Category: Family

Aubrey came up with a great idea for FHE tonight. She said that it might be one of the last times that we can do something with “just the five of us”, so she suggested that we take the kids to play mini-golf. Of course, they really loved it. Owen and Collin each got a hole in one too!

But after we finished doing the miniature golf, we had to check out the go carts that were racing around on the tracks. They had 2 tracks for the bigger “kids”, and one was just perfect for the littler ones. Collin and Owen jumped right in and started racing each other around the track. Wesley was sad that he wasn’t big enough, so the kid working there took him for a ride too. They had a blast. I think we have some good drivers on our hands!

Aubrey is looking great, as always, and coping really well. We can’t believe that our baby will be born this month!

See all the pics, starting here.

I added some new pics to the gallery, starting here. It shows some good times that we’ve been having lately.

The other funny thing we did was this:

I had a good three days in Atlanta this past week at IBM’s Software Group Technical Interlock conference, where they invited 300 or so technical leaders within IBM from around the world. I heard lots of executives give rah-rah talks, and I heard lots of really smart people talk about really cool, advanced stuff. A lot of talk about Web 2.0 (Ajax, Atom, Rest, RSS, community, social networking, etc.), consumability, and agile software development practices.

I also got to see Drew, Cristina, Ezra, Naomi, and Jeanetta. We all went to see Braves v. Nationals at Turner Field. We paid for cheap seats but half the place was empty so we sat maybe 15 rows up in left field. It was fun just to be at a ball game. As our luck would have it though, it was a pitcher’s duel (Smoltz and Bergmann), and the score was 0-0 (with both pitchers giving up only 1 hit) when we left in the 7th. Still, Drew brought his glove and we were ready for everthing.

It’s been nice to be home. The boys met each made little welcome home signs.

Allergies have picked right back up for me here though, and we all feel kind of crappy because of it. Maybe the hotel had better air filters or something. I was pretty much indoors all day.

I might as well break the news here, rather than call everyone. We’re moving to Germany for a year! IBM Software Group has a lab in a city called Boeblingen in Southern Germany, and my group has a new project that is starting up with a large team over there. They need an information architect (IA), which is what I am, and they need full training on our technology (we use something called DITA). It will be like what I did in China a couple years ago, but obviously more involved.

The assignment is for one year with a possible extension, and the great thing is that all our housing expenses will be subsidized. And I get a little bump in pay to boot. After it is over, we’ll probably come back to NC. The boys are already practicing a few words in German (our neighbors at the bottom of the culdesac are from Germany and have been excited to tell us all about it). Aubrey is excited for the adventure, but a little nervous too. What a trooper.

This opportunity was just too good to pass up, and I would have been a fool not to take it. I’m going over there at the end of April to get things started, then I’ll bring the family over in May. We figure that we were already so far from everybody, that you guys will do just fine with us being even further away. We’ll just have to adjust to the time zone change. I think they are on GMT over there.We’ll keep you posted on things as they go along.

In other news, we did a little bit of landscaping that we think will be a nice feature to the front of our home. We added the Japanese Maple (Shaina) and four spirea gold mound shrubs in front of it.

Collin gets to check out a book each Tuesday with his kindergarten class when they go to the library, or media center.

This week he brought home a really cool book about the history of locomotive trains. Hundreds of pictures of trains. Did I mention it had pictures of trains?

Needless to say, Owen was also fascinated with this book. Additionally, Wesley was extremely interested in this book. Wesley is also very bossy with his property, and Owen is also very passionate about possessions. Obviously, this book led to many tears and fighting and moderating/forced sharing done by the parents.

In the truck this morning driving to school, I told Collin how cool of a book he picked out this week. I told him it was such a cool book that even Owen and Wesley loved it so much.

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“Collin, that train book you picked out is so awesome,” I said for the second time.

Stop saying that,” Collin said, lowering his head. “That book was a bad idea. All it does is make Wesley cry and Owen mad.”

I looked at him in amazement as he continued.

“I think I’ll just keep it in my backpack so no one fights over it any more,” he said.

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The funny thing is, you might think he was being selfish, but he was not. He fiercely protects the feelings of his younger brothers. He is a good son and an even better brother!