More July 2016

The rest of July was kind of a whirlwind.  After 16 years at Motorola/Freescale/NXP, our company decided to go in a different direction so our division was pretty much cut. It was kind of a surprise and was definitely a sad time. I'd really enjoyed working with the same basic group of people for those 16 years and would miss all of them the most. It was a tough decision of what to do... stay home, go back to work full-time... I was kind of torn. 

Fortunately, having worked with so many great people over the years, I had a lot of contacts. A few of my friends at the Samsung Austin Research Center (SARC) encouraged me to look there as they have quite a few contractors. After talking with some people and interviewing, I found a contracting job there that would continue to allow me to work about 32 hours a week and be flexible! It was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. I also kind of switched jobs and went from a design oriented job to a performance validation job. I started just after Labor Day and have really enjoyed it so far.

Now, back to other news from July!

Evan did a soccer camp with his best buds.

I went on our annual ladies beach trip to Galveston!

We took the kids on a Duck Tour of Austin! Actually fun and interesting, even for me who has lived here for 16 years!

And then Mel and I flew to Chicago to surprise Nikki for her 40th Birthday! We had a wonderful weekend. Andrew really outdid himself with setting up all sorts of fun things for us.

We got pedicures and took the train downtown.

We went on an Architectural Boat tour of the city. Awesome!

We ate dinner at a swanky restaurant called RPM.

And we checked out a bar overlooking the river.

It was so great to relax and catch up. Bryce was also a great husband for watching the kids TWO weekends in a row so I could go enjoy myself. How lucky am I?? And that was the end of July!