{Summa time!}

Scoutmaster McQuay borrowed some canoes for the scouts, and we took them out as a family with some of our friends so the kiddos could enjoy the ride! They all did pretty well!

My concert performed Les Mis during the last weekend of May. It was a wonderful experience! One of my most favorite (maybe THE favorite) musicals and I got to be a part of it! So many feels.... such a great experience!

We've also been doing a ton of yard work. On the side of our front yard there is a massive line of trees. Dozens and dozens of trees all tangled together, fighting for light, and COVERED in ivy. It was messy and tacky and the ivy was taking over the lawn. So slowly but surely...we've been hacking away at it.

  

And, with the whole drought thing + ivy over taking the side of our lawn, the grass, especially on the left side of the yard is pretty pathetic looking. So, we've decided to do some landscaping.

Here's the before:

  

And the after! Do you like our path?!?! On the left side of the path we're going to finish tearing out the grass and we'll plant some nice drought-friendly flowering bushes and things and cover the rest with nice mulch. 

Slowly but surely, our little home is coming together!

The night that the scouts were supposed to be camping, we had the husband-less, father-less remains of their families over for dinner and games.

The kids had a blast! Ages from L to R: 1.5, 3.5, 2, 2, 4, 4, 5. That's a lot of little kiddies!

So, after the camping trip didn't happen, there was no way I was going to have 94,732,947 hotdogs in my fridge. So we had a bunch of people over for a weenie roast.

 

Without preschool going on, we have some more time to hit the parks!

Play hard, sleep hard.

Although Evette doesn't take gymnastics classes anymore, we stopped by for open gym! Great fun was had by all!

Evette is now in a dance class, and loves it. Although, she does want to learn ballet, specifically. Not even sure if she knows what ballet is, but, it involves a tutu and it's lovely, so she wants to do it. We'll see. 1 thing at a time - so she'll need to make some choices.

Sweet girls - crazy girls!

Check out my new sweet ride! Christmas in ...June! We're stoked. So much room! I used to hate the idea of a minivan, but then all my friends had one and I felt totally left out, and I desperately wanted to be a cool kid, too.... just kidding. Well, not kidding about all my friends having one. I saw all the room they had and fell in love. We'd been discussing getting a bigger vehicle, and so after some research and test drives, we took this sucker home on Saturday! His name is Horton. He's a 2015 Toyota Sienna. It's awesome.

 

 Sean promised his work people cinnamon rolls again before he left for his new job , so this little lady helped me and is learning the secrets of the cinnamon roll!

Squirt guns and trampolines - not much is better.

Sick baby... sad day. But, Evette and I were making stone soup, fancy that!

A little park adventuring!

Soaking up some sun!

Summer is here and it's awesome!

The wind boisterous

Fails happen. I'm a scout master (as is my father, and as was my brother for a while, so apparently it's hereditary) so I organize a fair number of outdoor activities - one of which was a repeat of a very successful/fun trip we did last year - canoeing across Tomales Bay. I attended last year's trip purely as an outside volunteer - the leaders just wanted more adults and I, reminiscing of my beloved sea kayaking trips taken as a youth, volunteered. I was quickly enlisted to the scouting program and was asked to be Scout Master 4 months later.

This year we tried to execute the same trip... But ultimately backed off. Here's a description of the trip, written by my Assistant Scout Master that evening (all names but mine replaced):

Today we had a lot of fun in Tomales Bay-- admittedly, a bit more fun than we anticipated, and not without adversity, but everyone persevered, and we got through it altogether in one piece. Last year's outing went without a hitch, and we anticipated a similar experience today. However, we could see from the dock where we began that we would have to work against the wind and current to get across the bay this time, so we made an effort to pair a stronger oarer with a weaker oarer in each canoe. Six of eight canoes set out from the dock at about 2:45pm, with everyone of course wearing life jackets, while three oarers (including Scoutmaster Sean McQuay) and two canoes remained at the dock to wait for a late arrival before they could start. 

We launched the six canoes two by two out into the bay, attempting to stick to the buddy system so that if anything unfortunate happened to one canoe, another would be nearby. It took each canoe some time to figure out how to successfully navigate the water in those conditions, which we had never before encountered in our practices, so some of the pairs were not able to stay in close proximity at the beginning. But most canoes were able to make the necessary adjustments as they forged across the bay, eventually figuring out how to maintain orientation and muscle their way forward. New groups formed spontaneously as this happened. 

It was very valuable for us today to have a good adult:youth ratio (6:10), with some of the older youth being as good as men in physical ability. In particular, we'd like to recognize the Jones, who looked after the only canoe that was unable to make any headway, and they expertly executed an on-the-water exchange of personnel-- very impressive! Brother Jones and Sammy then paddled forward to join the others, while Tim Jones and James Smith made their way back to the dock, where James' brothers were still waiting with Sean. 

At that point, we had five canoes making their way across the bay (a pair and a trio), with three canoes remaining at the dock. From Sean's vantage point on the dock, it was difficult for him to see what had become of the five, and he couldn't tell whether all had been able to regroup since by that point they were a great distance away. He wisely madethe decision not to launch the three remaining canoes, and he even contacted the park's rescue personnel to request assistance in locating those who were on the water. 

The rescue boat located the five canoes as they were approaching land on the other side of the bay. All five canoes safely oared ashore, ready to camp for the night, although two oarers were just a bit wet! Moises and Sam had actually capsized at one point. Thankfully, Spencer and Mike Johns were close by when it happened and helped pull the gear out of the water while it was still afloat. Moises and Sam righted their canoe and swam it to a nearby island, where they got back in their canoe and completed the journey. They really handled everything like champions. At the same time, we feel blessed that the circumstances worked out in our favor, recognizing that it could have been dangerous if they had remained in the water for a longer period of time. 

At that point we were in two groups, both safely ashore on opposite sides of the bay. The rescue boat was in radio contact with the dockside, allowing us to decide what to do.The rescue personnel offered to bring the five canoes, gear, and crew back to the dock, rather than face uncertain conditions on Saturday, and we decided to follow their recommendation. The rescue boat first brought back most of the oarers (including all of the boys), then made a second trip with two remaining leaders, the gear, and the canoes. 

So that was more adventure than we planned for, but we want to congratulate and thank everyone for persevering through adversity, helping those in need, and making it home safely. 

I'm joining NerdWallet!

Big news!

Today is my last day with Visa and I’ll be joining NerdWallet this coming Monday.

NerdWallet is based in downtown SF (at Market and 5^th) so we’re not moving. Phew! They’re a financial adviser start-up aiming to help consumers make sense of the complicated (and increasingly more complicated) range of financial decisions we all have to work through – from credit card choices to auto loans to mortgages to investments and everything in between.

An official description:

NerdWallet provides transparent personal finance advice for consumers. Our data-driven tools offer clear information that help people make smarter decisions about their personal finances, travel plans, health care costs, retirement savings, and higher education expenses.We're the nerdy friend you can count on and trust, no matter your money question. We create user-friendly tools, crunch numbers and give you all the results, unfiltered. Across banking, credit cards, education, health care, insurance, investments, mortgages, shopping and travel, we offer data-driven tools and impartial information to help you make solid decisions about the money you work hard to earn. In short, we do the homework so you don't have to.

It has just over 200 employees, has been operating for a few years, and has been profitable ("boot strapped"). They just completed their first round of funding earlier this year for $64M.

I'll be joining their Credit Cards team where I'll be doing content/product strategy - improving NW's credit cards products (card comparison tool and informational content) by driving/publishing consumer-focused research on credit card-related trends and optimizing the content for demographics, use cases, etc (testing new article formats, exploring new content presentation methods like video, interactive modules, etc.). For a good example of what NerdWallet does, here's its credit card comparison tool.

It'll be a big change from what I've been doing at Visa but I'm really excited. Visa's been a great place for me - building great relationships, expanding on my skill sets, and building up my confidence. I've loved my team at Visa - to the point that I referenced my team many times throughout the NW interview process because I'm so not looking forward to leaving them. I've built some deep and awesome friendships at Visa.

So why the change? Lots of little reasons... 

• I'm excited by the prospect of directly impacting a business and product. I've wanted to get closer to product since soon after joining Visa - I want to be able to impact something directly, especially in the consumer-facing world. Visa is doing a lot of great things for financial inclusion and such, but most of its solutions are sold into banks which hold the direct consumer relationships. 
• That said, I did find a niche within Visa that would have been a great fit (mobile payments) but wouldn't be able to pursue an opportunity there for 6-12+ months for tenure reasons
• I believe in and am excited by NerdWallet's mission - to simplify consumers' financial decisions and lives - among other things, to be the Financial Adviser for the 99% who can't afford traditional advisers
• To this point, there have been a few articles recently highlighting the shifting landscape in consumers' relationships with banks. NerdWallet is poised to win in that disruption. The shattering financial services landscape (start-ups which are tearing bank's businesses apart). The Unbundling of Finance - as consumers use financial products from an increasingly large number of banks, they'll need a tool to keep track of it all. And how banks relationship with consumers is falling apart.
• Literally no financial risk to do so - NerdWallet has improved us from both a cash and equity perspective. During the interview process, I just wanted to ensure that they "made me whole" on cash as we literally could not afford to live in the Bay Area on a lower salary than what I'm making at Visa - so the fact that they exceeded that base was cream on the cake
• I'm excited to be in an "evangelist" role - I won't be selling but I will be able to stand on soap boxes to help others
• They're fun
• Free meals
• I was able to negotiate my base salary offer up a bit even though I told them I was 100% satisfied with the original offer. After the offer exceeded my expectations I did some reading on NerdWallet about the importance of always negotiating - that offers can always be better. I told my recruiter that I was happy with the offer but I just had to ask, in order to be a good "Nerd" - she laughed and was able to bump up the base
• My interview process involved a lot of "nerding out" moments where we explored random topics for the fun of it. That's me. Case in point, my interview with the COO mostly consisted of a discussion of my undergrad capstone paper: US & Japanese economic relations leading up to Pearl Harbor. Great discussion
• This isn't really important but it is - they have a very cool office
• I'm in SF so why not try the start-up thing? "When in Rome"

I wasn't actively looking for a new role - a friend from Visa, who left for NerdWallet last summer, contacted me in April and asked if I'd be interested in learning about a role on his team. I shrugged and said sure so visited the office for an informational chat. I was impressed by the office and people but didn't "catch the vision" - I didn't see where NerdWallet could win in the future nor did I get a clear picture of what kind of career path the role would put me on. I even got to the point where I wrote an email to the recruiter and my friend basically saying "thanks but no thanks" - but couldn't get myself to hit send. I decided I might as well give them the chance to respond to my doubts so scrubbed the email and requested another chat. That next visit was great, they set me up with several additional people at NerdWallet who were able to resolve my concerns - so I decided to pursue interviews. The interview conversations really sold me on the company.

Heidi and I are very excited for this new opportunity!

{Rest of Utah and drive home}

 While we were in Utah we got to meet up with some good friends from Dallas! The Martineau's were in Utah the same week we were looking for a house! Such great timing! We met at a chickfila for old time's sake and the kids had a blast.

So good to see these guys again! 

We also got to spend some more time with G&G Binns

 Cousin Sam is teaching Evette how to play Minecraft lol

Playing on the big trampoline

We let Tinkerbell stay up super late in hopes that she'd sleep more in the car on the drive home.

No such luck. It was a hard drive home. We did pretty well...

And stopped to take breaks and eat ice cream....

But having to share is terrible, apparently.

But we survived. The last hour of the 12 hour drive was filled with pterodactyl screeches from the small one and "GET ME OUTTA HERE!" screams and tearing at the car seat buckles from the big one.

But we survived.

So grateful to be able to travel to Utah and spend time with family.

{Luncheon and Reception}

After the temple sealing and pictures the immediate family got together for a luncheon.

The fathers gave a toast/speech 

As well as the maid of honor/sister, Rachel

They are so cute:

Even the groom had a few beautiful words to share. They are such a lovely couple.

The food was delicious:

Then we had a couple hours break to go home and rest. Miriam and I napped, but Sean and Evette did not. After our rest we headed out to the reception area.

It was going to be outside with a jazz band under the gazebo and lights strung up everywhere and it was beautiful.

Then the strong winds and some rain sprinklings came so we quickly packed up everything and moved it to the inside venue nearby. Everyone was so helpful and we got things set up real quick. We were a little tight on space and it was a little warm, but it was a lovely reception!  

Playing with cousin Wil!

People in line for crepes :)

 Dan and I watching the cute couple cute the cake:

My Aunt Janice made the cake - isn't it stunning!? She made our cake, too, when we got married. We were so busy during our reception that we only got the traditional "bite" of cake after cutting it - which was a shame cause it was so dang good. SO I took it upon myself to eat a good portion of this cake - which was a very good idea :)

The wedding party greeting guests: 

This is the lovely photographer, Brook Schultz,

My mom was able to see all of her siblings and parents in one spot! So fun to see so much of that side of the family!

The jazz band was great and everyone had a great time dancing:

The couple's first dance:

Evette loves to dance and had a great time jumping around with cousin Gage

Twirls with Momma

It was a long, beautiful day! The girls were so well-behaved all day long. They had such a fun time and were so tired by the end of the day.