Happy Holidays Everyone! We started 2013 off with a real bang. Picking up from last year’s letter, Steph tried winning a Darwin award on Christmas day. She had been sick with the flu, and sent William and I off to Christmas without her. She decided she was feeling better partway through the day and tried to continue a wallpaper peeling project in preparation for her mom and aunt coming to help paint. Somewhere in this process she fell backwards into the bathtub, and dislocated her elbow. She put it back into place herself (!*!&), and then journeyed out and found a Walgreen’s that was open Christmas Day where a manager helped her put on a sling. This seemed to set off a couple month string of excitement. In January, Steph’s mom and aunt made it out to paint, after missing a flight and driving across the state of Wisconsin to catch another available flight. When they showed up, everyone in the house, including the visitors, were like a walking plague. Tons of stuff got painted, but if someone wasn’t painting they were lying on a couch or bed or rummaging for more cold/flu medication. Between a child at daycare, and Steph being exposed to all kinds of teenagers at work, Steph managed to continue to be off and on deathly ill for months with different things, and joked about it being a great weight loss program if you didn’t mind feeling so horrible all the time. We were quite happy by summer when everyone in the house finally could go weeks and months without being a potential vector of disease.
We have had endless other house projects since the January painting. Fixing dripping faucets, toilet repairs, trim painting, and endless yard work opportunities to name a few. If we haven’t filled our big garbage can to overflowing every week, it feels like we missed an opportunity. We realized amid the chaos (in late October) we had been in the new house for an entire year. We celebrated by raking dozens of bags of leaves to put on the curb! William was disappointed that we would give away his wonderful leaf piles and not keep them year round.
I also had a full year. My dad and I found a new cave on my dad’s birthday. My younger brother, some great caving friends (Dave and Val), and myself went back and surveyed it later in the year. Not nearly as many caving weekends were had this year, but every single one was a high quality adventure including new discoveries, cave mapping, gate upgrades, and great times with friends and family—just as a hobby should be.
My job changed rather dramatically in November. The company I work for is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade some of the critical call center systems after 20+ years on the old systems—essentially the equivalent of changing from rotary phone technology to smart phone technology overnight. The current system was obsolete 10 years ago, but huge momentum is required to change anything in a company of nearly 40,000 employees. Everybody realizes there could be awesome new things done with better call routing, video calls, customer recognition, etc. but nobody knows exactly how or what the company should do. So I am now on a team that gets to spend several months thinking up all the cool new things that could be done, and then seeing if the ideas really work. The position seems to involve staring at the ceiling wide awake at 4 am with minds racing about “What if we do this? Why do we do it this way? Could we really do that?” types of questions. The new responsibilities are more comparable with getting a startup company off the ground, but having the resources of much larger company to pull from when needed. Steph likes the newfound love of work, but misses the last few years where walking through the door at the end of the day meant not thinking about work again for any reason until walking back out the next morning. She has likened this position to “a promotion, with the same money and worse hours”. So far the new challenge outweighs the new stress because I am once again enjoying my job.
We took a couple trips to the Midwest to visit family this year. In March we travelled in celebration of Will’s first birthday. Later in the summer Steph’s brother Carl James Koenig married Jen Roling. Much of the family had been betting on this happy outcome for quite some time. We went out to Wisconsin and Iowa for a week around the wedding in June. During this second visit William had his first haircut from Aunt Sue and was spoiled rotten by everyone from great grandparents to cousins. He loved the endless adventure, even when his naps kept getting in the way of all his fun.
William grew a lot this year. He went from crawling and babbling to running, climbing, and full simple sentences. “Mommy, can I please cookie?” is Steph’s current favorite. His favorite overall activity this year was to go outside and wander around until we would drag him back into the house. He has a couple push toys that have more miles on them than some people’s cars. We are in a well-established yard and neighborhood which we really enjoy. William loved that he could find random food around the yard all year—raspberries first, then tomatoes, and later apples and grapes. Neighbors have fruit trees, and would hand him apricots, peaches, and pears over their fences while on our walks. He is disappointed that it is getting later in the year and he doesn’t find anything edible, but he does a much better job of walking in a straight line now, so we cover more ground. To make up for nature not providing as much food, we walked both sides of our street on Halloween asking for “candy treat” and saying thank you at every house. He has also enjoyed our first snowfall, and we bundled him up in full toddler snow gear for his first real play experience in the snow. He was excellent help shoveling and spreading salt so it looks like our outdoor adventures will continue.
Some of you may have already heard that William is getting a sibling. We included a surprise on your Christmas card to announce the gender of our new family member. You can now find out if we save money on hand-me-downs, or start a new adventure turning part of the house purple and pink. The next Baxter family member is due to arrive around Easter in April. Steph has generally been feeling good, but notices she is becoming more encumbered by her baby belly much sooner than with baby #1. Midway through the holiday season I have failed to gain any sympathy weight so we’re going to do our best to change that during Christmas.
We hope you enjoy our update and this note finds your family happy and healthy in the new year!
Jason, Stephanie & William