That Time of Year

It's that time of year again! No, not the time for caroling and feasts. It's the time for General Conference. And that means...Stephanie's family is coming to Utah! Since Dad is a chaplain, the church makes sure they get a few tickets to each session of October conference. Plus, the chaplains and wives get together for their own additional meetings. It's good to have them with us, although they have a lot of other family fighting for their share of time with them as well.

A lot will be happening between now and then. Stephanie is halfway finished with a battery of midterm exams, and I have major assignments due in almost all of my classes this next week. Hopefully we will still have a little energy by the time Stephanie's family arrives on Friday.

The week following conference, we will be going in for Stephanie's 20-week checkup. And that means...ULTRASOUND!!! We are excited to know the gender of our baby. We've been thinking about names a little here and there, but once we know what we're having we'll get a little more serious about the name. We'll make sure we keep everyone updated when we get the news.

We love you all! Have a great week!

Kids

Stephanie and I are expecting our first child in February. Yesterday we got a chance to practice with a baby boy and his 3 older sisters. Ben and Juli got their hands on some BYU football tickets, and we had the chance to watch Emily, Sadie, Katelyn, and Jacob. Emily and Sadie had just finished a soccer game, and came in their bright team garb.

We had fun having lunch, playing at the playground, playing card games (Sadie is vicious at Old Maid), and having milkshakes. We mixed some of the apricots and cherries Mom gave us recently with some frozen strawberries, a fresh peach, and milk. The girls really enjoyed the treat--good thing we didn't let them know it was healthy!

In the end, we're still excited to have a kid, although we'd prefer to start off with one rather than four all at once! We'll get to that point some time!

We love you all. Have a great week!

The good old days

This past couple of weeks have been pretty crazy. While it has been nice to get back into a schedule, and start school, it has also been pretty tough. It has been hard to adjust to the new schedule, and to the demands of my body due to the little baby growing inside...for both of us! I have evening classes four days a week, and Daniel has lots of homework, and work to do. By the time I get home at night, I am completely wiped out and ready for bed, and Daniel still has miles to go before he wants to sleep. He has been very kind in letting me have my early bedtime, and instead of staying up late, he gets up super early (4 or 5am!).

In stake conference last week, our stake president made the comment that even though these times are hard, we will look back on these times as the "good old days." He mentioned that we should live our lives like they already are the good old days. We are trying! Daniel has definitely made my days good, by sacrificing his time to do small things like doing the dishes or getting breakfast ready. I have really come to realize how blessed I am. He makes so many sacrifices to make my life easier, and I really appreciate it.

We love you all and hope that you have a happy and productive week.

Bioinformatics...that's, uh...what's that?

There is an internal struggle every time someone asks me what I am studying at college. I learned very quickly that a small percentage of people have heard of bioinformatics, and many don't even grasp what it is after a quick explanation. I've reverted to just telling most people I study biology. 

One of my professors just received a hard drive in the mail from a scientist he works with.  The hard drive has 800 gigabytes of human DNA data that needs to be analyzed.  Most biologists wouldn't even know how to begin looking at that many billions of lines of information.  This is a problem that only bioinformatics can solve.

Both biologists and computer scientists are generally considered 'geeks', and I plead guilty on both counts.  To be honest, I find both subjects to be very fascinating.  If I'm going to be spending 8 hours per day working for the entirety of my professional life, I might as well be doing something I like, huh?

I'm just thankful for a wife who loves me and supports me.  She loves to hear about my studies, even though she doesn't pretend to understand much of it.  I am so blessed to have Stephanie as an eternal companion.

Speaking of Stephanie, she's had a few bad days this week.  Her nausea hasn't completely gone away yet, but it's not as much of a problem right now as her headaches.  We're really hoping that the relief of the second trimester will come soon!

We love you all!