New Year

It's 2010! Happy New Years to everyone.. I'm looking to be more consistent this year on the blog and wanted to start out on the right foot.

New Years eve I went to the Phipps Conservatory with Gabe P., his girlfriend, and another couple. Sharon stayed home because she had already seen the gardens and is still recovering from being sick. I really liked the show they have there right now. The work of Hans Godo Frabel has been integrated with the gardens and plants. He is a glass artists.

The pieces that I liked the most were the Longfellow gravity and fountain pieces, the balancing clowns in the pond, and the sprite and 'viney' abstract pieces. Going in the evening made the experience at Phipps seem much more like an art show because the lighting really accented and brought attention to glass pieces more than the plants. I liked the night lighting on the sculptures though. It made them more mysterious and thoughtful. That being said, I'd like to go back in the day and pay more attention to the plants.

I was surprised at how family friendly they made the exhibit to. For New Years eve it was really busy and there were a lot of families with kids running around. I think if we were staying around I would make taking the kids there a tradition.

The great thing about the Frabel exhibit and being there on New Years eve was the message of hope, fun, and optimism that was intended and present in the art work. To me this is a great attitude to have going into the new year. May you all have a happy, prosperous, and optimistic 2010.
---
Ant

Not so complainy update

Happy New Year!!!
We are excited for all that 2010 has in store for us. A baby, a move or two, a new job. It's going to be a new decade for a new phase of life.
Health: Since, I last wrote my health got worse, and now better. Hurray! My pink eye spread to my other eye, and I thought I broke a rib on Christmas from coughing too much and too hard. I'm on antibiotics which seem to have helped my cough a lot, and the left side of my back feels almost normal. Unfortunately yesterday I pulled the same thing on my right side, which my midwife told me hurts most right where my kidney is, which raises a couple questions. I have to put pressure on it, everytime I cough to lessen the pain. My boss probably hates me for it, but staying home this week has really helped out. Pink eye's gone, my voice is coming back, and the cough on it's way out.
Pregnancy: Things are looking pretty good. I'll be full term on saturday which kind of blows my mind. We are feeling more prepared stuffwise, with something for the baby to sleep in, a rocking chair, a stop watch, etc. When I look at the side view of my stomach in the mirror, it makes me laugh.
Christmas: It was so fun to have the Romeros here. They were good sports, since I probably acted and looked like a zombie slug the whole time they were here. We had a little feast in our tiny apartment, and enjoyed the company of one of our friends from church. They slept over, and went to the Children's museum the next day.
We are taking advantage of out Netflix trial while we're both at home. Up made me cry within the first 5 minutes, Food Inc is a must see, and we ordered Harry Potter 6 before we realized we never got around to seeing Harry Potter 5.
Anthony's been baking like crazy the past couple of days. Mmmm. He's used our new grain mill (thanks Quinns!) to make whole wheat bread, and cake out of rice flour. And then he went through a two day process to make panettone. I always thought panettone was kind of gross with it's boxed dryness, and weird chunks of fake fruit, but it turns out that when it's fresh, and made with chocolate chips, it's really really yummy. He's been a major sweety, encouraging me to rest and giving good back messages.
I'll be back at work on Monday. Fairy tale week. My second to last week of work, before the baby's due. Crazy!
We love you guys, and you're all in our prayers. Happy 2010!!!
Sharon

Home for the Holidays

I haven't written anything in a long time so I feel like I really need to update the blog on what has been doing on. Sharon had also written some updates that I added also, sorry for those who have already read them.

School: I'm done. I finished all my course work at Carnegie Mellon and I'm graduated. The ceremony and diploma come in May, but it is looking like we won't be here for that. It was a pretty stressful semester and I wasn't sure how I was going to do. Grades are in though and this ended up being my best semester so far. It helps that 24 credits (which would usually be 4 short classes or 2 normal classes) was my capstone project with Bosch ( By the way, I would like to thank those who participated in the survey we sent out). Our work culminated in a report and presentation given to the Bosch team here in Pittsburgh. They liked our work and it sounds like they might have another project for students to work on in the future.

I've been saying goodbye to all my friends. We went out to eat Indian food with a bunch of my Indian friends. There is an amazing Indian restaurant, called Tamarind, close to campus and right behind the church. We went out to the famous Primanti Brothers restaurant with my friends from Pittsburgh. It was a fun experience, but the food wasn't nearly as good as I thought it would be. It was traditional Pittsburgh, meaning a lot of coleslaw and french fries on the burgers.

Job: For those who haven't heard, I have accepted a job with General Electric (GE) in Connecticut. I start the beginning of July. We are excited for the opportunity. I've had my eye on the job since I talked with some Alumni from my program who were at the Career Fair at Carnegie Mellon. I liked the idea for several reasons. First, it is a 2 year rotational leadership program they call the Information Management Leadership Program (IMLP). Which means, if you perform well and they like you, there are opportunities for good career growth in the company. If at the end of two years they don't like me, or I don't like what I'm doing, it will be a convenient time to leave, with great experience and 'graduation' from a highly valued program.
Second, every 6 months I will be rotated into a new project with a different focus and exposure to different roles (4 rotations in total). I could be working on designing and implementing a database one rotation, helping gather requirements in another rotation, doing software/application development on another rotation, or doing process improvement. I like this idea because I want experience in different areas. It is kind of giving me a 'consultant' like experience without the travel and other downers that can some with consulting.
Third, we still have options for where we end up. We will be moving to Connecticut for the first rotation, but on any (possibly all) the rotations I could be moved to a new geographic location. We would live there the duration of the rotation and move on to the next one. We like this because as a young and fairly mobile family it will give us the chance to try out some other locations. We are excited to start in Connecticut because we will be about an hour from New York City on the train, or less driving (Depending on traffic).
Fourth, I'm in an industry I've been interested in getting to know more about. I will be working in the GE Capital group, meaning all my rotations and likely future employment would be in GE Capital. That ranges from their consumer finance (like credit cards), to commercial finance (like financing small businesses or green technology development) to other financial areas. GE has actually been trying to shrink this part of the company since the financial crisis, but it means the opportunities for what I do are greater, I also don't see them ever getting rid of this part of the business like they are getting rid of NBC Universal.

So, we are excited about work. We are now working out all the details of what we will do from now until July. Probably visiting a lot of you and introducing our new child to the family.

Baby: The pregnancy is going well. We are officially in the last month! We are in the 38th week, which means the baby could really come anytime in the next 5 weeks. Sharon is taking it well. It would be a lot easier if we could keep her healthy. Something about Pittsburgh irritates Sharon's respiratory system and causes her to cough a lot, combined with a runny nose, cold weather, and working at a preschool you have a recipe for making someone sick. The last three weeks have been pretty bad. We are off to the doctor today to see if we can't speed up recovery. She will stop working in a couple of weeks so she can rest before the baby is due. We finished our lamaze class a few weeks ago. It was a decent class. I was expecting more practice and not as much lecture, but the videos helped prepare me for what it will be like.

We have been getting everything together for the baby. People here are super nice. We have a car seat for infants and a basinet on loan from friends. We got a rocking chair and crib for free through friends and freecycle (if you don't know about this you should read up on it).

Fun:
Thanksgiving: We visited my family in Utah. It was great to be in the mountains again and to play out in the field behind the house, visit with family, and feel the crisp mountain air. We did the 'Turkey Trot". A 5k community event put on by the stake(Picture above). Sharon made it all the way. I got to break in our new gift from my sister with our niece, a back pack for carrying the new baby around.

Wedding: Sharon's co-worker got married the beginning of December. We were invited to the ceremony and reception. It was a lot of fun. It was my first Catholic Wedding. It was nice and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Christmas: We stayed put for Christmas. It was fun and above all relaxing. We had Sharon's sister and her family from Niagara Falls here Christmas day and had a dinner with them and a single guy from our ward. It was an enjoyable evening. The next day we just lounged around and visited. It was just what we needed.

Beginning Dec. Update - Sharon

Hey Family,
The beginning of December has treated us well. Here are the highlights.
* Anthony's graduation!!!! Not walking with a cap and gown till spring (maybe), but he is finished, done, completely free and moving forward from school! Yay! Friday was his last day with any school obligations, a major presentation. I came home from work that night to 4 loads of laundry already done. What a hunk. :)
* Wedding: My friend from work has been engaged for over a year and has shared every joy and misery of wedding planning with her coworkers. This was both Ant and my first Catholic wedding. It was fun to go with kind of anthropological eyes. Lots and lots of ritual. At the reception there was loads of fancy food and lots of drinking. I think I'm still naive enough to not recognize when people are drunk as opposed to just being silly. But I found it interesting to still feel the spirit on this happy occasion. Marriage is of God.
* Church: Sang in the ward Christmas presentation today. Had a really fun pajama brunch Christmas celebration. And hit a sweet Christmas concert organized by the stake, I think most of the performers were CMU and Pitt students, most of which are probably not members.
* Pregnancy: I must be noticeably huge now, because funny things are starting to happen. When we met some of Ant's Indian friends for lunch, the waiter brought me a mango lassi that as far as I know no-one ordered, and it didn't show up on our bill. People have been asking to touch my stomach, or just doing it without asking. One of the toddler mom's at work saw me in the hallway, looked at my abdomen, and just started laughing...kind of a sympathetic laugh I guess. :) Etc, etc. Anyway, I've been feeling pretty good. My cold (which I now attribute to just plain being allergic to Pittsburgh) acted up a lot this last week, so I drove to work instead of walked. I'm feeling well enough to walk there and back now, as long as the sidewalks aren't icy.
So that's some of life in a jiffy. We're excited for Christmas! Woohoo!
Love you guys. You are all in our prayers,
Sharon

End of Nov. update - Sharon

Hi Family!
highlights from the past couple of weeks.
Our visit to Utah! So fun. It was good to be back with the Quinns. We were able to meet neice and nephew Truman and Jean for the first time. Anthony comes from cute baby genes. Woohoo! It's probably related to having cute genes in general. Anyway, it's sweet to know that baby Quinn will be entering a family with uncles that will go on their treasure hunts, and Grandparents that will cuddle and play with him/her.
While we were there, Valine, Camille, and Tiff threw an awesome baby shower for us. Lots of Quiche and yummy food. Aunt Dorothy and Mary, Aunt Joanne, and cousin Laura (Wallace) were able to make it. I was really happy to see Uncle Don too, even though he hid out in the basement watching a grandson. I was also able to see an old room-mate and my mission trainer. Such great people in the world. And Generous! We got a ton of really cute, really useful things. I feel confident that our baby won't go cold or naked now. :)
Other UT highlights included
*the Turkey Trot: We walked a 5k, which felt really good. I'm so glad that my pregnancy is going well enough that I can do that.
* (Cousin) Jake Quinn's wedding: So sweet. They were both so much more composed that I was during our wedding. Temple weddings are the best! And they had excellent crepes at the reception. Mmm.
* Mckay performing in Savior of the World at the Conference Center. He's only 14 and probably one of the tallest in the whole cast. The performance was great!..and made me cry again this year.
* Food! Wow, those Quinns know how to cook. Anthony and I laughed about coming home to Pittsburgh to a scrambled egg dinner.
Anyway, I could go on and on. But I won't. The rest of life is good. Going back to work today wasn't nearly as crazy as it could have been. The main toddler teacher is off for the next two weeks to prepare for her wedding, then honey moon. So, we had 14 kids today including two toddlers. It went relatively smoothly. I was alone with them during nap time...which is a challenge. Getting 14 wiggly 2-5 year olds to sleep must be teaching me some sort of life skills, right? This week is outer space week! It'll be out of this world. :)
Anthony is presenting in class for one of his finals. After this week, he'll be pretty much done with school. Woohoo! He's pretty pumped.
I'll hit 34 weeks next Saturday, and am starting to feel pretty pregnant. For instance, swollen feet. When we went to Mckay's show, my shoes started to feel really tight. So of course I took them off for the show, but couldn't fit them on when the show was finished! Well, I guess I squeezed them on with overflowing pudge long enough to get out of the building. But as soon as we got out, I pried them off. Bodies are so amazing, and sometimes so weird.
Alright family, I love you all and thought all Thanksgiving about how grateful I am for you. Really, I don't think there is anything more important to me than the gospel, and the blessing of having family that lives it. Have a good beginning of December. Ah December. Bring it on!
Sharon

Take a Survey about Home Automation

Home Automation
The project I've been working on this semester revolves around Home Automation. That means having the ability to control things in your home from one central location. That includes being able to control things in your home remotely through a smart phone, like the iPhone, or from your computer. It is pretty cool stuff.

We are trying to get a feel for what peoples perceptions and demand for a product like this would be, including what they would be willing to pay and what channels they would consume it through. We put together a small survey and we are looking for a wide range of opinions and thoughts, so please take the survey and pass it on to others:) You can click here to take it, or click the link below.
http://www.eSurveysPro.com/Survey.aspx?id=e4ceff1c-7295-4862-9900-09f56094c847

As an incentive we have secured a $100 gift certificate from restaurants.com. People who have submitted a survey will be put in the drawing to win that certificate. The survey won't be open for long so go quickly.

Thanks.

Sharon Update - request for flu prayers

This is a Sharon update, but I thought I would just add that I wrote a longer review of the Ballet if you want to read it, it is after this update.

Hi family,

It's been another eventful week....including...

* An awesome visit from the fire dept, to my preschool. This weeks theme was Heroes and Helpers, because most of my little boys seem to think that all heroes do are use their martial arts skills and run around and yell. So, we had a day on firefighters, medical emergencies, police, helping our friends...and of course superheroes. I got the local firefighters to come for a visit, and they ended up staying for a whole hour, gave a really thorough tour of the truck, and let the kids climb around it, including sitting in the drivers seat. They brought big stickers and little plastic hats for everyone. So cool.

* Anthony's Birthday! Thanks for all the calls and singing. It was also our first day of Lamaze classes. It was weird being around so many pregnant women. It seems like it'll be a pretty good class, especially when combined with what I've learned about the Bradley Method and a some of the relaxation imagery from Hypnobirthing. Don't worry, it's not as weird as it sounds.

* Ant's interview in Connecticut went well and they love him. Who couldn't? So, he'd be doing a 2 year leadership training program with GE starting January 10th. That's right, 6 days before the baby is born. Crazy!!! Anyway, it seems like an awesome program, and we're hoping they'll let us push back the start date till say...March 1st.

* Midwife appointment. Everything's on track. For my last appointment I couldn't believe that I was gaining a pound a week, but now it looks more like 2 lbs a week! Woah!!! The baby is head down which is a huge relief. Just stay that way please baby.

* Yesterday started off the way every Saturday should. Sleeping in, whole wheat waffles, grocery shopping, and then my body sort of started to shut down. We bought a thermometer for the first time in my life, and my temp was 100.5, at least. Ant's was coming up around 96 and 97, so I wouldn't be surprised if mine was actually closer to 101, 102. I called my midwife and he called in a perscription for Tamiflu. I feel much better today. My head, throat, nose and energy level are still not where they should be. But I'm feeling much less achy and a little less pukey. And my temperature is down. If you guys could keep us in your prayers that would be great. Now that my temp is down, I'm more worried about what the medication could do the baby. Tamiflu isn't suggested for pregnant women since there hasn't been any research on the effects on the baby. In rabbits and rats, it looks like it could cause minor bone deformities in offspring. Eek.

Love you guys!!!! Hope all is well with you!

Sharon

P.S. I forgot to mention that we went to the ballet Friday night to celebrate Ant's b-day. It was amazing! The performance was called "Light/the Holocaust and Humanity Project." It made me cry...and also want to dance again. But at this point the dance would probably include other dancers rolling me around. :)