The Carstens: Christmas Letter 2011

Merry Christmas!

This past year has been filled with big and wonderful changes for us. The most wonderful change happened on February 10^th at 5:25pm when our daughter, Abigail Suzanne, entered the world. At 7 pounds even, 19.5 inches long, and with a head full of long, black hair she was a beautiful sight to behold. And watch and hold her we did! Nate jokes that she became a permanent fixture in my arms and he had to pry her out of them to let others hold her. I must admit that he’s not too far from the truth. Holding my baby girl, smelling the top of her little head, and watching her discover the world around her was (and still is!) more awesome that I can describe. She’s an absolute joy and we feel so blessed to be her parents.

Abby at 1 month

Our next change occurred in April when Nate had the opportunity to leave his current position at NuScale and become employed with Numerical Applications Incorporated (NAI). I say ‘had the opportunity’ when the reality is that the NuScale, a small start-up company that Nate was working for, lost their investment money and had to lay off their employees. In a nutshell the investor that provided funding for NuScale stole the money. When this was discovered NuScale’s funding was frozen while this whole ordeal was worked out in the US court system. The end result was that all NuScale employees were laid off at the end of March. Fortunately for us, Nate saw this coming and began job interviewing early on. It ended up that on March 31^st Nate was laid off from NuScale and on April 1^st Nate was hired by NAI. We were so thankful then (and still are) that we didn’t have to deal with loss of income, potential loss of insurance, and all the other negatives that come with unemployment.

Abby in Daddy's favorite onesie "Nuclear Science is Fun"

May brought about another big change. In fact, for me, it’s been the second biggest change (after Abby) in the last nine years (when I graduated college and began working fulltime). I quit my job as a Software Engineer with Lockheed Martin to become a Stay at Home Mom. When faced with the reality of going back to work, Nate and I knew that this just wasn’t the best option for our family. While there was definitely a learning curve, and there still is on some days, this has been a decision that I am thankful for every day. I am blessed to be able to see all of Abby’s “firsts”, to be her main caregiver, to look after our home, and to support Nate with his career.

Oh how I love her smile!

Our summer was pretty low-key as we stayed close to home to allow Nate to study. Yep, our next big change was that in October Nate took the Professional Engineer (PE) exam in Nuclear Engineering. He began studying for this exam regularly in June and kept increasing intensity until, by the end of October when he took the exam, he was working full time, then coming home and studying for a few hours each night and also studying all weekend long. By the time he took his exam we were both stressed, worn-out, and tired from all the studying (Nate) and all the solo wrangling of Abby and the house (Teresa). As we were told it would take many months before we heard whether Nate passed or not, we were hoping for a response sometime in the middle of spring. However, a week before Christmas we got the fantastic news that Nate had passed his exam! Yeah! Woo hoo! We are both thrilled that he passed, and thrilled that we don’t have to repeat the summer of studying and taking the exam again in the event that he didn’t pass.

One of Dad's favorite pictures (He did a great job taking it!).

In early December, we took a family vacation to St. Petersburg, FL. After the summer of intense studying we needed a vacation to celebrate the completion of the exam and to enjoy some family-focused time. And what a time we had! Our hotel was right on the beach and had so few guests that we felt like we had the hotel to ourselves. We saw a total of five people in the pool/hot tub over four days. The beach was best of all with miles and miles of gorgeous white sand and rarely a person in sight. Abby had a great time playing, and eating, all that sand, too! The rest of our time was spent exploring Tampa and visiting Sea World in Orlando. Sea World was fabulous! Nate even admitted that while he originally thought it would be a kid’s place and was going there because I wanted to, he ended up having a great time. Abby loved people watching and trying to guide Nate by pulling his hair. The best part of the day was the Orca show. It was amazing watching those animals jump as high as they did and perform all their tricks.

Love how this one perfectly captures how Nate and I were into the animals/sights and Abby was into people watching. She couldn't have cared less about the sea otters we were watching.

As we come to the end of 2011 and look back over the year it’s been a wonderful and exciting time; the birth of our daughter, both of us changing jobs, education advancement, and family time. We are both grateful for the many blessing we have received. If you are inclined, we would love for you to keep up with our lives throughout the year by visiting our blog at: http://takers401.blogspot.com.

We hope your year has been filled with many blessings as well and would love to hear how you and yours are doing.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!