SWE Region Conference (Palm Springs!)

Back at the beginning of March I took a trip over to Palm Springs, California, for the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Sonora Region Conference and Career Fair. You see, as the Region Governor, my attendance is required at these conferences and I guess I just can't complain about them being in places like Orlando, Palm Springs, etc. (Have I mentioned yet that next year's is in HAWAII!!!!????)

Ahem, back to this post...

I know from experience, it takes a LOT of work to plan a SWE Region Conference. I led the planning efforts for the 2009 conference here in Albuquerque. This time around it was no different. I was on conference calls at least weekly, I wrote and responded to a zillion emails, and it was tough. And about five days before the conference, I came down with a heinous case of bronchitis. As in I couldn't even talk. When I finally got my voice back, I couldn't speak a whole sentence without coughing. It sucked...

But I went anyway.

It was 80 degrees and my room overlooked the gorgeous pool:
I stayed inside and rested.

I did manage to make it to the street-fair thingy on Thursday night and got this sweet hand-painted "choo choo" wall hanging for Carter (click on it to see it better - WAY cool - and thanks to Jeannette for shipping it to Albuquerque for me!):
The street fair was REALLY weird. THE most random vendors (lots of fudge for some reason?!). Here's a street shot:
On both legs of my flight to CA, I sat by Canadian women. They were headed to Palm Springs for 6 months (each of them - weird, eh?). I was baffled that so many Canadians would "winter" in Palm Springs. And so I just HAD to snap a picture of this sign:
Even though I was beat, I had some tasty Mexican food with some of my favorite SWE pals. Jeannette (I know, the photo is dark - she told me if I posted the other one she would kill me...):
Jenn and George (are they cute or what?!? Can't wait until their wedding in May 2012!):
Keli and Lisa:
Most photos of me include me blowing my nose or coughing. On two different occasions, SWE pals brought me new boxes of tissues (sometimes being Governor has its perks...):
On the Friday, I took a tour of the Nestle water bottling facility. They wouldn't let us take photos (it was SO cool!), but I snapped a couple pics of the many, many windmills on the ride back:
Palm Springs is about 2000' lower than Albuquerque in elevation, so the climate was pretty similar to here.
Another Governor made it out to the conference. Colleen (on the right) and I just so happened to be wearing the same SWE shirt. Ha!
I made it through most of the event without dying, but it was a stretch to stand at the podium at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even during my water treatment presentation without losing a lung. But I did. Even got all dressed up for dinner (which, I must say, the keynote speaker was AMAZINGLY inspirational! One of the oldest SWE presidents gave an interview - WOW!).

There were lots of awards and I did a lot of smiling for the camera. Won't show them all, but a couple of my favorites. First up, the "Sonora History Awards." These are scrapbooking awards and my neighbor, Kristin, does the two pages up for my local SWE section. She's taken home top prize for Central New Mexico for two years running! Here's the CNM President, Elizabeth, with the winning entry:
Winning collegiate entry - Cal Poly:
Another really great SWE pal - my Secretary (who takes AMAZING meeting minutes!), Stephanie:
And I'll end with this one - Super Lisa - she's my "Fun Director" for the Sonora Region (unofficial title, of course):
All in all, I had a GREAT time despite the bronchitis trying to do me in. We had over 300 attendees and I'm pretty sure EVERYONE had a great time! Another thanks to Jenn and Lisa for all of their hard work at planning the conference! Let's do it again next year...in Hawaii!!!!!
~kerrie

The Cranberry Kid

I have OH SO MUCH to blog about, I've just been crazy busy with work, SWE, travel, and even some Spring cleaning...

But I snapped these pics the other night during dinner because Carter ate about two-thirds of a can of cranberry sauce (you know, the jelly kind). It was on the clearance rack at Target, so I snagged a few cans (I LOVE that stuff!). Anyway, most ADULTS won't eat cranberries, but let me tell you, this kid does!

First, a close-up of his cranberry-smeared face:
And second, a super-happy-hyped-up-on-the-sauce (cranberry, that is) -smiley kid... Say "cranberries"!!!!
Hope the beginnings of Spring are treating you well and you haven't blown away (or had your house, car, siding, etc. damaged by hail like Aunt Katrina and Uncle Jason did on Sunday night in Kansas...ugh! At least no one was hurt, eh?)! It's crazy windy here, but that's just how it is in Albuquerque...
~kerrie

He's With the Band

I'd posted a few pictures of Carter's new band set back around Valentine's Day... Well, without a doubt, he's into the music! Found these few photos (and a video) today while cleaning up my work computer, so I thought I'd write up a quick post.

Here's The Dude...He's With the Band:
And the rockin' shirt and sweet plaid pants are courtesy of my pal Amelia (thanks!):
And a short little video that Matt took (7 seconds; and sorry, it's crooked, I don't know how to fix that...) of Carter banging away on the drum like Animal (if for some reason you've been under a rock for the past 30 years and don't know who Animal is from the Muppets, link takes you to Wikipedia...):





Rock on, Dude!
~kerrie

Carter's 2nd Birthday

A month ago this Saturday (on March 2), our little boy turned TWO! I'm still coming to grips with the fact that my little baby boy is no longer a baby....he's now just a little boy! He's full of personality and is actually quite a pleasure to be around (until, of course, you take a toy from him, don't give him more goldfish crackers, or insist that he use both hands on his cup to drink his milk...).

Thought I'd finally get around to posting a few photos from his birthday "party" (which was just the three of us...). Let's start with a few presents - this one was from Aunt Katrina:
It's his very own cape! (Katrina handmade this and it's wonderful! I have a few more photos at home that I'll put up on the blog soon...)
He also received some great new gifts from Grandma C, including a new turtle, a couple of great books, and a KU sweatshirt! (I also have more photos of these that will be up soon...)

We then had a spaghetti dinner (one of Carter's favorite meals) and then some cake! I made a strawberry cake with blue sprinkles (yes, in honor of the Jayhawks AND Carter's birthday!). He was pretty much ready to eat the whole thing:
Trying a little patience:
Time to check it out:
Not bad! A little sticky, but taaasty!
His fork went flying, so he started to freak out a bit:
...because apparently you need the fork to stab the piece of cake, duh!
Little less sticky this way, eh?
Nom! Nom! Nom!
Happy 2nd Birthday buddy. We love you!
~kerrie (and matt)

Congrats to Christi and Erik!

Just a quick little post for our very good pals Christi and Erik....

Starting with a big....

Their little boy, Zachary Thomas, arrived today! Can't wait to see lots of photos and meet the lil' guy in person (according to my sources, ahem, FaceBook, he's healthy - came into this world at 9 lb 8 oz!)!

A big congrats to Christi and Erik and I can't wait to see photos of little Zachary laying about on the Sock Monkey quilt I made for him back in January (I made it gender-neutral since I didn't know the sex). Few photos of the quilt below:

The front:The back:
Close-up of the sock monkeys:Both sides:
And my fun little "Created By" tags:
Heartfelt congratulations from the Greenies and here's to a few rest-filled nights!
~kerrie (& matt & carter)

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

You MIGHT have heard the clapping and happy shouting coming from the Greenie house this weekend... That's right, the University of Kansas Jayhawks took the Big 12 champ title on Saturday evening! Thought I should memorialize the excitement with a short little blog post...

Carter was running around clapping and saying "shayshock" during the games and was happy as a lark (much to his mother's enjoyment!).

Let's hear it for the KU Jayhawks!!! Now we just need to take the NCAA title!
Rock Chalk Jayhawk! KKKKKKKUUUUUUU!
~kerrie the superfan

PS These photos were from Sunday's photo shoot - more to come for sure...

Happy Fat Tuesday!

Took Carter for his 2-year check-up today and our boy is tall, skinny, and healthy! Weighing in at 29 lbs, 8 oz, he's still around the middle percentile at 60%. He's 36.5 inches tall (or if you prefer, a tad over 3 feet), which puts him in the 95th percentile. Ear tubes still look great, teeth look great, and we are going to try to switch him back to cow's milk (skim) and see how he does with it. Not that we don't mind filling the fridge with soy milk, it just wouldn't be such a bad thing to have a little more coin in our pockets...

Snapped a few photos before we took off to the doctor's office as Carter was playing with some Mardi Gras beads. Here's wishing you a very HAPPY FAT TUESDAY! Our King Cake is waiting to be eaten tonight and we'll be snarfing some red beans and rice alongside it!

As Carter was playing with the beads (yes, red and blue - what else did you expect?!), he was shouting "shayshock" (which is "Jayhawk") over and over. I think the kid is ready for some NCAA basketball!!! Couple pics of him playing with the beads:
Big plane few over - had to check it out and say "bye bye"...
Hope that you have a wonderful Fat Tuesday and Rock Chalk Jayhawk!
~kerrie

Happy 2nd Birthday to Carter!

Tomorrow (March 2) our little boy turns TWO YEARS OLD! Here's wishing Carter a very:
Can't believe how quickly time flies! Seems like only yesterday I was big and round and pregnant. Sure enough, we officially have a toddler now! We'll have our family photo shoot later this month, but here's a random sampling of the birthday boy from the month of February.

Starting with some rockin' stonewashed jeans (and hanging out in the bathroom - that boy LOVES to flush...):
Our big boy wanted to pour his very own cup of milk yesterday. Of course, he chose the biggest cup he could find (a "bubba keg") and of course, the carton was completely full. He then proceeded to wing the milk all over the kitchen... Here's mid-meltdown:
Shortly after the meltdown, he went to get his new Elmo potty seat. He'll go through all of the motions - pants down, sit down, flush, wash hands, etc. So we'll get through potty training soon enough. However, yesterday he wasn't having any of the "pretend potty"...instead, it was a hat. I thought it was pretty adorable UNTIL it got stuck on his head and I had to practically rip his ears off:
Few weeks ago we all celebrated Valentine's Day with a "quiet" dinner at home. Brilliant me decided that Carter needed a band set, so we let him play with it while we prepared the meal. Here he is in deep concentration:
Playing a little ditty on the recorder:
Few days later, Carter tried eating his dinner with tongs instead of his fork or spoon. A bit messy, eh, buddy?
Remnants of our Halloween costumes, Carter digs wearing the helmet around and saying, "Hallo? Hallo?"
And finally, our boy playing with his [current] favorite toys - buses. We have to point out EVERY single bus on the way to/from school and Carter will start singing the "Wheels on the Bus" song every day. I encourage the singing and fun, but not sure how much more I can take since we pass through a main bus route every single day...
Well, there you have a short little post to highlight some February news. I'll have more blogs to share as soon as I get over this plague, er, bronchitis...

Happy Birthday, Carter! We love you!
~Mommy and Daddy

PS Tomorrow we'll have cake and open presents from Cousin Daniel and Grandma and Grandpa C. Pictures to follow!