Week 22 - Same 'ol story...

Not much to report this week in the blog.  I don't see much of the family during the week.  I leave before they wake up and come home after they are asleep.  We still have tons of work to do.  The final product testing will begin this week.  We've got most of the user interface done.  We are doing a product video, website, brochures, SEO, tradeshow prep, etc.

It is nice to be working vs. worrying about money!

There was a bank holiday on Thursday which allowed me to work from home.  Europe has a lot of vacations and mandatory 25 days of personal time off.  It is interesting most people here are not trying to get rich as quick as they can.  Most people seem to want to enjoy life and have a pretty good work/life balance.  Definitely an interesting difference than the prevailing attitude back in Utah.

Jacob is going to blog tomorrow on the big sports event the kids went to on Thursday while I was working.  On Saturday they had the Luxembourg night marathon.  It caused some problems for me trying to get home on the bus.  The schedule said it was running, but no buses came by so I had to call Kim to come and get me.  Several people from the ward ran in the marathon.  I've been working so much I haven't been able to run, so the marathon wasn't even an option for me.

I taught a lesson on the keys of the priesthood today.  It is sure nice that they have so many people that are willing to translate during church.  If you've ever translated anything you'll know how much effort it takes.  I feel bad for them that they can't just enjoy church.

We also had a fireside tonight where the young men and young women were challenged to read the Book of Mormon in 4 months.  Should be a good challenge and refresher for the kids and I.

Emilee has been deaf this whole week because a cable to her computer is broken.  She does not like being deaf.  She's had some tinnitus, which is ringing in your ears.  I guess her brain is used to hearing and doesn't like the silence.  We'll be glad when the cable gets here sometime this week.

One thing that we have to look forward to is that we purchased tickets to the women's final and men's double's final of the French Open.  We've never been to a really big sporting event like that, so we're all pretty excited.  We'll drive over there Saturday morning, watch the two matches and then drive home really late that night.  Pretty crazy that we can just drive over to Paris.  We're excited to see the Tour de France and hopefully some Porsche racing at the Nurburgring.

Today after church we watched the Frontline called the United States of Secrets.  It chronicles how we got to the point where the government watches everything we do on the Internet and on cell phones.  That whole thing hit home as it is one of the primary reasons we had to move the company to Luxembourg. The rest of the world does not trust the United States Government.  So we had to cut all of our business ties to the states and create a Luxembourgish company where the privacy laws are stronger.  No European company would ever let us host their private investment data in the United States.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/

Pretty sad state of affairs.  It will be interesting to see how it all plays out over the next few years.

One fun thing, Ashton got a Venus Fly trap plant.  He loved catching bugs and feeding it to our little carnivorous plant.  He's quite famous at school for knowing everything about bugs!

Ashton's little friend Valrun is leaving back to the states.  His Dad, like many others here, works for Amazon, so they are going back to Seattle.

The Luxembourgish curse is still around.  Our poor car that was in beautiful condition when we got it is getting pretty scratched up.  It has been scraped on the front bumper, hit a parking structure pole and almost had the front bumper ripped off.  I hope our insurance is good!

The weather is really nice right now and we're really hoping we don't have a hot summer.  With no air conditioning in any of the houses it could be a long summer if it is hotter than usual!

Another reminder that we're getting older, one of my mission companions, Tim Farnes, was just called as a mission president in Brazil.  He'll do a great job, but pretty crazy that he'll take his whole family to Brazil for 3 years.

One final thing, we purchased our tickets for coming back to Luxembourg and then flying home.   We'll be home on the 4th of August until the 24th of August and then fly home again for good on the 16th of December.

Week 22 Pictures