Todd

Over the weekend we made a big change in our household. The newest member of our family, dear Katherine, moved to her own bedroom. She's five and a half months old now, and we figured we better make the move soon before she understands what's going on and why she wasn't in our bedroom anymore. She moved to the guest bedroom, or should I say, former guest bedroom. We pushed the bed to one wall and were still able to move the crib and changing table in. We figured we'd leave the bed for just a little longer since we are about to face some long nights of teething.

I can't tell, but it feels like a tooth is starting to poke through Katherine's gums. It would be her first. It feels like all her bottom teeth will come in at once. Her gums are all bumpy. We've already got the infant Tylenol and Ambesol all ready.

If you recall, we gave Katherine some rice cereal, greatly watered down, last week. She was okay with it, so we tried a thicker version, which she was okay with. We also tried it and were very grossed out by the blandness. So, on Monday, we tried some squash for her first real solid food. We had gotten it as a gift at the baby shower, and it was still good, so we thought we'd give it a go. It smelled really good. She took to it like a champ. I think she was a little taken aback by a flavor in her mouth as the first bite took her awhile to figure out. After that she downed the entire portion we had pulled out...about two tablespoons. We got her a little more but thought it best to wait the three days to make sure she wasn't allergic. That's today, and she's fine, so we'll probably give her a bunch more tonight. She was pretty darn messy with it, as a baby should be. She even took the spoon at one point and tried to feed herself.

Two more weeks until she'll be 6 months old! Wow. That, of course, means another round of shots, but it also means she gets to go to her swimming class with Victoria on Feb 15th. She's a natural swimmer and LOVES taking baths and splashing around.

I had a three day weekend and wow was it great! It's unusual that I get to finish everything I wanted to in a weekend. And even more rare that I also get to do some fun things too. But I did that this weekend!

It took me a leisurely two days, but I did finally get the upper stairs completed from the wood floors project I began before Katherine was born. They look incredible, and it's nice not to have to look at the unfinished bare wood any more. Now we want to move on to the other projects like baseboards and finally staining the fireplace.

Victoria and I played some games which was also fun since we don't get a lot of chances to do something like that anymore. Round 1 was my old school Battleship from when I was a kid. Victoria took that round. Then for Round 2 we pulled out my old school Hangman, also from when I was a kid. I took that round. Then Round 3 was some dominoes, which I ended up winning. What fun!

We also went out and looked at model homes. It's something fun that we do occasionally. We aren't looking to move, but we do like looking for design ideas. I must say, new homes are very overpriced and aren't built or designed all that well for what you pay. After that, we went and tried out a new restaurant, Cheddars, at Arapahoe and Parker. I thought it was like an upscale Black Eyed Pea. The food was really good, and the portions are large with really great prices. Check it out if you have one near you.

The last highlight of the weekend was feeding Katherine her first "solid" food with a spoon. We mixed some very soupy rice cereal as her first ever solid food, though it was far from solid. It was also a chance to get to feed her with a spoon for the first time. We did take a bunch of video as well. It was quite the messy experience. Here we are almost 3 days later and no allergic reaction, so that's good news!

Hi all!

I haven’t done any fundraising in awhile, and found this worthwhile cause through a friend. I’d been looking for something to do after my big Ride the Rockies stint a few years ago. The American Lung Association has done this fundraiser to promote research for asthma and lung disease the last few years. It’s called Race the Republic, and if you aren’t familiar with it, it’s a 56 story stair climb at Republic Plaza downtown. Republic Plaza ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_Plaza_%28Denver%29 ) is the tallest building in Colorado, and the Rocky Mountain West. (It’s the 109^th tallest building in the United States, standing an impressive 714 feet!)

Am I insane to climb 1098 stairs as quickly as I can? Probably, but I am doing this for a reason. Last year my uncle was diagnosed with lung cancer. I will be climbing in his honor. His cancer was caught early and he has gone through several rounds of radiation treatments and is currently in remission. Unfortunately, this is far from over, and I want to help in any way I can.

My minimum pledge is $56; one dollar per story of the climb. I know with all the friends I have that we can at least raise that much money. I am not asking for a lot of money, just a few dollars will really help. Here are a few suggested tax-deductible donation amounts:

$0.10/story = $5.60

$0.25/story = $14.00

$0.50/story = $28.00

$0.01/stair = $10.98

Feel free to pledge what you like. I would really appreciate it! And I am sure my uncle will too. Thank you for your incredible support! Feel free to forward this on to anyone! Or if you’d like to participate on your own, feel free. The more the merrier!

You can pledge online at: http://www.mrsnv.com/evt/e01/part.jsp?rid=1100398&id=2863&acct=9001296001&mid=682825

If you want to find out more about Race the Republic, you can visit the website: http://www.racetherepublic.com

Thanks, everyone!

Todd.

Wow, 2010 already?! My how time flies when you have a little one.

We had a great start to the year. We ended 2009 with our traditional family outing of an early dinner. We try to pick a new place every year that we haven't been to, and this year we ended up at White Fence Farms in Lakewood, Colorado. It's a pretty neat place known for its fried chicken and downhome country atmosphere. It was very tasty. We ended the evening at the Britzman's house hanging out and then on to home where Katherine decided she wanted to stay up to ring in the new year with a bottle at midnight.

On New Year's Day we headed to the Johnson's house. We stuck around all day and relaxed by playing games and watching some television.

We are getting more confident with taking Katherine out and about. She had her first cold shortly after arriving back in Colorado after our mid-December trip. Being as it was her first sickness, it took a long time to go away, nearly two weeks.

She's doing really well these days, trying to use her legs to stand, actually making a little forward progress while on her stomach, and playing with toys. She's been getting ready for her first tooth for about 3 weeks now. We aren't sure if it will be the bottom or top one yet, but looks like it will be on her right side. She LOVES the water. She splashes a lot in the bath and will be taking a swim class with Mommy one day after her 6 month birthday in February. She has started giggling a little bit. She can even sit unaided for a few minutes occasionally. Usually we have to prop her up, but her balance has gotten really good. It seems like she's constantly smiling. She always smiles at the animals when they come near to her, especially Molimo. She loves to pet them all.

She'll be five months old this week. It's hard to believe how fast the time has gone. We have let quite a few things go to the back burner in the meantime, but now we are starting to pick them back up again. I was able to nearly finish putting the wood floors on the upper stairs this weekend. Victoria has been busy working on our food menu and budgeting our money wisely now that we have one income. We've also spent the last week or so trying out something new. We have been trying to get Katherine to go to bed at a consistent time so we can all get a decent night sleep and go to bed at the same time. I am happy to report that it took only 6 days for us to get Katherine to conform to an 8:15-8:30pm bedtime. It's hard to hear her cry, but about night 4, all the sudden, this were okay. She will only cry for about 5-15 minutes now. Last night she didn't cry at all. This has been great because Victoria doesn't have to stay up late now. And we all get up at 5am for first feeding. Usually Katherine makes it until 5am, but sometimes she'll wake up and Victoria quietly gives her a little bottle, then back down for bed. So, nice to have her sleeping in the crib full time.

We often hear we aren't posting enough pictures. We are taking them, but as I mentioned, it's hard to even get to the computer these days. So, I'll leave you with a recent picture of our little space monkey wearing a t-shirt I got a Space Camp for her, and some NASA booties Grandma and Grandpa got at Kennedy Space Center. She's nearly 5 months old in this picture. We remark at how big she is when we see her baby pictures now.

2009 was a great year for the Thalimer Family. We added one to our brood, and she's might cute. I am so happy that Victoria gets to stay home full time with her and watch her grow and take great care of her. We had to make some sacrifices to make that happen, but it is worth it.

We were so happy to get to show Katherine off to family and friends this year, both in Colorado and California. It's very true what everyone told us: they grow up fast, enjoy it while they are small. Katherine is growing fast. She's already 4 1/2 months old, closing in on 15lbs and is over 2 feet tall. She can scoot on her back quite well, and is starting to make movement on her stomach. She likes to play in her jumper that her aunt got her so that she can stretch out her legs. She just started laughing. It's the little things in life that you take for granted that become so very special when you have a child.

2009 was the year Victoria said goodbye to her career so she could stay at home. Some long nights with Katherine still haven't persuaded her that she needs to return, although they can be rough at times. We've learned to deal more with sleep deprivation.

I am excited about what 2010 holds for the Thalimers. We are hoping to have another child by year's end to complete our family unit. We hope to finish the last of the home renovations, which don't consist of too much work, just a lot of little projects. We'll be spending a lot of time on the homestead, which is fine with us. We hope to see lots more of our family and friends as well.

If you haven't, be sure to check out the new www.thalimer.com, as I've made a bunch of improvements recently, adding AJAX so that the pages load a lot faster and cleaner. (I know a lot of you out there have no idea what that means, but just know it's good and geeky!)

Have a happy, safe, and prosperous New Year everyone!

My family held their annual get together, Chrismukkah (yep, it's real) this last weekend in California. We were able to fly out with Katherine and had a grand time! My grandfather got to meet Katherine, his newest great-grandchild, and the fourth living generation of Thalimers! There are a bunch more pictures over at Thalimer.com under the photos section, so check that out if you want to see all the pictures! We arrived early on Thursday. Katherine was able to ride in her carseat on the plane, which was awesome! She ended up sleeping the whole way, which sure made things easier. When we got in, we went over to my aunt's house since it was too early to check in to the hotel. My aunt loved up Katherine like crazy for a few hours. My parents were also there and happy to see their granddaughter. In the afternoon we headed to the Residence Inn to check in. After our wonderful experience last month with them in Northern California, we felt confident choosing them again. It works out awesome with a baby to have the kitchen and a sofa and everything. For dinner, we headed out and met one of Victoria's work friends, Tisha, at a local Long Beach eatery, La Parrolacia, a very small authenic Italian restaurant. It was super delish! On Friday we didn't have a lot planned and ended up going to see my grandfather earlier than we had planned. My dad was also arriving, so it was nice to have all of us there at the same time. My grandfather got to meet his newest great-grandchild and was very happy. We all went out for a walk and then a lunch at a local eatery. Victoria, Katheine and I went back to his condo and hung out until dinner. Every year we like to take Grandpa out to a place of his choosing. This year he chose a Chinese restaurant. Afterwards we went over to my aunt's house to meet up with my sister and nieces as they had arrived from Northern California. Saturday is the big day of the Chrismukkah party at my Aunt Cheryl's house. My cousin's (Kim) boyfriend (Ryan) was catering the party this year, and there was certainly a lot of food! My aunt custom makes an ornament for every family member and since Katherine was born this year, she had an ornament and we got to put it on the tree. As the newest member of the clan, she was also the first to light the menorah, with a little help from me. It's always great to see all of my family every year. And yes, there was a pinata again this year for the kids. A lovely Chanukkah pinata. Sunday we checked out of our hotel and headed out to brunch with the Thalimer and Kuhl clan at our traditional Hof's Hut. We then headed back to my grandfather's condo for the annual photo session. After that, we headed to my parent's RV down in Hunington Beach and had a nice lunch at a local Mexican restaurant. I always forget how good Southern California Mexican food is. We also headed down to the beach and Katherine got to put her feet in the ocean for the first time. It was pretty cold, and she cried a bit, but it was cute all the same. We had a late night flight back to Colorado and lucky for us, we got to bring Katherine's car seat on the plane again. Unfortunately she was getting sick and was very cranky, crying for an hour and ten minutes! There were some other unhappy babies as well on the flight, but it was frustrating to us that we couldn't calm her down. Victoria took her into the bathroom and she was fine there for a few minutes, and Victoria contemplated staying in there for most of the flight. I took Monday off since we got in so late, and glad I did, as I was a bit sick as well, it allowed me time to rest up to get back to work today. Looks like we are in for a White Christmas this year too, as a 4-8 inch snow storm is on its way!

We've achieved a new milestone in Katherine's development: she puts things in her mouth. As long as she can grab it, it's been coming up to her mouth this past week. She gnaws pretty good on fingers right now, and she's changed from a sucking motion, to a chewing motion. We hear that this signals that she's either getting ready to teethe or is preparing for solid foods. Both those milestones are about 2 months away, as she turns 4 months old on Monday. She is also doing exceptionally well at tummy time and sitting. If we hold her up on our laps, she even stretches out her legs and stands for a few seconds at a time. We aren't looking super forward to our Monday checkup as she'll be getting more shots and be fussy for the day, but it's all part of staying healthy.

Tomorrow I am giving Victoria the day off. I am home from work and taking care of Katherine for a day. It should be fun. I don't take care of her most of the time since I am at work, so I don't know all her habits, but she seems to be pretty easy still to figure out. We have heard from so many people about how good she is and that she doesn't cry very much. We are so lucky!

Next week we also head to Southern California for my family's holiday get together. Katherine has turned into quite the little frequent flyer, and the family is ready to spoil her rotten! We'll be spending time with my aunts and uncles and cousins, and Katherine will get to meet her Great Grandfather! 4 generations of Thalimers is exciting!

Christmas is also upon us, and Victoria and I have both been out shopping. It should be a very fun holiday. We'll be spending it with our little 3 person family this year. It will be great to get some down time after working so many hours recently. It was fun shopping for Katherine, but I think the toys don't get fun until she's at least a year old. She won't grasp Christmas this year since she's still so young, but next year, oh boy!

Wow, I can't believe it's been two weeks since I made a blog post! Time really gets away.
We had a fun Thanksgiving this year. My best friend from college, Maureen, came out to Colorado to hang out with us for a few days and make some yummy food. Tired of turkey, we went a non traditional route and decided on a comfort food theme. We ended up making all sorts of things, including: ribs, mac and cheese, bacon bok choy, foccacia, potato casserole, beer cheese soup, wild rice soup, apple crisp, pound cake. Mmmm. It was a pretty tasty few days.
Unfortunately the day before Thanksgiving I had gotten a pinched nerve and couldn't stand up or hold anything. Luckily, Victoria was able to fill in a bit for me and we ended up having a delicious dinner on Thanksgiving anyway. I took a nap on Friday afternoon (after a morning trip to the doctor) and woke up perfectly fine again. I still feel soreness, so I am still trying to take it a bit easy so I don't have an aggrevation.
Truffleman is also working on wedding favors this week. I booked a wedding back in May, and despite doing any further orders at this time, I am wrapping this up since there was a deposit on the order. Sorry to all the inquiries I've gotten about Christmas this year. With Katherine, I don't have the free time to do orders like I used to. Maybe in a few months I'll push it a little more, but for now, I'll just do special events. The order is pretty substantial this week, 200 pieces. They are coming out really nice. I'll have to post some pictures.
And since I've gotten a few inquiries...here are some photos of Katherine from around her 3 month old birthday...
Here's a great closeup Victoria got...

Doing some tummy time, and holding that head high!

3 month old birthday!

The obligatory naked baby on a sheepskin picture...

Cousin Olivia couldn't get enough of holding, changing diapers, and feeding her baby cousin...

We are back from our trip to Northern California to visit Victoria's family and introduce Katherine. They were so very excited to meet her! She got to meet Grandma and Grandpa Noonen, Uncle Mitchell, Cousin Durward, and Aunt Debbie. It was also Victoria's birthday last Friday, so we had a party at her parent's house and my sister and her family came up to help celebrate. It's always a great time to see the Kuhl family. We ended up spending our last night at their house in San Jose since we flew in and out of there.

Everyone is asking how Katherine did on the plane, and she was great except for one small part. On our flight to California, we thought we would make it as easy as possible, and packed the premixed formula so we just had to throw it in a bottle and feed her if she got hungry on the plane. Well, apparently she didn't like it and cried for what felt like an hour, but was closer to 15 minutes. It felt like everyone was watching, but I bet no one even cared. Once we got some water for regular formula, we mixed it up, and she ate it just fine. Whew. On the flight home she ate and fell asleep for at least half the flight. We also were able to catch a few minutes of sleep.

I have two things to say about some California stuff that I want to pass on, which I usually don't. We were very satisifed with both Enterprise as a car rental company and Residence Inn in Concord as a place to stay. Enterprise (though they somehow tricked me into taking some basic insurance) was super friendly, and even drove us back to the terminal after we checked the car in. That was so nice with having the car seat and all. The Residence Inn was so much more than we expected! It was neat and clean, and with the kitchen, so easy to make a bottle whenever we needed to. It was up to date, and the price was incredible.

I finally gave up on Dell getting me a laptop within a reasonable amount of time. They did delay a week, but it looks like it was going to become a habit based on the shortage of Intel i7 processors right now. So, I cancelled the order, and hit Microcenter and ended up with a pretty sweet Toshiba Qosimo X505-830 for about the same price as the Dell. It's got an 18.3 inch widescreen, and is incredible! It will take me a bit to get it all set up, but nice to work upstairs and help out with Katherine a lot more.

Wow, babies take time away from blogging. :) That's okay. And coupled with my long work hours lately, I haven't had time for many things. In fact, all of a sudden, I realized we are heading to California tomorrow!

We are going to the Bay Area to show off Katherine to Victoria's parents and brother. It will be fun to spend a few days of downtime there. We'll also be meeting up with my sister and her family in San Jose. It's Victoria's birthday on Saturday so we'll be celebrating that with everyone as well.

It should be interesting travelling with a little one. Victoria began laying out all the clothes and other miscellany we'll be needing. It's not too much more than normal, but I am glad we snagged our tickets a long time ago on Frontier, so we get free bags. We're only checking two big ones, then gate checking the car seat and we'll each have a smallish bag for carry on. I hope Katherine is as easy going as she usually is, for the plane is quite a confined space. I hope we aren't "those people with the noisy baby" on the plane.

I am still anxiously awaiting the arrival of my laptop. From what I've read on the Dell forums, things aren't so great with laptops, shipping, customer service, etc nowadays. It's due to arrive next Wednesday, but from what I hear is happening to a lot of people is it gets to the ship date, and then gets cancelled and reordered with a month later ship date. If that happens, I may cancel the order and buy a different brand. The HP ones are comparably priced and have the Core i7 chips in them. But, then again, maybe everything will be fine.

Wow, things have been so busy that I haven't had a chance to blog about them!

Katherine has been growing like a weed! She had her 2 month checkup, which I think I mentioned, where she got her first round (or second if you count the hospital) round of immunizations. She's right on track for her height and weight. It seems like every day it's something new. She is babbling a lot now, which is really cute. She is definitely a morning baby, with lots of smiles when she gets woken up and is happy to see us.

She's also taken to getting a bit mobile. She's figured out how to scoot on her back. It's slow but deliberate. Victoria and I put her long ways on the couch and sit on either end and let her scoot towards one person, turn her around and scoot to the other person. It takes her about five minutes, but she's moving!

She also had her first Halloween. We went to the Britzman's house in Highlands Ranch and visited with them and their 18 month old daughter Rebecca.It was a blast, and everyone loved Katherine's costume.

I've finally gone ahead and ordered up a laptop so I can do some work upstairs and not be hidden down in my man cave. It just makes it easier in these early parenting years. It's coming soon, and should be pretty nice!

We leave in less than 2 weeks for California. I can hardly believe how this snuck up on me. We are visiting Victoria's side of the family and Katherine will get to meet her 2nd pair of grandparents, an uncle, a cousin, and other family. We'll also be hanging out with the Kuhl family (my sister and her family) before heading home.

Then it will be Thanksgiving time! My best friend, Maureen,  from college is flying in and we'll be preparing all sorts of tasty items. I am looking forward to that!

And now the post many people have been waiting for, my trip to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. It's interesting to me that so many people haven't heard of Space Camp, or those that do know, didn't know that adults could go to camp too. The season for adults is pretty short, and Victoria did an awesome job by calling in and ended up getting me in an unadvertised session of camp, one that's intended for alumni, and is the only session that is 8 days long for adults. It's only once a year, and is very special. The staff looks forward to the adult 8 day session because it's very special indeed. They get to pull out all the stops and do things they can't normally do throughout the year.

I arrived in to Huntsville a day early, which I am glad I did. I stayed next door to Space Camp at the Huntsville Marriot, a stone's throw from camp. I could see camp and was anxious to get started. I began with a trip over to the gift shop to get the "trip presents" out of the way since I wasn't sure how much time I would have during camp. The shop was awesome, plus the things I could see from outside the US Space and Rocket Center, which is all part of the same complex. The scale replica of the Saturn V standing tall sits at the entrance to the Rocket Center. I got back to my room just in time for the tornado warning to come into effect for the rest of the night. I ended up, because of the weather, of just grabbing a quick dinner in the hotel before heading to bed.

Saturday began my first day of camp, and I anxiously awaited the 1pm check in time. I headed to check in and was told to head to Hab 1, which is the "futuristic space station housing" that's a fancy name for dormitory. I quickly met one of my roommates and he took me over to meet the rest of the team. We were on Team Enterprise for the week. The first thing that struck me was that the people were REALLY into camp and many had come back year after year. I wondered what I had gotten myself into and though I am a super space geek, these people were way into it, more than me!

Later in the evening we met for a mission briefing and I got to meet the entire Enterprise Team. There were 16 of us in all. And this is when things got going. I began to meet our counselors for the week, Kenny in the evening, Candeis in the day. I learned what we'd be doing for the week...Four one hour missions on the track that we were enrolled in (I was in the mission specialist track, as opposed to the pilot track) and two two hour missions that were off track so we could experience something different. We'd also be doing lots of other things through the week. All of our training leads up to the reason why people choose to come to this 8 day program: a full 24 hour long duration mission on the final day!

Other things we got to do throughout the week included:

• The multi-axis trainer (MAT) where they strap you in and let the trainer spin you all around. It's not as bad as it seems, as your stomach is in the middle of the spinning, so it stays pretty stable. It's all in the head!
• A low ropes course where you learn a bunch of team building and team solving exercises.
• 1/6th gravity lunar chair where you get to feel what it's like to be on the moon. It's pretty tricky to move around, but very fun.
• High ropes course where we scaled a 50 foot climbing wall and then headed down a crazy zip line where you get a bit of free fall time.
• Mach 3 flight simulators that are full cockpit mockups of F-16 fighters, complete with RIO.
• Design our own mission patch. From scratch. Space Camp offers a semi-custom one, but this group likes to make their own.
• Space Shuttle landing simulators to practice all sorts of fun landing scenarios.
• Full 24 hour access to all the museums, including the stunning Davidson Center where an actual Saturn V rocket is on display.
• A lecture with Dr. VonTiesenhausen, designer of the lunar rover.
• A lecture with Ed Buckbee, former US Space and Rocket Center director, and involved in Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.
• A ride in a centrifuge, pulling 3.2g!
• Underwater mission using scuba, including instruction for those that have never scuba'ed before. (Had to have a doctor's signature, and do pre and post-dive physicals.)
• A very special trip (first time ever) with curator Irene, to the archives of the US Space and Rocket Center. Definitely one of the highlights, where we got to see all sorts of old space hardware, and even touch some spacesuits!!
• A lecture and rocket firing with a gentleman from Orion Propulsion, supplier of Orion 3rd stage RCS and Bigelow Aerospace's RCS for all their spacecraft.
• Graduation, complete with music, and guests.

I could go into lots of detail about each of those items, but I don't want this post to get crazy.

The food was so so. It was cafeteria style, although the 8 day adults actually got real plates! So that was pretty nice. The morning of our long duration mission we did get the traditional steak and eggs breakfast, which I've never had.

I have to say that the 8 day adult advance space academy isn't a vacation. It's VERY intense, and there's few breaks. There is a little time in the schedule for museum time and a few short half hours for breaks. But they never ended up happening since there is so much to do and especially plan for the LDM. Was it worth it? Heck yeah! I had so much fun and wouldn't trade the experience for anything. I got to see and do so many things in such a short amount of time that hit my geek side that I was super happy.

I could make whole other posting about all the missions I did, so I'll keep it short here. On the first four missions on my track, I got to be the following positions: CATO in Mission Control (the voice of NASA and NASA TV), Space Station Scientist (Second in command of the station), PROP in Mission Control (monitoring the propulsion systems of the orbiter), and Mission Specialist (where I got to be out on the Canadarm performing satellite repair). For the two off track missions I took Mission Science in Mission Control (Talk to the station and get any information they need to reboost the station or figure out anomalies) and Commander of the orbiter (where I got to land the orbiter, and subsequently got my callsign "Chopper" for coming in bit shallow on my landing and chopped off some trees, but still ended up on the runway). On the Long Duration Mission, I ended up as Station Scientist, where I got to launch on the shuttle, and was second in command on the station, until the commander of the station got electrocuted after a meteor shower and I became first in command for the second half of the mission.

Would I go back? I would LOVE to go back. Our plans are to try and have a second child soon though, so it may not work back into the plans for another few years, but I sure hope I get to go back again. Since I wasn't sure when I would be going back, I did get a nice clothing package, and a flight suit that I get to keep. They are really nice souveniers from an excellent week.

The last thing I would like to mention is that it while the geeky stuff was soooo fun, the people really helped make the experience so wonderful. Some of these people were coming back for their 16th time! They love when new people come and to show them all the fun possibilities. You end up trusting these people as much as you can. You do lots of trust exercises and really get to bond a one big team. Team Enterprise, you rock!

I only placed a small number of pictures in this post. To see the rest, please visit the Thalimer.com website and look for the Space Camp 2009 photos.

Ah, 8 days away from Victoria and Katherine was a lot. I had a real blast (more to come on that soon) at Space Camp.

Katherine had her 2 month checkup this morning and is doing quite well. She's average on her height and weight. Today was also the day she got her first round of immunizations. She cried a bunch after she got a shot in each thigh. As a parent it almost made me want to cry. She was okay about five minutes later.

My parents leave tomorrow to head south for the winter. It's been nice having them close by for a little bit.

I am so excited! I leave for Space Camp this morning. I've never been to Alabama, so it will be nice to add the 40th US State to my list today. I got all packed up last night and am wrapping up the last details of everything this morning.

Victoria will be good with Katherine. My parents are still in town, so that's a big help for her! We all watched LCROSS impact the Moon this morning during Katherine's 5am feeding. I am getting that little girl started early on all sorts of space geekiness! She weighed in this morning at 10 pounds! Double digits on her 8 week birthday!

The posts will be lacking until I return, though I may post a few intermittent things to Facebook as I get time, which I am sure will be pretty slim.

I will miss my two favorite girls! How can I not miss them? 

 

Last Saturday I turned 38 years old. Ever since Katherine was born time has flown at an exponential rate! I hardly knew my birthday was approaching this year until it was about a week away. We have begun putting all our efforts into Katherine, so no flashy birthday here. Victoria and I went to one of our favorite restraurants, The Saltgrass Steakhouse, on Friday night to celebrate while my parents watched Katherine. On Saturday, Victoria and my parents whipped up a superb dinner. Victoria and mom spent all day Friday cooking up homemade meatballs and sauce so I could have my favorite spaghetti and meatballs. It was incredible!

Every year on my birthday, Victoria has Child's Bakery (where we got our wedding cake) whip up a special themed cake. This year was out of this world, literally. With my impending trip to Space Camp on Friday, she went with the space theme. And yeah, I don't know anyone else that has THEIR name on a Space Shuttle!

This is for all the space geeks out there! ;)

My parents did get me The Sims 3 game as well. I got it loaded on my computer. Now just to find some time to play it!

Do I have anyone on my friends list here that is a knitter and would be willing to be commissioned for a project to be done within the next 2 months?

It's all I can do to try to keep up these days! I barely blog anymore, or go onto social networking sites in general...I just don't have the time! At least my time is going to a good place...my daughter. So, sorry the posts are a bit intermittent at the moment.

Katherine has been doing great! She's lifting her head, getting plenty of tummy time, and is growing like a weed! She hit 9.5 pounds this week, at 6 weeks old. Soon it will be time to say goodbye to the single digits. The only time in our lives when we weigh less than 10 pounds.

It's a bit difficult to get time to do anything other than hang out with Katherine, which is fine. (Unfortunately everything else gets neglected, but she's only this small once.) I also feel obligated when I am home to relieve Victoria since she spends all day (and sometimes all night) with her. Last weekend she fell asleep on my chest for a few hours. It was really cute, and nice to know she feels so comfortable.

Don't get me wrong. I am not feeling burdened by having a baby. I just need to learn that I have to shift priorities (or drop some) since our lives are so vastly different now. It's interesting to learn how selfish I was with my time before. As a result, Victoria and I each get 2 hours on Saturday and Sunday to do whatever we like. It's been nice to have a few hours a week to ground ourselves.

I've been using my time to geek out and play with computer stuff and soon I'll be on to a bunch of web development learning stuff. I want to beef myself up with a lot of technologies out there that I haven't played with because I find that stuff so dang interesting, and in my field of work, it's good to be on top of these things.

Time has just moved so quickly. All of a sudden I find that my birthday is this Saturday! My parents are in town and my dad celebrated his birthday last week, so that was nice. So Victoria and my mom are teaming up for making me a special dinner on Saturday. Victoria keeps asking me what I want for my birthday this year, and it's tricky. Since becoming a parent, I feel a built guilty if I use money for items that aren't for the baby. I would love to get a laptop so I could stay upstairs and not go to the study to do some things. I would love to get The Sims 3, which I haven't played yet, to see how it is, but I wouldn't have a lot of time to play anyway I think. I would love to finally get the parts for the observatory, but I am too tired to stay up late, much less build the structure. I am also going to Space Camp next week, and, well that is going to be an adventure and fun in and of itself. Granted, we paid for it a year ago, but it is falling around my birthday this year. I just don't know. Getting the 2 hours to myself twice a week has also been a nice present, but is part of the normal routine.

I am very excited for Space Camp next week. I get to add Alabama to my list of states visited, bringing the count to 40 states I've visited! It's going to be a highly immersive week, and I hope I am geeky enough compared to the people that I will be teamed up with. I haven't had time to prepare all of my geekiness quite yet. I might be attempting Facebook status updates and photos depending on how crazy it is, so keep an eye out.

This weekend Katherine got to go for her first walk in her brand new jogging stroller. Neither one of us really jog, but due to where we live, we needed a jogging stroller to negotiate the dirt streets. Lucky for us, Babies R Us was having their yearly trade in event, and someone had given us an old baby seat, which allowed us to turn it in for $40 off the stroller! The stroller is a little big yet, but she loves going out for walks already!

We also started something a little new this last weekend. Victoria and I get to take 2 hours each on Saturday and Sunday and do whatever we want by ourselves. While one person gets their 2 hours, the other watches Katherine. I spent some time working on computer stuff, and Victoria used some of her time to rest up and do a little "spa" time. It's kind of nice to still be able to ground yourself when things are a little crazy.

Katherine isn't minding taking her baths. She doesn't hate water, which we are so glad about. She's a pretty quiet baby actually, which has been a blessing! We haven't found a super way of giving her a bath quite yet. We've tried the kitchen counter, putting her bathtub in the regular bathtub, but all that seems to work so far is just camping out on the kitchen floor. She's still a little loose as far as motor control and her head goes, so it's a two person job still, but it's a fun 20 minutes.

She's been doing incredible when it comes to sleeping through the night! The last few nights she's been going to bed anywhere between 9pm and 11pm and sleeping (or not crying) until 5am! Wow, it's nice! And she's still managing to get enough food during the daytime to not be hungry at night or lose weight.

In fact, she had her one month checkup on Friday and she hit the 9 pound mark! That puts her right at the 50th percentile for her age, or exactly where she should be. She is a little short (20th percentile) and her head is perfect as well (48th percentile). She had an awesome checkup. It's the next one we aren't looking so forward to, when she gets her first set of immunizations.

Today is Katherine's 1 month birthday! Wow, a month went by so fast. Sometimes it feels like forever, more than likely due to lack of sleep. But it's worth it!

To celebrate her 1 month birthday, Katherine's Grandma and Grandpa Thalimer arrived on Thursday, and her Aunt Jenna and cousins Beatrice and Olivia arrived on Friday. It was a full house and everyone just couldn't believe how cute Katherine was!

It was really precious seeing everyone get to hold Katherine for the first time! You could just see how happy everyone was.

Beatrice and Olivia are 4 1/2 and 3 1/2 respecitively and we got a glimpse into our future a few years having the girls stay at the house. Toddlers sure are crazy! We thought our house was fairly child-friendly but realized it wasn't as much as we were hoping. The first hour or two was spent putting breakables out of the reach of little ones. Only a sign of things to come, I am sure. The girls came up with a new nickname for Aunt Victoria, Auntoria, to add to Unka Todd's nickname.

The girls have a lot of energy at their ages, so we had to find ways to help them burn it off. We went for a walk with the dogs on the first night. Bea got to walk/run with Katy and loved it! This was also the first time we snapped on the Baby Bjorn carrier and I walked Katherine. It was a pretty cool experience and I can't wait to do it again.

On Saturday we took the girls to a park to run off some steam, and then on to Chick-Fil-A for some lunch and more playtime.

Sunday was when the girls and Aunt Jenna would be flying back home, so they had a mini-outing with Grandma to go get some activities for the plane and some lunch.

After I took the Kuhls to the airport and arrived back home, Victoria and I reveled in the quietness of the house again. Someday our house will be that crazy for sure, but we'll grow in to that in time.

Lots more pictures at www.thalimer.com

There are a few other things going on that aren't baby items at the moment. :)

We did finally get our resolution complete with the painting of our house. We had a bad paint job, and it got redone, and it looks great! Our house transformation is about complete. Inside I finally finished taking off the old stair nosings last night in preparation for the stairs to our bedroom to get covered in the wood floors we've done our living room with. I hope to get it done by the weekend, but you never know.

I am getting really annoyed with Windows lately, and have been experimenting with alternate operating systems. I've loaded Ubuntu onto our server for the moment to try it out. I like it a lot so far, and things seem to function a lot faster, not to mention the 30 second startup time from a cold computer to being able to do something! If all goes well, I may change my main system to Ubuntu and just have a small Windows computer for anything I can't do with Ubuntu (iTunes, Vegas video editing, etc).

I go to Space Camp in a month! Woah! I am very excited. Victoria tells me I can't cancel it because of Katherine. We made the plans a week before finding out we were pregnant. It's going to be a blast from Oct 9-17th! Yes, you can go to Space Camp as an adult. It's a lifelong dream of mine!

Okay, one baby item, because I forgot to mention it in my last post...Victoria has begun posting her 365 photo project of Katherine on her blog...http://vdtstory.blogspot.com