We love you Mary Jo

Mary Jo Moore, our friend, Julie's boss and confidant passed away on Saturday after a long fight with cancer. The viewing is tomorrow night and the funeral is Wednesday at 11am. The girls from Stepping Stone all bought Harley Davidson bandanas and are going to wear them tomorrow. Christian is going to wear the Harley shoes she bought for him and his Harley shirt. Christian may have been the last person to make her smile. Her husband, Tim, said she lit up when she would look at Christian. They were always very happy for our family. We always felt truly loved.

This is an exerpt from Tim's Journal at caringbridge.com:

I felt MaryJo should be buried in her hometown of Chaska, Mn. Most all of her large family live within a hour of where they were born & raised. So, it seems only right that she be buried there. Also, MaryJo had told me she wanted to be cremated. In a couple of months, after it warms up a little, MaryJo & I will take our last bike ride. I will take her back to Minnesota on the bike. For the last 2 years we have wanted to ride to Sturgis, The Badlands, The National Monument & Crazy Horse. We will make those stops on our last ride.
Much love to you all, Tim

I can't image what he is going through right now. To love somebody so much and have them taken away would be more than most of us could bear. I lost my father to cancer in the same way and that was the hardest time in my life. I couldn't bear the thought of losing my one love in this world.

Sometimes I think, which way is harder? To abruptly lose someone and never have the chance to tell them good-bye, or to sit and watch someone you love go through cancer? With Julie and MJ, she had the chance to tell her goodbye, to tell her thank you for believing in her, thank her for being a friend. As hard as it was for Julie, in that room the day before she passed away, it was also good for her. No regrets.

We will miss you MJ.

And I still miss you dad.

Christian is an Aggie

Christian is officially an Aggie. His class starts on Wednesday, March 8, at 10:30am.

He is going to show all the Aggies in the psychology department how smart he really is. Baby genius? We'll find out.

Take a look at the Infant Lab at Texas A&M.

An update to follow...

Time to start Sanitizing

Julie and I got home from our "date" tonight to find Christian holding a baby rattle and putting it in his mouth!!!

So cute. Now where did I put my cleaner?

My new TiVo!

Wow, this thing is cool. Ordered it two days ago and it came today! Very fast. You can connect it to your wireless network and play music, and view pictures on your TV. I'm pretty excited about this feature, but I have to order the Network Adapter, which TiVo is out of stock on right now. I tried a compatible one (well, the old ones were compatible, the new ones apparently are not) but will have to return and try another. OR, just buy one off of Amazon or eBay, but I don't want to wait.

I just programmed it to record every episode of Judge Judy for Julie :) I love her.

Hasta.

The Train is leaving the station

I finally feel now, that the train (me) is finally leaving the station (ie. getting to work on my thesis).

Why do I have to write a thesis? I paid my education dollars to get just that...an education. I'm really dreading this thing. I've never written anything longer than 10 pages, and now I have to do 10 times that? But as I said earlier, I'm starting to get on it. Can't write a novel without putting that first word down on paper, which is usually the hardest word of the whole book. So, hopefully I can commit to working on this thing everyday now that that first word is down. Once I get to doing what I enjoy (building the 3D model) I won't be complaining as much.

Good news though! I just recieved a scholarship for last semester and this semester!! It's paying for my school completely! I'm pretty happy about that. (Though I haven't told anyone in my family yet, 'cept Julie.)

Speaking of. Julie's latest heartbreak is that Christian is losing his hair. :) Poor little guy has bald patches on his head. Started happening about a week ago. Now, I know that he's losing his baby hair to make room for his big boy hair, but Julie is still sad for him. Also, we think he is developing a little craddle cap. I pray that Christian doesn't have any skin problems.

I have a new software toy

When I was in school doing my undergrad, I took an independent study course in photography, wanting to do a QuickTime Virtual Reality project. Well, during my research, I discovered that I couldn't do it with out a Mac.

But not today!! I was recently introduced to the software "RealVIZ Stitcher" that does exactly what I wanted it to do back then!

Please, navigate the site: http://jwh.joelgonzales.com/ and let me know how you like it. It's a rough first pass, I'll have to go back and reshoot if my company likes my idea.