The first part of
September was all about Dan prepping for the long 6 day hike. It was
a tough hike, but he and his brother had a wonderful time making
great memories. They have been talking/prepping for the hike for
nearly 3.5+ years and he invited his other brothers too but Lon was
the only one able to make it. He loved the one on one time with his
brother Lon and will forever treasure that time he had with Lon.
They hiked 93 miles with ~22,000 feet of elevation rise in six days.
They packed their bags with the highest quality stuff to keep them
warm, safe, and dry. Dan spent days researching online and thousands
of dollars on gear. He did great packing everything up in his hiking
backpack, all except for his food.
I warned him; nuts
and dry fruits are great for calories and nutrients, but “you will
get sick of eating just that,” I told him. I even drove an hour to
the church's dry pack to get him potato flakes for mashed potatoes,
carrots, dried apples, etc… But he was stubborn and didn't want to
take my advice. “I've got it all worked out,” he said. I shook
my head and smiled on. The report I got back from Lon was that he
didn't want anything to do with nuts and all the snack food he
brought after day 3. Lon packed better and had more of a variety and
shared some of his with Dan.
The forecast looked
worse than it was for them. It always is in my opinion. Rain is
always the default around here. They got a bit of snow on the second
day where they were at around 6000ft or so. They did get dumped on
with a lot rain on one of the days. They had all types of weather,
rain, snow, sun. It was tough having no cell reception and therefore
no contact with them. So, naturally what did I do? I took the kids
camping, all by myself. The whole time driving (2+ hours I was
wondering to myself what the heck was I doing. Dan had said he
wouldn't mind seeing us cheer for him as he crosses the road on one
of the days toward the end. With the map and some guessing I took
the kids there Thursday night and we camped at the nearest camp near
the Wonderland Trail. Hikers on the Wonderland trail don't typically
camp at the campsite we slept at, but it was the closest one we could
drive to.
I brought hot
chocolate with a gas grill, blankets, food we could cook up and
hardly slept that night. It was cold cold cold and muggy. I was 7
months pregnant and camping with 3 kids. What an adventure that was!
Not sure I would ever do that again but if you're not brave, you
wouldn't have any adventure to speak of was the thought going through
my head.
EARLY the next
morning the kids anticipated seeing daddy. We knew they would cross
the road and walk by Reflection Lake. So, we hurried to make sure we
didn't miss them and walked around Reflection Lake ourselves.
Several times I wanted to give up and go home thinking it was silly,
but the kids were determined and they had fun throwing rocks in the
lake, Ronin especially. So we stayed about 35 minutes, found the
trail, and walked on it for about 5 minutes and we couldn't believe
our eyes. There were our two boys walking and chatting away and the
kids ran to give their daddy hugs and kisses. At that moment the
whole trip down was worth it. I took the kids out early the day
before and got them to school late, all worth it. I was beginning to
wonder if I've been changed for good. I'm no longer the Asian parent
who's all about academia and perfect attendance. I'm...taking them
out of school to go explore the East coast! I'm changed!!
We exchanged hugs
and kisses and saved the stories for after the boys got home. In
fact I'll leave the stories for face to face conversation. Their
pictures say a lot about their adventure. Priceless was their time
together. Amazing memories made.
The kids loved
having their Uncle Lon came for a visit, asking many days before
“when is Uncle Lon coming?” over and over again. They definitely
know Lon the most of all their uncles on Dan's side of the family
that's for sure.
We celebrated their
accomplishment at a nice sit down restaurant. Cousins Shelly and
Matt also came to join in the fun. We got 3 dozens of Krispy Kreme
donuts as well for dressing up as Pirates and we shared it with
everyone. We also went over to Matt and Shelly's house for the BYU
game after.
Dan had a bit of a
scary recovery. He was dehydrated and had some bladder infection and
had to go to the doctor to make sure everything was ok. He scared me
half to death one night when he got up to pee. He had some kidney
pains and I thought for sure it was kidney stones but it turned out
to be nothing more than dehydration. He's ok thank goodness.
September had a bit
of sadness to it as well. Our best friends the Strobells decided they
would move to St. George where Tim would work for his old company
again instead of Amazon. He was burnt out and ready to work remotely
and set his own hours. He loves St. George where his dad is living
and where he grew up for part of his life. We were so saddened by
this news. We did everything with these guys. Many days playing
guitars together. Our kids are about the same age. We did hikes
together and could not get enough of each other. Wendy and I shared
some tears, went out to eat, took the kids swimming, etc… on our
last few days together. We lost our Bishop who was also working for
Amazon and who was Lon's old roommate as well to San Francisco. They
were only a couple of doors down across the street from us and we
loved having them, too. It was as if everyone near us was leaving
Amazon.
Speaking of Amazon,
they have been so good to us the last several years. We probably
wouldn't have been able to build another house and still keep the
other one as a rental without their big sign-on bonus and stocks.
Dan has enjoyed his 7 years there but it was time for a change. He
applied to in his opinion, too many companies and was really taken by
surprised the number of callbacks he got. He was overwhelmed in fact
by the choices. He applied to a start up called EnergySavvy and got
an offer from them. He also got an offer at Tableau, a great company
that allows you to work any where they have offices. Two offers from
Microsoft, one to work on their Visual Studio Online team and another
for their Skype team. An offer from Zillow, a growing company where
he would be using the language he's familiar with. He even flew down
to San Francisco twice for an interview with Netflix and Uber but
those weren't meant to be. I was not in support of moving anyway:)
With each of the
offers came an overwhelming amount of thinking and praying and
deciding. We felt truly blessed to have the offers. He took a week
off in September for his hike with his brother Lon around Mt.
Rainier, came back, met with many of the hiring managers, even
interviewed for different teams within those companies listed, waited
to hear numbers back and comparing them. It was tough deciding which
one because they each offered something great. Microsoft's numbers
and perks were great, but he doesn't care to work there as much since
they would be using C# and Skype doesn't sound as interesting.
Tableau didn't have better base price numbers but offered a very high
amount of stocks to be vested. They also didn't say no to him
possibly working in Vietnam when he decides to take his family there
to live (He's still dreaming of getting a vacation home on the beach
and surf all day in the sun). EnergySavvy is a start up and could
take off. Zillow has been ranked the best company to work for in the
Seattle area for the last 4 years. I was rooting for Microsoft
because their maternity leave is awesome as well as the medical
coverage and perks such as discounts to everything around this area.
Until...Zillow asked what Microsoft's numbers were and came back
beating them in base price, doubled in signing bonus and tripled in
stocks. They became a clear choice. Dan made up his mind. I was
still hoping Microsoft would come back with a counter offer but after
a week of saying “we're still working on the numbers for you” Dan
decided to let them go and just make up his mind so he doesn't have
to think about it anymore. He didn't think they could beat Zillow's
signing bonus or stocks so he sent out his “thank you's” and went
with Zillow.
He's excited for
Zillow in several respects. They, like Tableau gave him the “maybe”
for working remotely, meaning working in Vietnam. Imagine, renting a
house about as big as ours in Vietnam for $500/month and renting out
our house for about $4,000/month and having an American salary. That
would be wonderful. However, he is not looking forward to going back
to work after so much time off. He practically took over a month
of vacation days off. With our vacation back East, his new boss's
vacation in the middle of October and feeling a bit burnt out anyway
in September, this has been such a blessing. He's been such a helper
around the house. I've been milking EVERY BIT OF IT. He expressed
how much he loves being home with me so why not milk it. He is not
looking forward to going back to work but it's time to not spend
anymore of our savings. I've been able to speed up my class a bit
because he has been taking the kids to school everyday, making their
breakfasts and lunches and chasing Ronin around. I've been able to
sleep in, take showers in the morning, go to the gym, all the luxury
stuff. I'm a lucky girl!
He's been loving the
time he gets to go to the gym and just being home. It's the extended
vacation he's never had before.
