Holiday Work Parties

I've got to say since moving to Utah, we have had some of the best work parties we've ever been to. We'll start with my job. We had two parties. The first was a casual day time party on campus. I got to help with the final preparations which was fun. We made a couple of trips to Costco and helped decorate for a Grinch themed celebration. We had Grinch Kebabs and a white elephant gift exchange, it was fun!

Later that week we had a more formal party to which we could invite significant others. It was held in the Hinkley Ballroom in the Alumni Center which was decorated beautifully. There was a live jazz band, great food, and a fun game of Christmas movie trivia at the end. It was fun to introduce Jeff to my coworkers and to have a nice evening out together.

Jeff's work party was a whole different ballpark. Everyone in his office got a formal invitation sent to their desk saying the event would be a black tie affair at the Grand America hotel in Salt Lake. DOMO even paid for employees to rent tuxes or get dresses if they wanted. Jeff was smart and had one of his own suits altered to fit like a glove. I have to say, it was fun dressing up and going out for a fancy night in the city. The pictures do a sufficient job of explaining how extravagant the event was.

It was red carpet style when we walked in (only white carpet), with photographers waiting to take our picture before we were seated in the ballroom. There are apparently a lot of DOMO employees, because this place was packed, and there were a lot of tables! 

One of Jeff's coworkers had reserved two tables for the finance department, so we were able to sit by the people Jeff was familiar with and meet their spouses. We had a three course meal, followed by a presentation of the companies successes in 2015 given by the CEO. Then there was an awards ceremony where employees from each of the departments was recognized and given large sums of money (it was kind of unreal), and the night ended with the employee made music video awards, because apparently that's a thing. The music videos were really impressive as far as the quality and the amount of costumes that went into them. We didn't get home until 1:30am, but it was the most entertaining and enjoyable party we've attended for Jeff's job. Well done, DOMO, you figured out how to make corporate parties not boring and awkward. Here's to the holiday season!

Thanksgiving 2015 and Settling In

We moved to Utah just in time for the holidays and it was our turn to visit Jeff's family for Christmas, We hadn't been planning to see family at all in the 2015 holiday season, in fact, some of my family was in Hawaii for Thanksgiving, and we had done family reunions with both of our families this past summer in anticipation of just doing Thanksgiving and Christmas on our own in Boston. But of course with our move out west it made it a no brainer to visit with loved ones. Half of my side of the family was enjoying the hawaiian breezes of Kuai over thanksgiving, so Jeff and I made a quick weekend trip up to Idaho Falls for Thanksgiving. Steffany, Joe, and their kids were visiting from Seattle, so it made for an extra fun time. And of course the Orgills live close enough that they can swing by Jeff's parents house any time. There's always shenanigans with our nieces and nephews.

Left to right: Jack, Kaia, Tabria, Sam, Davis

How many push-ups can one Jeff do with a Maggie on his back?

Tabria, and Davis, such cuties : )

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious and we had a fun time going out on Black Friday to witness some of the madness. I think Idaho Falls is busier on this day than a lot of other places. There were people everywhere! We also went to the Idaho Falls Christmas parade and stood in the cold long enough to see Santa ride by before running back to the warm car. 

Nick with bundled up Alicia, and Davis & Mindy. Waiting for Santa.

After Thanksgiving, we headed back to Utah for a few weeks, and started our new jobs. Surprisingly I am loving having a desk job. It's kind of nice working with adults and having my own desk, and being able to take my hour long lunch whenever I want. I certainly miss my old job at times and the kids I worked with, but I am excited for this new position and the opportunities for growth it is providing me. One bonus is that I can take classes from BYU for free! I have my eye on a few courses that I'd love to start in the spring : )

My desk!

Beautiful views from campus

One of my office storage units just happens to be in the football stadium. So that's fun to visit.

Jeff had a fun start at DOMO. We both started just in time to go to all of the holiday work parties. First off, DOMO rented out a bunch of theaters at Thanksgiving Point for the employees to see the new Star Wars movie. Jeff was able to invite guests, so our friend Steven was able to join us! It was a pretty fun morning. Our show time was 8am the morning of the movie release. 

DOMO provided everyone with some tasty breakfast treats to enjoy during the movie. Each seat had a nice  box of goodies waiting for us : )

We didn't have high expectations for the movie, seeing as there was so much hype around it. But we came out of it thinking it was one of the best Star Wars films yet. Lots of fun!

It's been a great start for both of us, and we are excited to have these new jobs! More on our Christmas work parties to come!

Welcome to Utah

It's been a long time since I posted a blog entry, but I'm making a new year's resolution to be better about it in 2016. Instagram makes it easy to capture moments in one photo, but I like having these blog posts to look back on as more descriptive accounts of what's going on in our lives.

So, with promises to include posts that cover some of what I missed from September 2015-December 2015, and without further ado, here's the "last" entry of 2015.

We moved! August through October were a roller coaster of emotions for us as Jeff had been applying for new jobs and we had been getting our minds set on one course of action, only to have an interview to fall through, and things change at the last minute. Once you start applying other jobs, you start to hope that you won't be at your current job much longer, and it's kind of a let down when the thing you were getting excited about doesn't pan out. Anyway Jeff had decided that public accounting, and more specifically, auditing wasn't what he wanted to do for the rest of his life sometime back in 2014. He was ready for a new opportunity. And while I enjoyed the work I got to do at my job, the 2 (and often 3+ hour in the winter) commute was killing me. I just could not come to terms with the fact that Boston's public transportation system would never run on time. I found myself thinking while stewing on a crowded subway car that had been stalled on the tracks for minutes that felt like years, "WHY ARE WE STOPPING?!!, There's no traffic, WE'RE ON A TRACK!!!" I also found that road rage is a real thing, when you're stuck on the highway at all times of day. Big cities don't have rush hour, they just have traffic, and lots of traffic.

Anyway, all of this is just to say that we were open to new opportunities. Jeff found such an opportunity at a company called Mimecast that was located in Watertown, MA. The interviews went well and he had the inside scoop from a recruiter that was working for Mimecast. If he got the job we had big plans to move closer to Watertown which was a town over from Newton where I worked. It would also mean a (hopefully) warmer apartment for the upcoming winter. We couldn't bear to stay in our icebox for one more East Coast winter; we were still thawing out from the previous winter.

Jeff had a presentation to give for his last interview with Mimecast and he had a friend that knew a lot about forecasting help him create a sharp one. The weekend before his last interview, Jeff also had to go to Utah for a KPMG recruiting event at Brigham Young University. It was a football tailgate event  and we made arrangements so that I could go with him and we could have a fun weekend at our alma mater. A few days before the trip to Utah, Jeff got in touch with a friend who worked at a company in Utah that is growing like crazy. The company was called
 DOMO and Jeff's friend put him in touch with the Hiring Manager for the finance department at this company. Before we knew it Jeff had an interview with DOMO and it was scheduled for the morning he arrived in Utah for his current company's recruiting event.

The weekend of the KPMG recruiting event arrived. We flew into Utah on time and got our rental car with no delay. I dropped Jeff off at the location of his interview and went off to do some shopping. I remember thinking, "it's great Jeff got an interview with DOMO, a lot of people want to work there, but it's superfluous since he's likely going to get an offer from Mimecast any day now and we are all set to stay in Boston. WELL the DOMO interview lasted 2 1/2 hours, Jeff met with everyone in the finance department, and they even invited him to stay for lunch. When he got back to the car he had a big smile on his face and the first thing he said was, "it would be really cool to work at DOMO".

Below are some photos from our weekend in Utah:

Tailgate party reppin' KPMG

Drove up Provo Canyon to Park City, love those mountains!

Co Cougars! And hello, delicious cougar tail

After that things moved quickly. We went back to Boston where Jeff gave his presentation which was well received, and the people at Mimecast promised to get back to him within a week. That Monday Jeff got a call from the HR guy at DOMO who told him they were impressed with him and thought he would be a great fit on their finance team. That got us excited and we started thinking again that there was a viable option for moving out west. Then on Wednesday he had a phone interview with the CFO of DOMO. That same day my mom and sister, Melissa, flew into Boston for a week of fall activities with us! We had planned this trip months in advance and I was super excited for them to see Boston in the fall! They got to be there for all the excitement of the trip plus witness Jeff's interview process for this job that took us by surprise. We all were out for dinner at an Indian restaurant in Cambridge when Jeff got a call from the HR guy at DOMO. He went into the back of the restaurant while my mom, melissa and I held our breath. When he came back to the table Jeff sat down calmly, without any expression and then smiled and said, I got an offer. We hooped and hollered and got even more excited as he explained what a compelling offer it was. I could go into more detail but this post is getting long enough. Long story short, we accepted the offer, put in our two weeks notice, did some last hurrah type of activities in Boston, and moved to Utah three weeks later.

Now we are settling in and living in Pleasant Grove, UT. We are an 8 minute walk from Jeff's office where he is loving his job and learning lots. His current project is to help the company determine whether their elaborate recruiting tactics are profitable. He gets home around 5:30 and gets to wear jeans and Vans to work every day which he loves most of all. As for me, I got a job working as the administrative assistant to the head registrar at BYU! We think we are meant to be in Utah at this point in our life because things worked out so smoothly for us to transition here. I literally got my job offer as we were driving across the country. So we both went right into new jobs and started this new phase of life as soon as we arrived.

Some photos of our new place!

View from our porch

We are enjoying the warmth of our nice new apartment, and had fun picking out some new furniture, as we sold most of our stuff before we left Boston. It's been fun connecting with old friends out here and we are excited about living near the mountains again. There are so many cool recreational activities we can do out here! We certainly miss the dear friends we made in Boston, but we will never forget them and plan to make plenty of trips to the east coast in the future. It's also really great being a bit closer to both of our families. We spent time with some of them over the holidays and look forward to seeing all of them more often.

I think that's all I will write for now. 2015 has been a good year for us and we are excited for the new year!

 Goodbye Boston, hello Utah.