Granddaughters, Cats and Surgery

Granddaughters:
We have been enjoying the granddaughters lately with fun play time!

Adelynn especially likes to have me play with her at the small table. Today we enjoyed having tea, mixing food, and feeding the baby.






When we've babysat at Sarah and Dan's house, Olivia really likes to try on my coat. We then play peek-a-boo with the hood. She also loves to use the camera case as her purse. Here Olivia is studying the camera case very intently.

Adelynn and Olivia are a joy to have in our lives and can make your day 100% better!!


Cats:

This week we had a time with the cats. Both Longstreet and Ez are 15 + years old. Longstreet started out the week not feeling well and with a trip to the vet. He had bad tarter on his teeth and an infection so meds and soft food have helped. In fact, he now comes to see me around 5:30 a.m. for more food so I'm sure he is gaining back the 1.5 lbs he had lost!

Ez went to the vet on Friday as she had not been eating even the new soft food. If you know Ez this is a bad sign as she loves her food. Well, the bad news was that neither her kidneys or liver were functioning and she died yesterday morning after being with us for 15 1/2 years. She was Sarah's cat so we met Sarah, Dan and Olivia at the pasture and she now resides in the pet cemetery at the pasture. Clara still looks for her outside as they had become good pals.












Surgery:
Randy went to the doctor the first part of February and will be having surgery March 9th on both of his knees. The right one has two tears on either side of it and the left one has one tear. They will use the scope like Grandpa had. He is doing both knees at once since he has the problem of his heart stopping with needles. It should be an interesting time for both of us :)

Updates

Hello family,
I can't remember when I last wrote so I'll just give some updates about what is going on in my (relatively unexciting) life.

The Service Dog
First, thanks to all of you who helped, donated or prayed for us as we have raised funds. We have met our goal for the dog!! We still have travel expenses but we never thought that we would be able to have that much money raised or that many people turn out to support me and the rest of our family. Everyone wants to know what the dog will look like and who it is. Here is the latest: We know that the dog is a male and probably a lab. Also, it will large. As in coming up to my waist large. Which means probably weighing between seventy-five and 100 pounds. To put it in perspective if you have managed to see the elusive Mandalay she weighs sixty pounds. So this will be a big dog.

Bible Study
I started a Bible Study this month at a church in Wichita calls Pathways (formally Westlink). It is a Beth Moore study on the book of James. I learned that Martin Luther suggested throwing "Jimmy" into the fire but James is my favorite books. I like the Bible Study approach. Each week I have about five hours of homework in a book that is sent home. I have a small group I meet with once a week and we watch a video about what we will be studying for the next week. So far I have had three Bible studies and we are at verse 8. So it is a very comprehensive study.

My Apartment
I know live in my apartment Monday through Wednesday afternoon. I am loving the independence and being closer to my Bible Study and my many appointments is handy. I love tinkering around and changing little things or adding something that I brought from home. It is very cozy and I love it! You are all invited to stop by anytime. Oh and Shona loves it. She loves being an only dog (time is ticking baby girl) and how much people watching the apartment provides. She is a busy body.

Recovery
The twenty-fourth of this month marks my one year of recovery and being home from CFC! I am planning to celebrate by having a gormuet cupcake with mother and getting a new charm bracelet which I will add a new charm for every year. I also will be getting a tattoo. Mary has kindly agreed to go with me so it will be a little bit but I have decided that it will be on the underside of my wrist and simply say hope with the recovery symbol beside it.

NEDA Week
NEDA (National Eating Disorder Awareness) week is the 26th through the 3 of March. I would love it if you recognized it in someway. This can be by wearing purple (the color of e.d. awareness) or more elaborate by participating in a walk (NYC might have one) or participating in operation beautiful. Operation Beautiful is an amazing movement. It encourages you to leave post-it notes in random places that say things like you are beautiful or love your body just the way it is or you are enough etc. etc. Leave the address operationbeautiful.com at the bottom so hopefully then will pass the message along.

Well, that's all from me. Hopefully, the next time I update it will be with a service dog at my side (if Shona moves over enough). Love to you all.

-Kate

THE Question and other events!

Hello all!

Until recently, I had been feeling a bit like a track stuck on repeat. Talking about the adjustment from Tanzania only entertains me for so long. I feel like college is a more recent memory than Peace Corps at times as mentally I'm very much back in the states. I had a conversation recently with another volunteer who is still in the country via Facebook and we were discussing how weird it is to change places. She feels as though America is just a dream while I sometimes think Tanzania was a figment of my imagination. I never thought being somewhere for so long could feel so unreal. An interesting dilemma.

As I'm sure you are all aware, my life here has been moving along quite smoothly! I returned just in time for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hannah's Wedding, a conference for Katie in San Francisco, Christmas, a trip to Chicago, New Years, Vail, and applying to graduate school! So by the time I realized I was back in the states and needed to do things, it was mid-January, at which point, it was time to pick up where I left off.

I knew when I left that things were likely to undergo a sort of 2-year pause and come back quickly when I returned. Day-to-day things have mostly followed that script although I have noticed a few central changes. But that's not what you want to hear about...

To spare you the unimportant parts of the process, I spent about 5 weeks figuring out the jeweler I was going to use and ordering the ring. It was a setting from a website that my jeweler suggested I look at since he was able to order and produce the ring in about a week. I got the ring on Friday the 10th and had already called her dad the Wednesday before, setting up the weekend.

February 12th was the day we started dating back in 2009 in Ithaca. Whether or not that would be verified by any of our friends, I don't know, as many of them might say we were dating up to 3 months before. Anyway, after spending our first two anniversaries apart, anniversary number 3 seemed like the right time to take the next step.

We started the day off by traveling to a home and garden show in Omaha. Katie and I have always enjoyed looking at options (and planning at least 32 variations) for homes and spaces so it was a fun way to start the day together. After a quick lunch downtown, we went to the Omaha Zoo because a previous trip 3 weeks ago had us leaving with a membership. We walked around the gorilla exhibit for a while which incidentally has some of the monkeys we would see in the rainforests around Tukuyu in Tanzania. Additional benefits of our membership include free IMAX movies which got us 2 tickets to a screening about the Grand Canyon (cool flyovers but a weak storyline). Afterwards, we walked through the Jungle building and headed down to the giraffes. Fortunately, the room only included a small group of people who were on their way out, and so, snatching the first time we were alone all day, I pulled out the box, dropped to one knee, and proposed in front of a group of curious young giraffes.

As you already know, she said yes! Which was followed by a surprisingly demanding period of frantic phone calling and congratulations. Perhaps we should have expected it, but calendars were apparently open and ready to be filled in next to the phone of just about everyone we called (for the record, we still don't know, although I can say don't worry about keeping space for it in summer 2012. Sorry guys!) Finally, about 2 hours later we were able to have our anniversary dinner at a local Greek restaurant.

Now, things are back to normal. The ring is a 1/2 size smaller and we're bouncing date ideas around. Valentines Day was spent with a couple friends and a six-pack so nothing terribly exciting. I was accepted to Minnesota and am waiting on Washington, Wisconsin, and Illinois-Chicago for decisions. No one has offered money yet so in reality no one has said they really want me yet. But I'm still optimistic!

My life is moving forward (actually quite a bit more drastically than I had realized before writing it down) but I'm looking forward to it. I'm not sure what I'll be doing in a couple of weeks, let alone in 6 months or by my wedding day, but we'll get there!

San Francisco:

The Ring:

A Rivers' Ripple III

It is Super Bowl Sunday evening.  Sarah brought Olivia home from the party we went to as Olivia was ready for BED, so Sarah found a bit of time to get a blog post complete.
When last we posted here, it was October.  Where did the end of 2011 go? AND where did January go?
We enjoyed many fun times in the past few months.
Trips to the pumpkin patch, celebrating Olivia's first birthday, enjoying Thanksgiving, a bus trip to Austin, Christmas celebrations, and a ski trip were the highlights with many wonderful "everyday" days in between.
Olivia continues to learn new things everyday.  Lately she has begun to use the word "no".  My favorite times are when she tells herself "no" for something that she knows she isn't supposed to do--touching the outlets, for example.  Her favorite things to play these days are: babies, putting piggy (or homemade) coins in and out, and "cooking".  She also enjoys songs and books.
Brisco is now 5!  He celebrated his birthday in November with an extra treat.  He's happy to have company at home and enjoys anyone who visits.
Dan is hard at work on the websites for KWCH and is beginning to think about using his app designing skills to create an app for the iphones for KWCH news.  It will be a huge undertaking.  For leisure, he is playing with Bayless band--they are working on a CD right now.  He has also been playing some video games.
Sarah would like a few more hours to be able to accomplish some extra projects, but has been slowly chipping away at her list.  (I will have my photo book of Olivia's first year done...by May.)  She has been providing consult services for Rainbows 1 day a week and continues to watch Xander Mondays and Tuesdays.  By the end of Tuesday, she definitely needs a trip to the Y--toddlers who are testing their limits are a lot of work!
We hope your New Year is off to a good start--we are looking forward to seeing all it will bring.