Company Retreat with The Chartis Group

One week before Michael started working full time with his new company, we had the opportunity to fly to New Hampshire for the annual company retreat.  The company was incredibly generous and paid for our travel and accommodations, as well as paid for lots of fun activities and food for the week!  We really like the employees and owners and enjoyed getting to know the company better.  Here are some of the highlights:

Dominic loves to hang from anything these days (This is at the SLC airport just before we boarded.)

We flew into the Boston airport a couple of days early to look for apartments before driving to New Hampshire for the company retreat.

Waiting for our friends to pick us up from the airport, Dominic made friends with this wonderfully charismatic woman named Kristin.  He was totally entranced. I wish I could make friends as easily as he does.

Dominic knows quite the array of animal noises.  I'll try to post a video soon of his talents. :)  Be excited.

Love this.
Found it while walking around Cambridge (Near MIT)

On Tuesday we drove to New Hampshire (only a couple of hours from Boston) where we saw this moose on the side of the road just a few miles from our destination! This was our second moose sighting in only a couple of weeks (as you'll remember from my last post, we saw a moose in the Uintas on a camping trip)

Once we arrived at the resort, we checked into our private townhouse (!) and then dropped Michael off at the opening social dinner.  The first couple of days were only geared towards employees.  The family activities didn't start until Thursday evening.

Dominic and I wandered around the hotel and found this life size chess game.  He loved the horses and ran around "neighing" from one horse to the next.

King Dominic?

Wednesday Michael left the hotel early for meetings.  Dominic and I had scouted the enormous outdoor pool the night before, so I eagerly packed to spend the day at the pool, however the clouds rolled in before we could get out the door and it seemed like it might rain.  Instead, we put on our swimming suits and filled up the large jetted tub in our room and splashed and played with the jets on!  Eventually I found out there was an indoor pool, so we headed there for a while.  I met a nice woman named Nancy who was playing with her two children in the pool.  Come to find out, her husband also works at Chartis and so I was able to spend some time talking to her about their experiences with the company.  She had nothing but good to say about the company, although she admitted that sometimes it was hard to have her husband travel as much as he did.  Since Michael (and all the employees) would be in meetings all day, followed by dinner and socializing, Nancy and some of the other parents were getting together for dinner so she invited Dominic and I along.  

We had a great time at dinner and I enjoyed meeting a few of the other spouses and their children.  Here are Dominic's new Chartis friends.

This kids of Chartis

Later that night we drove to a mini mart and stumbled upon this moose.  Dominic couldn't stop hugging it's legs. :)  Dominic had a very difficult time settling down for bed until Michael arrived home around 11:30pm.

Thursday we went swimming again while Michael attended meetings.   Michael even picked up Dominic during his lunch break so I could have a little personal time (Dominic hadn't napped at all on this trip so he was pretty frantic and difficult to manage with my broken collarbone).  I was very grateful for the break.  Later that night was the welcome reception/dinner for the families.  I had a great time getting to know Michael's colleagues and their families.

Friday and Saturday were filled with scheduled activities in which each morning started with a beautiful breakfast buffet.  Friday morning Michael had signed up to go rock climbing (trad multi-pitch) and I signed up for a massage at the resort's Spa!!!  We dropped Dominic off with a sitter and each had a great morning.  

enjoying the jacuzzi after my massage

Knowing I needed to pick up Dominic I forced myself to leave the beautiful serenity of the Spa.  I picked Dominic up and we headed for the ski resort next door where we rode a ski lift up to the top of a mountain and went for a hike.  This was the first time I had tried carrying any weight since breaking my collarbone and was pleased to find the weight bearable.  We only went a couple of miles before needing to return to the resort for my next scheduled activity.

on the lift

The view was amazing

Gratefully, riding in a backpack always puts him to sleep.  He was pretty exhausted after not napping all week.

In the afternoon I had a professional tennis lesson and Michael took Dominic swimming.

Later that afternoon Michael had a professional golf lesson.  We both thought we should learn these sports at some point and this seemed like a great opportunity.  That evening we had a wonderful/delicious group dinner once again.  A couple of the owners sons became very attached to Dominic.  I didn't mind them entertaining him one bit!

Saturday Michael and I had both signed up to go Mountain biking, but due to recent events (cough cough) I wasn't able to participate.  I ended up sitting in on a cooking class taught by a professional chef.  He taught us how to make 3 different types of homemade pastas with 3 different amazing sauces.  Needless to say, I shouldn't have eaten so much at breakfast--the pastas were all delicious.  Michael enjoyed mountain biking.  Even though he found it pretty tame compared to the kind of riding he usually does, many of the other participants found it very intense and challenging.  I think he enjoyed coaching and teaching his colleagues.  

We enjoyed a delicious BBQ for lunch and then I cheered on Michael as he played in the annual soccer match: Young Guys (in terms of experience in the company) vs. the Old Guys.  Fortunately the weather was nice today, so we were able to enjoy some sun time at the outdoor pool following the game.

That evening we enjoyed a Lobster and Clam dinner.  'Enjoyed' is probably an under statement.  I really love fresh lobster and clam chowder.  Chartis ended the evening and weekend with a spectacular firework show and a bag pipe serenade and we're not talking a handful of pops in the sky.  We're talking a legitimate 15-20 minute spectacle with a bag piper's accompaniment.

Dominic became quite attached to moose on this trip.  (not to mention he had stuffed his own pet moose one of the days) He was sad to leave.

He finally feel asleep on the plane ride home.  Granted, it didn't last as long as I would've liked, but I wasn't complaining.

We were so grateful for Chartis' generosity and feel like we know the company much better now. 

Update: Michael has now been working for a couple weeks and is enjoying learning new things and is liking the people he works with.

As for an apartment in Boston, we came up empty handed while we were in the Northeast.  It turns out that August/September is the absolute worst time to look for an apartment in Boston with Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Tufts, Berklee School of Music, Lesley University, and many more major universities starting up.  So, for now, we are sticking around in Utah.  This means that Michael flies to Philadelphia Monday-Wednesday each week to meet with his client, and works from home the other days.  We'll keep you all posted on how long we plan to be in Utah etc.

Until then...