Bundles of Furry Joy...

This weekend Kyle and I went up to my mom's for an early Mother's day visit. When we were there we got to meet the neighbor's new batch of kitties!! If you know me, you know I was in hog heaven and had to be dragged away from the box of squirmy love. I nearly stuck one in my purse, but Kyle convinced me to leave them with their mama a little longer. Luckily, my mom gets to take one home with her!! Below is my mom's new love Beau (That's what I named him, I think that could change when she gets him home). He is a super cuddly, mellow, boy kitty and he stole my heart!!
This adorable little girl already has a home picked out otherwise she would have been mom's first choice. She was a little sweetie!
Here is mom-cat checking to see if Beau is alright after I walked too far away from the kitten box for her comfort.
Below are too little furry buddies that I could have just taken home right then and there! The little orange buddy is a boy kitty that I named Stanley. He was full of spunk. The grey girly reminded me so much of Lady when we first got her. Grey kitties are so pretty!!
Here's me and little Beau just bonding and snuggling. He just wanted to cuddle and cuddle. Such a cuddle bug!
This feisty little girl kept trying to climb up to my shoulders. Brave little one!

Meet your new PRL TA...

Kyle!!

Kyle found our that he got the Teaching Assistantship at the Product Realization Lab at Stanford. This is the same lab that he spent so much time in this winter making his various inventions. Here he is looking happy and relieved. This TA position means that his tuition at Stanford is covered, which is super duper awesome!!

DNA party time in S8...

My students are wrapping up their unit on DNA and genetics and we decorated up the room with their DNA projects and had ourselves a little DNA celebration Watson and Crick style :)

Visits from Dear friends and Peacocks...

Later in March one of my favorite people came to SLO for her birthday. Brie and Jason made the trek all the way from Texas to visit and hang out for her special weekend. We got to play sand volleyball at Pismo and go wine tasting in Avila. I did not manage to take any pictures of my special visitors, but I sure did get some pics of the peacocks at the winery.They have the birds just wandering around the property and perching on the owner's house. I've never seen a peacock up close before and they are super pretty and LOUD! Needless to say, after we had done a bit of wine tasting the peacocks were getting pretty annoyed by us ;)

It's OFFICIALLY a girl!!

When I went up to visit my family in March we got the exciting confirmation that Brett and Jill's baby is in fact, a girl!! My mom could not be more excited to finally get her granddaughter and Kyle and I are super stoked to have a niece!

My first present to baby Carlyn was a pink blanket. I've been dying to make one since my brothers started having kids and I finally get to make as many ruffly, girly, soft and cuddly blankets as I want!

Catching up...

It seems like its been ages since I've had time to get on here and update! A lot has been going on in our neck of the woods. Lets start with a trip to Tahoe in March for Erin's birthday and a farewell trip for my brothers. Ryan is off to Spain now and Brett is in Texas for basic training.

Below is Brady sporting some pretty rad beanie hair as we wait to find the perfect sledding hill. The weather was sunny and amazing and just perfect for a family day. Here is Cole standing on the "Olympic podium". I asked him what place he wanted to be and he said "third!". So here is our proud third place olympic sledder. Here is mom, Jill, and Brady on the shuttle to the park.

Our Wedding Website

TheKnot

Kyle and I have been working hard to tie together as many of the details of our wedding as possible the past month. Check out our *work in progress* website for the big event. Also, expect your invitations in the mail any time now!

90 Days to go :)

Date night...

This Saturday Kyle and I decided to have a date night. Since we've been so busy lately it has been tough to get in some quality time. Luckily, this quarter at Stanford is drawing to a close and our schedules will become a bit more manageable. Kyle's project is coming along nicely and he's getting ready to present his design on the 15th. I'll definitely get some pictures of his progress up soon.

Save Our Schools

http://www.standupforschools.org/

For anyone that is currently in school (preschool through college).


This Thursday, March 4 is "Start the day for Students". Wear black that day to let California know that we don't want any more cuts to Education. These cuts to education are not the way to improve things in California.

If you're not in school, but you've ever had a teacher that influenced your life, do it for them. Do it for your kids that will soon be going to school. Do it.

The Big Project...

Kyle's big project for this quarter is a hand held volleyball pump. It doesn't look like much here because it is just a tube of plastic. But Kyle has been working hard to design and use all these fancy machines (you'll have to ask him what they're all called, though I'm pretty sure he's been throwing around the term 'lathe' quite a bit lately). At this point he has a working prototype and it looks pretty cool! I'll definitely post his final project when its all finished.

Hoping for a girl...

That's right folks! I'm making a baby girl blankie. Of course, we haven't heard if Jill is having a boy or girl yet, but I'm taking things into my own hands (literally). I am going to start her collection of pink now so Jill can just deal with it! If in March we find out that I'm getting another nephew I guess this little thing will just have to go in the hope chest along with Sarrah's little girl blanket. (Sarrah, could you seriously get started on that for me please? I'm going to run out of room.)

Chopping Onions...

... makes Kyle's eyes water. This one was particularly strong so being the engineer he is, he grabbed his snowboarding goggles. Normally I just stick my head in the freezer until I feel like I can chop again. Don't ask where I heard that, but I swear it works!

While Kyle and his mom slaved away in the kitchen my mom and I worked on creating a mess, I mean the guestbook for the wedding. Bella was lending a helping paw here and mom was explaining that kitties don't belong on the table.

The season for Love...

is upon us!!

This Valentine's weekend Kyle and I introduced our two favorites to each other. Our moms. On Saturday I took the moms to Ano Nuevo to see the elephant seals. This is the prime time to visit if you want to see some serious fights over territory (because mating season starts around Valentine's day every year). We got to hike around and see some fat babies called "weaners" because they are being weaned right about now. The big boys definitely put on a show, chasing each other and fighting and snorting. Sadly I left my camera home so I didn't get any pictures or videos this time.

That night we had a massive slumber party with the moms plus Corey, Rhiannon, and Brock. Our apartment has never seen so much action! Kyle and I loved having people come visit though and we had fun hanging out with the family in our neck of the woods for the weekend!

On Sunday the moms and I got to do some fun wedding planning stuff. Kris volunteered to make desserts for the wedding so we decided against the traditional cake thing (yay!!) and we are going to do more yummy options like apple and strawberry pies, chocolate covered strawberries, and fruit tarts. Way better than cake if you ask me! While Kris and Kyle cooked up all the yummy farmer's market finds from that day, my mom and I started working on the guest book for the wedding. We're both super excited about this thing and we're putting a lot of work into it. I'll definitely post pictures as it gets closer to being finished so you all can start counting the seconds until you get to add your messages to it. You won't want to be left out of all the fun!

Yesterday, Kyle and I had a day off together for the first time in months. We enjoyed a sunny brunch outside at a yummy and fun new cafe and then spent most of the day putting together our new filing cabinet. It was so nice to actually spend time with each other that we didn't mind all the work! We both decided that we are pretty lucky to have each other as Valentines's :)

Five more months until...

Kyle and I will be married and relaxing here! Kyle just booked our honeymoon to Fiji! I am so excited I can hardly stand it! We are so looking forward to seeing our close friends and family in one place this July. We have such a fun weekend planned for you all, and we are so excited to share our special day with our favorite people!

A Tail of Two Sisters...

Lady and Bella, the two furry sisters lived in a tall tower.
Bella, the black kitten, loves her big sister Lady and tries to get her to play all day long.
Lady, the Grey Goddess, likes to lounge at the top of the tower.

Of course, Bella does her fair share of lounging.
This year the two kitty sisters made a new years resolution to share more and be nicer to each other. Here they are sipping their "Cat-sip" kitty milk from their Christmas stockings.
They even share their favorite shoe-lace toy. They've come a long way!

Cheer throughout the year...

My spirits needed a little lifting after a rough Tuesday, so I thought I'd go back through my holiday photos and I found this. Gotta love the dancing kitten elves!

Sixteen...

...is the number of addresses I've had in the last 10 years. Last night I got to thinking about how weird it will be for Kyle and I to live in the same apartment for another year and I realized that the reason is because I haven't lived anywhere for longer than a year in over a decade. With this realization, I decided to finally unpack the rest of my stuff. Yes, I have kept some of my belongings boxed up because it has been much easier to keep them boxed than to unpack them and repack to move again and again. It will be nice to see my old pictures and books again :)

Does this mean I'm settling down?

A little Reflection on 2009...

Last year when I started this blog, Kyle and I were hoping to keep our families up to date with some of our life events, both big and small. I recently spent some time going back and looking at all the changes this year has brought and realized just how amazingly awesome last year was. I also realized that this blog has been a source of enjoyment to us both and in a way has served as a scrapbook of our lives.

We have come a long way in a year that's for sure! Last year at this time we were wondering where Kyle would go for school, if I would still have a job in the fall, where we would live for the rest of the year, how will we go about planning our upcoming wedding, if we should adopt another kitty, what would our new nephew be like, etc.

Now, Kyle is going to Stanford, I'm still working, we have a cute apartment in a good neighborhood, we have a pretty good handle on the wedding planning, a new kitty, and a beautiful and funny nephew, Brock. We definitely consider ourselves to be very fortunate.

2010 is sure to have more excitement in store for us and probably some difficulties too. Probably most exciting for us will be in July when we finally tie the knot! (As of today we have 6 months to go!) We are anxious to meet our next addition to the family when Brett and Jill have their new baby sometime in August. We will watch my best friend since elementary school marry the love of her life in September. We will be missing Ryan when he moves to Spain in March. We will begin a new lifestyle when Kyle takes leave from work to go back to school full time in September. We greet this year full of anticipation and new years resolutions to live healthily and responsibly. We can't wait to watch these expected events take place and enjoy the unexpected surprises to come our way. We are thankful to our amazing friends and family that support us, encourage us, and love us along the way. We wish everyone a wonderful 2010!

Happy New Year!!