Happy Birthday Kate!

Hope you are enjoying your birthday. I am missing your California weather. It is really cold here and there is enough snow to cover the ground.

Happy Birthday John!

Have a good one! I don't think Wiggles has managed to hunt you down the purrrfect gift.

Take care, keep safe!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALAN!

Alan is 63 years old today. While his wife and children pretty much ignored this milestone Wiggles came through and presented him with her latest catch. We do appreciate her mouse hunting skills but she needs to work on disposing of her trophies in a manner more acceptable to her people. YUCK!!!!!!

In other news Baby Girl Gottwood should be arriving in about ten weeks! She will not be lacking in pink clothing and good reading material. Macy's just sent me a $25.00 coupon in appreciation of my recent visits and to encourage me to return. I'll have to wait for them to restock the baby department before I can use it though. I am really looking forward to seeing Kate and Jeremy in November although in reading their blog I think the trip might fall short of actually being a vacation.

I enjoyed my trip to Monroe especially the attendance for dinner at Jay's. Some of us spent a lot of the time playing with our smart phones (mine is definitely too smart for me) Lee gave me some pointers and was trying to convince Bonnie that she should take his Droid to he could upgrade. Didn't look like she was buying what he was selling.We were able to track three football games (MSU won!) although it seriously taxed the batteries. After dinner everyone went to Mom's for cheesecake and for awhile it looked like they would never leave. I was tempted to call Jeremy so I could prove that I can stay up to midnight! I have witnesses!

Hope all is well with everyone.

When it Rains.................

We have gotten so much rain the last couple of weeks that our grass is green! We even had close to 2 inches of rain in one hour. It is raining now which means at 8:00 pm when the home game against Notre Dame begins it is going to be dark, cold, and wet. Not too much news from East Lansing. I'm trying to get caught up around the house and Alan is out adopting a couple of motorcycles and a car. Haven't seen John yet today but he should be over soon to visit his cat. I bought some stuff for the baby and Alan said a better gift would be her very own cat so she doesn't have to share with her Mom and Dad. Kate vetoed the cat saying that the baby's parents want her to learn about sharing. Plus it brings a tie of three people and three cats. I need to plan a trip to Monroe before Mom thinks the only time I'll come is when she checks in the hospital.

As easy as falling off a bike (or not)

Last weekend, I completed my first century (100 mile) bike ride. But the big news is there were no trips to the emergency room. No need for band-aid nor aspirin. Pedal time was a smidgeon over 7 hours and total time right around the 8 hour mark. The last half of the ride was pretty much into the wind, so that pretty much sucked, or blew, or, well, whatever. I'm still feeling some of the effects of the ride when I sit down, but it's getting better.

Just Checking In

Home sick for two days but just woke up and seem to feel better. Sad to say, but that is the only news I have. I was supposed to go out to dinner tonight with a group from work but I guess I will have to pass. This weekend begins dorm move in at MSU so things will be crazy on the roads and in the stores.

John has started the Fall semester and I think he is moving into an apartment the first of September. I'm not sure if Wiggles is moving too as John thinks she might be happier staying here than spending her days alone in a small apartment. She climbs all over the basement and works pretty good as a dust rag. Sometimes when I am in the basement she will suddenly drop from the rafters just like a bat. She and Alan spend a lot of time watching the wildlife in the yard but they have had to cut back on how much food gets put out because we have had two raccoons visiting the feeder every night.

Mom/Gram did go see her doctor after this last incident and will be having some tests done beginning with a colonoscopy. I will be there to take her and hang out in Monroe for a couple of days. Looking forward to eating at Jay's.

I am close to having a pre-Thanksgiving trip to California booked. I am really excited to see where Kate and Jeremy live. I have been to California once and I only saw Sacramento.

Take care everyone and keep safe.

Getting the Fam on Board

Hey Mom and Lee, so, it is pretty clear that the three of us must not be the most exciting Tomkinsons since there hasn't been much blog action lately.  I think I'll make another attempt to get everyone else to sign on and start posting.  Can you email me the email addresses of the cousins?  I'll send out another round of blog invitations and see if we can increase the action on here.

Does this thing still work?

Just thought I'd see what's happening. It looks pretty quiet.

I did a bike tour today, riding around 60 miles. The distance wasn't all that great except for the fact I haven't been on the bike for a couple of weeks and was a bit out of shape. I'm hoping to do a hundred mile ride next month, so I guess I better get some more seat time.

In Monroe

We're actually in Monroe right now for Uncle Dale's wedding.  Last night Matt and John took Jeremy and I out for dinner.  Then the cool cousins went out on the town and Jeremy and I came back to the hotel and fell asleep watching the news.  I guess we're officially old people now - in fact, I'm just waiting for Jeremy to wake up so we can go get breakfast at Bob Evans - my AARP membership can't be far behind :) 

We're not sure how we feel about this midwest weather!  We're clearly already spoiled by California.  It's a little hot and humid here for our taste. 

New Baby Update

We just had another doctor's appointment today, and all is well with baby.  We even got to see it wave hello! 

We also went and had a bunch of blood work done - I think they took about a gallon.  Seriously, the nurse taking my blood had to have a second nurse come in and hand her vials as she filled them up because there were too many to fit in the little tray.  Yikes!  Of course, that didn't hurt nearly as much as the hours we had to spend on the phone with the insurance company trying to figure out which labs are covered by our insurance.  I wonder if our health insurance will cover blood pressure issues caused by dealing with their automated system.

I've been pretty busy at work, so I haven't had much of a "summer break" yet.  Hopefully we'll have more down time in July and August because June is pretty busy! 

We're looking forward to seeing everyone this weekend.  Hopefully we'll get to see some of the Tomkinsons while we're in town for Dale's wedding.  See you soon!

Update

The baby is really the only news from California (unless you want to hear about four and a half days straight of non-stop meetings that I just finished). Of course, mom left out the part of the story where clearly the only reason we decided to have a baby was to (yet again) keep poor John from getting his Christmas Eve trip to the Outback.  With the baby, I think it will make three straight Christmases where Jeremy and I have some how messed up the little guy's plan to get himself a giant steak on December 24th.  Two Christmases ago it was Jeremy's shoulder surgery, and this past Christmas I wasn't feeling well.  When we told him we were having a baby, he seemed to think that was a fairly extreme way to prevent him from getting his blooming onion. 

In true Tomkinson style, we'll have to start a pool to guess the baby's gender, etc.  I think that we should be able to find out in July or August.  From our current ultrasound picture, it would seem that we're having a big white blob, but the doctor assures us that it is an actual baby :)  We actually like our doctor (so far) which is great, because being new to the area, we just randomly picked a doctor off the insurance Internet list.  Jeremy especially is a fan, since she said that I can still scoop the litter box, as long as I wash my hands really well when I am done.  Lucky me. 

Like I said, no other news here.  I am done teaching for the summer, but I'll be plenty busy with other job stuff.  We'll see you all in a couple of weeks!

Christmas Baby!

The first of the next generation in the Tomkinson family

should be here by Christmas!

Kate and Jeremy got tired of Christmas shopping and decided to take the easy way out this year. Baby Gottwood is scheduled to arrive Christmas Eve. Kate is feeling pretty crappy and worn out but I'll let her fill in the details. Of course the future Grandma is pretty excited and has already purchased her grandchild some books. It won't be too long before we know if it will be a boy or a girl. So far the pool has Kate betting it will be a boy and Jeremy and I betting on a girl. No real preferences just a feeling.

Alan,John,Kate, Jeremy and I will be in Monroe for Uncle Dale's wedding on June 12. There is a lunch after the wedding. Hopefully, we can get the Tomkinson/Oothoudt crew together for either dinner Saturday and/or breakfast on Sunday. Kate flies back to California on Sunday and Jeremy is going to Chicago to visit friends. On Thursday Kate will fly to Chicago and Alan and I will drive in and meet them at the hotel. On Friday Kate graduates. Next Kate and Jeremy are flying to DC to spend a few days his family and celebrate his Dad's retirement. Later in the week they will fly to Michigan to spend some time with us. Whew!

I asked Kate if it was okay to make the announcement on the blog and she said, "That's basically telling Uncle Lee". Where is everyone else? Kate, Lee and I are lonely and really boring. Outside of the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT the most exciting events have been Kate's stumbling onto a Post It Note sale, Lee staying upright on his bike, and me staying up past 9:00 pm.

Now that it is almost 9:30 I need to sign off and retire for the evening.

Goodnight! Take care and keep safe.

Lee-1, Asphalt-0

Well, maybe it's too soon to brag, but I survived the first tour of the season with nary a scratch. I rode in the Metro Grand Spring Tour yesterday. It was a 60 miler (well, only 57.5 but I guess they think that would look odd in the flyer!) through parts of two Metro Parks and parts of Wayne and Monroe counties. The rain even let up long enough to get the ride in although the roads were pretty wet at the start. As far as the route goes, I'd give it a partly to mostly crappy. But anyhow, I'm ahead for the season, but I'm sure there is an equalizer out there waiting for me.

The next planned ride is at the end of next month. It's a two day ride, 75 miles per day, from the south side of Toledo to Port Clinton the first day and then return to Toledo the following day. It's a fundraiser for the National MS Society, so I get to come up with at least $300 to "enjoy" myself! LOL

Alrighty, that's about all I got. Later

Excitement Tomkinson Style

Wow! Says a lot about the three of us that the most exciting thing to report is a sale on post-it notes! I am sorry to say that I can't top that news although my monthly use of daytime minutes on my cell phone exceeds 10 minutes. It is embarrassing to admit that those minutes are spent checking in with Mom every morning to make sure we are both still alive. Kate, who is looking most forward to the end of the semester? You or the students?

Don't forget that tomorrow is Mom's 85th birthday. She might call you tomorrow, Lee, to thank you for the flowers we sent. Just pretend that you know what she is talking about.

Kate we missed you and Jeremy (as well as your cousins) on Easter. We are supposed to work on scanning Gram's pictures and I'll email them to you. Some of the pictures my cousin sent her I had never seen before. Others I hadn't seen in a long time.

Well, talk about exciting...............it is almost 8:30 pm so it is time for me to get ready to retire for the evening. Good night!

April Showers

Not too much news here, just checking in.  It is rainy here today in California, but when it rains for a couple of days and then is sunny and 70 for the next 5, you can't really complain.  I am still really busy at work, but we only have six weeks left in the semester, so I feel like I just might survive.  I also have a detailed countdown going of exactly how many lectures I need to give in each of my classes :) 

Jeremy and I got new cell phones this weekend, so if anyone wants our numbers, Mom has them (I guess since I am writing this here, it means if Uncle Lee wants the numbers ...).  We finally went on the family plan, which required us to switch to California area codes.  At the AT&T store, we also learned that I use my phone for 10 minutes a month.  That made me feel pretty lame.  Of course, those are 10 daytime minutes, so we could just say that I am so cool, I never make any calls until after 9pm, but I think we all know that isn't true :)  It also doesn't count calls to other AT&T cell phones, so none of my calls to Jeremy count in that total either. I guess the good thing about being really busy at work is that it keeps you from going over your cell phone minutes!

Like I said, nothing too exciting here.  The most exciting thing that happened to me this weekend is that when I went to Staples, post-it notes were on sale.  Sadly, tape flags weren't on sale, so it wasn't *that* exciting. 

However, this coming weekend is the weekend I go to Vegas for the accreditation seminar - so things are about to get wild and crazy!  I don't know what goes on in sessions with titles like "Assessment strategies for mid-size institutions" but it sounds like a party to me! 

Text from John

Since everyone seems to enjoy John's sense of humor, I thought you might appreciate this text message that he sent me this weekend:

" I've been sick for tow weeks, drinking loads of coffee, and all I do is study hour after hour.  I think this must be what it feels like to be you." 

I am not sure how I feel about that characterization. 

Spring Break Update

Hi Mom and Lee

Hope all is well in Michigan!  It is my spring break, but sadly this post is still being done from my office.  Last Thursday-Saturday Jeremy and I went to the FIRST competition with the high school robotics team that we volunteer for.  It was great!  It was also very  very hard work.  All schools get exactly 6 weeks to build their robots then they have to ship them to the competition site.  On Thursday at 8am we could unbox our robot and do final testing/building/programming - until 8pm when the pits close (they call the work area the pit like in NASCAR, only nerdier).   Our robot still had a lot of last minute work that needed to be done, so we were working pretty much the whole day.  We were only scheduled for 5 or 6 practice slots on the official field, so we didn't get all of the kinks worked out before the competition started.  The competition is on Friday and Saturday.  Both days the pits open at 8 and the competition starts around 9:30.  Pretty much you work on the robot all of the time when it isn't competing to fix things that didn't work/broke/never worked.  It was pretty intense. When I get the pictures off the camera I will post a few.

The way the competition works, the students compete in alliances with two other robots and then everybody gets ranked at the end of pool play at lunch on Saturday.  After that the top eight teams become the team captains for the playoff teams.  They each draft two other teams to be in their alliance for the playoffs.  Our kids finished ranked 18th or so (out of over 50 teams) but ended up not getting drafted for the playoffs. The teams that do really well early on start scouting other teams on Friday and since our robot didn't start doing really well until Saturday, we think that we got passed over by most of the scouting teams.  The kids were disappointed, but still had a great time overall.  I think it helped that our very last round of pool play was almost perfect.  There is another competition in two weeks, that Jeremy will be going to (I have class so I'll have to stay home) so hopefully our team will do even better at that one. 

We've been volunteering a lot with the robot team (all day on Saturdays and all afternoon/evening on Fridays) so now that the competition season is almost over, we'll have to find some other way to spend all of our time :)  I may actually have to do some of my grading!

In April I am going to Las Vegas!  Of course, I am going to attend a workshop on accreditation for computer science programs, so that is a little less exciting than what most people go to Vegas for.

Other than that, no real news from California. Happy Spring!

Reminded me of Dad

I saw this article in my RSS Reader this morning, and it reminded me of Dad:
NYTimes: How Much Soap To Use
It turns out that using too much dishsoap and/or laundry soap is actually bad and gets things LESS clean.  Poor Dad!

Maybe falling off a bike is getting harder

We're experiencing Michigan's teasing of us with some nice days scattered about March while we know it's not yet safe to declare winter over. But last weekend was really nice here and I got out for my first bicycle ride of the year. I got in 17 miles and all of it was in the upright position. Things are looking good. This week we have 50's and 60's with some rain forecast, but the long range forecast looks pretty good. I'm looking forward to this season's bike tours and am making plans on which ones to attend. May, August, September, and October are pretty firm, so I need to look at June and July for something interesting. I'm also looking forward to getting my first 100 miler in. 70 miles is my best so far. I am also looking forward to getting the kayak in the water and doing some camping. With any luck, I may be able to combine all three of these activities. This should help relieve some of that stress, providing I'm not picking asphalt out of my knees and elbows.

Spring Break

Spring break takes on a whole new meaning when you aren't on the student side of it! This is spring break week at MSU and it's so nice and quiet. We always have a chuckle over students inquiring what plans we have for the break. I guess they think the campus shuts down in their absence.

Cranky huh? Well, although much of it can be attributed to your students it is also the Grandpa Pruyn coming out in you. Looks like I am the only one in the family who escaped that trait................

Do you have big plans to celebrate Jeremy's 35th birthday? Hope is he grateful that he married someone so much younger who will be able to take care of him at his advanced age. This is the year for significant birthdays, Gram will be 85 in April and I will observe the big Six O this year and my little brother will observe 55 in May.

Not much new in E.L. The snow is melting. We acquired another motorcycle this past weekend. We continue to be out smarted by the basement mice. They manage to eat all the peanut butter bait without setting off the traps!

March Update

Still not too much to report here.  We're super busy at work because in addition to all the usual stuff, this is recruiting season.  Saturday I had to go to Sacramento for a recruiting event, and this weekend we have another event on campus. 

I think that teaching is making me old.  Lately I've had to give my students lectures on coming to class on time and how it is inappropriate to make cell phone calls from class.  I actually threatened to give one of my classes a quiz on how to tell time since I figured that was the only reason so many of them would be chronically late.  Oh well, I guess we all get old and cranky eventually, I think it must be genetic :)  Of course, I will never be as old as Jeremy who turns 35 in a couple of weeks.  Yikes! 

My spring break is coming up in a couple of weeks and I think that I am way more excited for spring break as a faculty member than I ever was as a student.  My exciting plans involve sleeping and getting caught up on my grading.  I'm also trying to get an appointment to go to the dentist for the first time in a few years, so that may end up being exciting, but probably not in a good way. 

Good for another 10,000 miles

Woo hoo! Passed my stress test and all the other ones. The doc says I'm good for another year! Now, about that other kind of stress! LOL Medication maybe?

Another Update from Kate

Tonight I am getting interviewed on the University's local-access cable channel.  I'll be getting interviewed about our computer science degree by the communications person from the University.  (Sounds exciting doesn't it!).  They needed someone from our department, and I got voted "most photogenic computer science professor" - it isn't as hard as you might think to win that title.  And really, it was kind of a tie, but the other guy refused to do the interview :)

Anyway, Jeremy is going to try to tape it, and if it isn't toooo embarrassing (and we can figure out how to upload it), I will post a link. 

Udate from Kate

Much like Mom and Uncle Lee, I don't really have much news to report, but I thought I'd check in.  I just finished up my second week of classes for the spring semester.  Since I am teaching four classes this semester and all of them are new (new to me at least) I spend pretty much 12-14 hours a day at work teaching, writing lectures/homework, and helping students.  The first couple of weeks are always crazy though, so I am hopeful that it will slow down soon.  I also have to turn in my annual report next week for my big review, so I have been working on that.

It is the rainy season here which means that at least two or three days a week, it rains at least once during the day.  It was only really bad for a couple of weeks, and now the days that it isn't raining are usually sunny and warm.  The weirdest part is that because of all of the rain, everything is very green here - kind of like spring.  I have a hard time remembering that it is February.  I guess it is just taking a while to adjust to life on the west coast.

Jeremy found a local group that plays pick-up frisbee once a week and he has been having fun playing with them.  Although, the first day he went, he got hit in the face and his glasses took a big chunk out of his nose, so I guess he made an impression :)  We should start hearing in the next couple of weeks from the places that Jeremy applied, so we'll keep everybody posted. 

Where is everyone?

Gee, since it's just us three, maybe we should rename this to something more reflective of the active participants! Just kidding of course.

Bonnie, Corey, Brandy, and myself dined tonight at Detroit Beach. No big surprise there. We did have a nice evening as the restaurant was only mildly busy so we could carry on a conversation easily.

Not really much else going on here. I'm just waiting for good weather to get out on the bicycle. I've been stockpiling band-aids and Neosporin all winter, so I should be in good shape for a while.
Spring can't be too far behind. Can it?

I think I'm beginning to see a real problem with a family blog. I'm feeling pressure to do something exciting just so I will have something to post!

I think you did it, Kate.

Okay Kate, it looks like I can post. Now I just need to post something interesting!

Adding a Post

If you are new to blogging, don't worry - it is super easy to add a new post.  First, you need to log in using your Google account.  Then, click on the "new post" link in the upper right-hand corner of your screen (in the blue bar across the top).  That should bring up a page with a text editing window.  You can type, format and add pictures just like you would in a word processor. 

Welcome!

Howdy family! At Christmas some of us were talking and we decided that it would be nice to have a family blog. Everyone can join and post updates so that we can stay in touch between Christmases. If you would like to be added to the blog (so that you can add posts), you'll need a Google account (gmail or the like). Once you have a Google account email Kate and she'll add you to the list of blog owners.