Farewell, Pike's Place

I am going to miss being able to walk down the block and get my fresh produce from the farmers market. The people at the corner stand know us and always give the kids cherries or pieces of peach, pineapple, mango, melon or whatever else they are sampling that day. I'm also going to miss the beautiful flower arrangements that are displayed by the flower vendors too. We have enjoyed three beautiful bouquets this summer and so yesterday the kids and I decided to get one more bouquet before we leave. This is the one we decided on.

As I type this I can hear and see the Blue Angels practicing their formations in the sky. It's amazing how they can spiral around and fly so close to one another. We're going to try and go watch their show on Saturday. I'm very excited for that!

Ahoy!

The navy has been in town the past couple of days. It's been fun to walk around downtown running our errands and notice them in their bright white uniforms. The kids kept asking me about them when we'd see them. Then yesterday afternoon after we returned from our trip up north to the outlet mall, we looked out the window and saw a battleship cruising by, quite close to the waterfront. On the different levels were standing the white uniformed sailors lining the entire ship. Then unexpectedly, they started firing the cannon (I assume it was a cannon, and I'm sure they were blanks). It was SO loud and a bunch of white smoke came out. They fired it towards us about 15 times! That definitely kept Katelyn from falling asleep for her nap for a while. Brandon doesn't like fireworks up close because they're so loud. So he jumped and covered his ears. I had to explain to him that these people were citizens of the US and not a foreign country starting an invasion. Following the first ship were about 5 other battleships, all lined with the white uniformed sailors and being escorted by the Coast Guard ships. It was quite the show! It's amazing how many neat things we have seen from the comfort of our living room this summer. I got a few pictures:

This picture also features the 70 foot sailboat we got to ride on a few weekends ago.

You never know what you're going to see out there!

The salmon are running! The salmon are running!

We enjoyed an outing out to the Ballard Locks tonight because it's salmon season! They have a neat fish ladder that helps the salmon migrate from the ocean water up to the lake water on the other side of the locks and dam. We were not expecting salmon from the ocean to be so big!

There are 21 steps to the ladder and the fish have to jump up about a foot to reach each level. It was pretty neat to see!

On the way back over the locks we saw a great big boat going through. We stopped to watch for a little while. It was a very "Seattle" experience!

Brandon wanted to jump onto that barge and play in all that sand!


Hey cuties!


Can I just say that I love how many different varieties of blue flowers there are here?

One Week to Go!

I can't believe how quickly this summer has flown by. We're down to our final week and it's going to be a busy one. I'm so pleased that Justin's presentation went so well and that he is stress free now. We will definitely enjoy our last week here.

This last weekend we enjoyed connecting with several people from the MBA program. We hosted a BYU MBA social at a nice park with 4 current interns, 4 incoming students and 1 alumni with their families. It was really nice to get together since we're all here. And I was so busy chasing kids around that I didn't get around to taking any pictures! I'm excited for the upcoming school year to start. It will be busy, but we'll be involved in some fun things too.

For the start of our final week in Seattle, we are doing lots of laundry! But the kids happily entertained themselves with yet another way of reading books on the couch. They're so funny!

These fold away cubes were something we bought from Amazon with our new discount at the beginning of the summer to help the kids since we didn't bring many toys and we can't really go play outside. Plus, they fold right up and don't take much space. They are meant to go on the ground in train formation to crawl through (which Katelyn just loves) but they've been in many other formations this summer. Here is a small sampling:

Who says there's only one way to set these up?

Meanwhile Katelyn was doing two of her favorite things.....
playing with Lindsey's dishes,


and pulling our her hair elastic.


It is so hard to keep her hair looking decent these days. She loves to pull out whatever I put in her hair to keep it out of her eyes. Hopefully she'll grow out of this phase soon!

A “4-pager” success

Jenn told me that I had to write this post since this is supposed to be “our” blog. So here goes:

On Friday I gave my final presentation at Amazon and it went really well. Amazon has a very unique structure for their presentations as they do not use PowerPoint. Instead, Amazon values well-written, thorough write-ups to present information. My VP, director, senior manager, manager, team members, and the VP of Books were all in attendance. The presentation started off with me passing out my “4-pager” and everybody spending 15 minutes reading through it, analyzing my data, and accessing my recommendations. That was a long 15 minutes.

I have spent all summer analyzing data and trying to set the direction for the redesign of the product pages that will happen over the next couple of years. One of my biggest challenges is that much of the data that I needed to make decisions was either missing or incomplete. In addition, my managers already had their own ideas as to the direction we should take, but based on my analysis I felt we should be going another direction. So you can imagine the stress I faced leading up to this presentation. It was something to watch people read the executive summary (4-pager) marking it up and making notes in the margin. I tried to watch what they were marking so that I could prepare my response to their questions.

After the 15-minute reading, I asked if anybody had any questions. My VP started by asking a few questions and had me go a little deeper into my analysis of the first section. Luckily, I was very prepared for this and was able to demonstrate my deep understanding of this area. They could see that I had done my homework and didn’t question that section any further. Then my director said, “I would like to challenge you on one of your points. You state [x,y, and z] and that is just wrong.” Luckily I was able to elaborate further and help her understand how I came to those numbers.

Finally, the VP of Books spoke and said, “I really like your framework here. I think it is the right approach and is the direction we need to be going.” His opinion is very respected as he has been at Amazon a long time and done some great things for the company. This started a very positive discussion of the paper and the possibilities that the recommendations present.

When I got back to my area after my presentation my manager congratulated me and said that the presentation went better than his intern presentation did and better than any presentation he has seen. He and my senior manager had both been nervous about how my presentation would go since I had gone out on a limb with my recommendations. Luckily, it paid off!

So hopefully this all means that I will get a job offer. I definitely want to look at my other options, but Amazon really is an incredible company and I hope to have the option of coming back.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

On Tuesday, Amazon treated the interns to a baseball game over at Safeco Field.

It was Mariners vs. Red Sox. I was excited that we got an extra ticket for me and I was able to find a babysitter at the last minute. We had a great view from our seats.

How do they mow the grass like that? There were definitely a lot of die-hard fans there. We had a good time explaining the game of baseball to an intern named Boaz from Israel. He found the game to be very interesting.

I especially enjoyed the evening with Justin because he has been working so hard on his final presentation and spending most of his time at home on it. (It'll all be over today about 4:00!)

The weather was perfect for watching the game and we really enjoyed the evening. We even got to give one of the players a high five! :)

Thanks Amazon for another fun activity!

Katelyn's Videos

Our regular video camera has been out of commission for just about the whole summer, which has been kind of disappointing. The kids are learning so many new things that we wish we could capture. I am grateful however that our digital camera has video on it. It's not very good and there is no sound, but at least it is something! Here are a few videos of Katelyn and what she has been doing lately.

She has the cutest little dance when she hears music.


This video shows her sitting in "her chair" holding the Elmo piano, which plays music and is one of her favorite toys. Towards the end of the video she starts to say "Uh-oh" several times and then drops it on the ground, which of course is one of those classic games she has discovered.

Next up: Katelyn walking! She has really started to get the hang of it today. We have now entered a new realm of curiosity and independence!

And finally, the kids just love to make Katelyn laugh. She thought they were just hilarious tonight.

Sunday Wiggles

No, this post is not about wiggles during church, although we have definitely had our fair share of those today (mostly on Katelyn's part). After we got the kids into their PJ's we had some time to burn and the kids had lots of energy to burn. So what did they find to do? They started running around the table in circles. This first picture is kind of funny because there is a stark contrast between the energy of Brandon, and Katelyn and I on the floor ready to call it a day.

We counted how many laps Brandon did. Any guesses?

He lapped it 150 times. And that's when we told him he had to stop so we could do our family scripture study. Lindsey did probably 50 or so. I sure wish I had their energy!

A day in the life....

WARNING: I was feeling creative tonight, so watch out!

~

When you're a kid, life is so grand,

there's so much to do and so little planned.

Sometimes we do the funniest things,

like pretend to be superheroes or dragons with wings.

Sometimes we pretend to be a mommy and a daddy,

and call each other "Justin" and "Jennifer" or even "Honey."

.

Sometimes we like to eat our apples outside,

with our blankets and teddy bears, to watch cars and boats ride.

Then there's nothing better than reading some stories

with our blankets, some toys and our new shoes please.

Katelyn has discovered the joys of reading lately,

and loves to look and point at pictures as you can see.

She also loves to climb up on the chair

when the cushion is down and acts like a stair.

Then there are the days that we make paper airplanes fly

when they're 5 pages long, let's give it a try!

And when it's time for us to get some sleep,
it's so nice to curl up and start counting sheep.

But at the end of the day, it's so nice to be

having fun all day long with our family!

What a Sunflower!

This afternoon while I was taking a nap (because we had a late night, then Katelyn started waking up at 4:00 am) Justin and the kids went over to Pike's Place Market to pick up a bouquet of flowers for me. What a sweet surprise! And what a huge sunflower!

Justin said that when they saw it he said, "whoa!" and the kids said "we want that one for mommy!" So it was unanimous. It's a very happy boquet. I just love it!