Spotlight!

I would like to introduce you all to my husband, Tim. He is a very talented man, and he's had a couple new pieces of news recently.

Communication Arts is a well-respected monthly art magazine. Besides their regular issues they also publish Art Annuals which display the best photography, illustration, interactive, advertising, and design for the past year. Tim's work made the cover of the 50th Design Annual. The cover is pictured below and he designed a major portion of the film strip along the top.

These were created for the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) which I described a little in an earlier post.

The index of the magazine has Tim's name printed as a contributor.

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Also, when we were in Arizona we stopped in Scottsdale where the new Microsoft store just opened about a month ago. The Microsoft store is very similar to the Apple store, but obviously sells Microsoft products. The store has video walls spanning its entire length and the video was created by Digital Kitchen, where Tim was employed. This was a huge project they worked on for months. It is kind of ground breaking technology and in the process of developing it they created the largest render farm in the nation. It was really cool to finally see all of his work in action.

The picture shows the Holiday theme, but there were several other themes that transitioned into each other, including; the Grand Canyon where you could watch the sun come up, a tropical scene with a family playing in the water and taking photos of each other, a space scene, and others. Microsoft had an entire mock store near Seattle built to scale that they used solely to get these walls working properly. They poured a ton of money into this project, but you've got to admit, it is pretty impressive. I think the walls attract more customers than the products, so it was probably a smart move on Microsoft's part.

Road Trip!

Road Trip time! After celebrations and goodbyes with many friends, neighbors, and coworkers that will be very much missed, time came to start our trek. We were fortunate enough to be able to take some time off before starting work, so we decided to squeeze as much as we could out of this vacation.

1st stop: Home! Sounds like a final destination. We were able to spend an incredible 2 weeks with my family. This time was jam-packed with early morning wake up calls from the nephews, games, the "cuddle-slam," making an Acquire board, gun-shopping, eating delicious treats, birthday parties, fighting during Bohnanza "Beans" game, movies, date night, stake conference and Dad's release from Stake Presidency, early Christmas, DDR party, making gingerbread houses, touring the potato warehouse, visiting friends and family, family, family. Every other time we've gone home the trip has felt so rushed, so it was nice to be able to take some time to just enjoy being around the family-plus I think my family got to know Tim a little bit better...and I think the nieces and nephews like him more than me :)

2nd stop: Randall and Sarah came up from Orem, UT and spent the weekend at home with them, so on our way out we followed them to their home and spent the night with them. We were able to play "Don't eat Pete!" which I think we enjoyed more than either of the kids- when we shouted Don't eat Pete! at Landon his eyes flew wide open and he threw the fruit loop he was holding in his hand and looked around for an explanation. Amber and Landon are hilarious and it was fun to have a little more time with Rand and Sarah.

We made another stop in Salina, UT to see my childhood friend Melissa Thornton-now Maxwell for lunch. I have not seen Melissa since I think 3rd grade. I lost contact with her but she recently found me on Facebook. I was so excited that it would work to meet with her so she came and had ate with Tim and I on our lunchbreak. She's adorable, just like I remember and it was pretty crazy to talk to her and catch up a bit.

3rd stop: We took a break from the road and spent two days in Las Vegas, NV to celebrate our FIRST ANNIVERSARY! We're not sure how big of fans we are of the city in general, but it was fun to see for that amount of time. We went to "The Price is Right" and "V" which is a variety show with lots of different talents. One of our favorites was a guy who juggled (also impressive) but he had a custom-made piano, and he would drop up to 7 balls on the keys and play songs like Canon in D and show tunes. Amazing! That's what I want for Christmas! Time has flown and I can't believe it's already been a year with my man...but what an incredible year its been!

4th stop: Mesa, AZ. There are several members of my family that Tim has not had a chance to meet yet, so we drove through Mesa so he could meet some Aunts and Uncles on my Mom's side- Lynn and Blynn, and Kim and Theron and their families. We went to dinner with everyone where Keilan is waiting tables so he served us our meal then spent the night at Lynn and Blynn's. Blynn asked us if we wanted to take some fruit with us so she went out and came back about 15 minutes later with a gigantic box of tangelos, lemons, and pomegranets they had on their fruit trees- we're still trying to finish them off.

5th stop: We spent a somewhat uneventful night at a hotel in El Paso to break up our drive. Uneventful, that is, except for a scorching hot tub, stomach pain after Village Inn food, and getting stopped by border patrol (Tim's been told he looks a little 'ethnic'). Kirschner Caverns was also a cool stop.

6th stop: San Angelo, TX to see my roommate of more than 3 years; Crystal Marie Mecham Tubbs. They moved to Texas a few months ago so we played games and had dinner with her and Matt. I'm kind of fond of her :)

7th stop: Last, but definately not least is the house of my sister, Lisa and her husband Ben and their now 4 kids. They showed us a good time by feeding us at their restaurant Teka Molina, taking us to play bumper cars and this crazy trampoline where you jump on the trampoline but you're attached to poles with bungee cords so you can jump about 15 feet in the air and do flips etc. I think Cole was the champion of that one- the rest of us didn't like the digging sensation the harness gives your legs. They also gave us root beer floats, took us to church where Ben played a Cello solo in sacrament meeting, then went to their crazy work party.

So here's our stats:
We traveled just under 3,200 miles in total.
We left snow, passed through red rock, ended up in grass and sunshine.
It was 9 degrees when we left Idaho, 65 when we got to Texas.
Most expensive gas we saw was $2.96 in St George, UT, cheapest $2.27 here in Plano, TX.
Our average drive was only 6 hours (max 12, min 4).

All in all it was a fantastic trip. I think if our marraige survived one entire year and 3,200 miles in a car together we can survive just about anything. Thanks to everyone we stayed with and were able to see. You made it an incredible trip and you were very hospitable and kind. I wish we could have seen more people along the way- especially in Idaho. Merry Christmas all.

Side note- it is snowing! White Christmas even here in Texas!