I never feel like I have any real news but I will write a few lines anyway. Dad is finally pretty well healed and doing very well. He starts working full days tomorrow which he isn't too excited about but it does mean he is back to normal.

We are enjoying a real Alaskan winter this year. We have lots of snow and cold. We have also had the opportunity to see lots of moose as they come down from the higher elevations when the snow is heavy. The northern lights have also been active this year so that has been neat to see.

Since we changed time it is still light and it is a little after 8 pm. The long spring and summer days are definately my favorite thing about Alaska.

We are looking forward to going down to meet Kellen (and see his family) in a couple weeks.

I sure wish that you could all move to the same state so we could see everyone at one time.

We are definitely excited for the Family Reunion. We are flying in to Sacramento on June 7.

Hope you are all able to work out plans to be there.

Love You All!

Our New Home

Hello, I sent you all an email as well, but thought I would post here as well. Our new home closed yesterday, so we are now officially homeowners! A little scary that we went from absolutely no debt to a 30 year commitment to debt (though hopefully we can pay it off sooner than that), but also very exciting. It is a large house with extra space, so plenty of room for visitors, so help us put it to good use and come visit! (Though if you want anything more than an air mattress to sleep on, please donate to our furnish our new home fund) Anyway, our new address is:

4924 Portview Dr
Fort Worth, TX 76135

Introducing Kellen Riley Stewart

Here he is, our new baby boy! Kellen Riley Stewart, born January 11, 2012 at 3:29 am. He weighed in at 7 lbs. 1 oz. and was 21 inches long. (I was going to post more, but now he is awake and crying for his Mama to feed him! Hopefully I will get back to this later!)

Just made an offer on our first home! Wow, sometimes I thought this day would never come...now we wait to hear if it is accepted. Here is a link to the listing if you want to see: http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/4924-Portview-Dr_Fort-Worth_TX_76135_M75460-40894?source=web

It has a small yard, but everything else about the house is more than I ever imagined having in a first home. We are so excited!

So, there are so many things going on in our life right now, I figure I better post regularly or else I will never keep up!

Trever graduated last Friday, the 17th. He graduated with a 4.0 GPA which earned him a summa cum laude ranking within his graduating class. Considering he was not even sure college was for him when he started it, we are all very proud of his accomplishment. He truly is amazing and excels at everything he puts his hand to.

His new employer took a little too long getting their paperwork together for us to be able to get full service movers, but we were able to get the u pack set-up where all we had to do was load the trailer and someone else drives it for us. Thanks to lots of help from family and friends we got that all done by Saturday afternoon and were able to spend a relaxing Sunday visiting friends and spending time with Trever's Grandma and Mom before they headed back to their respective homes.

Monday morning we piled in the car and took off on our adventure. Despite on small hiccup where the road we planned to take was closed due to snow, we made it to Trever's Dad's house on Wednesday evening as planned. The kids loved the hotels, especially the pools.

So now we are here in Cedar Hill, Texas trying to figure out what in the starry heavens to do next! Trever has gone in and signed all his official paperwork. We have decided that we want to seriously look into buying a house here, but of course with the holiday everything is running a little slower than usual. Hopefully early next week we will be able to get in with some lenders to see what are financing options are. Homes seem quite affordable in this area of the country, so hopefully we can find something we will will be happy with and can comfortably afford. For the time being we are staying at Trever's Dad's house, which is very small and not really designed for guests, we actually sleep in the camper trailer in the driveway because that is where there are beds available. Weir (Trever's employer) will actually pay for up to 60 days of temporary lodging, but we want to find out about house stuff first. We don't want to move into an apartment just to move right back out, plus most of them have a lease we would have to sign. We may look into an extended stay hotel, we are just not sure. At the moment we are mostly just trying to get through Christmas and then we will figure out the next steps. We did all the kids Christmas shopping yesterday, and I will never do all my shopping in one day so close to Christmas again, Toys R Us was a mad house!

Anyway, Trever should start his job on January 3, so we have all of next week when he is still around all the time to try to get some more things figured out, so wish us luck!

Hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas, we love you all!

Also, in case you missed it, our temporary Texas address is:

525 Flower Dr

Cedar Hill, TX 75104

OK - HOW DO I MAKE COMMENTS? I have tried with no luck. Anyway- Amber we are sooooooooooooooo Happy for you guys.

And my new home will be...

Well, I guess the Lord has a sense of humor. As most of you know, my whole life there has been only one place I said I would never live. However, Trever just heard back and in one week we will be moving to Fort Worth, Texas! Even with the Texas part of it, we are very excited. Trever has accepted a position as a Mechanical Engineer in their rotational program. That means that every 2-3 months he will move to a different position in the company and get to try them all out. One position will even be overseas! (Hopefully we will be able to go overseas too, they have never hired someone for the rotational program before who has a wife and kids, so they were a bit unsure how they would handle that, keep your fingers crossed that we will all get to go). He is still planning to go to graduate school, but we will either wait the two years, then go, or else he will do it part time while working. We will have to look in to the options available in the Dallas area and decide what we want to do in that regard.

We are all excited to get out of the cold, and Trever especially is excited to live close to his father who moved to the Dallas area last April. Hopefully we will be able to make visits to see the rest of the Southern half of the family more, since so far we haven't been able to visit them at all!

We are supposed to be out of our apartment by Monday morning (the 19th) at 7am. Weir (the name of my husband's new employer) will cover relocation costs, however, they have to get all the official hiring paperwork done on their end before we can start taking any steps toward getting the movers lined up. If they take too long then we will have to all the moving and driving ourselves and then get reimbursed. While that is certainly possible, I am hoping to avoid that option. When I told my doctor that I might drive across the country almost 8 months pregnant he told me I was crazy to even think about it! But as you all know, you do what you have to do.

Anyway, we are very excited for the next step in our adventures as a family. I am very proud of my amazing husband and all that he has accomplished and being able to land exactly the job he was hoping for. We love you all, and hope your lives are going as well as ours!