California Adventures

We took a great trip this spring. When I was a kid, we talked about taking a trip to Disneyland but for one reason or another we never made it. So this spring before Josh left on his mission for two years, before Jon and Ruth moved to Texas, and before Jake left for overseas duty we loaded up and went to Disneyland and the beach in southern California. What a great chance to spend with each other for about a week. We got our pictures taken in the animation studio to see which Disney character we would be. We had some predictable results. Jake was cast as Gaston, Jared was Aladan, Rachel was Tinkerbell, Sarah was Nallah, Mom was Mrs. Potts. I was proud of Brock being Jimminy Cricket, responsible and upstanding. I was also Jimminy. Probably the best one was Dad who was cast as Buzz Lightyear. It described Buzz as being the defender of the home-front, if a little impulsive in his zeal. Doesn't that sound like Dad. These qualities were on display when we camped out for the fireworks and Buzz, er Dad, was great at defending our territory, running off intruders at every turn.

Rachel loved trying to catch up to all the characters and get her picture with them. We caught photos with several, but there were enough left that we'll have to plan another trip. Jared is a thrill seeker. He got to take off with his uncles and go on the "big rides". What a thrill that was for him. What great uncles he has. Brock loved the whole experience too. I think everytime we got in the car for the next week or so, he asked if we were going to Disneyland.

It was great to have Granny and Grandpa there with us too. They were as happy as the little kids to see and do everything. They entertained us by racing around in their motorized wheel-chairs. Also by virtue of their "status", we got to go up the exit-way to most every ride - a wheel-chair and 6 guests (x2 = the Bryan family). Jake did a great job navigating us around.

I loved having a week to spend with the whole family. I feel really lucky that our whole family was able to arrange to get that time off and spend it all together. They say that Disneyland is the happiest place on earth, and for those three days, it certainly was.

We also had a day to spend at Newport Beach. We couldn't get Jared and Rachel out of the cold Pacific. Brock enjoyed helping me work on a sand-castle. It was a beutiful day, again made all the more beautiful by having our family with us.

I love California.

Cabo San Lucas Cruise - Feb 2008

The other thing you do when it snows at home...

... head South.

In February, we joined about 40 of our friends and neighbors on a cruise to Cabo San Lucas. What a blast! Cruising is fun, but it's best with a great group of fellow sea-farrers.

Fun in the SNOW

What do you do when a winter storm socks you in? You strap on your gloves and hat and have some fun.

2007 Highlights

2007 was a great year for our family - a year of first steps and last steps, a year of lots of little steps and a few big ones. We're thankful for another great year and for all of our friends and family who helped to make it that way for us.

Family photos taken fall of 2007

We're lucky to live in this beautiful part of the country. We're always so busy and it's tough to take time for a family photo so I was surprised one day when I came home from work to have the kids all loaded up and ready to go for a quick family photo. Luckily this pretty little park isn't far from our house and we made the most of the remaining daylight that day. Sarah's dad came along to be our camera-man - Thanks for the laughs. The kids couldn't resist climbing the rock wall and running through the piles of leaves.

Phuket, Thailand, June '07

Thanks, Mom, for watching the kids for a few extra days. Phuket was beautiful and a great way to end our trip to Asia.

Bangkok, Thailand, BYU FBE, June '07

We toured a semiconductor plant and a Nike factory. The Thai people used to have a cost advantage, but have lost that to China, for now. To remain competitive, it was interesting to see how they are adopting Lean Manufacturing principles. This helps them stay efficient and allows them to compete on quality and speed as well as cost.

Highlights of our stop were the luxuries of the Bangkok Marriott, touring around the Chao Phraya Riveron river taxis, seeing the royal fleat of yachts, climbing the Wat Arun temple, and visiting the Grand Palace - where the story of Anna and the King took place. We also took a Dinner Cruise - the Tiger Prawns were really good.

Hong Kong - BYU FBE - June '07

Hong Kong has ranked #1 on the Heritage Foundation's index of economic freedom. For that reason, it has also been high on my list of places to visit. We toured a toy factory just back accross the border inside China. It was an interesting view of the kind of work-shop you might imagine when you think of China's low-skill, low-cost labor. We also toured the Swire Coca Cola plant, the worlds tallest production facility - cost of land is high. Delivery trucks are lifted on a huge elevator to one of the top floors and unloaded there. As each stage of production is complete, product moves down to the next stage until finished goods are loaded onto delivery trucks at the ground level for distribution.

Hong Kong was a beautiful city. Our first night we rode a cable car to the top of Victoria Peak and took in the view from there as the city was lit by its nightly light/laser show. We were there on the 5th of June, our 9th anniversary, and took a little time to visit the Hong Kong temple with a few others from our tour. How can we top that for our 10th? It was steaming hot there all the time. A beautifil place I will look forward to seeing again some day.

Beijing, China, BYU FBE, May '07

We got to tour the Beijing-Benz (Mercedes) plant, a Uniliver ice-cream factory and a Terex regional office, and eat dinner with a deputy ambassador from the embassy. It was interesting to be in China where there is a real sense of emerging capitalism that you can just feel. They were building up for the 2008 Olympics and so the hotel we stayed in was very luxurious and opulant, and we had fun touring sites like the Great Wall, the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City.

Japan, BYU FBE, May '07

We started touring around Kyoto, sort of the cultural center of Japan. We visited the Nijing Castle - home of a Samurai Shogun. I enjoyed the sense of his being a mighty warrior on the one hand, and seeing the appreciation he had for nature, beauty and art on the other. I like the balance of ying and yang in Asia. We also saw Kiyomizu (Pure Water) temple. If you drink the water from the spring, it is said, you will be "younger, cleverer, and more beautiful". Sarah also immersed herslef in eating Asian food, including sea-food. I was really proud of her, since I knew that might one of the hardest parts of travelling in Asia for her. Another thing that made being in Japan fun was the fact that Sarah's great-grandfather was the first mission president assigned to Japan after serving there (in the North-Asia Mission) himself.

From Kyoto, we toured a Toyota plant and exhibition hall. It was amazing to see the Toyota Production System live. A highlight of that was the welding shop where various models of cars/trucks/vans were conveyed into a room full of robotic welders. The welding machines detected which vehicle they were about to work on and followed that specific welding plan -- highly automated and amazing to watch as the shop filled with sparks and smoke for a few minutes while the machines did their job and the next set of cars were rolled in and the process was repeated.

We rode a bullet train to Tokyo where we toured a couple of banks and spoke with Americans working there about the challenge/opportunity of doing business in Japan. We also got to visit the Tokyo temple. One of the faculty that came on trip, Dr. Money, served as a missionary about 20 years before and we happened to run into his mission president and his wife, whom he hadn't seen since he left the mission. That was fun to meet a Japanese "pioneer".