees with pine cones.  Her fear was gone.  The next day she excitedly climbed on her bike with me again in search for pine cones.  I thought we had in whipped.  Well, snows finally came in the second half of February and we were out of commission for about 3 weeks.  We went out today for the first time in a month - she did fine but of course was fidgety the whole time and worried she was going to crash.  I'll spare you the details but skiing (we went for a few days the first weekend of March, more below) and reading have been the same.  She picks them up pretty quickly but she'll sob her guts out telling you she can't do it, right as she is skiing down the mountain or reading you a few words.  Then someone she'll flip a confidence switch and the world is alright again.
 

This is a great pic.  I was determined to go jogging on a Saturday afternoon about Feb 20th.  Kathryn went for like 4 hours for a haircut (OK, so only 2.5 hours... but that is forever!).  It had begun to snow lightly so I put ski goggles on him, wrapped him in about 5 layers, and headed out.  About 25 minutes out at my max distance from home (3 miles), the snow began to come down WAY heavy and I could hardly see.  Then the wind started to flow and giant gusts brought "whiteouts" falling from the trees and onto Jensen and I.  He was fine, he fell asleep, but I passed cars and a few other people out walking who got caught in the quick storm acceleration and they all looked at me like I was a freaking lunatic.  And I guess I probably was.  My phone died while running because it got to cold, and when I got back to the house the main camera was also dead.  But I did get some video footage of Jensen stirring, he was covering in 1.5" of snow (looked nothing like this) and was NOT happy about the world he woke up into.  Luckily, he woke up at home.

Jensen is now eating real food - which means he is having real diapers!  Gross!

So work has been OK.  Two years ago we were almost exclusively supporting the mining industry, but we are now about 70% oil & gas, and we happen to be in that small group of people who like HIGH gas prices now.  Business has slowed down for us.  We are OK for now, but we'll see what happens over the next 3-6 months.  There are some big contracts we are trying to bid on.  The equipment is very different than what we have build before.  We used to make electrical equipment for the mining industry (like substations that worked underground to power coal mining equipment that is all electrically operated).  But we are doing more and more "process & pumping" systems... here is a picture of a large water disposal plant.  when Oil & Gas companies produce oil, it comes up in a mix with water (varies a lot, but let's say 50/50).  All that water has to be pumped back down into other formations deep in the earth, since it is very salty and also still has traces of oil in it.  This is a 70 foot long pump and electrical plant that pumps 10,000 barrels per day of water about 2 miles deep into the earth at 2000 psi.  These pumps are huge, about 28 feet long each.  It was the first project of its kind we have done.  The learning curve is crazy, we are making lots of mistakes along the way but figuring things out too.  On this one we LOST about $250K.  We very rarely have projects that lose money, so this one was a disaster.  But, great learning, and more and more the future of IE.  My role has been building the engineering team (hiring) and identifying new markets to sell to including the right products.  Obviously, it doesn't always go perfectly.  But our mining competition is suffering heavily and we have had nice growth - the question is whether we can sustain it with low oil prices.

Wow this entry got too long, sorry.  Our big news is we are trying to move.  So I have been taking pictures like these... the first is of our laundry room area, where I'm trying to get some doors to cover the washer and dryer.

The previous owners left this fridge in the garage.  It operates, it is old and might have antique value, we took this picture to post on Craigslist (much better than throwing it in the dumpster at work, my original plan).  Within 30 minutes Kathryn had a dozen interested calls.  People wanted us to hold it for them and we just wanted to get rid of it, the garage has been a mess and I finally cleaned it out 100% yesterday.  We told them first come first served.  I think we had this image of some people with a cool loft coming and getting it and it rounding out a fun furniture setup.  Nope, we should have realized it would have been some form of "white trash" that showed up first.  The people that hauled it away had an old suburban that was PACKED full of crap and mess.  this guy came and hardly cleared out a spot, instead he just tried to force it in the back and it wasn't going anywhere.  he cleared a "depression" in the sea of trash, and after a few more false starts, I convinced him to take the door off of it and slide it in on its front, which worked.  I wouldn't doubt it if doesn't work now.  People are so crazy.  This guy was like Lloyd Judd but maybe after having like 6 Red Bull's are something.  Anyways, fridge gone, garage clean.  

  

We are hoping to list our home by end of week.  We aren't quite sure where we'll go, but there are a few options.  We are pretty sure we overpaid when we moved here... but the market is even hotter now here, so we should get the same money or more out of it... we'll just have to pay more for the next house too.  Only the real estate agents and the property tax people win in this deal.

Last, we have done more skiing this winter, as I alluded above, including me taking Sam on my birthday, conditions were near perfect that day and I took this selfie (man I'm a dork!).  The kids didn't have school the Friday afterwards so we stayed in a condo in Keystone for a couple of nights the following weekend.  Kathryn's brother Ben met us there to help with the kids.  Josie and Neil improved quite a bit.  And Sam it now doing everything without any supervision.  It has been fun.  But best part is just being together.  

Hopefully that gives you a feel for our lives.  Some other quick things:

1) Neil's Spanish school is going great and he is speaking quite a bit.  It is crazy to see how quickly he is learning (Estoy muy celoso!!!).  Josie just got accepted into the same school so starts Kindergarten at the Denver Language School in September.

2) Sam had a piano teacher and I didn't like her much - she just moved (hallelujah) and now Sam has a new teacher just 3 blocks from here.  She is great - and Neil has just started lessons too.  He is way behind Ricky... and I don't think he'll catch up.

3) tilled the garden yesterday (mainly to get rid of the weeds as we prepare to list) but planted some tomatoes in "walls of water".  Made me think of dad of course, but also of Becky and her science fair experiment.

4) Kathryn is keeping way busy in getting the house ready to put on the market.  We are clearing out all the storage areas, junk in closets, etc.  It is amazing how much stuff we have we do NOT use.

5) Jensen still doesn't sleep very well - but everything else is great.  He has an awesome personality.  Today he had everybody at church smiling.  What a blessing to our family.  Neil is especially cute with him.

We miss all you guys.  We are coming to Utah for spring break, from approximately March 29 - April 5 (Easter Sunday and General Conference).  Can't wait to see you all then.  Much love!

Phil