Ending 2013- Bringing in 2014

2013 has come to an end. It has definitely had it's ups and downs Some things that occurred in 2013:

Had more success with Kara's Kakes

Started working at Nestle Nutrition as an Associate Food Technician (And LOVE it!)

We camped in the U.P.  several times between May and October (Memorial Day was sunny & in the 80's, Labor Day was rainy and cold, Snow in October)

I graduated in the top 5% of my class!

Joel launched 2 cross bows for Velocity Archery.

Joel and I both traveled for work- Joel even went to Switzerland!
My nephew, Caden, was born Sept. 22nd.
We put an offer in on a house closer to work (In Hesperia) and it was accepted!
We had an offer on our house!
Ended the year with Joel having health issues.

Things to look forward to in 2014:

Resolving Joel's health issues
Moving to Hesperia
Trying to regrow my business in a new area
Going back to school for my Bachelors degree.
Spending time with Family!

Here's to 2014!

*Sigh* Another fall has come & gone

I am really falling behind in posting. I guess that just goes to show how busy we are. So, here's a quick update:

Labor Day weekend we went to the U.P. to camp. We made plans to Visit my aunt & uncle who live about 2.25 hours further into the U.P. then our cabin on Monday. All weekend it was cloudy and rainy. Monday morning rolled around, we stopped for breakfast in Newberry, and then finished the drive to Manistique. It down-poured so hard, we couldn't see where we were driving. Needless to say, we weren't going to be water skiing, swimming, and boating like we thought. We did go on a pontoon ride around the lake, four-wheeled around national forest, and have a nice visit with family! On the drive back home, Joel stopped at Castle Rock in St. Ignace. I've wanted to stop for the past couple of years, and we finally did! It was a total tourist trap, but we enjoyed it!

On September 22nd, my nephew Caden Luke Steffes was born! He is such a little cutie! He's bigger than Alex was, and so far he's looking like his dad. Alex didn't understand having the new baby at first (He was only 13 months old) and was rough with him. The two are just the best little nephews! Joel had a fantastic trip to Switzerland, but he left the day before Caden was born, so he didn't get to meet him right away. Joel did, however, bring home some wonderful gifts for me! Swiss chocolate, Rembrandt tulips from the Netherlands (actually picked the bulbs up on a layover), a Nestle tote bag, and more chocolate!

My work trips were very tiring, but still fun! We went out for nice dinners and I had a blast at the culinary training! We cooked some great dishes! I learned a ton! It was nice to visit one of our co-manufacturers and see how food is produced on a large scale.

October was packed with Joel traveling for work and hunting. The morning of the Colorburst tour, my car wouldn't start due to a dead battery. I had to have it towed and a new battery put in. I was very upset about missing my ride, but maybe next year. We took another trip to the U.P in the end of October. It was rainy again, with a snow flurries a couple of times. We kept a fire going in the cabin all weekend and watched a lot of movies. We always love the time we spend up there!

November brought a new step in our lives. At the end of October, Joel's contract was renewed with Nestle. We decided to start looking for houses closer to work. We found one in Hesperia that has 20 acres, a creek that runs through the back yard, is surrounded by the Manistee National forest, and a fantastic kitchen. We put in an offer, they countered, and now we are waiting if they accept our final offer.

Today is December 3rd! How crazy is that! 2 weeks and I turn 24 & Joel 29. Then Christmas is right around the corner! Tonight we also had a crazy experience with a squirrel getting stuck in our basement. We tried chasing him out and he kept jumping right at me to go in the opposite direction! My poor little heart was racing! Too much excitement for one night!

Culinary training

Castle Rock, St. Ignace. Great View!

Aunt Kara with Caden, Sept. 22nd, 2013

Brotherly love! Too cute!

It's mid-September?!?!? Holy Cow!!!!

Oh my! The summer has gotten away from me! I haven't written in 2+ months! Where have I been? Well, in July we visited family to celebrate Joel's youngest sister's, Jessica, birthday. His uncle Buddy also came up from Florida and I met him for the first time. I know we stayed busy, but I can't honestly remember all what we did in July. In August we celebrated my nephew Alex's 1st birthday! I even made cupcakes for the party. It was so fun watching him destroying the big cupcake that Amanda made for him! Joel and I also celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. We decided to take Tuesday, the 20th, off from work and spent the whole day at Michigan's Adventure. We had a blast! We went on the bigger roller coaster and rides from 11-1, got a snack in the car before heading into the water park around 1:30, and spent a good amount of time there. We went on almost all of the rides- even the Funnel of Fear (which was the longest wait of the day- maybe 45 minutes). Then we dried off, got into dry clothes, and went to the all you can eat grill for dinner at 4:30. We took our time and enjoyed some good food. Then we went back on the amusement rides and left just before the park closed at 8:00. We went home and were pooped! We had walked back and  forth from the two sides of the park at least 4 times and climbed a lot of stairs. What a work out! But it was so much fun just spending the day with my best friend & love of my life. These past 4 years have been amazing! We still haven't been on our bikes much, which is disappointing- Joel isn't even going to do the tour of the White Pine Trail this year.      :(      I will still ride the Colorburst Tour in October.


I still love my job!!!! I have been doing well and have been praised for it. I don't need the praise, but I'm glad to hear that everyone is pleased with me & impressed by my work. I had my mid year review and got great comments. My previous manager, new manager, and I also talked about some things they would like to see me finish yet this year. Yay for a challenge! One of them was to visit a co-manufacturer to see how some of our products are made, another is to attend culinary training to broaden my knowledge of cooking, a third is to help  run a pilot plant trial. Well, this past week I spent Tuesday afternoon- Friday night traveling for work. I went to our main co-man. for the toddler meals in Ohio. I flew out Tuesday night and spent Wednesday-Friday helping run trials to test some new technology. I carpooled back with 2 women coworkers on Friday and didn't get home until 12:45am! (technically Saturday) It was really cool! I did a lot of the prep work in the kitchen, but it was great to be a part of this new learning with product developers, thermal process experts, engineers, and even people from other Nestle divisions! Monday at noon, I will be leaving again for work. I will be attending culinary training at out PTC in Solon, OH. They have chefs on staff there, because that's where they do frozen meals like Stouffers and Lean Cuisine, among others. I won't be back until Friday evening, but I'll be carpooling with coworkers both ways so it should be interesting. The next day, the 21th, Joel leaves for Switzerland and will be gone until the 28th. Man oh Man, what a busy month September has been and how busy it will continue to be!

        

The birthday boy!                                       Grace loved the swing!

Insert evil laughter here-------

 

 

Alex, Aunt Kara, and Grace

 

 

August 20th, 2013- 4th wedding anniversary at Michigan's Adventure!

Goodbye June--- Hello July!

The month of June has gone by in a flash! I was quite busy with work, Kara's Kakes, and family. I'm still loving my job! My supervisor who hired me on has taken a new role within the company, so I'm reporting to her old boss. This won't be permanent, but it's nice having a higher up see my skills and hard work. I'm really starting to fit in and have even been asked to go to Happy Hour. I went, even though I don't drink. It was nice just to socialize outside of work. I have had lots of orders for my cakes and cupcakes: Two cupcake bouquets, a boston cream pie, cupcakes for a 6 year old party, cupcakes for a coworker, a wedding, and a cake for my previous supervisor. This month I also got to visit with my dad, step-mom, youngest brother, and two of my step-nieces from Hawaii. They were in town for about 3 weeks, so we saw them a few times. On June 22nd we got to celebrate Grace's (my niece) 1st birthday- which is June 24th. It was nice having family get together to celebrate! I have not had the chance to ride my bike yet, which is a little bit depressing. I need to start working out to lose some weight. I'm starting to put back the weight I worked so hard to lose in 2011- Not good! It doesn't help that I spend two hours a day sitting in the car on the way to and from work during the week. The weekends tend to fill up quickly, too. I need to make being healthy a priority. *sigh* At least I made it to the gym to work out once this week while waiting for Joel to finish up at work. It's really nice that Nestle pays for our gym memberships! Looking forward to what July will bring! Alright, time for some pictures!

Cupcake Creations

I've been working with cupcakes recently in preparing for a wedding in June. I did some samples for the bride, made a cupcake bouquet for Mother's Day, and did a gender reveal cupcake creation for my older sister. Here are some pictures!

A busy, Busy, BUSY Spring!

This has been such a busy spring! I started my new job in March and I love it so far! I have been working so hard in the kitchen and I am actually learning how to cook. I didn't know how easy it really is to make your own sauces (as long as you have all of the right ingredients). The past couple of weeks were super busy at work and with finishing up my semester of school.

This spring I also attended Fredrick Meijer Garden's Butterfly exhibit with the Relief Society sisters. It was a fun day after a wonderful brunch! I loved seeing all of the beautiful colors and different shapes & sizes of butterflies. That day I also found out that I was going to be an aunt again!

In April I was invited to attend the Delta Pi Alpha Honors awards dinner at GRCC. The Delta Pi Alpha award is given to the top 5% of the graduating class. I was very happy to be getting recognized for all of my hard work over the 4 years it took my to complete my associates degree! With working full time and going to school, I managed to have a GPA of 3.938!

This past weekend (May 3rd-5th) I had a great time with Joel and his mom! Friday morning I had graduation rehearsal and a pancake breakfast. Then mom and I went to LUV salon in GR for a relaxing mani/pedi. It was fantastic!!! They did a marvelous job! Then Friday evening I graduated from GRCC. It was a cramped, hot ceremony, but I'm glad that I went! Saturday afternoon, we went to Quedoba's for lunch and drove down to Kalamazoo! Joel took me and mom to see Wicked for our graduation/mother's day present! It was absolutely amazing!!! I would go again in a heart beat! I have read the book and have had the original soundtrack on my ipod for well over a year, but hadn't had the chance to see it yet. I loved every minute of it! Even Joel seemed to enjoy it! When we got home from the show, I made dinner and then we made chocolate covered strawberries, cookies, and pretzels! I had won an 11 lb bar of chocolate from a supplier's day event for work. It was worth $80. It tasted sooo yummy! We broke the bar into 8 hunks and put 7 of them into food saver bags. Then we watched Wreck it Ralph- one of my new favorites! It's sooo cute!

This morning we attended our stake conference for church. It was broadcasted from Utah and Robert C. Gay conducted it. He was Joel's mission president when he served in Ghana. He shared some experiences about Africa and it was very interesting! 

Overall, this spring has been so busy and so great! I always had a plan for my life when I was growing up: I would go to Ferris to be a pharmacist. I wouldn't date until I was 26 and then get married after that. My life has been sooo different from that plan. I got married at 19, transferred from Ferris to GRCC, and earned an Associates degree in Business Administration (which took me 4 years to do while working full time.). But I wouldn't have it any other way. I am so happy with where I am in life! I have a great job, a beautiful home, a wonderful family, and a loving husband! 

First business trip

Last week I went on my first business trip. I've gotten a little used to Joel going out of town and sitting around waiting for him to get home. (Well, not entirely- I stayed busy with school and such.) But this time it was my turn to go out of town for work. Last week I attended Better Process Control School at MSU. This is a course that is required of people handing certain foods for commercial purposes. At Nestle, I will be working with Product Developers. I will cook up their recipes, seal them into packaging, and running them through thermal processes. There are different processes for different foods & containers, but the main concern is to make sure the food is safe for consumption- gotta kill any micro organisms that could cause someone to get sick. I learned about different systems, different standards of temperature based on pH levels, water activity, etc. This was something totally new to me, but very interesting. I learned a ton! I left GR on Monday morning for MSU. I arrived around 11:30 and they had a lunch for us. Then we started class. The way the class works is to cover everything in the class book. So you are presented the information one chapter at a time and then tested over that chapter. You have to pass each test with at least a 70%. My lowest was an 80%, so I didn't have to retake any. The first day, class went until 6:00pm, which covered 2 chapters. Then I checked into my hotel. It wasn't the greatest, but it was close and paid for. I ordered in dinner because I was too lazy to drive around looking for a place and I had a test to study for. Tuesday I had class from 8-4, covering 4 chapters. After class I went to the hotel and ordered in again and relaxed. Wednesday I had class from 8-4, then got ice cream from the dairy store. Thursday I had class again all day and went to the dairy store again. Friday we went until 10:30 or so, I went to the dairy store, and then drove back to GRCC to make up a test I missed. Now, all those times I went to the dairy store I only got one scoop and I didn't eat them! I saved them and Joel and I ate them together Friday evening. It was my surprise for him. I was so glad when I got home. I love sleeping in my own bed best and being far from Joel is never fun! This was a great opportunity and I'm so glad that I went. It sounds like I might have another business trip this summer to Ohio. That one will be with my supervisor.

Busy First Week

This week I started my new job as an Associate Food Technician at Nestle Nutrition. (Gerber) Monday morning I had a Welcome Breakfast with the on-boarding team, HR orientation, Safety tours, and an Innovation Team Meeting (I didn't understand a word of it) that had lunch catered in. Tuesday I had a weekly and monthly team meeting with the core team that I will be working with (still didn't understand a whole lot). I had more safety tours and one on one time with my supervisor. I also had time to look around in the computer a bit and start reading over some procedures and processes. Wednesday I watched other technicians work in the lab for a bit, seeing what they work on and how they do things. I also played around on the computer so more. Thursday I got to help with a process called Heat Penetration testing. It's a way to see how hot a food item has to reach internally to make sure it is safe for consumption. We we're working on a project that is in it's very early stages. This Heat Pens. took up a large portion of the day, along with systems training. Friday I helped finish up the last set of Heat Pens. and read over more processes and procedures. We had a Welcome Kara lunch with my team- that was fun! Throughout the week, my supervisor walked me around to the various "pods" of desks so I can meet my coworkers and see where everyone sits. This week was a little overwhelming, because as soon as we got home on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I had to rush off for class. I was a little late each day, but my teachers are very understanding. I'm trying to cram as much as I can into my little head. There's so much! They keep saying I'll learn over the next 6 months to a year. I sure hope I can learn it faster than that! One of the talents I have been blessed with is the ability to learn quickly. The next 7 weeks will be hectic and stressful, but once I graduated it will be a whole different story. I just have to make it through!

Oh yeah, this coming week I will be in Lansing for Better Process Control School at MSU. That will be another post for another day!

New Wardrobe

I have been asked by a couple of people to see my new clothes. I have a couple of clothes on me, but then I got sick of setting the camera. haha. Here are some pictures of my new shirts, pants, skirt set, and shoes: