our newest high school grad

Grad with brother Ryan and cousin Cassie

The youngest of the next generation is now not only over 18 but a highschool grad.  Where has the time gone!  Mom and Dad Herber are not only the parents of a bunch of old people over 50, but are grandparents of a bunch of adults...no more little kids.
Congratulations, Cody!

next quilt

Next big project is basted together and on the hoop, and ready for quilting.  It is what my mom calls a "cheater quilt" -the patchwork in the center is a print, only the borders are true patchwork.

latest handcrafting project..



Second one in construction



I completed my last big project a couple weeks ago... knitting the comfort "blankey" in triplicate! for Mindy's new baby.  Number one and two were completed before Baby's arrival on April 24.  This is Mindy's third and with each she has made sure to have knitted blankeys in multiples so if one is soiled, left at Grandma's or whatever, there is an identical (or nearly) backup.  She also has a comfort plush animal for each child that is in multiples!  What a crack- up.... but oh, so smart! 



Love this simple pattern

She was able to find knitted blankets for her first, but was having a challenge when the second baby arrived.  I happened to have just finished making one and offered it to her.  I'd actually started another one already, using the same yarn... so finished that up for the back up.  Now a couple years later, the blankets are ready in advance for the newest member of the family!  My sister, Kelly Sue has gone in on it with me, with the financial end while I've put in the "sweat equity".  I love it when a gift can be just what is needed.

Katie all wrapped up in her own blankey!

Japan - grace under fire

I feel a great deal of national and spiritual chagrin when I compare how the Japanese are responding to disaster to how we as Americans, especially those who claim Christianity, have responded in our troubled times. 


My friend, Sue, stated it well on her blog.  I recommend the read.   click here


Contemplate the following:
10 THINGS TO EMULATE FROM JAPAN


1. THE CALM

Not a single visual of chest-beating or wild grief. Sorrow itself has been elevated.

2.THE DIGNITY

Disciplined queues for water and groceries. Not a rough word or a crude gesture.

3. THE ABILITY

The incredible architects, for instance. Buildings swayed but didn’t fall.

4. THE GRACE

People bought only what they needed for the present, so everybody could get something.

5. THE ORDER

No looting in shops. No honking and no overtaking on the roads. Just understanding.

6. THE SACRIFICE

Fifty workers stayed back to pump sea water in the N-reactors. How will they ever be repaid?

7. THE TENDERNESS

Restaurants cut prices. An unguarded ATM is left alone. The strong cared for the weak.

8. THE TRAINING

The old and the children, everyone knew exactly what to do. And they did just that.

9. THE MEDIA

They showed magnificent restraint in the bulletins. No silly reporters. Only calm reportage.

10.THE CONSCIENCE

When the power went off in a store, people put things back on the shelves and left

quilt report

Photos of my latest finished quilt.  With the funding by sisters and sweat by me, this quilt was made as a group gift from us sisters for Tim and Kristi's wedding shower last month. 



Basted and fresh on the quilting frame

 I wanted to add additional stitching, so had the quilt back and took a few shots of the finished product.

the intern in Cleveland

News from the youngest son...

February 25:

Two or three weeks ago, the interns toured the SLOPE facility (something to do with Simulated Lunar O??? P??? Environment). It's where they test vehicles and, as you can see, tires for use on the moon and Mars or even Venus. The tire I'm behind on the left is an exact replica of the titanium Lunar Rover tire used 50 years ago on the moon. Besides not wanting to deal with pressurized tires in space, rubber would not be able to survive the radiation and extreme temperatures experienced in space. On the right is the next generation metallic spring tire being developed by Goodyear to support NASA's future missions. The room we are in contains large sand boxes containing dust, sand and rocks that perfectly imitate that seen on the moon and Mars for testing of these tires and designs of the next generation of vehicles.



At the NASA Glenn Research Center, we have a special interest in the Oscars on Sunday. The daughter of one of the researchers in the Materials and Structures Division has been nominated for an Oscar for the second time in Sound Editing. She was first nominated for The Dark Night a couple years ago and is up again for her work on Inception. See her bio at the internet movie database link here:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0386567/ She often does her work at George Lucas' Skywalker Sound. http://www.skysound.com/bio/lora_hirschberg.html

03/02/11
Note: 
She did get the Oscar.

Love you...

Happy Valentine's Day.  This marks 36 years since Karl purposed to me.  Whahoo! It has been quite a ride.

birthdays are to be celebrated

R's 12th b'day! 


Uncle Karl lights candles to an enthralled audience









Goofy Uncle George makes sure all those candles stay under control



The Blakes and Herbers met in mass, plus a few more... I think the number was around 45. We even exceeded our Thanksgiving numbers.  As at Thanksgiving, Callie and Karl hosted the herd.  

Grandpa H gives the birthday girl advice on the attack

"Hey, I'm not too sure I'm into the part about cut your own cake"

"Oh, yeah.  This is more like it"  Aunt Callie to the rescue

Grandpa  and Grandma B visit with friend Vickie W

another follow up from Maranatha media

If you get the quarterly magazine Maranatha Volunteer or you watch Maranatha Mission Stories on TV this is not new stuff... but if you haven't and would like to follow up a little on the Vanuatu project, check out these links.
When you get to Maranatha Mission Stories scroll down and click on "Earth, Water, Fire, Spirit" episode
Click here for a look at the winter 2011 issue of Volunteer.  Vanuatu stuff mentioned on pages 9,14 and on the back cover
photo credit: Dick Duerkson

message from Kit, Glenn Research Center, Cleveland

Happy 70th Birthday, NASA Glenn Research Center. Of course, NASA is not that old. That’s because GRC was created as an aeronautic research facility during WWII, exactly 70 years ago today. When NASA was created, GRC became one of the founding centers. I thought it deserved an email from my NASA account.
Also, I attended one of the internship lectures on Wednesday. It was about the Colombia accident investigation and NASA’s return to flight. The man who gave the lecture also helped produce a video commemorating the Shuttle program, “Ascent”. It’s a 45 minute movie that shows all the engineering films used to evaluate the launch and make sure everything happened according to plan. Things happen very quickly at launch, so all of the cameras are state of the art high speed HD. Almost all of these cameras exist in response to the findings of the Colombia accident investigation. When played back at normal speeds, it could take an hour to just watch a few seconds of the launch. The video was originally produced with just some light background music, but commentary was later added because people were interested in the significance of many of the images, and there was also lots of confusion about the fact that many of the clips were extremely slow motion. We each received a copy of the DVD this week. The video was also added to YouTube where you can watch it. There is a voice recognition closed captioning option that works fairly well on the YouTube video, though it does mess up some of the technical terms. Also, unlike most YouTube videos, the entire 45 minutes is contained on one video. This may cause some problems if you have a slow Internet connection. Or not. Ascent can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2VygftZSCs

Enjoy.

-Kit

Note from the mom:
You can check out NASA Glenn Research Center at http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/index.html

change of pace

Starr decided she was really not interested in purchasing another pack of school photos, especially when she had the last several year's worth sitting around gathering dust.  It wasn't like she needed each year's school photos to document her past year's changes, like her students did.  So, when it turned out that picture day fell on a day I was there volunteering, she got the wild idea to have us take one together....an answer to what to give the grandparents for Christmas. When she asked me that morning what color I was wearing and I told her blue, she grabbed a bluet t-shirt, too.  Surprisingly, it turned out to be the same shade.  The kids noticed it the first thing when they saw us that morning...."Mrs. Schwinn.  You and Ms. Katie Jo are matching!"  So this is the photo that resulted which the grandparents opened under the tree. 

liking that sunshine....

It is a gorgeous day in Arizona! 
When I got up this morning for my quiet time, this is the view that greeted me through the window by my "study chair".  Of course, the real thing was far more spectacular.
About mid-morning I went for my walk and actually felt like shade would be welcomed.

Days like this is what makes it worth while to live in Arizona.

Belated report on Christmas

Can't believe we are well into the first week of January and I still haven't gotten my Christmas Day photos on the blog.  Don't know if "late is better than never" but I'm posting them anyway.

We started Christmas day in church.  Kristopher was guest organist and we really enjoyed that.

Asleep where he sits

After running home to change and pick up our contribution to the family Christmas dinner (lunch), we made our way out to meet everyone at Mom and Dad's.  We finished around 3:00 pm and then had Starr open her birthday presents and cards.  I had been working on a patchwork quilt for her but had run out of time... it still had areas with incomplete quilting and it needed to have the edging done...but I gave it to her anyway. (I finally finished it yesterday.)



What an enthusiastic bunch!

 Napping, gabbing, walks, and playing in the park filled the afternoon.  By evening we were ready to start the traditional family units photos by the tree...and then the gift exchange.  My word, twenty-two people make for a lot of paper and ribbons!





Camera toting family being briefed by the peanut gallery

With all the excitement we almost missed this glorious sunset

The cousins

The birthday girl, the eldest grandchild, and the only canine

The baby of my family is the only sib that is a grandparent!



Me and mine

Finally to the important part of the evening!  What a haul.

No formal supper after all the over eating done earlier in the day, but some heavy duty grazing on leftovers took place... The deserts we had been too full to eat earlier were probably not the wisest food choices, but...they really looked good and tasted even better!

partial shot of game players...Geo in his new MN Viking sunhat

Ben and Sarah broke out their "Apples to Apples" game and we did a lot of laughing, finally breaking it up when it was time to take the littlest one home for a very late bedtime. 

what a bunch of hams