Fifteen Minutes of Delusion

Alyssa's school went to Six Flags a couple of weeks ago, and I went along as a chaperone. Because of Alyssa's special needs, and the large number of parent volunteers that went, we were a group of two. We hooked up with a couple of other groups for most of the day. Alyssa would not go get her picture taken with Tweety Bird and Daffy Duck. She barely went over with Bugs Bunny. They rode on the teacup ride. And the Bucking Bronco ride. And the Six Shooter swings. Shown in this picture are Alyssa, Alyssa, and Elissa. Yeah, it was fun keeping everyone straight. The others all rode the recently rebuilt Texas Giant. During that half-hour, though, I sat in the train station with Alyssa laying over on my lap, asleep. She wouldn't ride any of the big roller coasters or the Superman or Batman, but she did want her picture taken with the Batmobile. I think I'll set one of my books at Six Flags. That way I can get a season pass, go back over and over again, and call it research.

Just a quick post to share some pictures of the girls in their 2011 Easter dresses and new shoes. This is Alyssa's first set of heels (1.5") and she's doing quite well with them.

Here are a few pictures from this weekend. I had a book signing at Moon's LDS Bookstore in Dallas yesterday. This is my setup, with chocolate macadamia nuts, bookmarks, and paper airplanes that I fold for the kids. It was a great signing, although I didn't sell as many books as last time. Maybe it's because I wore the blue shirt instead of the red one. Coming up next month, there will be a piece about me in the BYU-Hawaii eNewsletter, and they asked if we had a family picture. It's been a long, long time since we've had our picture made (that's how they say it here in Texas) so this was a good excuse for us to take some.

One of our favorite books when the girls were young was Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar, about a little bug who ate and ate and grew and grew until he became a beautiful butterfly. Oops--did I just give away the ending? Anyway, we've had our own very hungry caterpillar at the house this year--Alyssa. Take a look at this back-to-school photo of her with Anna, from just this past August. Now compare that to this photo, taken one week ago. Hmm. Maybe it's not so obvious, since Anna's wearing heels. Pardon me for one moment while I make the girls take another picture. She's grown at least two inches; maybe even three. In fact, she's grown so much she's taken over a bunch of Anna's clothes. Yes, our girls are growing up.

In case you hadn't noticed based on the bloggy silence, these last few months have been incredibly busy around here, and unfortunately this blog has taken a big hit. I really want to continue posting here, as it's a great way to keep in touch and share with everyone. No promises, but I'm going to give it my best shot. There are two big changes in my life that have provided a major scarcity in free time. The first is a change in my work responsibilities. I'm still a software engineer for Onyx Graphics in Utah, working from home. However, rather than just working on whatever the product manager gives me to do, I am the product manager in a way. Each of us driver developers now have a handful of device manufacturers that we are responsible for, both developing the code and managing the relationship. One of the things this means is more work related travel. I took four work trips in all of 2010. I've already been on three this year, and will likely have some 20 or so b