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Katie left for Springfield, MO yesterday to go visit her friends at Red Velvet Art. I hope she comes back with lots of pictures!!! She ended up traveling on my favorite kind of planes (the small ones!):

Here’s a snapshot from FlightTrack when she was flying to her connection in Ohio:

Paisley didn’t cry the whole way home from the airport like she did when I left, but I think it helped that we walked Katie to security and had a chance to go back and forth a lot of times on the walking escalators (for lack of knowing what to actually call them). Distractions are a life saver with kids I swear. It has helped a lot this trip that Paisley already knows that “on a plane” means we’ll be back eventually. I’m sure Katie went through much more difficulty with Paisley than I did - so far she’s been pretty much normal for me (phew).

After dropping Katie off at the airport I started working on my weekend project: cleaning the house as much as possible. Unfortunately I was only able to get a few projects in before my body just shut down. Pretty sure I’ve got a little flu/cold going on this weekend :(

I was able to take Paisley out for dinner last night. We went to Hana Japanese Cuisine (one of my favorite local sushi shops). Paisley ate almost all of her miso soup (I was SO proud of her!):

And I devoured my sushi (as well as my seafood fried rice):

I woke up insanely exhausted and pretty much done nothing all day today. It took all my energy just to get outside so Paisley could play in the snow for her first time (and I’ll have you know that I _love_ snow - my Burton tattoo on my foot serves as proof). I don’t even think I’d go snowboarding today if I had the opportunity to go for free - I just feel crappy :(

On that note, to keep this short so I can put P down for a nap and probably take one myself, here’s the pictures from Paisley’s first time in the snow :)

And just some photos from throughout the day:

And a few special ones Paisley and I did just for Katie cause we miss her:

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I thought that it might be time to give an update.  I have been very busy over with the agile evangelists at Integrum Technologies and have been loving every minute of all the things I’ve managed to absorb in the past few months.  My conversion to Rails has been drastically better than my past experience of learning other languages.  Within weeks I felt confident enough to start my own side projects and dive head-first into things that I used to wait months to fully understand how to do with previous conversions.

I have come to gain a very solid appreciation of AJAX, as long as it is done unobtrusively. I’ve also come to love the purpose and structure that a good MVC framework can provide.  I’ve come to swear by TextMate.  I can’t imagine managing a web project again without it.  I’ve found that pair programming provides amazing benefits that can never be guessed at until you’ve tried it yourself. I’ve found that my errors and refactoring due to pair programming have been exponentially improved and that my development style in general has become more efficent, more detailed, and more well-thought than in the past (in much less time).  I’ve also found that agile methodology as a method of software development just makes sense (for me at least).  Software (especially web based applications or sites) are constantly changing in their requirements, goals, needs, and acceptence criteria.  Agile methodology ties in perfectly with this dynamic lifestyle of software growth.

As to the other things that I’ve been up to, well I’ve started at least three side-projects Read the rest of this entry »

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Somedays you feel like you get nothing done no matter how hard you try.  I’ve had way too many of those lately.  Today was “one of those days” - in a good way.

Things I accomplished today (with help of the extended family while helping them on their projects as well):

• Weeded the entire lot (again)
• Cleared the house of pigeon residents
• Changed all the burned out light bulbs throughout the vaulted ceilings
• Helped paint several walls at a condo in Mesa
• Found several great deals at the Scrapbooks, Etc. store in Mesa
• Removed a stupid ad ware / spy ware piece of garbage from extended family’s computer (I hate Windows) while they changed my oil and filter ;)
• Woke up at 8 am on a Saturday, which is probably why I’m so exhausted at 7:45 pm

Anyway, I’ll try to blog about more important things some other time, but I did want to get this down so when I’m having “one of those days” in a bad way I can remember there are some days when so much more gets done than one could ever anticipate.

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I know it was only a few days ago that I posted about how much Katie does for me and for our family on a day-to-day basis, but I just wanted to take another moment to thank her for everything she has done these past few days. I know that all the stress of me being in the hospital, not knowing what exactly was wrong, and not being able to have the convenience of being at home with Paisley and me around has made life pretty hectic. Most people would just throw in the towel or get frustrated by all the extra stress. Read the rest of this entry »

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I can’t count how many years it took to get back out west, but it’s finally happened. This blog will be short because I have a complete disaster for a house right now and a ton of furniture to assemble before Paisley arrives, but the summary version of the past few weeks is that we’ve been endlessly painting and continuously working on home improvement / unpacking / relocation / baby stuff. That pretty much sums it all up. I’ll get some pictures of the office, guest room, nursery, etc. up as soon as I get some time to breathe (who knows when that will be…sorry). If Paisley comes first don’t worry, I’ll post about that first :)

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. The ob-gyn said that Katie is one centimeter dilated and 50% effaced as of last Friday! We go again tomorrow for our next appointment.

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