In the Bleak Midwinter!

Seasons greetings to all!

We've certainly been suddenly thrust into the wintertime here in the Midwest.  In Chicagoland, we've had a series of storms that probably gave us a total of 12ish inches of snow.  Our front walk is now flanked by two piles of snow that has been shoveled 3 or 4 times and the temperature fell down to -13 degrees last night.  So our base layer is set for the winter and we'll see when this snow finally disappears.

On the work front, Katie received a promotion in October which elevated her to a full Catastrophe Modeling Analyst which was a while coming.  She has been modeling some of AAICs biggest accounts and always felt slightly frustrated sending her tagline with the somewhat comical Senior Catastrophe Modeling Assistant title.  Assuming nothing big changes in the next two weeks, they will have had a moderately successful year after dodging a bullet with Hurricane Matthew and despite some major wildfires.

Meanwhile, Andrew has continued his work for Peapod, which has picked up during the holiday season.  In the last few months, Andrew has also been working with his boss in spare time to learn some details of the decisions that go into building the service model and the day-to-day challenges of executing our plans.  Basically, these issues fall immediately on either side of his current work taking in orders each day and producing the next days route plans.

Throughout the fall, we've been following the Cubs in their run through the MLB playoffs.  Katie's family has had season tickets for decades which meant we were able to afford tickets to playoff games.  We each went to Game 2 of the NLCS and Game 5 of the World Series.  As I'm sure everyone knows, they had not won a title since 1908 and few expected that to change this fall.  The question was simply how spectacularly could they lose?  But instead they won in one of the most spectacular runs since the.....2015 Royals! (Guess who's writing this post!)  In all seriousness though, after watching one of our teams go to the World Series three straight years, October baseball is emotionally draining and it wouldn't be the end of the world if we get a reprieve next season.

Other than that...

Obviously the biggest story is our pregnancy!  (Grand)Baby Shook is due on May 17th of 2017.  Katie is doing well and has been relatively fortunate to escape any struggles with nausea.  This second trimester has introduced some insomnia but frequent naps are helpful when they are an option.  We've made the jump to maternity clothing which has emptied her side of the closet significantly!  As we approach the 19th week, Katie is unsure if she's felt the baby move but we've been told to expect that to begin soon.  We've been blessed with a large spread of hand-me-downs already as friends and family (thanks Rutherfords!) are stocking our cache of supplies.

Below are a few photos from our lives the last couple months:

Baby Shook at 12 weeks

Attending game 2 of the NLDS

Fall adventures took us camping in Wisconsin

And apple and pumpkin picking in Northern Illinois

Our Christmas decorations this season, before a couple of the strings burned out.

Our current winter wonderland!