Chris and Theresa Update

We're almost late!

Theresa and I don't have much to report, unfortunately. I'm still at the library, making too little to pay the bills, and Theresa's still working with Kate to sell clothes via Lu La Roe. Not much to report there because after the holiday travels it's taken a while to get back into the swing of things!

I have been working on saving the missile pictured below by finding it a new museum. The museum that currently owns it is closing down, and it's actually a rarity (the only one on public display in the US). It hails from China and was designed under the direction of Tsien, the father of their space program. Besides being a good start to a Chinese collection of artifacts, Tsien has a very timely story—a Chinese immigrant who helped found JPL and worked with various aerospace luminaries in the post-war period, he was expelled from the US because of fears he was a communist. He wasn't, but after his poor experience with the US government, he was more than happy to help China build their ballistic missile and space programs. He died in 2009 without ever having returned, despite being close friends with many of the people who'd defended him against the baseless claims/fears of his being a communist. 

I found the missile accidentally but have since negotiated a purchase price ($2500) and figured out the transport cost ($1100), I just have to find a museum that will pay those so I don't end up owning a 24' long, 6600lbs missile just to save it from being scrapped or lost to obscurity! The Cosmosphere declined, though I seem to have been unbanned from the building... , so my next call is to the Cosmosphere's founder and former CEO and his museum—they seem flush with cash and Max apparently loved finding the rare artifacts. While the Cosmosphere was my first choice for displaying, I have a list of other museums that it would fit with, but if anyone knows of someone willing to sponsor a missile, let me know!

(It's rough-looking, and poorly displayed, at the moment, hence why it probably never attracted much attention)

Change on the Horizon

Change is often a theme at our house as you have heard here many times before. We work in a business that is ever-changing. We live in a city that is moving fast and changing often. We have a five month old (5 months!) who is learning new things every day and changing faster than we can fathom. It would be hard to stay put in these environments with all of this change.

So, here's what's really new since the beginning of the year:
* Mary and Kurtis closed Jersey Boys.
* Kurtis joined the crew at the August Wilson Theatre for strike of Jersey Boys and now for load in of the next show, Groundhog Day (the Musical).
* Mary and Aurora marched in the NYC Women's March. It was important to march for the rights of women, LGBTQ, immigrants and the environment to name a few causes that have a great impact in our lives.
* Mary will begin her new show next week, the revival of Miss Saigon, as the Assistant Wardrobe Supervisor to Rick Kelly.
* Aurora is quickly learning how to sit up, has begun rolling over, has had many tastes of various foods, recognizes Mom and Dad, has learned to go to others (thanks to our visits with all of you), made her second round of flights in her life, will chatter on, observes everything and gives smiles to all who engage her.

Mary and Aurora's visit to Kansas has been particularly lovely. Thank you all for taking the time to spend with us while we were here. We will fly back to NYC with hearts full this week!

Love,
The Rutherford Family

4 Generations

January Brings Good Family Memories

January 1, 2017 brought the Kinast Exchange.  What a fun time!  We enjoyed being with everyone and seeing all the neat gifts. 

Passing out gifts.

Everyone ready to open.

Opening gifts, Oliver is definitely up and ready to go.

Enjoying the soups and other goodies.

Grandma, Olivia, Adelynn, Ava, and Kinley getting ready for supper.

Reading The Princess in Black book to the girls.

Aunt Vicki and Emily.

We enjoyed some special time babysitting Aurora for Mary and Kurtis January 13-18th as they were helping close Jersey Boys.  Here we are out for a walk and Grammy is playing with Aurora.

Then Mary and Aurora arrived at our house January 22nd for a visit to all the great-grandparents, family and friends in the area.  We had a special family dinner on Sunday, January 22nd and have been enjoying having Mary and Aurora at our house.  Today I got to hold Aurora before work.  Oh, my that is dangerous!  Makes one want to call in and say not coming today.  Ha!

Emily enjoying the toys with Sarah

Grandpa helping the new train engineers.

Mary giving Oliver a ride on the horse.

Cassi, Dave, and Dan chatting.

What better way to enjoy each others company than eating pizza together. 

We look forward to more family activities throughout the year and so enjoy the time together with everyone!

An update (sorry it's late)

Hello All,

I'm so sorry everyone (but especially to the grandparents) that this is late but I must confess it completely slipped my mind. I have news about things like that though which I'll write about later. Not an excuse but it is interesting to know.

Anyways, things here are busy. Very busy actually which is overwhelming to me at times. I have continued to date Tyson and he and I see each other almost day. He is a wonderful person and treats me so well. He would like to have been at family gatherings but he is very busy on weekends with dog activities so I promise you all haven't scared him off. :) I'm sure he'll be at one soon.

ORL decided earlier in 2016 that they wanted to look at getting a professional therapy dog to work in The Early Learning Center they are opening in June and also for various duties around the church. They hired me to help them find a dog and then train the dog and handlers. Orginally, it was going to be an adult dog but I happened to find a puppy that needed a home and had a wonderful temperament. I'm a bit ashamed to say it's a goldendoodle as I swore I would never work willingly with a goldendoodle (doodles are known for being extremely air-headed and a failed breeding experiment) but Barnabas is an exception. He's level headed, very smart and loves people - especially children.

Barnabas was supposed to go to a home in the church (primary caregiver) and then I would train him at set times but so far no one in the church has stepped up to do that. It is beginning to appear like he will remain with me. This was not in my plans and honestly I would much prefer that Barnabas goes to a different home but it appears like this will not be happening. There will be people though that take him for times during the week and maybe on weekends. I think if he was an adult people would be clamoring to have him but no one wants a puppy even a very well behaved one. At a year old people may take him but if I live through the puppy stage I am going to reap the rewards of a well behaved adult dog and he will have to stay with me. I will have grown attached by then.

I also adopted Clifford in November (I can't remember if I've written about him). He is a black lab that came from a prison program meaning that he came with some basic obedience already. Sadly, a few weeks ago Cliff had a seizure which terrified me and of course made me think of Benny. They think the seizure was due to anxiety and so far he has not had another but I am anxious about that and quite honestly very sad. I'm not sure I'm ready to have another epileptic dog. It may very well be that he never has another one but we just won't know. Besides that Cliff is a wonderful dog who loves to snuggle and enjoys looking out the window.

Now as I mentioned above we have recently found out why I struggle so much with my memory, basic household chores, being on time and things like that. We knew it involved executive functioning and someone at some point had mentioned autism but we have come to think this was very unlikely. A few weeks ago I had my brain mapped. What this means is that I was hooked up to an EKG and I did a few simple tasks that tracked my brain waves. They compared the results to a "normal" brain (this was determined from many clinical studies) and could see where my brain deviated from a clinically healthy brain. Of course it showed I had anxiety. It showed that my anti-depressionants aren't working which I had begun to suspect. It also showed that I have a lot of negative self-talk (which is very true) but it also shows that I have ADHD.

This makes a lot of sense and if you read about adult ADHD I have all of the symptoms (it appears differently in adults than children) and explains the executive functioning symptoms much better than autism. ADHD is also a common co-morbid with eating disorders.

The good news is that through Neurofeedback my ADHD can be virtually corrected. My anxiety can also be significantly lessened. How this works (as best as I can understand it) is that my brain waves are basically reprogrammed. I have gone twice now and what I do is watch a movie I pick out (they have mostly pixer films. Currently I am watching Inside Out) and when my brain does something that is undesirable (such as my attention wonders or my anxiety climbs) stars start to flow up from the bottom of the screen and block out the picture. My brain learns that I can correct this by focusing back on the movie, lessening my anxiety etc. The brain automatically wants to see the picture so your brain is being "trained" while I watch the movie. All I do is sit there hooked up to a computer and watch the movie. They said I should see a difference in my anxiety in about 10 sessions. We'll see. I don't know yet if it will work but I'm hopeful.

Anyways, sorry for the long blog post. I hope everyone is doing well. If you'd like to see pictures of Barnabas you can find him on Facebook at Barnabas The Church Dog. I apologize again for the late post.

Love,
Kate and the Pack