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Halliday Family Blog

Halliday Family Blog/

Leadership Re-Connect – Day 2

Today we had day 2 of our RLF Re-connect, and it was even better than the first day!  Cliff Higbee (our facilitator) flew out from Salt Lake just to be there with us.  He’s a great guy and we all respect him quite a bit.

We met at the Eaglewood Resort and found an area in the dining room where we had a couple of activities, mostly around catching up on what has been going on in our lives, and how our learning from RLF has helped us get through these trials and triumphs.  We also did a team building activity that Cliff brought.  He wanted to try something out on us before actually doing it in an RLF session.  We don’t mind being guinea pigs for this kind of thing!

At lunch, we drove down to Oakbrook, picked up some food from Portillo’s, and then went over to the Grant Thornton building to eat and finish the day.  I wanted to provide some give-back to the group, so I volunteered our facilities to do some presentations, etc.  We did a couple activities there, one of which was a 2-hour presentation from me on the Covey 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX) process and how it can help us with our current business responsibilities.  It went very well and I got a lot of great comments!

After the presentations, we left and went over to the Claimjumper Restaurant for dinner.  Angela met us over there and it was great to have her meet all the folks that I have become such great friends with.  We had a great dinner and awesome discussion and then we went over to Lucky Strike (bowling alley) for the remainder of the night.  We had fun bowling and eating more food!

What a great last two days.  I can’t wait for the next event!  🙂

 

By |2012-06-06T10:47:05-07:00April 14th, 2012|Work-Related|0 Comments
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Leadership Re-Connect – Day 1

Today I had an absolutely wonderful day!  We held day 1 of a 2-day Regional Leadership Forum (RLF) Re-connect with a bunch of the folks from our group.  We had 8 or 9 people there and we met at the Eaglewood Resort in Elgin.  We read a fascinating book on leadership called It’s Your Ship from Captain D. Michael Abrashoff of the US Navy.  We had an in-depth discussion of the book, and had some other activities where we sat and discussed what was going on in our lives and such.

After we had our serious activities for the day, we all went over to Chicago Motor Sports and played Whirlyball for a couple of hours.  We had a blast.  It brought back memories from our second session of RLF when the whole group went there and had a blast.

It was really great to see the folks who came.  We all wished there was more, but for those who did attend, we really had a great time catching up and enjoying each other’s company.  Tomorrow we will proceed with day 2 and Cliff (the facilitator from our session) will be there.

By |2012-06-06T10:31:30-07:00April 13th, 2012|Work-Related|0 Comments
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Teacher Appreciation, Merit Badge and Painting

Today we finally got the outside wood on the house painted!  It was MUCH needed and I had put it off for so long.  We found a painter that had done other homes in our neighborhood and had done a great job.  He power washed the wood and prepared it yesterday, and then painted today.  He even took off all the gutters and put them back on after painting.  It looks great!

Tonight, Sarah and the Laurel Class at church had a Teacher Appreciation Dinner.  She invited her Spanish teacher.  While that was going on, I taught the scouts part 1 of the Computers Merit Badge.  Fun stuff!  🙂  Sarah had a great time and next year, they are going to do it again, but expand it to the entire youth group!

By |2012-06-06T10:16:29-07:00April 11th, 2012|Church, Home Life|0 Comments
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Easter Egg Hunt and Easter Sunday

Yesterday we filled all the plastic eggs we had with candy and hid them in the back yard for our annual family Easter egg hunt.  The boys had a blast!  We invited the two little boys from next door over to join and they had a lot of fun as well.  It was fun watching the boys run around the yard and find eggs.  It’s not that much of a challenge for Zach (and the girls joined in as well), but it’s still fun…

Today (Easter Sunday), we had a wonderful day together as a family.  I had abbreviated meetings so I could stay home a little bit with everyone.  The girls got matching Easter dresses and were excited to get pictures taken with them together…

Everyone at church thought that they looked really cute together.  Brittany was a little embarrassed that she looked like everyone else, but she got over it quickly.  🙂  The meetings were really good and when we got home, we had a great dinner and a wonderful “resurrection cake” covered with white frosting and coconut.   Happy Easter everyone!

By |2012-06-06T10:10:23-07:00April 8th, 2012|Church, Home Life|0 Comments
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First Den Meeting!

Angela was called last week to be a Den Mom for our Pack and she is very excited!  🙂  She can’t wait until Zach becomes a Cub in July.  She had her first Den Meeting today and although the kids are pretty rowdy, she had a great time and loves doing things with the boys.  🙂

By |2012-05-07T05:57:09-07:00April 4th, 2012|Church|0 Comments
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Official Cougar!

Today was a monumental milestone for education and for our family!!!  Sarah accepted her letter of invitation to BYU Provo and also signed up for her housing!  We have an official BYU Baby Cougar in our family!

The only down-side (and probably won’t be when she gets there) is that when she went to sign up for housing, Heritage Halls was all filled up!  🙁  She was kind-of bummed because it’s close to campus and they cook their own meals.  So she looked at Wyview Park which is still on-campus housing but a little further out (far northwest side of campus, north of the stadium).  We made a couple of calls to folks we know and Sarah is ending up rooming with the girlfriend of a son in a family that used to be in our ward and we are great friends with.  Sarah has met her before and is excited to get to know her better.  The apartment she will be in is pretty nice.  It is a 2 bedroom and she’ll have 2 other roommates.  We spent a little more money and so Sarah will actually get her own room (which will be nice for her to study and sleep when she wants).

Since it’s a little further away, it will give Sarah a chance to get some good exercise.  She’ll either have a bike or walk, and we think that there’s a shuttle for when the weather turns cold.  Turns out that this option was even cheaper than Heritage and it’s even newer and nicer.

Yea Sarah!

 

By |2012-05-07T05:55:53-07:00April 3rd, 2012|School|0 Comments
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General Conference Weekend

This weekend was a pretty busy weekend due to General Conference.  Kirstyn had EEP and then the rest of the weekend was spent watching conference sessions and learning a bunch.  Last night for the Priesthood session, we did our usual get-together at Portillos for dinner and then went over to the session as a group.

This morning we had a sister and her son from our ward over for breakfast.  She is moving this next week.   🙁  We are very sad to see her go, but it is the best for her and her son.

By |2012-05-07T05:35:44-07:00April 1st, 2012|Church, Home Life|0 Comments
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BBQ and Party

Today we had our neighbors over for a BBQ and had a great time.  We got to know them better and the boys really were excited to have people over, even though the kids are in middle and high school.  Kirstyn also went to a birthday party of one of her friends and had a wonderful time!

By |2012-05-07T05:33:12-07:00March 30th, 2012|Home Life|0 Comments
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Play Day!

Today was a full “play day” for the kids.  Kirstyn did a mall trip with her friends, Brittany hung out with friends as well, and tonight, since it was spring break, we didn’t have any “official” Young Men and Young Women activities.  That said, the Laurels and Priests decided to get together and have a movie and game night at the Laurel Class President’s house which so happened to be Sarah.  🙂  She sprung it on  us at the last minute so we had to rush to get the basement cleaned up and appropriate for the get-together.  The kids had a great time!  After MUCH prompting, we finally let Brittany go down and join the party, even though she’s not a Laurel yet (but most of her friends are and were there).  🙂

By |2012-05-07T06:01:11-07:00March 28th, 2012|Church, Home Life|0 Comments
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Spring Break Day Trip

Today we got up early and drove to Starved Rock State Park, where we hiked for about 7-8 miles around all kinds of trails, canyons, etc. and really wore ourselves out!  All the kids did a great job and we had a wonderful time!  We all didn’t think we could keep up with Angela, but we did!

We took some absolutely gorgeous pictures and the weather was wonderful!  You’ll have to see the pictures in our family album when it comes out.  When we were done hiking, we ate a much needed lunch at the visitor center area, relaxed for a bit, and then drove home.

What a great but exhausting day we had.  It’s so great to be able to spend time as a family when everyone is happy and enjoying the day!  We only had one injury…  Brittany slipped and sprained her ankle.  She’ll be alright, but it is painful and she’s not feeling the best.  She continued to walk for another 2 miles or so so on the ankle in order to get back to civilization.  What a trooper!

By |2012-04-30T05:55:48-07:00March 27th, 2012|Home Life|0 Comments
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Home from Japan and Bulls Game!

Today, Mom and Dad Hobbs got home from their mission to Japan!  🙂  They landed in Idaho Falls around 2pm or so totally exhausted and probably a little sad to have left all their friends in Japan behind.  They had a great welcome party waiting for them when they got home, however!  Angela was really sad that she couldn’t be there to greet her parents when they got off the plane, but cheered up when I took her to an Intel event at the United Center to watch her first Bulls game!

We met the group of vendor folks and customers at a bar close to the United Center for appetizers and drinks (water for us)  🙂 and then went over to the game together.

We met some great people there and got to know a couple of people that we may get together with this summer for a grilling party.  They were all really nice and Angela was very impressed!  🙂  She loved the food and the atmosphere sitting up in one of the suites!  The dessert cart was her favorite of the night!  We ended up taking our new friends home so that they wouldn’t have to take the train back down to the city and turn around and take the train back out to Naperville.  We had a great time!

Go Mom and Dad Hobbs and the Bulls!  🙂

 

 

By |2012-04-30T05:38:47-07:00March 26th, 2012|Home Life, Work-Related|0 Comments
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Spring Break Starts!

Today Spring Break started and even more importantly for Sarah, Hunger Games came out to the theaters!  They made shirts and went to the movie…

Going to the movie was part of a birthday party for a guy in our ward.  They had a blast and Sarah LOVED the movie!

This week should be a lot of fun!  Tomorrow I’m going to take off of work and we are going to go out for a day at Starved Rock State Park, hiking, enjoying the weather (hopefully it will be good), and having fun as a family!

 

By |2012-04-30T05:43:24-07:00March 23rd, 2012|Home Life, School|0 Comments
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