Karli Laughed!

Karli laughed for the first time tonight. She kept laughing and we got a video of it. I hope that this makes you a little happy, it made me happy!

Baby Blessing

One-Year Anniversary

So I was not horribly smart this year, and did not take any pictures on our anniversary. It boggles the mind how I could forget to do such a thing, but there it is. So, with the lack of photographic evidence you will simply have to trust my memory to accurately portray the events of the night to you. Risky? I think so...(Now would be a good time to mention that I am writing this at 6AM. No, I am not an early riser, I am still awake, taking astronomical data. Why you may ask? I don't know, but if this post is wicked weird, I will blame it on lack of sleep rather than horrible literary ability on my part.)

August 15, 2008 is a day that will go down in my family history as the day that Kelly and I got married. It has been one year since we tied the knot (one year, I joked with Kelly, since I have had any fun). In the last year we have successfully prodcued a gorgeous baby (see post below,) moved into a new apartment, argued and debated about our future, and had an all-around pretty awesome time.

To commemorate the event, we had a date. On the advice of a co-worker we had dinner at a restaurant called "Four Seasons", a chinese Hot Pot,where you cook your food in a pot of boiling broth right on your table. It was quite the experience, the owners and only employees are a couple who I am sure only know enough english to explain the food. It was amazing,we are definately planning on going back in the future.

We had not decided whether we were ready to take the step of leaving Karli alone with a babysitter for a few hours in order to properly celebrate the occasion, but at the last minute, Kelly's cousin Drew was able to step in and babysit for us. So, we used some free movie tickets Kelly had and saw "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" a decent movie about people throwing around magic spells. The overall aura and feeling of the movie was only interrupted by Kelly's constant checking to see if Drew had called and if anything was wrong with Karli. Oh, my cute wife, she is so funny, she missed Karli so much!

All in all, it was a perfect anniversary and I was glad that I have spent the last year with my beautiful wife!

Karli is 5 weeks old!

Hello again everyone! Our little girl has reached the ripe old age of 5 weeks old. We haven't put up pictures for a while, and I thought that I would no longer deprive all of you of seeing the most beautiful girl in the world! Here we have a picture of Karli sleeping, one of her kissing her mother, one of her and her aunt Lacey, and another of her sleeping in a pretty dress. I also included a video. She likes to sleep on mom or dad, but sometimes she wants to get a bit better vantage point. Here she is hiking up Mt. Mommy to get a peek at the surrounding area.

Video of our little lady

Hey everyone, here is a cute video of Karli sucking her hand. She cries until she has something to suck on, its pretty cute. Also some more pictures with her Grandma Schoonie and her Great-Granparents and her mom and dad. Also, for a few days after she was home she was very jaundice and we had to put her under this "tanning bed" thing. It looked really freaky, but she slept really well in it. (That is West Wing in the background of the video by the way)

More Pictures

Grandma and Grandpa "Quade" stayed with us for a few days (thank goodness, who knew our daughter would like her grandpa more than her dad?). They always hang pictures of the grandkids up on their wall and so they took a picture with Karli and one of Karli to hang up on their wall. They also suggested we take a picture at the apartment she was born in so that is included as well. Enjoy!

Introducing Karli Kathleen Schoonmaker

Here is the long-awaited pictures of our beautiful girl Karli Kathleen. We had a tough birth, but Kelly was amazing and made it through! After a few days we got home from the hospital and are now enjoying the company of Kelly's parents and all of my family that is in town. If you want to hear more about our birth story, feel free to call!

Zoo, Wedding, Graduation

Hey everyone!
I can't figure out how to get these lousy pictures to work right for me on Blogspot. So I am just going to put them all below and you need to figure out which goes with which:). So here goes:
I am finally getting pictures up from our trip to Colorado and Wyoming in May. While in Colorado, one of the favorite things to do is go to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. When you go to the zoo there are a lot of fun activities, one is feeding the giraffes. I fed the giraffes a lot but Kelly thought that the giraffe tounges were gross so she decided that I could feed them for her. Here are pictures of my mom, dad and Trent as well as me looking like a giraffe and Kelly enjoying the heat of the day!

While we were in Colorado, we attended the wedding of one of my good friends Anne Gollan(Volkmer now). She and her husband Mike had their reception at the Officer's Club at the Air Force Academy and Kelly and I had fun meeting my old friends and hanging out with them. Here is a picture of Kelly and I and a picture of me, Anne, and my other good friend Amanda Jackson.

Finally, the week that we were in Wyoming, Kelly's brother Sean graduated from high school. Here are some pictures of him with parents and grandparents.

More pictures coming as soon as I can find the charger for our camera.

Catch-up

Hello everyone!

I know it has been a long time since I have blogged and I apologize. Not allowing everyone to get there "Jeremy and Kelly Schoonmaker blog" fix must have been hard.

We have been pretty busy, I finished finals and started my work for the summer doing research and doing Physics homework help. The research is going well despite the fact that my advisor has decided to pretty much triple the amount of work that I need to do on my senior thesis. It is okay though since that means it will just be that much better. The homework help has been fun as well and has been a lot of help in keeping me thinking about physics and re-teaching me some things that I had learned in earlier classes.

Kelly is doing really well and is excited to be on her 35 week of pregnancy. We are gearing up to have the baby and are both really excxited about seeing her. Kelly has started a few projects in preparation for having the baby including a wall hanging, hypnobirthing, and moving to a new apartment. Between the three she stays very busy.

We spent some time out of town in May visiting my parents and Kelly's parents. I have pictures that I will include in the next few days from a trip to the zoo, a wedding, a graduation, baby clothes and birds! Stay tuned!

Crib Pics

Those of you who would like to see pics of the new crib, you are lucky, because here they are.

Kelly crazy happy about the crib and starting to build it.















Trust a crib maker that can not spell?
















After about 4 hours of building here it is all built and nice!















Kelly very tired but happy that it is done!
















A few days later after the room is clean. We also
bought a mattress, sheets, and a blanket my mom sent.
















Those of you who are observant can learn a lot from this previous picture. You will see that there is a "tuning fork" of galaxy classification published by the Spitzer Space Telescope in the background. A must in any new baby room.

The Crib Fiasco

There comes a time in a pregnant woman's life that is often called "nesting." Kelly hit this stage hardcore a few weeks ago, and no corner of our house has been safe from cleaning or organizing since. The desk (shown in the post below) was a product of this. Since we bought the new desk it has been time for another new piece of furniture...the crib.

Kelly has been really wanting to buy a crib for the past few weeks, and after extensive(and those of you who know Kelly well will know that this means lists upon lists) research into what crib to get, we(she) decided on one that she really liked. We ordered it and Kelly has been patiently(impatiently) awaiting its arrival. Well, today I got the e-mail that said it was ready to get picked up. After looking over the size and weight, I, being the man, decided I would be able to hoist it into the car and get it home.

So, the trip began about 3:30pm with Kelly picking me up from school. We drove down to Wal-Mart, had to stop to get something to eat (neither of us had eaten since 8 that morning), and went to get the crib. As soon as they wheeled the flat cart out that had the crib on it, Kelly went BERSERK, laughing uncontrollably, she was so happy. We got the crib out to the car and to our dismay, it did not fit.

At this point in time I would like to say, it was darn close. My manly 3-d sense of packing was sooooo close to right, only about 3 inches off. Unfortunately, the size of the crib can't shrink 3 inches, so we were stuck. Lucky for us, Drew Barnes drove over with his truck to bail us out. We load the crib into his truck and head for home. Right as we are pulling out of the parking lot, we see a motorcycle accident. Not a bad one and not anything that had to do with us, so we drive past back on our way to Provo. Unfortunately, the road that we were going to take was closed, so we kind of randomly drove around for about 20 minutes all the while Kelly giggling like a mad woman.

We finally got home and started to put the crib together. After about 10 minutes, we noticed that in one of the legs, they did not drill the holes for the legs in the correct places. We thought if we could just sand about 1/8 of an inch off the top, it would work well. Trip #1 to Home Depot to get sandpaper followed and we got home at about 7:30. After about 40 minutes of sanding, our sandpaper was smooth and it wasn't getting any closer to fitting. Trip #2 to Home Depot to get more sandpaper. We did finally get it sanded down enough that we could get the screws in, but not well enough that we didn't have to really get mean with the screws. In doing so, I stripped one of the screws pretty good (lets hope it never needs to come out) and scratched up a small piece of the wood. Kelly, being the wonderful person she is, told me it was no big deal. So, we got the thing put together (though after we put the drawer together we realized we did it wrong and had to take it apart and put it together again). After it was together, we had to vacuum, move the furniture and clean the house.

7 hours later, the task was complete. The crib is built and ready for a mattress and sheets. Kelly could not be happier, though she is exhausted. Oh the joys of parenthood. And to think, I wanted to do homework tonight.

New Desk

Kelly and I decided to spend a bit of our leftover wedding money (giftcards) and we found this beautiful desk that we really like. We already have a desk in our spare bedroom, but since that is getting converted to the baby's room, the desk has to go. The problem is that the desk is falling apart and won't fit out the door and etc. so we decided to get a new one. (By the way, if anyone wants a desk that only needs a little work to be useable, let me know) Here are a few pictures of Kelly building it (for those of you who don't know, building furniture is one of Kelly's most favorite things to do which is good since I am not exactly a "handy man." She takes care of most of the repair type things(lously lack of masculentiy)) and some pictures of it totally setup and looking good.

Update

Hey everyone, I haven't put anything up in a while, and I feel real bad about it. I realize that my blog is probably a daily stop in your internet surfing and there hasn't been anything new for a long time. For most of you there hasn't been anything interesting in an even longer time. So, I thought I would just do a quick update on our lives.

Kelly is doing really good. She has started going to a chiropracter every week or so, which makes her life way better. Despite the fact that she is no longer morning sick, the annoyances of pregnancy continue to haunt our house. She has had a lot of back pain and discomfort and sore muscles. Going to the chiropracter helps her out a lot and she always sounds a million times better when she gets home. Despite her aches and pains she has been really active around the house. She has set about trying to clean and organize the whole house, including moving furniture.(Very fun times-how many times does furniture have to move to be in the right spot?) She has also started working on her quilt again and it should be done really soon. We are excited about the baby coming and she is WAY excited to start getting "cute" baby things.

As for me, I am still plugging away at school. I have about three more weeks of classes until finals, and I definately don't feel ready for them. I have spent a lot of time working on my research and even presented last Saturday at the Spring Research Conference. It went well enough that I am pleased with the overall results. I will continue to work on the project and the writing of it over the next few months, with a goal to have it completely submitted by June.

Kelly's birthday was a few weeks ago, here is a pic or two. Hope you all are doing well.

Spring Research Conference

I just got the news that my abstract was accepted for the Spring Research Conference! This is sort of exciting for me since I will be presenting research that I have actually done the analysis for (as opposed to my presentation at the AAS meeting where I was merely a peon). I will be presenting at 12:15 on March 21. I am not sure if it is something people are invited to, I think it is. If you are interested in coming, let me know and I will figure it out. Also, if you aren't interested in coming, don't feel bad. Attending a research conference for the department of Mathematical and Physical Sciences is definately something I would not go to unless I was presenting. Either way, I will let you know how it turns out.

Publishing

Hello again everyone. Kelly and I have been doing all right, just having fun and working and what-not. The new exciting news for me is that the paper that I am the second author for has been accepted for publication. It is set to be published in the April issue of the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. This is pretty exciting for me since it will be the first astronomy paper that I am an author for that is being published. When it is online I will send out the URL so that you can read it if you want. Along the same lines, I have also picked a project to do for my senior thesis. I am hopefully going to present the intial results of the research at the Spring Research Conference in March, and will hopefully be done with the thesis by the end of April. Also, if everything goes well, I will re-write it and try to get it published in the American Astrophysical Journal sometime this summer. Below I have included the abstract that I submitted for the research conference.

Analysis of the Hα and Hβ Temperature Curves of ∂ Scuti and ∂ Serpentis

In ∂ Scuti type variable stars, the two prominent spectral features are the Hα and Hβ hydrogen Balmer lines. Using a Strömgren color-index centered on one of these lines, an index can be produced that will give the temperature of the star. Both of these lines can be used for this temperature calibration. Using spectral data taken from the 1.2-m telescope at Dominion Astrophysical Observatory on two variables, ∂ Scuti and ∂ Serpentis, we applied the temperature index to each line to make a graph of temperature vs. time. Since these stars are pulsating variables, we expect to see them oscillate over time with the pulsation period of the star. Also, we expect to see the separate temperature calibrations in phase with each other. Here, we will present the preliminary results of this analysis.

The Baby

Hello again everyone! I have great news for this post. Kelly and I went to the doctor today and she had an ultrasound. The technician lady was really nice and somehow knew what everything was. She kept wanting the baby to move so that she could see different things, so she would push on Kelly's stomach to get it to move around. Kelly didn't appreciate that too much, but we were able to see the baby's hands and arms and feet. We saw the spine, the brain, the face. Our baby appears to be perfectly healthy. This makes both Kelly and I feel so much better. I think that both of us were preparing for the worst possible scenarios that we could think of. We were both worried that the baby would be crippled or not have a heart or something like that. Lucky us though, our baby is wonderful and looks healthy.

Now I am sure that you all want to know what we are going to have. I can't stop smiling as I type this. We are going to have a girl!! A perfect, healthly little girl. I really wanted a little girl and am just so excited. With all of the fret and worry that has gone into this baby in her short little life, I am just so happy she is healthy.

Wedding Pictures

One thing that I really wanted to do on this blog is to post some wedding pictures of Kelly and I. I still plan to post a few...someday. Until then, I will let you all know that I have put a lot (but not all) of our wedding pictures up on facebook.com for people to view. If any of you are not familiar with facebook, it is a networking website that started out as exclusively for college students. It has now grown large enough that anyone can join and network with their friends and family. Anyway, on my facebook profile, I have posted about 300 or so of the pictures from Kelly and my wedding. Enjoy!

Inauguration Day

So last Tuesday, I was getting ready for school and realized that I would much rather stay at home and watch the inauguration, than to go to my class. Though, I have to wonder what kind of unpatriotic professor decides to hold class on the day of one of the most historical presidential inaugurations that I may ever live through. Wait a second, Democratic president, BYU proffessor, the wheels are turning.

Anyway, I really enjoyed seeing the inauguration, I was awed by how many people were there. I heard that almost 2 million people came from all different parts of the United States to watch President Obama take the oath of office. (On a humorous side note, they must have been pretty disappointed at the akward situation that insued while the oath was being taken. If you don't know what I am talking about, get on YouTube.com and look up a video of Obama being sworn in. Kind of funny!) I really love the way President Obama speaks. He is very inspiring and I think that the American people in general are very excited about his presidency. I am sure that many people do not agree with his politics, but it is an awesome thing to have an African-American president, especially one who is so popular. I feel that he is the right person to break that barrier and I hope that he will do well in office.

All in all, I think that our country has a lot of reasons to celebrate. It is no small thing that power has transferred peacefully from one executive to another, especially one who would not have been able to vote 50 years ago. America has broken an important barrier this year and it is good to know that I was there to see it happen!

Astronomy

So, you all know that I am into astronomy. So much into it that it is my major. I have loved astronomy since I was a kid, and I am very excited that I get to be a part of the astronomical community in general. I recently attended a meeting of the American Astronomical Society where I presented a poster on some research that I helped my professor with. It was a very fun and exciting experience. Two-thousand astronomers in the same building. Wow!

I also work in the astronomy department as a TA for an observational astronomy class. It is fairly enjoyable, I get to help students learn how to use the telescope and take scientific data. This allows me to spend a lot of time at the ESC at night doing homework and answering questions. Most of the time we look at variable stars or open star clusters, meaning that the pictures we take are just fields of stars. There is not anything very magnificent in taking pictures of star fields, but once in a while we get a chance to take some fun pictures. This is a picture of the Hourglass Nebula that I took while helping some intro astronomy students with a project.

I also took pictures of the Orion Nebula (M42) when I was taking the observational astronomy class. This isn't the true colors of the Orion Nebula, but I really like how the picture looks.

This is two different versions of the same picture of Jupiter. In one I have the contrast set so that you can see the stripes on the planet, and on the other, I have the contrast set so that you can see the Galilean moons.

These final set of pictures are pictures that I took of the moon during the August 2007 total lunar eclipse. Usually, the moon is too bright for us to take pictures of, but since most of the light was blocked by the shadow of the earth, I could see it fairly well. I plan on trying to make a mosaic out of these four pictures, and if I ever succeed in doing this, I will post it.