It has arrived

Winter that is. After such a nice mild November, December is bringing on the winter feel. Instead of 40's the temperature is low 20's. And yesterday on the walk home the wind was biting, blowing the falling snow so it stings. Above is the walk home.

Some people around here say that last time Rochester had such a mild November, the rest of the winter was terrible with many blizzards. We will see what the next few months bring.

This is our garage window with lots of little ice crystals forming on it.

A special day

You've had a birthday shout "Hooray!"

We want to sing to you today.

One year older and wiser, too.

Happy Birthday to you!

Chipotle vs Moe's

When we moved to Rochester Caleb was so disappointed there was no Chipotle. Soon Moe's opened nearby which has a similar concept. He soon became a big fan. Then this year in August Chipotle came to town. So Caleb and Ryan decided to do a side by side comparison. Chipotle vs Moe's. We tried to get the same things on each. (can you tell which is which in the picture?) I am not sure which burrito won that night. But I think Caleb prefers Moe's (with the free chips and salsa it comes with).

A busy end to October

The past few days my parents have been visiting. They like to go, go, go. So, we had a busy three days and explored some new parts of Rochester. Here is a list of some of the things we did:
got pumpkins
saw giant corn stalk teepees
had hot cider
painted glass luminaries
visited the George Eastman house
walked through the Sacred Grove
bought milk from a local dairy
tried Sweetango apples
watched an improv comedy show
ate chicken pot pie
put in soffit covers
saw a 1940's musical review
carved pumpkins
took autumn photos
watched Fringe
drank hot chocolate
gave out Halloween candy
dropped off Caleb's lunch
visited Pittsford Wegmans
And that is not all. A fun time was had by all. We really enjoyed the visit and look forward to seeing them again soon for the holidays.

Cooling down

As the weather has been cooling down, so has the temperature inside the house. We usually keep it between 60-65 in the winter and decided it is time to turn on the heater again. So to keep us cozy we have pulled out some blankets. There are typically 2-3 on the couch for easy use. The dogs appear to enjoy them as well.
In the picture Sadie is the dark spot on the couch. She does not photograph well--always looking like a shadow. Sylvester loves to sit on things-people, pillows, Sadie, etc. Thus he is perched on the armrest.

Under Construction

For the past couple weeks this is what our street has looked like. Each morning as we leave for work the road is blocked by backhoes and dump trucks. They are replacing the water main in the neighborhood and so are digging everything up. They leave their equipment pared in people's yards, tearing up all the grass. It is quite a mess. They have made it through phase one but I thing they have several more weeks of work to go. What fun.

Safflowers

A couple of weeks ago I saw these really neat flowers at the store. I have never seen anything quite like them before. I thought that they would open up more but they never did. It is just the orange/yellow tops sticking out of the green bulb.

This is what I have learned about this unique flower:

Carthamus tinctorius, one the oldest cultivated plants of record. Seeds have been found in pharaohs' tombs dating back at least to 2000 B.C. and safflower has been cultivated by the ancient Chinese as an oil crop and for medicinal use. In more recent centuries the flowers have been used for yellow, orange and red dyes as well as 'saffron-like' food additives. In the U.S. in the first half of the last century saffron oil was used as a high-quality paint medium. Today the oil is a readily-available cosmetic & food additive, including its use as a cooking and salad oil.

Overnight Adirondack

In anticipation of a long car ride this winter, we decided to take Sadie and Sylvester on a little trip. This was their first car ride lasting longer than 45 minutes. Friday after work we loaded up the car and headed east. We spent the night in Saratoga Springs. It was a somewhat stressful sleep because we were constantly worrying about the dogs barking when people walked down the hotel hall.

Saturday we headed on a scenic drive through Adirondack park. This is very different than state/national parks that I am used to in the west. Other than some pretty scenery and some trails or pull offs marked along the road, it was not that different than driving down a country road with towns all along the way (commercial). There were many, many lakes and the leaves are starting to change. So it was a very pretty drive.

Several times along the way we stopped to take pictures and let the dogs sniff things out. They did pretty well with the whole trip. Once and while they would get anxious and whine wanting to get out of the back of the car but most of the time they just rested.

Job Hunt Update (Otherwise known as WooHoo!)

Since May when I finished school, I have been posting and submitting resumes. During an average week I would apply to between 20-30 jobs. I have only heard back from 4 companies in all that time. One wanted me to complete an assessment test and send it back to them. Two just sent me emails saying no thank. And the last one HIRED ME!!!

On Monday I applied for a job with Sutherland Global Services. Tuesday of the same week I received a call from them and did a prescreening interview on the phone. I guess I passed the prescreening process because at the end they wanted to schedule an interview for Wednesday at 1:00pm. The interview was a two part process. The first part was an assessment test, which took me about an hour. The second part was the actual interview, during which I met with the 3 of the 4 department heads of the division I would be working for. The interview went very well. They said they had to contact HR but that I was at the top of their list. One hour after leaving I received a call from the HR department during which they wanted to schedule a time to meet so they could present a job offer to me. On Friday I went in for that appointment and accepted the job.

So here is a little bit about what the company and what I will be doing.

Sutherland Global Services Inc is a premier customer management company with 18 years of practitioner heritage in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). Sutherland helps Fortune 1000 companies' design, build and manage their customer management operations. Sutherland's customer management operations centers are located in the USA, Canada & India. Headquartered in Rochester, New York, Sutherland's global workforce includes over 10,000 employees.

I will be a Level 1 Help Desk Analyst for the Blackboard division. It will be helpful for me to explain what blackboard is and does.

Blackboard is a company that provides educational institutions with software and hardware that help teachers and student interact with each other better. Blackboard has outsourced their technical support to Sutherland Global Services.
That is where I come in. I will be one of the people the school technical administrators call when they have issues with Blackboard. From what I have learned so far I will be working in a group of 3-4 people and our group will have 70-100 Blackboard clients assigned to it. I start on August 21st.

Gaming Away

For a long time Caleb has been wanting to build his own computer. Finally he he researched everything, got some help from Ryan, and had the money saved up to do it. All the parts arrived and he was so excited. Ryan came over and they put it all together and then had to wait and wait and wait for everything to load. All went well. A couple of little fixes and it is working like a charm. Caleb is loving how much better the effects are on his game. Plus now my computer is upgraded with the old computer parts.

The Golf Pro

So I have decieded to take up a new hobby and by the title you can tell it is golf.
Today I purchased a complete set of Walter Hagen golf clubs. It just so happens that Walter Hagen is a Rochester native.

Me with my new clubs.

Al, the guy that helped me pick out the clubs, said "Now you know you can't play in flip flops."

I talked Camberly into going to the driving range with me. Here are some photos she took of me trying out my new clubs.

My great back swing.

My great follow through.

It's a good thing you can't see the ball in the pictures because it didn't always do what it was supposed to.

Letchworth State Park

Saturday we took a drive to Letchworth State Park, also know as "the Grand Canyon of the east." It is about an hour south of Rochester. Right when we drove in there was a pull over/overlook spot with a great view of the canyon. It was very vast (although not nearly as large as the actual Grand Canyon). The biggest difference was all the greenery. Here there are trees growing all up the walls and this gives it a very different look.

At one end of the park there are three waterfalls. We walked to each of them and had fun taking lots of pictures--trying out our camera and the "lessons" from the family reunion.

On our way home we stopped at a little pizzeria in one of the towns near the park. Next time though we will plan ahead better and pack a picnic lunch because the park has tons of different sites with picnic tables. It was a fun day, made all the better by the beautiful 70 degree weather.

American River Rafting Trip (Short Version)

On Friday June 21st I flew to Sacramento, CA for a river rafting trip with my dad and his friend Mark.

When we arrived Mark drove us to Lake Tahoe. We did a little site seeing there and then headed back to Auburn for the night. We woke up on Satureday and went white water rafting down the American River. I fell in 5 times, one of which I thought I might die. I am a little sore today but can't wait to do it again.

The start of Tunnel Falls Rapid.

I am the one in the front right of the boat or bottom left of the picture.

 Do we look scared?

Where did I go?

There I am.

Watkins Glen State Park

This past Saturday we decided to go for a little day trip down to Watkins Glen State Park. They have a gorge with a river and waterfalls along a 1.5 mile hike. It was overcast and rained a little but it was not too hot. The water and vegetation is beautiful. After our hike we found a picnic table to have lunch and then it started to pour. Fortunately we were under a tree and didn't get too wet. We hurriedly ate and ran to the car. It was a lot of fun. We definitely will go back some time for more pictures and enjoyment.

Butterfly garden

While, Caleb's parents were visiting we went to the Strong Museum of Play and visited the butterfly garden. It was amazing to see all the different butterflies flitting around. Some of them were so pretty but they would not hold still long enough to get a picture. Oh Well.

A Busy Weekend

This weekend Caleb graduated. Yeah! His parents and my mom came out to enjoy the festivities and we had a lot of fun with them. We went to the lilac festival, graduation (of course), the temple, Strong Museum and its butterfly garden. We had fun.

Crazy Lady Bird

For some reason a bird has chosen to build a nest on the light by our front door. There is a huge oak tree in the front yard but she chose the light. The new hip thing in the bird world must be nests in crazy places.

The funny thing is that she has been working on it for about a week now but it is not finished. There are a few reasons for this. First she must not know what she is doing because most of the nest material ends up on my mail box or the ground. The second reason is that I took the hose to the nest last night. Don't worry the destruction of her nest has not deterred her in the least. When I left the house this morning there was more nest material on the ground, the mailbox and the light.

The sad attempt at a nest.

The huge pile of nest material that falls.

Where the rest of the nest pieces end up.

Side Note:

You may be thinking, why has he cast the birds gender as female? Is he saying women can't build things? No that is not what I am saying. You see Google taught me that female birds make the nest.

Beautiful Spring Days

The past few days the weather here has been amazing. A couple days over 80 (almost too hot) and today a perfect day in the 60's. My ideal weather would be 60s and 70s year round. We enjoyed the nice weather by spending time outside. Up in Brockport we found an old tower. It was apparently built as a memorial but now it has seen better days and is falling apart.

Today we went walking through Highland Park with the dogs. They loved roaming around, checking everything out. The magnolia trees are blossoming and are beautiful. The yellow tree was just opening up and there were different shades of pink and white magnolias.

Down by some of some of the cherry trees that were in full bloom, we saw some people spelling out "love" for a picture.

March Madness

For those of you who don't know, over the past few years my parents and thus the family get into March Madness more and more each year. We have a family bracket competition and the winner's name is engraved on a trophy each year. They go to games in the first round and make March Madness t-shirts for everyone. This year there was also a competition to decorate a room in honor of the "season." We decide to decorate the bathroom since it is currently the nicest room in the house, having just been redone. Here are a couple shots. Notice all the orange decor in the room.

Sadie and Sylvester also wanted to get in on the action. So here they are in their March Madness orange.

Bathroom Fun

The first weekend in March, Caleb's parents came out for a visit and helped completely redo our bathroom. It is something we have really been wanting to do but have always been afraid of starting because it is the only bathroom in the house. Tearing it apart meant going without a shower and/or toilet for several hours or days. But we finally took the leap. Caleb started tearing the old tile and fixtures out during the week before.We were fortunate to have the help of a couple of people in the ward.

Once all the tile was off the walls, it was time to put up new drywall, put in the tub, and find a way to get the new tub surround up the stairs (after 6+ tries it finally made it). We spent a couple nights in a hotel so we would have a toilet and showers. By the time they headed back to KC, we had a functional shower, the tile floor was in, and a working toilet. Over the following week, we grouted the tile, put in the new vanity and sink, the new mirror, and a new light. There are just a few final details to finish up. The bathroom looks great, a thousand times better than before.

Eight long weeks

These past eight weeks have certainly not been what we were expecting. Some moments are good and some are very difficult. We are grateful for the support, thoughts, and prayers. Things will never be the same but they will get better.