Christmas Time!

I'm going to cheat a bit, and first post the letter Jason wrote to include in our Christmas cards this year:

Greetings!

This has been a very full year for the newly established Baxter family. The largest event of the year was our wedding. We were able to introduce many members of Steph’s family to the joys of Utah. Rumors have been passed along that many of them will consider visiting again. We had perfect weather not only for the wedding and reception in UT, but for the WI reception as well. It was a great time, with both of our families finally getting to meet each other.

Steph and I then took a week-long honeymoon trip through California. We visited several well recognized places including Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Park, Lake Tahoe, and the Golden Gate Bridge, just to name a few. We started calling it our “tour of trees”, after seeing Redwoods, Sequoias, Pinyon Pines, and even Joshua trees. For those who aren’t familiar, Joshua trees grow in the desert and look like something from a Dr. Seuss book. We took in a Vegas show on the way home, and ended the trip by arriving back in Utah with enough time to attend the annual Baxter family reunion. After a few thousand miles of driving, our back-ends were tired of sitting, and we were ready to be out of the car for a while. Luckily, we took a plane to Wisconsin for the second wedding reception and time with Steph’s family. My family, however, elected to drive to Wisconsin for the second half of the wedding month extravaganza. They did their best to stop at all the scenic points of interest, and had several planned detours on their route. They managed to put over 5,000 miles on the minivan in a few short weeks. They are looking forward to slower-paced future visits to the Midwest.

Despite my best efforts at delaying the inevitable, we added a cat to our household this year. We are now the proud owners of a 1 ½ year-old orange polydactyl (extra toes) tabby cat, who came to us with the name Kiki. She will play fetch with twist ties, which is her most interesting trick. She also occasionally races around the house, drifting around linoleum corners, and making frightening velcro noises on the carpet with her 24 claws. She has been entertaining to have around, and will probably get to stay.

Steph went on her first caving trip that required the use of ropes this year. On the upside, she enjoyed herself. On the downside, she may enjoy the climbing and rope work more than the actual cave exploration. I will have to see if I can further enlighten her. In other caving news, this year I was awarded a paid contract to work for the National Forest Service locating caves and other geologic features of interest in the Ashley National Forest. This should help cover the weekend costs of my chosen sport in the upcoming year. I was also called out to help with my first cave rescue effort this fall. I’ve found that 2am phone calls are rarely a good thing, and this event did not end well. It was a very sobering reminder of how fragile life can be, and how grateful I am to have our families to spend time with this holiday season.

The final topic of note from this year is Steph’s epic house projects. She repainted most of the basement, created a guest room, and turned the majority of the basement into actual usable space. She also decided that the sad-looking lawn around the house needed to be fixed and ended up tilling and reseeding the entire lawn over the course of the year. There were also several smaller projects like replacing bark/mulch in the flower beds, and establishing an area for next year’s garden. Now we just need to wait out the snow, and progress can be made again in the spring. I would like to be able to claim more than a supporting role in these projects, but most of them were accomplished almost entirely by Steph. My biggest contributions were purchasing the house a few years ago, driving the truck to deliver a tiller to our yard, and occasionally running a shovel/wheelbarrow.

The coming year should bring new adventures for both of us. We will start the year with our first visit to WI since the wedding (January 6th-12th) which will be my first trip to WI during the winter months. Additionally we are both approaching the end of our Master’s degrees in school, and excited to see what married life is like without dysfunctional school and work schedules.

We hope this letter finds all of you happy and healthy. Best wishes for a safe holiday season and a wonderful beginning to 2010!

Jason and Stephanie Baxter

Another Month...

Another month down. Or another month gone. It all depends on how I look at it. Another month down if I consider really wanting the semester to be over. I haven't enjoyed this one. I think my will to learn has been somewhat compromised. I will definitely need another break from school if a PhD is still in my future. Another month gone if you consider all of the work I've wanted to get done on my thesis this semester, and haven't been able to accomplish. Taking 9 credits of electives was, in hindsight, NOT a great idea. Ok, got the complaining out of the way in the beginning of this blog...hope you're still reading.

I will again this month include my favorite picture of Kiki. She's a lot of fun, and great company on nights when Jason is at class. I took her outside less this past month due to the changing weather; however during the one outdoor adventure we managed she was less than impressed with all the leaves in the yard. She found them noisy and generally unacceptable. We'll see how she feels about snow!

Work has been acceptable this month. I'm finally learning to do some new stuff so hopefully that will help with the boredom factor. It also helps that this week is our holiday bonus paycheck. I might be able to afford a Christmas present or two this year. :) I've been trying to cut back on hours in order to dedicate more time to school. So far I've managed to go from 40 hours per week to about 35 hours per week. I can't really say that it's helped much, but keep taking small steps right?

55 days (as of 11/12) until the next trip to visit WI! I'm excited, and have been so for about 3 weeks already. I'd really like to visit more than we do, however working around the school-year schedule has put a bit of a damper on that plan. It will be Jason's first trip to WI in the winter. He's been negotiating for warmer weather, or global warming, or some nonsense like that, because he feels it will be unbearably cold. While WI in January does have that potential, I think he'll survive. I am hoping for good driving weather though, so if everyone could keep their fingers crossed for us that would be great!

The lawn seeding from last month is coming up well. It's sort of patchy, but should fill in nicely next spring if we can keep the weeds at bay. While tilling knocked the weeds down, it will take some effort in the spring to keep them away. We've had to rake the leaves off the new seeding twice. The apple trees in the front just aren't giving up easily, and although we've bagged up a bunch of leaves already, it will probably take one more good cleanup to be winter-ready. Speaking of winter, I'm ready for snow, and it looks like we might see some this weekend! The first snow is always fun. It makes me think of warm blankets and hot chocolate and relaxing inside. Unfortunately this is not the case as often as I'd like and I'm sure I'll be reminded how much I dislike snow the first time I'm forced to go and scrape my windshield in order to slide to work. For now I will look forward to the "first" snow. :)
I hope this blog finds everyone doing well. Take Care!

Fall has Arrived!

So glad its finally fall. The mornings have been crisp and with the cooler weather I have been able to get to some much needed yard projects I've been putting off (more on that later!). I have also taken out my fall and winter clothes that I have missed so much! I never thought I'd be so excited to see long pants again. :)

Before big project news, an update on the painting projects. I finally finished off the basement laundry room in what will most likely be the last house-painting project for quite some time. The paint in this room was no better than any otherpaint in the basement, and there was an unusual color I can only describe as "dirty teal" on the cupboards. Much better with new paint!

Now for big project news...ever since moving into this house the lawns have needed some serious work. I dug and seeded the front lawn this past spring and now this weekend rented a tiller and did the entire back yard. It was one full day of work that left me tired, sore, and very satisified with my new lawn. I keep checking every 20-30 minutes to see if the seed is starting to sprout...but so far no luck. I'm pretty pumped for the first signs of grass though, and perhaps next month's picture will show some progress in that department.

In other news, it was Jason's 29th birthday today. A few weeks ago we went to see Jim Gaffigan as his official birthday present, however I also made him a ginormous cupcake with the help of a mold I borrowed from a co-worker, a cupcake shaped card, and a nice breakfast and lunch today. I also did all of his ironing while he was at class, which should score me some major bonus wife points. It's too bad when you get old enough that you still have to write papers and take tests on your birthday, which is what Jason spent most of his weekend doing. I think overall he still had a pretty good birthday though.

Tomorrow is my annual review at work. I'm trying to decide if this will be a good day to tell my boss I feel like I need to cut back on hours in order to finish school this millenium. Probably not. I'm also burnt out tracking data day in and day out. Problem is, right now there isn't anyone else to do my job which leads to great job security along with the monotony. If someone else could pick up some of my current duties, I feel like I'd be able to expand and do bigger better things, but for right now I'm stuck. Sounds like something out of a Dilbert cartoon I think.

On a somewhat brighter note, in a move towards mental sanity, I officially renewed my gym membership. My first workout last week was physically and mentally punishing, as I was brought face-to-face with how out of shape I've really become over the past couple years. It's going to take a lot of hard work to get back at it, but I'd like to think I'm up for the challenge. I've got all winter to make sure Jason isn't able to hike the wind out of me next spring. ;)

I am reminded again how fast time flies as I realize Jason and I have now been married 5 months. It's a little crazy to think about. We really should get around to ordering that wedding album one of these days however we're having one of those months (or a couple of months) where everything breaks. After discovering a flat tire several weeks ago at work I ended up with a complete set of brand new tires on my car. Then after sitting in line at a broken car-wash (another story completely) my car almost didn't start and I ended up with a new car battery. I went to make steaks one night for Jason after class and after 20 minutes under the broiler the steaks were luke-warm...leading us to discover the top heating element in our oven no longer works. Add that to the dishwasher making dying noises (don't worry the time it flooded the kitchen seems to have been a fluke), and we're having a very unlucky (and potentially expensive) several weeks.

I think that's the extent of news from here. I know I've rambled a bit this time, but hopefully you enjoy it nonetheless.

Take Care!
S.~

Where is Fall?

Mid-September already. Time does fly. Jason and I both went back to school in the past month, so if you haven’t seen or heard from us as much you may think is normal just rest assured we are probably either doing homework or frantically trying to keep the house in order, do laundry, house/yard-projects etc.

We're both excited for fall but here in Salt Lake with temperatures still in the upper 80's it seems like once fall gets here we'll proceed directly into winter. We'll probably have snow in the mountains again before we know what happened and here in the valley soon after. One sure hint of fall however is that football season is upon us! I'm not sure why I'm SO excited about football this year, but I won the football pool at work this week which always helps :). In case anyone wonders who to cheer for our teams include the Wisconsin Badgers, Utah Utes, Green Bay Packers, and San Francisco 49er's. I will also be watching Minnesota games to see Brett Favre (to put it nicely) "get his ancient rear end sacked".

Exciting news in Jason's world--he recently was awarded a government contract to pattern-search and report geological features in a large area of national forest a few hours East of here. The good news is he'll now be getting paid to hike and cave in an area he spent a lot of time in this spring hiking and caving for free. On the downside I might not see much of him come next spring-fall depending on how long it takes him to cover the area he's been assigned. I won't rule out going along on some of the shorter trips, but will probably elect to stay home quite a bit as well.

Over the past month I got some serious basement projects done along with a few painting projects just for fun (see pictures). New paint does so much to brighten up a room (even a dark basement room), and upstairs I’ve been working to get some sense of color coordination going. I’m currently working on painting the laundry room and making some wall-hangings for upstairs and will hopefully have pictures to include next month. Anyone on facebook has probably stumbled across some of these pictures however--for those who haven't--the first picture is of a pair of foot-stools I've had since college and recently painted to match one another. The second picture is a shelf that used to be an ugly brown that I patterned to match the footstools. The next three pictures are before and after pictures of the [sadly underutilized] basement work-out area. In the second picture notice the one stripe of new paint next to the window. Trust me when I say that the "before" pictures do not begin to do justice in showing how dirty that old paint was.

I will also include my favorite pictures of Kiki from the month. We recently got her a harness for out-of-doors adventures, and she spent part of Saturday happily hunting bugs in the grass. I also caught a picture of one of her favorite (and more curious) sleeping positions atop Jason’s old office chair. I only wish I could make all sleeping positions look as comfortable as she does.

Work is repetitive lately with a lull in data collection leading to lots of data analysis. With any luck I will get to start working on my thesis data in the next week or two. The only thing really holding me back from digging into my thesis at this point in my lack of available time to do a literature review. I’m going about this process completely backwards…I already have the data, but haven’t solidified a research question. Hopefully I will still manage to finish by May.

Another two new babies this month! Congrats to Andy and Sarah Kahler who welcomed Henry, and our front desk girl Alicia and her husband Corey who welcomed Owen! I won't admit to being baby-hungry quite yet, but perhaps after school is finished I will consider it :D. For now playing with everyone else's kids is just fine with me!

I almost forgot! Jason and I just purchased plane tickets to come home January 6th-12th. We realized it's not exactly on the holidays, but our vacation time for the year was severely depleted due to a little wedding thing that happened in May ;). WE are currently planning trips to Dubuque, and the Winkel-Hassler wedding, as well as a late family Christmas in Reedsburg on the 10th. Please pencil us in, and let us know what you're up to so we don't miss each other while crossing paths.

I think that sums up the last month in SLC. I hope you're all doing well. Be in touch!
S.~

Again already?

Hello again from UT! Just so everyone is aware, Jason's family on the Baxter side e-mails around a monthly blog known as the "cousin blog" that via marriage I am now a member of. I plan to post slightly edited monthly versions of my cousin blog entry on this blog...so here it goes...

Another month of many happenings! First off I would like to congratulate Andy and Lisa Baxter on the birth of little Jacob! I’m excited to no longer be the newest member of the Baxter cousin blog and look forward to reading his updates soon. The pressure has been taken off to produce the first Baxter great-grandchild!

This month we discovered that our cat Kiki likes ice cream. It started one night when I left my ice cream cone unattended for just a moment and when I returned Kiki was daintily licking it. “That’s cute” I thought as I snatched my ice cream back away. Since then eating ice cream in our house has become much more complicated. As it turns out Kiki was instantly hooked. Now the minute ice cream is being eaten she insists on sitting on your lap in the hopes of getting another lick. Convinced to not let our cat indulge in “people-food” there have been several instances when I have been forced to hold my ice cream bowl above my head in order to keep it away from Kiki’s persistence. Mind you Kiki isn’t dumb either…she is already fully aware that ice cream comes in dishes, cones, and sometimes even chocolate covered bars on a stick! In hindsight it makes sense cats would like ice cream since it’s basically sweet frozen milk, but at the time I was rather naïve as to how attached a cat may become to ice cream after only one try. Moral of the story: Don't do drugs.

We’ve made it up to visit Jason's grandparents' ranch twice in the past month (outside Logan, UT for anyone who cares to check a map). The first trip we spent a night at the ranch and then hiked to White Pine Lake at Tony Grove the next day (about 40min NE of Logan). The flowers were beautiful and the temperatures at an elevation of 8000 ft were around 15 degrees cooler than down below making it a pleasant 75 degrees. This past weekend however was a different story as our hiking plans were rained out (SNOW above 8000 ft in August?!?). Instead of hiking we decided to detour and take a driving/sightseeing trip instead. We drove up past Bear Lake and into Idaho…both places I had not previously been. The sightseeing was fun although the temperature sensor in Jason’s blazer was around 50 degrees for much of the day and at one point outside of Preston, ID the rain was pouring so hard there was standing water in the road. (You must understand any rain at all is an unusual sight in UT in August!) I was sure glad we decided not to hike! In several areas around Salt Lake we set record low high temperatures for the first week of August with a high of just 70 (20 degrees below normal) on August 8th.

Data collection for the latest research study at work wrapped up this past week. The picture I have included demonstrates the typical running setup. The red lights from the cameras in the background reflect off the shiny silver balls attached all over this kid as he runs on a treadmill with a built-in force plate. It’s the same technology they use in the computer gaming industry only we use it in the Biomechanics lab for research. Simply put, this particular study was looking at the differences in forces and movements between intact athletes and amputee athletes from jogging to top sprinting speed. Although the research questions are varied, I basically spend quite a bit of time either attaching reflective markers to half-naked study participants or playing an advanced game of connect the dots on the computer. School starts on the 24th of August….hopefully one of my last 2 semesters. If I’m lucky, the data we just collected will be the data I use for my thesis. Some of that should be shaking out in the next couple of weeks.

Last night was the annual summer picnic for Jason’s caving grotto—the “caver-geek picnic” as I lovingly call it. Had a great time hanging out, ate myself silly, and the weather was PERFECT….just the sort of summer evening we could all use more of!

I think that’s all the latest news. I hope everyone is doing well!
Steph~

The craziness of life...

Ah, sometimes I don't know what I'm doing. :) Would life really be too simple if I had some general sense of direction?
Well, here are the latest developments....Work has been especially frustrating for the past year, however for a large portion that year year the frustration I was feeling at work was buffered by the happy thoughts of an upcoming wedding and all the planning details. Then the honeymoon was over as they say and I realized I was really unhappy at work. I started looking around at new potential jobs but realized it would be a huge disadvantage to change jobs since I am intending to use my current lab to finish my Master's thesis. In any case, something needed to give, and when push came to shove I decided having 2 bosses who both worked for TOSH instead of three bosses (one of which works for another company) would improve the quality of my worklife. So about a week ago the four of us (my three bosses and I) had a sit-down and informed boss #3 I was no longer interested in working for him. Holy stress-ball! Although beforehand I joked that I was "having my meeting with the Bob's" like on Office Space, it was one of the least comfortable experiences of my short work career. In the end I have one less boss and really hope I didn't ruin a friendship in the processs.
Other life-stuff...married life (2 1/2 months in) is awesome. Jason and I had figured out how living together and being stressed together worked before the actual wedding, so now that the stress of wedding planning is gone, everything has been wonderful. Jason was a huge help in the process of figuring out what to do with my work situation, and I really felt thankful for having a refuge to come home to. Like my mom says "I picked a good one" :)
Kiki the cat continues to entertain. We've discovered she will only play fetch with twist ties. Although she doesn't seem to have a preference on twist tie color to type, she will not play fetch with zip-ties, hair ties, rubber bands, or most anything else I can think of. The only issue with the twist ties is that I've been forced to get the industrial heavy-duty kind because she likes to chew on them when she's not fetching them and I don't want her to eat a lot of plastic and/or a piece of wire. (EEeee!) Jason enjoys having a cat only when the cat does uncoordinated things, like falling off window sills or sliding across the linoleum. Even with her excessive number of toes and claws, Kiki remains very soft footed--she seems that she's rather jump onto something and slide back off instead of actually putting out her claws....a nice feature if she's jumping up on your lap but makes for some funny jumping episodes if her judgement isn't quite right ;)
We're in the middle of another large data collection at work. I've recruited all of the participants which is one of my favorite parts of the job. We had an amputee sprinting study this spring and the group we have now is an intact group of athletes matched to the amputees based on gender, top running speed, age, height, and weight. They are all kids I've personally worked with or trained, so it's fun to have them in the lab. A lot of them are amazing athletes and just genuinely nice kids.
School starts up again in less than a month. I can potentially use the data we are collecting now on my thesis, if I would just get my a** in gear and do my lit review so I know what the research question I'm trying to answer will be. My class-load shouldn't be too difficult--I'm taking two "real" classes and an online class. Ironically, my biomechanics class scares me the most--physics has never been my strongest suit. On the up-side, my advisor teaches the class, so hopefully I will get to know him better and Bill (one of my bosses) has a Ph.D. in Biomechanics so I should have homework help.
I think that's a summary of current life. I hope everyone reading this is well. Be in touch anytime!
Steph~

My first Baxter-Blog!

This past month I got married! I never imagined three weeks of wedding and vacation could go by so fast. The wedding and reception here in Utah were wonderful…the weather, food, family & friends were all superb! Then we spent a few days touring the Salt Lake area with my parents, grandparents, and brother. We hit temple square, antelope island, my workplace, little cottonwood canyon, the Bingham Canyon mine, the Hill Aerospace Museum, and even had a picnic at the ranch (not to mention that wedding thing somewhere in the middle)! I have included a picture to summarize our family time (note my brother’s face). Jason equated it to getting married and immediately acquiring a minivan with 6 adult children (see picture). It was a lot of fun. Then we dropped Kiki at the babysitter’s (cousins Ashley and Mike) and were off for a week of driving and sightseeing throughout NV and CA. Here is the summary: Day 1—Salt Lake to Reno. Day 2—Reno to San Francisco via Lake Tahoe…sunset on the beach outside our hotel. Day 3—Tidepools, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Muir Woods (redwoods). Day 4—Yosemite N.P. Day 5—Sequoia N.P. Day 6—A fancy hotel and a Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas. Day 7—Drive back to Salt Lake. Day 8—The Baxter Reunion! Day 9—Laundry and repack. Day 10—Off to WI. Whew…when we got to WI I literally slept for about 14 hours straight. Once in WI it was our turn to show the Baxter family around. It was great that everyone (except Curtis L) could be there. The weather for our WI reception was fantastic. Hopefully Misty, Autumn, and Jeremiah left the farm with a few stories to share. Now it’s time to recover after the wedding, write a bunch of thank-you’s, and focus on school for the fall. This year I get to write my thesis…which is still in the planning stages. I’m excited to share my upcoming adventures with all of the new Baxter family, hopefully everyone continues getting to Jason better as well.
Steph~

Ps. My new e-mail is steph_baxter@ymail.com; there are wedding and honeymoon photos on facebook for anyone who has access and would like to check them out…and the official photographer’s photos will be here in the next couple weeks. S.~

Pre-wedding Baxter Blog Entry

Entry number 1 by Stephanie Koenig...soon to be Baxter. Hello all! Seeing as that I have a lot of downtime this week I've been pondering what I should write as my first blog entry. I have a little bit of an advantage as I've been reading the cousin blog for a couple of years now without the need to participate, however I wasn't anticipating my first blog due date to be the same day as our wedding! Jason and I have already discussed that it will take several blog entries for me to correct any of the inaccuracies of his story telling, but I will need to wait for a future blog to think about such things. At the very least you will all be able to hear my side of the story in addition to Jason's.
This month has been crazy! After 11 months of planning our wedding (which will probably have taken place before most of you read this) it will be this Friday in American Fork. Tonight I went to the salon and got fake nails for the very first time in my life. They are pretty, but render my hands basically useless since I am not used to them. I don't foresee acrylic nails as a permanent part of my future. My family flies in tomorrow (Wednesday) which is part of why I'm writing this entry tonight. We will then have a whirlwind of picking up tuxes, touring, and appointments before the wedding on Friday. Saturday I plan to show my grandparents around Salt Lake and Sunday we are planning to show them a relaxing day at the ranch. After dropping Kiki off with cousins Mike and Ashley, Jason and I will head out for our honeymoon on Monday. We're planning to arrive someplace near Reno by Monday evening. During the course of the week we have stops planned at Yosemite, Mono Lake, Sequoia, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. Las Vegas will be our last stop before heading back, and we are seeing "Ka"--one of the Cirque du Soleil shows. I just realized I have no idea when I will pack. :) We are planning to be at the ranch for the Baxter reunion on Memorial Day and then taking one day to recover before flying to WI to have a reception for my family. We will be in WI from Wednesday the 27th through Monday the 1st...and then it's June! I should have fun things to write about next entry. So I will leave this for blog 1 before I wear out my welcome. I look forward to writing more when free time is a little less scarce.
Steph~

A LONG overdue update

Well hello everyone! I predict this to be the last official update until June :) As many of you know the wedding planning and preparation is in full swing. If anyone didn't receive and invite and is going to be around Reedsburg May 30th by all means you ARE invited and should contact me for more info! :) Our actual ceremony in Utah is coming up in a mere 5 weeks. Considering I still have a couple of final exams and many hours at work between now and then, it still seems pretty far off...until I consider all of the details that still need to be coordinated. Eeee!

Work at TOSH has had its ups and downs, however since January 1st it's been generally "crazy busy" which may in part explain my lack of updates. We recently helped a doctoral student from U of M complete data collection for her dissertation characterizinig bone geometry, strength, and gait characteristics of female runners with a history of stress fractures; we also had a group of 10 elite amputee sprinters in from all over the country sprint on the force treadmill to better understand their gait mechanics and whether the prosthetic has any sort of advantage over an intact limb. Very interesting stuff to say the least. No results yet, but I'm cranking through a ton of motion analysis data. We also had a special data collection with Levi Leipheimer...for anyone who doesn't know the name, he was 3rd in the Tour de France in 2007 and has won the Tour de California several times...anyways I'm always amazed at the attention elite athletes have to endure. By the time the amputee sprinters (some of whom ran in Beijing) and Levi came through the lab within weeks of one another, and we had our annual open house for the hospital, I realized I have no love of newspersons or photographers of any sort.

The weather has warmed a bit (between snowstorms) long enough for some spring yard-work to begin. A few weekends ago while Jason was on a caving trip, I dug up the front yard (literally dug it up with a shovel) and reseeded the lawn. Not to worry, our front lawn doesn't have much grass. Last weekend we also replaced all the bark in the front lawn flowerbeds and used the ancient bark to mulch a few places including the back flowerbeds and around the raspberry bushes. The fish made their yearly move from the storage tote in the basement back to their outside pond and it proceeded to snow for a week. I'm not sure what they thought of snow after being in the warm basement all winter, but they still look relatively happy. (I only had to break a hole in the ice with my shoe for them one morning).

Jason and I have also made it out for a couple of hiking trips generally involving steep climbs and beautiful views. Of note, I successfully repelled into and ascended out of a cave which was a first for me. I thought the repelling and ascending were more fun than the actual cave exploring, but it was a wonderful trip out to the west desert for the weekend.

KTP became the first official "guest" to sleep in the "guestroom". It's all finished now and looks quite nice. Jason's sister Autumn has stayed there a few times, but usually on short notice, and she usually sleeps on top of the unmade bed. :) If anyone needs an actual user review before visiting they will need to speak with KTP. It was her second trip to Utah since I've lived here, which also makes her the first repeat visitor outside of my immediate family (unless I've tragically forgotten someone else). It was fun to catch up. Anyone who is feeling guilty for not visiting (you know who you are)...should plan a trip out this way sometime after the wedding. :)

Now the biggest news of all...Jason and I adopted a cat! She's a one year old orange tabby polydactyl and her name is Kiki. We were planning on waiting until after the wedding since we will be gone for a couple of weeks--however--I happened upon her by chance and when we saw what a sweet cat she was and what terrible conditions she was living in we knew we could give her a much better home. Jason's cousins have even offered to cat-sit while we are out of town, which will be wonderful! Anyone who isn't familiar with polydactyls can read up on them here: http://www.messybeast.com/poly-cats.html Jason is still deciding if getting a cat was a good idea...so far he knows I'm ridiculously excited about it--rumor has it my first real word was kitty...at least someone told me that once...so what else would you expect?

I think I've gone on long enough and I know I'm surely missing things but this is at least a partial update. For anyone on facebook, check out my profile for more pictures of fun happenings and the full story of how we ended up with Kiki.

I look forward to seeing many of you soon and hope everyone is well!

Steph~

ps. Welcome Evelyn and Dane! New babies all around!