This year all three of my girls, Claire, Katelyn and Ellie sang in the Highland Children’s Choir. I absolutely love going to their concerts and listening to them sing the beautiful songs. Perhaps it is because I never really could sing or perhaps I just have a new-found appreciation for choir, but whatever it may be, I love it. They all did well. Katelyn and Claire had a solo part and sang so beautifully. This was Ellie’s first season and I was super impressed at how well she did. Her only disappointment was that she couldn’t sing longer on the stage. Well done girlies!
Katelyn and ClaireSolo timeEllie singing!Ellie and her bestie GwenKatelyn & Claire in their choir.
Both Jacob and Megan have spent a lot of time this spring calling soccer games. Jacob did it last year and found out that it was a pretty sweet job. Megan joined him this year and together they make a pretty good team.
It began back in February with training. Both Jacob and Megan had to attend a couple workshops, view some online training materials, and pass a test. Jacob is at the age where he can be the center referee, while Megan’s first year will be as an assistant referee (AR).
The center referee is the one out on the pitch with the players, in the middle of all the action. The AR patrols a sideline of one half of the pitch. The AR’s main job is to call out-of-bounds and watch for offside violations.
It’s a great job for teenagers, and they have a pretty flexible system which allows the kids to set their availability and location preferences, and then commit to the work. A coordinator assigns the referees for the match, and Jacob and Megan were able to pair up for a lot of them too, which saves on the driving back and forth.
Some assignments get paid cash-in-hand straight from the coaches. Others are paid through direct deposit. But, either way, the referees make pretty good money. As center, Jacob earned about $20-30 per game. An AR assignment pays usually about half of that. But, that’s not bad considering the games are less than an hour long.
But, it’s not all roses. Parents yell at the refs, a lot. Megan and Jacob both had games where they made bad calls and got yelled at. Some coaches are intimidating and angry.
One night last week Manina and I drove to pick up Jacob from a game. We were a little early and when we arrived it looked some parents and coaches were yelling at Jake. Manina went into “momma-bear-mode” and was about to go ballistic on some parents. But after assessing the situation, it looked like Jacob had things under control. When he blew the whistle three times to signal the end of the game a parent took a few steps toward Jacob. Then he extended his hand, shook Jacob’s hand and told him that he did a fantastic job and that Jacob had called a great game.
The spring season is about over, but both Jacob and Megan will be back out on the pitch in the fall. It’s good work if you can get it.
Soccer season in the Johnson household is nothing short of craziness. Drew plays, Ellie plays, Megan plays club soccer (which is ten times busier than rec soccer) and both Meg and Jake ref soccer. So needless to say our spring and fall seasons are really busy.
This year Megan swung up to play on the older girls U14 Surf team for part of the season in addition to playing on her U13 team. She got to play quite a bit and did a great job. They ended up taking first place in the tournament at the end of the season. It was such a great experience for Megan.
Catherine, Brylee, and Megan (the three girls who swung up this season)
This was my first week as an employee of Ancestry.com and it has been a week of adjustments. Everything is new to me at Ancestry. Here is a quick list of some of the things I had to adapt to during my first week:
Being totally clueless
After almost ten years at Morinda, I had a very good idea of how things worked and who the key people were—I was very comfortable. I’m still in the I-have-no-idea-what-I-am-doing-here mode at Ancestry. I hear acronyms tossed around in a meeting and I have no clue what it means. I heard IRL a couple times on my first few days and I couldn’t figure out what it meant, despite even googling it. Nothing seemed to fit. Days later I figured out that we have an office in Ireland, and the mystery was solved.
People come over to ask a question about how this-or-that process works and I’m really glad I wasn’t the one answering the question because I didn’t even know the company was in that line of business.
I ask a plethora of really stupid questions and constantly bug my co-workers with my ignorance. I have a lot to learn.
Eating lunch on-site
At Morinda I would go off-site for lunch very often, but Ancestry does a very good job at making me want to stick around.
One of the less-publicized perks offered by Ancestry is a pretty well-stocked cafeteria called the Shaky Leaf Cafe. During work hours it offers fresh berries (my favorite thing so far), cereal and milk, hot chocolate, sodas, frozen yogurt, and fruit. All of these things are totally free.
The Shaky Leaf also provides lunch and also breakfasts on Thursdays. These meals aren’t free, but they’re subsidized and end up being very affordable. I only went off-site once this week as a result. My weakness so far is the salad bar. I can load up a pretty delicious and healthy salad for about $4.
Wearing dot com attire
I ran into a buddy of mine on Tuesday morning in the company cafeteria. I was dressed in a nice button-down shirt and some khakis. He gave me the ol’ elevator eyes and said something about my clothes and trying to make everyone else look bad. I confessed that I still needed to work on my dot com wardrobe selection.
He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, sneakers, and a hoodie. Like just about everyone else. I’ve even seen shorts and flip-flops. I have a few casual clothes, but most of my wardrobe leaned toward the nicer end of the business-casual spectrum. I need to drop a load of stuff off at the DI and then go shopping.
Knowing no one
I’m not sure how many employees are at Ancestry HQ, but it’s a big number. I meet someone new every day and almost immediately forget his or her name. I often consult the online employee directory to match up names and faces. After the second or third time seeing someone, I can usually greet them by name, although I’ve made plenty of mistakes. The good thing is that being new is a great excuse for forgetting a name—so many to remember!
While I have a lot of new things to get used to, I’m very excited about my new job. I will continue to grow, change, and learn, and eventually I’ll figure things out at this new company and settle into my role.
After just about ten years at Morinda, I am moving on. Today was my last day and I’m excited about what the future may hold.
About a year ago, I made a list of priorities in things that I would look for in a new job. Morinda treated me well, so I was going to be very picky about my next career step.
The timing of my resignation was less than ideal. Most of my peers and superiors were out for spring break for the entire previous week. So, this week has been extremely busy trying to make the transition as smooth as possible. But that all came to an end today.
This morning I brought in several dozen warm Krispy Kreme donuts and passed them out to my coworkers to celebrate my last day. Almost everyone was positive and excited for me. It was a strangely emotionally-taxing morning, but as one wise person mentioned, this kind of change is good. “It’s good for the company because someone new will step up, a new person will get hired, and old problems will be attacked from new angles. And good for you because you’re going somewhere fresh where you can learn from new experiences and ways of doing business.”
After making the farewell donut tour, there was still work to do. I spent an hour or so doing last-minute training for Mark and Carter on some technical functionality, wrote a super-simple farewell email, then I handed in my equipment and walked out the door.
My department took me to lunch at Wild Zucchini, which was nice because I was already close to home. I picked up a new cell phone (I’d turned in my Morinda-issued phone just hours before) and then drove home.
My cute wife had some gifts and a poster laid out on the kitchen table, which brought a giant smile to my face as soon as I walked in the door. I love all the notes from the kids (particularly Drew’s which reads, “Dad we love you as a dad from drew”). Manina even bought me a couple new shirts which will be have me looking sharp at my new job. But, more on that new job next week.
Thanks Morinda, but it’s time for my next chapter.
For spring break we had decided we would go camping with the Rowberry’s. However due to procrastination in planning, we opted to do a “staycation” together instead. We each took a day and made plans to do some things here locally. The first day we went to the Bean Museum, went bowling at BYU and had ice-cream at the creamery.
Day two we went Salt Lake to the family history center, watched “I am a Mormon”, and had lunch at the Lion House. We also got a tour of the church office buildings and we rode the elevators all way to the top so we could see out over the city.
Then we split up and Seth, Isaac, Meg, Jake, and KK went skiing and the rest of us went to the State Capitol. After touring the State Capitol we went over to the Children’s Museum and the Planetarium. I managed to lose Ellie. She usually stays close by my side but she was having so much fun that she ventured away and I had to call security to help me find her. I may have freaked out a little. 😦
Afterward we came back to the Rowberry’s home for homemade Cafe Rio tacos. It was a great, very busy day!
The next day we hiked up Spanish Fork Canyon to the Fifth Water Hots Springs. It was a beautiful hike, although it got stinky as we got closer (gotta love the smell of sulfur). We all got in our swimsuits and played in the pots and had lunch. Part of the water was scorching! We had to be careful where we stepped but there were several different pools so we had plenty of room to play. After the hike we met Grandpa Walt at Chuck-A-Rama to celebrate his birthday.
We also went out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings and rode four wheelers during the break. We managed to jam everything possible into a few short days. We had a great time without having to travel too far. What a fun break!
Yep. I jumped out of an airplane. And I lived to tell the tale. But, before you go thinking I’m some thrill-seeking adrenaline-junkie daredevil, let me tell you that I followed my 60-year-old mom and my 86-year-old grandpa! They’re the crazy ones.
You see, my mom has always wanted to go skydiving. It’s been on her bucket list for as long as I can remember. So, for her 60th birthday we decided to skydive with her. She wanted to jump with her dad, and any others who wanted to join in were a bonus.
Manina did most of the research and coordination and found Skydive the Wasatch. We scheduled it for my mom’s birthday, but had to move it up a couple days due to a forecast calling for a very windy jump day. So very last-minute, we switched it to Saturday. After the scheduling change, we had six jumpers: my mom and grandpa would be the first pair to jump. I would jump with my brother, Eli. Then my brother Jesse and his fiancée Mikaela would be the final flight.
Because of the last-minute schedule change, I didn’t have the opportunity to get nervous. It wasn’t until about halfway into our drive down to the Nephi Municipal Airport that I began to get a little uncertain. But, I knew this was probably one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments so I wasn’t going to back out.
Skydive the Wasatch has a pretty nice little hangar. When walked in, all the other jumpers (and supporting family) were there getting signed in. I filled out the paperwork—quite literally signing my life away—and then went through some very quick instructions on what to do.
Since Mom and Grandpa were first, I got to sit around for a while to watch. The plane took about 25 minutes to get to altitude, then it was another 5-7 minutes for them to get float back to earth. So, I had plenty of time to get anxious again. Everyone sat on the pavement outside the hangar and watched the sky, but we had a hard time spotting the plane since it was so high up. I tracked the plane carefully and could see tiny specks leaving the plane—someone had just jumped. The parachute didn’t open for a long time, but once it was out they became much more visible. It was hard to imagine me going next and being one of those tiny specks falling through the air.
Both my mom and grandpa made it to the ground just fine, and seemed to be in good spirits. So, nothing to be nervous about, right?
Now it was my turn. Eli and I met our instructors. I got paired with Jordan, who told me he had 700+ jumps and would be taking good care of me. Eli got Brandon who claimed more than 7000. Should that make me worried? I’m sure I’ll be just fine. I got in my jump suit, and Jordan got me all harnessed up. I was ready. And not really too terribly nervous.
But then the airplane had some mechanical issues. We heard something about a battery. The staff was running around with a bunch of different toolboxes and there was nothing to do wait. And get more nervous. We waited for probably 45 minutes to an hour. I didn’t want to eat or drink anything (didn’t want anything to come back up), but I was getting hungry having not eaten since breakfast. It was about 2:30pm when we were finally led outside to an already running plane (they didn’t want to risk it not starting back up again).
The plane ride up was nice and cozy. Only the pilot had a chair, the rest of were on the padded floor. The ascent was a little bumpy, but the views were spectacular. Eli and I asked a few stupid questions to our instructors, but were mainly just taking in the scenery. It was cool to look down onto Mount Nebo. We were up there. It started to get really cold. Then Jordan had me scoot back and onto his lap where he handed me my goggles, checked my harness, and then strapped my harness into his. We were ready.
The pilot gave the OK to open the door at about 15,500 ft. above sea level. We had more than 10,000 ft. to the valley floor below. The door opened and Jordan put his left foot out. He told me to step onto the platform. It was a little tough squeezing my knees in tight enough to get my feet out onto the platform. Or maybe it was just nerves. Either way, I got both feet onto the platform, grabbed the front of my harness, and took a deep breath. Then we started falling.
The free-fall wasn’t my favorite part of the jump, to be honest. It was cold. My ears immediately started hurting from the cold wind (they say you approach 120 mph when in free-fall). The wind noise is extremely loud, and my face started hurting too after a few seconds. It was difficult to breathe. But it was amazing to see the plane disappear and the ground start rapidly approaching. I put my arms out and started to get the feel of falling.
When Jordan pulled the parachute and it “caught” it was a pretty forceful event. But more than the force of suddenly slowing, the change in noise was even more dramatic. It was immediately very quiet. Very calm. The chaos of free-fall was gone and I was simply floating. That was my favorite part. Still a long way up, I could look at the distant Lone Peak near my home. I could see much of the valley, the airport where we would be landing, Utah Lake, lots of farmland, the Mona reservoir, and even flocks birds flying below me. It was beautiful.
Jordan had me take the controls and I spotted Eli’s parachute below me. “That’s weird,” I thought. I had jumped first, so I wasn’t expecting to see him below me. Jordan explained that we had caught several thermal updrafts and weren’t descending very quickly. He took back the controls and did a couple spin maneuvers. This is when I started to get lightheaded. I tried to focus on the horizon and concentrate on breathing. The harness was tight, so I was finding it difficult to take a full, deep breath. We seemed stuck for a while, Jordan did a couple more spins and I had to really concentrate. I started to get a little nauseous, but held it together. We eventually made it down, and by that time I was ready to land.
At about 20 feet off the ground, Jordan instructed me to lift my legs up. We came in for a nice and soft seated landing. We were down. Jordan said that was the longest time he’d ever stayed aloft. My kids ran over to me, which was awesome, and when Manina came over she could tell that I’d had a bit of a rough ride. But, nothing that a few high fives and hugs couldn’t immediately cure.
Certainly something I won’t be forgetting any time soon. What a great experience. And happy birthday, Mom—I wouldn’t jump out of an airplane for just anybody, you know!
Claire turned nine on April 11. It was her turn for a friend party so we let her choose a handful of friends (this year it included boys). They all came over for “Minute to Win it” games, pizza and then a pajama party and a movie. It was a quite a wild bunch of kiddos but they sure had a great time!
Another Easter has come and gone. We began our Easter celebration by attending an Easter event with one of my real estate friends. The kids were excited to see the Easter bunny (well, mostly excited to get more candy)!
Following tradition our Easter bunny came on Saturday (the day before Easter) so we can spend Sunday celebrating the real meaning of Easter. All the kids got baskets with flip flops, swim trunks, toys, treats and more! It doesn’t matter how old the kids get, they still love the hunt. So fun!
Megan decided to run for student council this year. She has been reluctant to follow in Jake’s footsteps, those being some pretty big shoes to fill (Jake ran in 8th grade, and was the student body president this year). But, I think she also saw the amount of fun student council should be. So, this year she decided to run for 8th grade representative.
She came up with the idea for her campaign all by herself (along with a list of at least 25 hilariously bad ideas). We collaborated on the Siri theme and came up with a concept for her video, which is a key part of the campaign. We knew Megan wouldn’t have trouble with the grades, interview, or teacher recommendation portions.
She had a bunch of friends share the message on Instagram too, so we will see if it helps.
Here is the video:
Update (March 29, 2014): The video was shown in school this week and Megan said many other kids came up and said they liked her video. Her choir teacher also mentioned it in class and said it was one of her favorites. Things are looking good.
Update (April 3, 2014): Megan won! She’ll be one of the 8th grade representatives next year. Congratulations, Megan! You’ll do great things!
MightyJohnsons 