Happy New Year!

Well, there is no time like January to decide to try again. I'm going to try to blog again. I miss it. And I have a bit better set-up now, with easier access to photos. So maybe I'll even post pictures.

What we've been up to lately: school year stuff mostly. Right now we are into science fair projects and Pinewood Derby cars. We are also very much in the middle of a basement remodel. Can't wait for the finished result there! It's going to be so fun to finally have a whole complete house to use! Our house has been a "project" for way too long! Of course, that is an ongoing thing, but it will sure be nice to have the big stuff done. Here are a couple pictures of what it has looked like, and what we hope for it to look like soon:

Lanny has built a 3-D computer model of the new "theater room" in order for us to play with design ideas. We do not make quick decisions ever, and usually have to change our minds a few times before settling on a plan, but we usually end up with a good result after we finish thinking forever. Hope the same happens in this case!

A couple weeks ago Lanny got the news that his company wants him to be quicker at his work, and so he has to go train for three months in North Carolina at Epic Games. Epic is the corporation that owns Chair, the company Lanny works for in Provo. It came as quite a shock to us, because this was right on the heels of several Game of the Year awards for "Shadow Complex," the game they finished last summer, for which Lanny did all the visual and sound effects. Two others that he worked with were let go, though, so we got the better end of that deal at least.

He left this morning, and will start work tomorrow there. It will be a good experience for him to work with Epic. He has never really had any formal training on the software he uses; he has just always had to figure things out and teach himself. He does an amazing job of learning by doing, and it is because of the quality of his work, and the fact that his boss fought hard to keep him, that corporate decided to hang on to him with the stipulation that he spend three months with them doing "efficiency training."

We are going to miss him like crazy. And he is going to miss us too, I'm sure. But we are hoping that in the end this will be a good experience and we'll all be better and stronger for it. He will come home for one weekend per month until he finishes sometime near the end of April. It seems like forever right now, but I'm sure it will go by and then we'll all be back together again. We are all looking forward to that day.