Winter Fun

Below...Today, March 10th is my brother Peter's 13th birthday! Happy Birthday Peter! Here we are in Door County, Wisconsin last summer. Peter is such a great brother and has a great sense of humor. Lately, we've celebrated lots of our family members birthdays (father-in-law Mike, brother-in-law Jeremy, sister-in-laws Keyana and Karissa, my sister-in-law Carrie, brother Joe, nephews Hunter and Sawyer, neice Kayla.) Sooo many birthdays!

Because our husbands are both mechanical engineering students, and because they are so dedicated to studying, Kelsey, Jared, and I get to see each other often. Kelsey and Ken literally live across the street, which has been a huge blessing. Vance always makes lots of time for us, but when he is busy studying, Kelsey and I are good buds. Here we are at a basketball game recently. We got there an hour and a half before the game to get seats, but as you can see by the empty seats behind us, we could have come a little later! Jared is really growing. He is a delight to be with, is "talking" a lot, and growing fast too!

I have been WAITING AND WAITING for a good snowfall here to go sledding. Finally, there was maybe 1/2 inch on the ground. We went to a nearby hill and went sledding for 15 minutes because it was so late at night and so coldThere was so little snow that anywhere you stepped or sledded on was just grass. How funny! Here we are with our awesome sled.

Vance and I had a fun date on February 13th, the night before Valentine's Day. He got me a gorgeous bouquet of roses...on his way back from a trip from St. George. I was sooo surprised.

We are deciding where we are going to graduate schools this fall. We have heard from most schools, but still waiting to hear back from two more. We'll keep you updated!

Ouch!

By request, I am posting this very gross picture. :)

Vance and I just got back from a walk-in-clinic. I got 2 deep stitches and 6 outer stitches on my leg. Not thinking wisely, I left our largest knife on the counter, instead of putting it away after using it for dinner preparation. While picking up a plastic bag underneath the knife, it sent the knife spinning off the counter. I jumped back but it still cut my leg, and sadly made a big cut in my favorite work pants from GAP. Although cuts are not fun, we're grateful it wasn't worse!

Maybe I should milk this wound for all it is worth...do I need a wheelchair? Time off work? Someone to bring me meals? A cold washcloth for my forehead?

Other than the mild drama for the evening, everything has been going great. Vance was involved in a large grant for the Mechanical Engineering department. We are expecting to hear back from graduate schools soon as well. We've had some GEORGEOUS snowfalls recently. Vance has been enjoying occasional intramural or pick up basketball games with friends. I've been getting into shape...differently this time. I have been in the weight room in addition to some cardio exercise. Hoping to max out soon...just kidding. Work is going great. Several students have made large leaps of progress at school, which is very rewarding.

More Holiday Pictures

Peter, Sawyer, Joe, Carrie, and Dad on Christmas morning.


Vance was so excited for the Hot Wheels 2009 Corvette found in his stocking.



Ken, Kelsey, Ruth, Vance, Peter, and I competed in a gingerbread house making contests. Vance, Peter and I were on the same team. We have here a watchtower and an "Up" house.

Peter added this guy to the watchtower. This won in the "most intimidating" category!


We decided to eat our anniversary cake top a bit early. It was fun posing. The cake looks a bit different on top (the buttercream/fondant flowers wilted). It didn't taste as great as it did last July, but we enjoyed tasting it!

Vance and I will be celebrating our six month anniversary in a few days. Being married to Vance has been wonderful. He demonstrates such a great example of unconditional love. He is so patient with me. I love him more than I did the day we got married. I look forward to the many years and of course FOREVER we have together!

Holidays

We took some family pictures at our home in Wisconsin with our Kindt side of the family. This is just the silly one. We have Joe, Hunter, Carrie, Sawyer, Peter, Dad, Mom, Ruth, Vance, Me, Ken, Kelsey, and Jared. EVERYONE! It was so cool to all be together. We're not sure when it will happen again.



Vance's brother and sister-in-law (Scott and Rachel) gave us their old Christmas tree. We were super excited. It was more than we expected for a first Christmas. I was picturing a 12 inch Christmas tree or something... We got stockings and decorations as well from Tai Pan Trading... love that store!



This is what it looked like when we had all of the lights off in the room.

For Thanksgiving I made a peach pie. I was frankly suprised with myself and quite pleased!


This is the pumpkin pie I made. I can't figure how to rotate the picture.


We made chocolate covered pretzels in December as a little gift for friends and family. It takes a long time and makes a bit of a mess, but it is fun to do each year.

New Year

We had a wonderful Christmas break in Wisconsin! We did lots of fun things like ice skating, watching movies, playing Wii, eat out, shopping, etc. Vance was such a trooper through it all! We got to see my Grandma and Grandpa Kindt's house in Greendale (Milwaukee), walk through it, and reminisce. I would love to be able to purchase the house...but that's just not possible...

To make myself more accountable, I wanted to post this on the blog.

New Year's Resolution:
Exercise three times weekly

Vance and I are waiting to hear back from graduate schools. It is kind of fun not knowing where we'll be in the fall, or even possibly spring/summer. The places we may go are: USC (Los Angeles, CA), U of U (Salt Lake City, UT), Texas (Austin, TX), Minnesota (Minneapolis, MN), Carnegie Melon (Pittsburgh, PA), and Perdue (West Lafeyette, IN). We are REALLY excited. I would love to start planning and dreaming about new XX location, but I just can't yet. I would love to KNOW where to look for apartments, plan for long runs, etc. We'll just have to be patient.