In Honor of the Start of the 5th Season...

Obelis 20th Anniversary

Friday we celebrated the 20th Anniversary of our company! It was a total blast! I can't believe how much fun it was for Kevin and I to get dressed up and go to a real party together. I wish opportunities for fancy parties came up more often! We schmoozed, we danced, we dined and had a fabulous time. I even talked with an Israeli C.E.O. who asked me (in between his glasses on champagne) "So, you're a Mormon. What does that mean?" Wow, talk about taking me off guard! We ended up having a really great conversation though and he said he will come to church with us when we're in Israel this December!

Which reminds me that I haven't posted any of that information yet! The company we work for does a wide variety of things, but the heart of their business resides in 2 places: what Kevin does, and what I do. Kevin works for the commercial side of the company. Our office serves as the European Rep. for companies around the world - particularly in Israel where they have a harder time getting into Europe. Obelis will do the marketing, sales, orders, etc. for the company in Europe. One of the biggest companies we represent is called PolyD-Zine; they manufacture polypropalene (like a really nice, strong plastic) products. Kevin landed a deal for PolyDZine with Staples here in Europe to supply polypropalene office supplies to all of the Staples locations. Oh, only a 6.5 million euro a year deal!! The biggest one they have ever gotten!!! Hope we get a piece of that :) Way to go Kevin!!! 

I work for the part of the company that is completely Obelis. Any manufacturer who would like to place a product within the European Union is required to have a legal representative within the community - a European Authorized Representative (E.A.R.). So, we serve as the E.A.R. for these companies, helping them make sure their product complies with all of the necessary laws and regulations and acting as the contact point for the authorities - and a lot more. Recently, there have begun to be several key environmental directives which manufacturers have to comply with. Basically, we researched these and started a brand new company. I spent a lot of time dealing with one in particular that will make the most money for the new company, and our boss asked me to present on it at the big seminar they are having in Tel Aviv, Israel this December - all expenses paid! I said "well, I guess." :) And, since Kevin has done so amazingly well, they asked him to come to Israel to work for PolyDZine while I'm there. They also asked us to stay on at Obelis until Israel, but we couldn't miss Jackson's homecoming!

Anyway, though this seems long, it is really a very short blip of our lives for the past 6 months. We have absolutely loved our jobs and have learned and grown immensely. We leave for Israel the day after Thanksgiving and get back 1 week before Christmas. The only bad part is we don't know who will hire us for the 4 weeks we have in between! Call us if you need babysitters! :)

Switzerland - Hillyard Reunion '08

We were so happy and lucky (happy-go-lucky) to have Kevin's parents come visit us last week! It was amazing how wonderful it was to see family! We had the best time with them and were able to sneak away for a few days down to Switzerland to fulfill Lynda's dream of singing in the Alps - "The Hills are Alive!!" We got to see some amazing mountains, waterfalls, lakes - ahh, just the beautiful scenery. Not to mention the chocolate and cheese! Lynda and I have decided that it will be the first of many Hillyard trips to Switzerland and that we are going to have a big family reunion there when all of the grandkids are old enough - so in like 20 years? Just kidding!

We stayed in 2 places while we were there; the first was right on the French/Swiss border in a tiny town in the middle of the famous Mont Blanc mountains (the cool pen my boss used is names after them as a result of their constant "white top") called Charmonix. It was the cutest little town and you could actually see the huge glacier sitting right on the mountain. The second place was by the tallest Alp in Europe - the Jungfrau. We stayed in the little town of Lauterbrunnen right across from a giant cascading waterfall! It was magical! 

As wonderful as it was, we didn't get the best weather. It was quite rainy and cold, but that made for some whole new adventures! We decided to take a hike to go see all the new waterfalls the rain was making in the valley and went to the "Waterfall in the Cave." There was this huge waterfall that travels almost the whole way down the mountain in a cave! It was amazing, but we got completely soaked (even more soaked than we were from the rain)! While this picture does not demonstrate the waterfall to the best degree (see our Picasa album for better ones), it does begin to demonstrate how wet we were! Kevin's dad said it looked like I peed my pants backwards!

While the fog made skiing or even taking the train to the top of Jungfrau kind of a waste, we still decided to take the train up a little bit of the way. Kevin was so excited to see snow, I don't think I'm going to be able to get him off the mountain this season. Since it was still so cold up there and not much to see because of the fog, we spent a lot of time in the little shops at the train stop. This is Kevin and I getting in trouble because we were about to take a picture in these hats...we are both about to say "Oh sorry..."

Thanks for a great trip Hillyards!!