A few updates for 2019:

Still doing VDI at St. Luke's.  I got my MCSA for Windows 10 a few weeks ago.  No real reason why other than I can I guess.  I'll probably get the CompTIA Server+ as well sometime soon also for no real reason.  I bought some climbing gear and went to a climbing gym here in Twin Falls for the first time last week.  It was pretty fun but a killer on the arms, something I'll need to work on.  I took Ariel and Andy as well and they had fun.  Here are a few pictures and videos.  I also added some photos I took of the Caldwell Winter Wonderland which were really nice.  It was cold outside but was glad to have made it over there to see the Christmas lights.  Those pictures are here.  I added a videos menu and will try and take more videos of events instead of just taking pictures all the time.  That might go for hiking trips as well, will have to see.  Other than that, family is doing well.  The wife wanted some turtles so we bought a tank and 2 of them.  Will take some pictures as well.  So far it's been a decent but busy year.

I've gotten quite a few hikes done this year, all of which you can see in the 'Hiking Gallery' section.  We also found some small kittens in our back yard while we were cleaning around the side and decided to keep them.  There were 4 of them so now we have 7 animals around the house, not counting the 3 kids.  Cats are fun though.  Our dogs just lie around while the cats are jumping all over the place, scratching and breaking things.  Good practice for grandkids though I guess if that ever happens.

Same job doing the same things which is fine since I enjoy what I'm doing.  My daughter is now a medical assistant and works for St. Luke's just like I do.  They are doing well as far as I know.  My youngest just started high school this year, so hopefully I can get these kids out of the house soon.

I'll just call it a yearly update since I might not get around to adding anything else this year if it's the same as other years.  For hiking stuff, even though I wasn't able to do much else after Hyndman as far as 10-12k peaks go, I did go around and do some hiking around some lower areas, until those also ended up with snow.  Stuff like City of Rocks, Castle Rocks, Bruneau Sand Dunes, and Indian Springs were fairly interesting.  It's nice to see there are still some things around close that can be done while waiting for the snow to melt higher up.  I have a list of 3 or 4 other things to do around here along with a nice list of the higher up ones.  Hyndman will definitely be the first peak I will do when possible.  I'll probably go to Pioneer Cabin again from a different trail just to see how things look since you can see Hyndman from there and if it looks good then will go do it.  I bought a mountain bike so if I don't feel like hiking around but want to just get out and do something, Indian Springs is close and great for biking.

On the job front, still doing Citrix work, mostly VDI and XenDesktop work but occasionally do some XenApp stuff.  I hit 5 years at St. Luke's this month and this year there was a job title/pay restructuring for I.T. which ended up with a nice raise, so hopefully I can pay off some debt this year, get my credit back up, and then save some money and see if I can move to Boise in the next few years.  That's the plan anyway.

Family is doing ok, everyone is alive and well.  I updated some pictures and added some new stuff.  The wife has been busy still making cakes and yummy food.  She's made sushi a few times now which has been really good.

So my brother came  over for a few weeks for a dentist appointment from Arizona (yes, it is as weird as it sounds).  Since I know he is the hiking god, I forced him to go on a few hiking trips with me before he left.  We actually ended up going on a hike each weekend while he was here,  a total of 3 weeks.  He was also here for the eclipse which he got some really good pictures of.  I took the wife and 2 kids over to the Stanley, ID area to see it also.  It is worth seeing for sure and anybody who hasn't seen one and says it's no big deal is an idiot.  Anybody who has seen one and says it's no big deal is an even bigger idiot.  Anyway we went up Mount Leatherman the first weekend which is the second highest peak in Idaho.  That turned out being more difficult than Borah which we did the following two weekends (yes we hiked up Mount Borah two times over two weekends).  The second time was mainly to get pictures from the top that we hadn't gotten the first time around.  Since then I have also hiked the Pioneer Cabin loop and almost made it up Hyndman Peak, another 12k mountain over in the Sun Valley area.  Bad weather and starting late kept me from making it all the way up.  There is snow now pretty much everywhere above 9000ish feet, so doing anything like Hyndman, Borah, or Leatherman is pretty much out until next summer.  I'm looking around though for stuff like Pioneer Cabin that is lower but still a fun hike for the next few months until the snow comes all the way down, then I'll have to figure something else out.