KTs KAR

Kaitlyn is the proud owner of a 1999 Nissan Altima which she named Veronica. We drove to West Seattle today to bring her to her new home in Puyallup.

Too bad Kaitlyn still has 5 weeks and 3 days before she turns 16 and can drive it by herself!

In the meantime, it looks really cute parked in front of our house!

Our New York Experience

Tim and Kaitlyn arrived on Wednesday late afternoon to join me in New York City, where I had been since Sunday on a Merrill business trip. We stayed in Mid-Town Manhattan at the Sheraton Hotel & Towers. I've stayed in much nicer hotel rooms in my many travels, which was disappointing considering what we were paying for the room, but the location was central to everything!

It rained most of the day on Thursday, but that didn't detour our plans. We took a double-decker bus tour, complete with our rain ponchos. We saw the Village, SoHo, the Financial District, the south Seaport, and more.

Friday the sun came out and we took a harbor tour out to see the Statue of Liberty. Then we headed to China Town and did some secretive handbag shopping. It was quite the experience. A little woman stopped us on the street and asked me if I wanted a Coach or Gucci, I said yes and she asked us to follow her. Somehow along the way we lost Tim. Kaitlyn and I were led into the back of a little store front, into a storage room, up a secret staircase and into a secret room full of handbags. A little freaky, but funny just the same. I got a great deal on a red Gucci purse. We bought a Juicy Couture bag for Rose, but she didn't like it so we bought her a Coach on 5th Avenue the next day. Kaitlyn also bought 2 Dolce & Gabana knock-offs during our purse shopping spree. They were great deals!

Later that night we walked through Central Park a little and then had dinner at the Brooklyn Diner (the finer diner according to their sign) and sat a few tables away from Bradley Whitford, an actor from the West Wing or Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, depending on your generation.

Saturday Tim headed to Yankee Stadium to see the Yankees beat the Seattle Mariners. We bought him tickets online from StubHub.com from a computer at the Apple store on 5th Avenue. We can be creative in a pinch. The game started 30 minutes after we bought the tickets, so we threw Tim on the Subway and sent him to the Bronyx. It worked out well because he found his way and was in his seat by the middle of the 1st inning. Kaitlyn and I spent the day shopping on Madison and 5th Avenue and then went to a Broadway play that night, after a quick stop at the wax museum, where she hung with her famous friends for a bit.

We flew home Sunday afternoon and spent today doing laundry and running errands. The most important errand we ran today was picking up Kaitlyn's car. I'll post that next.

Tim and Kaitlyn's first night in NY.

Central Park

The NY Stock Exchange. It was heavily guarded with policemen carrying assault rifles and really cute, but I'm sure deadly, German Shepherds.

Our famous dinner companion, Bradley Whitford at the Brooklyn Diner about 2 blocks from Central Park.

Kaitlyn and her play bill from Grease on Broadway. She got to pick any play/musical that she wanted to see when we were in New York. She picked Grease because we watched the reality show on NBC last spring where they were selecting the new Danny and Sandy to star on Broadway. We watched every week and our favorite duo, Max & Laura, won the contest and were still playing those roles when we were in NY.

One of the most recognizable buildings in the world, the Empire State Building. We actually went up to the 86th floor observatory on Friday night. The view was incredible, but the long lines and the hike of the last 6 flights of stairs were killers.

Mother and Daughter in Times Square.

Kaitlyn's Famous Friends

Relay For Life time!

I am no Shelley Mauss when it comes to photography layout, but I can follow an example pretty darn well!

To the left is the Team Merrill poster for Relay 2008. Shelley is off and running with the Thurston County Relay and we are having to make due without her fabulous photography skills. I created this poster myself tonight. Funny how my kid made the poster, isn't it? Creative license at its finest!

Anyway, Relay For Life is in 29 short days! Kaitlyn and I are participating again this year in memory of my step-mom. Kaitlyn also has another reason to relay this year. Her Nana is currently undergoing treatment for cancer. I just hate how this disease touches the lives of so many.
That's why we Celebrate the Survivors, Remember those we've lost, and Fight Back against this disease!

If you want to make a tax-deductible donation to the American Cancer Society to help FUND THE CURE, you can do so online by simply following the link to to my Relay page: http://main.acsevents.org/goto/krisbabbitt

My Sister is Homeless......

From the Indianapolis Channel 8 News website yesterday:

West side home destroyed in fire
1600 block of North Girls School Road
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - A west side family is now homeless after a fire ripped through their house early Monday morning.
It happened around 4:30 a.m. in the 1600 block of North Girls School Road.
Fire officials say the four adults and four kids living there got out okay. Authorities said the house is a total loss.
No word on the cause of the fire.

My Mom called me about 8:00 our time yesterday morning and told me the news. She is visiting my sister in Indiana to see the brand new baby born 2 weeks ago. Thankfully, my Mom, Sister and nieces and nephews all got out of the house safely. Some noise woke my sister and her boyfriend who woke everyone up. My sister and two of the teenagers got out the window with the 2 year old and the baby, while my 18 year old nephew and my sister's boyfriend got my Mom out the window of her room.

It's a miracle no one was seriously hurt or killed in the fire. As it turns out, the fire was Arson. The police arrested someone today that they believe was responsible. The charges could be 8 counts of attempted murder. I hope the little creep fries in hell for what he did to my family.

Tonight they are all staying in hotel in Indianapolis where they will stay for the next 30 days. The insurance company gave them some $ today to buy some clothes and supplies for the baby and 2 year old. Now they just have to begin to rebuild their lives and start over.

Kaitlyn bought a CAR!

With 10 weeks to go before Kaitlyn's 16th birthday, we found a deal on a great first car for her. A friend-of-a-friend is buying a brand new Volvo, which includes a trip to Sweden to watch it drive off the assembly line, and needed to sell her 1999 Nissan Altima SE. We went and took a look at it on Sunday. Kaitlyn took it for a test drive and decided to plunk down her "car fund" (with a little help from Mom & Tim) and buy the car.
Her car looks like the picture to the right, except that hers is bright cherry red. It has a moon roof, spoiler, and leather seats. It has a few little scratches here and there, but considering it is 9 years old, it is in great condition. Tim and I were both envious saying that it was a much nicer car than either he or I had for our first cars.
So far, we have just put down a deposit to hold the car for Kaitlyn. We won't take delivery until sometime in May when the seller leaves for Sweden to pick up her new car. Its not like we need it any sooner as Kaitlyn doesn't have a license or a job to pay for auto insurance yet! (Oh the joys of growing up!)

Thank you Terri and Jay for the great lead. I think this will be a great first car for our little Kaitlyn!

A internet photo that shows more of what Kaitlyn's car really looks like!

A new Niece!

My sister, Teresa, gave birth to her 6th child today (crazy girl!).

My niece, Karlee, was born this morning and weighed in at just over 8 pounds.

Her favorite Aunt (me) sent her a pink teddy bear to welcome her to the world.

A Niece or Nephew???

Tonight we learned that Tim's youngest sister, Tonya, is expecting her first baby. Yippee! That means that I get to be an Aunt again and Tim an Uncle. Hopefully she will have a very easy and uneventful pregnancy and in about 7 months we'll meet our new little niece or nephew.

Congratulations Tonya & Josh.

The "Before" Photo

Snowmobiles = Hospital

What was supposed to be a fun afternoon with friends riding through the snow, turned into one scarey afternoon that ended with a helicopter ride to Harborview.

Tim and I went snowmobiling with our friends Pam & John on Saturday to celebrate John's birthday the week before. We rented snowmobiles in Easton for 4 hours and headed out into the woods with very little instruction and a printed google map of the trails.

We did great for the first hour and a half, and then a major accident occured. We had been riding up and down hills and John was far ahead of the rest of us. He went up a hill (one that he thought we'd been on) and when he crested the hill, he realized it wasn't a hill, but a cliff that dropped off about about 20 feet to the frozen lake below. Miraculously he wasn't killed. His snowmobile hit the ice, cracked it, but somehow bounced up onto solid ice again. His head slammed into the handlebar area of his snowmobile when he landed. What is amazing is that he wasn't knocked unconcious. He said he knew he was going to drown & die if he stayed there so somehow he managed to get off the ice and scrambled his way back up the side of the cliff. He was about 1/2 way up by the time Tim got to him. He said John's eyes were as big as saucers and blood was running out of his nose. None of us had seen the accident happen. When I got to Tim, I saw John on his knees and seriously bleeding. Pam, his wife, was shortly behind me and started to panic when she saw all the blood. (John takes a blood thinner for a heart condition, so he was bleeding pretty badly and it wasn't going to clot.)

Me, being me, sort of took charge. I called the snowmobile rental place for help (smarty me had my cell phone along with us!). Since we couldn't tell anyone where we were, I had Tim ride John out of the woods on his snowmobile to get some help. Tim got him to a gas station and called the ambulance. Everyone thought John had a broken nose and they told us to drive him to the hospital in North Bend, they didn't need to take him by ambulance. We were at the tiny North Bend hospital for about 3 hours and when the cat-scan finally came back, they found he was bleeding in his brain. They ended up airlifting him to Harborview hospital that night. He spent the night in the ER and then neuro-ICU. It was very frightening for all of us.

Thankfully, things turned very positive with the test results yesterday and he actually got to go home last night.

I will never go snowmobiling again and I've already warned my kids that they don't even need to ask if they can ever go, because the answer is a very loud NO!!

SNOW

Kaityn took this photo of the tree in front of our house around 7 this morning. She was very excited that school had been cancelled today due to the snow.

We have about 3 inches of snow and it was still falling a few minutes ago.

Tim made it down South Hill this morning slipping and sliding. The car in front of him made a 180 degree spin and the driver freaked out. Thankfully Tim had enough distance between them and wasn't affected.

Since my boss thinks I'm a loser for not being in the office, I'm going to brave my way down the hill here in a few minutes. I just wanted to wait it out until it got light and most of the idiots were off the road. Wish me luck!

A Tearful Goodbye

Today was the estate sale at my Dad's house. I hired an estate management company to run the entire process. I knew I didn't want to watch it happening, but I had to go there today for an hour or so to sign over the titles to both of my Dad's vehicles. It was pretty shocking to see a bunch of strangers (the street was lined with vehicles on both sides) looking through and taking all of the stuff that my Dad and step-mother had collected over the years, the clothes they wore, and the couches they sat on.
The estate person uncovered items I didn't even know existed and didn't remember from my childhood. It was really sad to see it all walk away. It sort of felt like losing my Dad all over again, but I know it was just "stuff".
I was lucky enough to intercept about 200 old photo slides from the 1970s and am having some of them converted into actual photo prints. There were pictures of my Dad at his various job sites, a trip to Disneylad we took in 1975, old Christmas photos, and who knows what else I will find when I go through all of them. I'm glad I got these memories before they were sold to a stranger!
I will share a story that brought a tear to my eyes today. (It was the first of many that have flowed since!).
My Dad's next door neighbor for 30 years, an sweet old man named Mr. Johnson, moved to Florida several years ago. His nephew, in his early 30s, now lives in the house to keep an eye on things. Today when I was at the house, he was there and looking through some things in the kitchen. I saw him buy a pie plate for 50 cents. When I asked him if he was going to make pie, he gave me a brief and somewhat shy smile, with a tear in his eye and said, "no, your mom used to make me pie". That did it, the tears came. It even brought a tear to the eye of the lady running the estate sale. This young man wanted to buy a pie plate to remind him of the sweet lady who used to live next door that would make him pie. Priceless!
The actual house is up for sale and it will soon (I hope) be all over. Although I miss my Dad every day, I will be thankful when this whole process is over and the estate is settled.

I'm Done!

Today I passed my last supervisory securities exam. I am now a fully-registered general securities principle. Who would have thought that possible a year ago?
The flowers on the right arrived at my office today from my Mom and the flowers on the left were brought to my "magarita party" this afternoon from the management team at the office. I had a little celebration party to commemorate this amazing feat and relax a little.
Thank you Dani, Tracy, Aimee, Kim and Jim for joining me (and Jim for paying) and helping me celebrate my success. Your support has been an amazing gift and I don't think I could have made it without each of you.
To dear, sweet, running-out-of patience, Tim: thank you for putting up with the stressed out crazy and insane person that you've had to live with this last year. I hope to get back to "normal" again soon and you will finally get your wife back!

Wedding of the Year!

Miss Kaitlyn did it again! The smart little thing remembered to bring her camera to the wedding of the year last weekend.

Miss Shelley Mauss is now Mrs. Jonathan Sprouffske!

Shelley and Jonathan were married on Saturday afternoon at St. Charles with a reception following at Union Station in downtown Tacoma. It was a very small affair with only about 450 guests in attendance! Plumeria flowers flown in from Hawaii that arrived just that morning were adorning the tables, and even our heads by the end of the evening.

Here are some photos from the reception...

Sir Timmy and the Bride (with beer in hand - how typical!)
Sir Timmy and Katie Sue
Mother and Daughter
Kris & Aimee

Kaitlyn to the Rescue!

Leave it to Miss Kaitlyn to have her camera! I completely forgot she had me take a picture on her camera on Christmas day. I do have a Christmas photo!!!!!