kirk@kirkhalliday.com
FacebookInstagramLinkedInTwitterEmail

Yearly Archives: 2011

/2011

Angela Japan – Day 2 and No School!

Today the kids had no school as well so I was able to go to work again!  I’m saving the days for Christmas and for this summer when we’re going to be running around like crazy with mission returns, college drop-off, possible wedding, etc.  😐  Again, the kids did a great job getting along and only had a very minimal amount of disagreement today while I was gone.  It made me feel a LOT more comfortable at work, knowing that things were OK at home.  It made Angela more comfortable as well!

Over in Tokyo, Angela had a great time today!  We’re going to keep these blog pages consistent with our day of the week and time since for her, she is almost a day ahead of us, and when we are going to bed, she is getting up!  🙂

Angela will have to help fill in the details of today, so this post will be updated soon…

By |2011-11-29T07:18:40-07:00November 11th, 2011|Home Life, School|0 Comments
Read More

Angela Arrive in Japan and PTC!

Angela arrived in Japan safely and happy today!  She’s pretty worn out from the flight and is trying to make sure she sticks to the daytime/nighttime schedule over there so she can minimize the jet lag she’ll feel.  With a 15 hour difference and loss of time, it will be tough, but we know she’ll have a GREAT time!  We “Skyped” with her and had a great chat!  Technology is so wonderful!  It’s amazing at how far it has come even in the last 10 years!  🙂  She was excited to see mom and dad (obviously they felt the same way about her).

Back at home, today the kids were off school, so I was able to go to work and they stayed at home.  They did a great job taking care of each other, and Sarah was very responsible in taking people where they needed to go.  When I got back from work, I had to go to Parent/Teacher Conferences for Sarah and then took Kirstyn with me to hers.  It’s great to know that other people think our kids are great as well!  🙂

By |2011-11-29T07:15:05-07:00November 10th, 2011|Home Life, School|0 Comments
Read More

Angela Leaves for Japan and PTC!

Today, I took Angela to the airport and she started on her LONG journey to Japan!  She is really excited to go, although not totally excited about the long trip.  She said she wouldn’t know what to do with herself traveling for 17+ hours with no children!  🙂  She flew to LA and then jumped on a plane for Tokyo from there.  We can’t wait to talk to her when she arrives!

That said, I am playing Mr. Mom for the next week!  😐  I’m really excited, but there is much to do, and I will still be working from home some of those days as well.  We’ll see how it works out!  Tonight, for example, I had Parent/Teacher Conferences to go to for both Brittany and Zach.  They went very well and I had great discussions with their teachers.  They were all jealous that Angela was on her way to Japan, and they were stuck here!  🙂

By |2011-11-28T14:22:20-07:00November 9th, 2011|Home Life, School|0 Comments
Read More

Indian Prairie Scholar Award!

Tonight, Sarah was awarded the Indian Prairie Scholar Award.  Throughout Sarah’s high school career, she kept up her GPA to qualify for this prestigious award.  Indian Prairie Scholars recognizes seniors who have maintained a GPA of 3.6 or greater throughout their high school career.  The ceremony took place in the Metea High School auditorium, and there were about 180 kids that received the award.  That is absolutely outstanding for how competitive the environment is here and how difficult the classes are!

Sarah was there with a few of her friends who also got the award to.  It’s great to know that Sarah has such great friends that have their priorities straight and know what they want to accomplish!  Way to go Sarah!

By |2011-11-28T14:15:10-07:00November 7th, 2011|School|0 Comments
Read More

Feed My Starving Children

Today, our Ward had a service event at Feed My Starving Children.  The youth decided they wanted to head this up, so most of the participants were youth.  We had a great time and packed enough food to feed 53 kids for a year (I think).  It’s always a good feeling to go there and help out.  We also made sure that they had hung our Mormon Helping Hands shirt we gave them during our last visit on the wall of the warehouse along side all the other shirts (including the Grant Thornton shirt we gave them when we did an activity there).  🙂

By |2011-11-26T07:41:59-07:00November 5th, 2011|Church|0 Comments
Read More

St. Raphael’s Coach Party

Tonight, I went and hung out with all the St. Raphael’s coaches for an evening of pizza, beer, and chat.  Every year, the football league has a coaches party to thank everyone who helped out during the season.  The pizza and wings were great, but unfortunately, they just assumed that everyone drank beer, so they didn’t even have any bottled water or pop.  I was pretty thirsty when I left, but I had a good time, and met some of the other coaches and chatted with them.  🙂

By |2011-11-26T07:36:29-07:00November 4th, 2011|Home Life|0 Comments
Read More

Return Home from Napa & Kirstyn Concert

Today I flew home from Napa and was really excited to see the family!  The boys were probably the most excited!  I really love to spend time with them!  I almost didn’t make it home on my intended flight, however.  I changed the car pickup from the hotel to a half-hour earlier (6am) which I’m glad I did.  The hotel was about a 90 minute drive from the airport, and this morning, we hit bad traffic at the Bay Bridge.  When I got to the airport, I had about 30 minutes until my flight left.  Fortunately, I got through security pretty fast and got to the gate with about 10 minutes to spare!

I wanted to get home on time because Kirstyn had a chorus concert tonight that I didn’t want to miss.  She did a GREAT job and she loves to sing.  It may be a hard decision for her to make whether to sing or to play her clarinet in high school.  The concert was great and Kirstyn even had a speaking part in it as well.

I think Kirstyn has always been one of those who always likes to perform, no matter what the audience is.  At home, she’s really quite the performer!  🙂  Great job Kirstyn!

 

By |2011-11-27T04:50:10-07:00November 3rd, 2011|Work-Related|0 Comments
Read More

Meetings, Wine Tasting, and YWIE

Today, I woke up and had a wonderful, elegant spread for breakfast.  The meetings went very well and I learned a bunch about what we were doing right and a TON about what we were not doing as well as we should and should fix.  The people there were a great help!  We had participants from McAfee, Bank of America, Citadel Investments, Chevron, and a couple more.

After the meetings, we went out into the countryside and visited 3 vineyards for wine tasting.  The folks at Autonomy felt bad for me when they found out that I didn’t drink.  I was fine with that and told them so.  I had a great time learning about the process (enough to know the reasons why I wouldn’t want to drink in the first place) 🙂 and hanging out and having a great time with everyone.  Silver Oak was the first winery we visited.  It was very elegant and also very commercial.

Everyone had a great time drinking the wine and re-filling their glass over and over.  🙂  Not sure how much everyone drank there, but it was a few bottles.

The next place on the list was Tres Sabores, a small family-owned and totally organic winery that was WAY different than Silver Oak.  They didn’t have nearly the technology that Silver Oak had and they actually pressed their grapes by hand.  It was a really fun tour because it is such a small vineyard.  We got to eat some grapes off the vine, and go into the cave in the side of the hill where they put the barrels to age until ready.  The lady (and owner) was really excited to see us.

The last place we went to was called Nickel and Nickel.  It was by far the largest, the most impressive, and the most beautiful.  We also ate dinner here.  When we arrived, they gave us hors d’oeuvres and we stood around a couple of fire-pits enjoying the night sky (I realized how much I missed being out where you could see stars at night)!  🙂  We then took our tour.  Their barrel storage area seemed about the size of a football field, and it was all underground and totally temperature-controlled.  The whole winery looks like an old working farm.

After the tour, we went into the red barn (above) and ate dinner.  It was one of the most elegant and fancy dinners I had ever eaten.  Because we were at a winery, the first thing everyone noticed, was that there were 7 wine glasses around each plate!  🙂  They were very accommodating to me when they found out I didn’t drink (I was the only one, by the way).  They brought me sparking water and juice.  The dinner was absolutely AWESOME!  We had amazing Filet Mignon, surrounded by a ton of appetizers, soups, and incredible dessert.  After dinner, everyone was able to take the wine list and order their favorites to have shipped home.

Meanwhile, back at home, the girls had Young Women in Excellence.  I was really sad that I had to miss it.  It was the first one that I have ever missed.  They did a great job pulling together what they worked on throughout the year.  This year, they asked the moms what flower each young woman represented, and so Angela was up there a bunch in front of everyone talking about how wonderful each of her three daughters are.  🙂  I dont’ have any pictures, but if I do find any, I’ll post them!

Well, I’m beat but not drunk from all the wine!  I’ll sleep well tonight.  Tomorrow I fly back home and am excited to see my family!

By |2011-11-26T07:28:38-07:00November 2nd, 2011|Church, Work-Related|0 Comments
Read More

Trip to Napa and Driver’s Ed!

Today, Brittany started driver’s ed!  Yikes!  She’s really excited, but we are pretty nervous!  😐

We know she’ll do great, but the issue is that she tends to be a little more distracted in driving than Sarah is.  Her big issue is that she’s addicted to music and thinks that she has to have it on all the time.  I have a feeling that we’ll have to disconnect the radio in the their car so that Brittany will concentrate on the roads.  🙂  I’m sure she’ll be fine.  I think we were the same way when Sarah got her permit and started driving!  🙂

Also, today, I took off to Napa California for an executive briefing and technology discussion with Autonomy, one of our vendors we work with.  I’ve never been to the Napa Valley before and it is beautiful!  The weather is great too (upper 60s, low 70s)!  The hotel (the Auberge du Soleil) is absolutely incredible!  It is more of a resort than anything else!  When I got there, they checked me in, took took me on a golf cart tour of the property, and then dropped me off at my villa which is stunning!  🙂

There are a ton of perks and amenities here.  Everything in the room (snacks, food, etc.) is included free of charge, the pool area is absolutely gorgeous, there is a walking trail around a sculpture garden, a spa, jacuzzis, a relaxation pagoda with a Japanese garden, and much more.  I even have access to “borrow” 1 of 3 convertable Mercedes Benz vehicles to take a spin around the countryside with!  I wish I had more time than just this afternoon and tomorrow, or I would take them up on it!

How’s that for cool!  I guess everything is not “really” free, as the price of the room is around $900 per night!  😐  The service is impeccable and everyone really goes out of their way to make you feel important.  Far cry from a Motel 6, eh?  🙂  I heard that just 2 days ago, Julia Roberts was staying there for a getaway.  Just missed her!  🙂

I wandered around the property, enjoying the weather for the afternoon, and taking a ton of pictures.  The main house in itself with the pool area below is breathtaking!

Obviously you can tell I don’t stay in places like this too often, right?  🙂  After my stroll and relaxing afternoon, I went to a reception and dinner and met everyone that had come to the briefing.  It turns out that there were only 6 other companies represented, so it was quite the small gathering.  Dinner was absolutely outstanding!  We had poached main lobster with brown butter, orange, apple, and hibiscus for starters, then we had our choice of Fairytale Pumpkin Soup or Hopper Shrimp Risotto.  For the main course, we had Lock Duart Salmon and Spiced Local Lamb Loin, and for the dessert, we had Toasted Vanilla Angel Food Cake with strawberries and vanilla ice cream and Crisp Filo Wrapped Chocolate Dumplings with tarragon ice cream and arbequina olive oil!  Yum!

I met some great people and am looking forward to the meetings tomorrow.  It will be interesting to find out how these companies use the technology that we use and how we can better use it ourselves.  Well, I guess I’ll close for now and go to bed while eating the dark chocolate-dipped and dusted almonds they gave me for my “turn-down” snack.  🙂

By |2011-11-24T06:16:08-07:00November 1st, 2011|Home Life, Work-Related|0 Comments
Read More

Happy Halloween!

We had a fun Halloween evening tonight!  The boys were so excited to go out, they were ready as soon as they got home from school!  They looked so cute in their pirate costumes!

We went out around 4:30 to start the candy scavenging, and were out for about 3 hours!  The boys were not cold, they weren’t tired (until the very end), and they got a ton of candy.  For awhile, we went out with our neighbor and his two boys.

Kirstyn also went out with Ashley and they had a fun time as well.  They weren’t out for as long as we were, but they got a ton of candy as well. Brittany went out late with one of her friends but we didn’t get any pictures of her.  🙁

Unfortunately, Sarah had to work, but we did get a picture of her in her witch hat there at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory!  🙂

When we finished up and the boys had their fill of candy, we sorted and bagged everything to be “rationed” out in the future.  If we didn’t do that, the candy would be gone the next day!  🙂

Happy Halloween everybody!

By |2011-11-22T06:43:31-07:00October 31st, 2011|Home Life|0 Comments
Read More

Last Game and Trunk or Treat!

Today was Zach’s last football game.  He was sad that the season was over.  We as the coaches are kind of relieved but we will really miss the kids.  It’s been a fun season!

Tonight we had our Ward’s Trunk-or-Treat activity.  Everyone got dressed up in their costumes and we went to eat some food, enjoy our friends, and let the kids get some candy.  Angela, the boys, and I were pirates.  Kirstyn was a flapper girl from the 20’s, and Sarah and Brittany were princesses.

The dinner went very well and there was a ton of food to be eaten.  We filled right up and then the kids went upstairs to go through the Young Men’s Haunted Hallway.  The Young Men did a GREAT job with it and the kids loved it.  The only issue was that one of the young men left the smoke machine on for too long, and it set off the fire alarm in the building.  We finally were able to figure out how to turn it off, but the system is monitored, so it triggered a 3-alarm fire alert!  😐  The police arrived first and I told them it was a smoke machine, so he hurried and called off the “other” two fire trucks that were on their way.  One truck came and they inspected the building just in case.  We told the firemen they looked great in their Halloween costumes and offered them candy.  They got a laugh out of that.  🙂  Whew!  The kids all loved the sirens and the truck coming into the parking lot!  That’s a first!

After getting a bunch of candy, we helped clean up a bit and then came home.  Angela and I are tired, but the boys are wired due to all the sugar!  😐

 

 

By |2011-11-22T06:29:41-07:00October 29th, 2011|Church|0 Comments
Read More

Metea Marching Band Banquet

Tonight was the Marching Band Banquet for Metea.  As usual, the food and entertainment were great!  The skits the kids put on to make fun of themselves were pretty funny, although 90% of the stuff they did was “you had to be there” things.  The directors were honored and the seniors were as well.  It was bitter sweet for Sarah.

The final performance was sad for them, but this was the “final” event for them as a marching band, and it was kind-of sad.  Brittany is looking forward to Marching Band next year, and Sarah will be auditioning for BYU Marching Band in the spring.

By |2011-11-26T06:45:17-07:00October 25th, 2011|School|0 Comments
Read More
Info