OUR BLOG HAS MOVED!!!

We have a new blog address.....get all the old blogs and new at

http://www.katewalshphotography.com/Kate_Walsh_Photography/Plus_Eight_Home.html

You can also find photos albums and contact info for us in st. kitts on this new site.

More Omens....and Lots of Needles!!!!

So this morning I walked into the Madsen Clinic for my physical exam and VDRL test and was checking in.....there on the white board in the receptionist area was a quote scribbled in green marker "Life is the journey, not the destination" As I stared at the quote on the board I couldn't believe my eyes.... Not exactly but very close to my life's modo and inspiration......The Journey Is The Destination....a collection of photographs, art, scrapbook and travel logs introduced to me a long time ago by Dan Eldon....

I found this quote extremely ironic at this turning point in our lives......

The rest of my day was filled with blood draws, Hep A and rabies vaccine along with a TB test, lots of crying and quiet frankly feeling like shit. How ironic that the Journey is The Destination..

Happy Birthday, Diving and The Bayou

WOW...where has the last few weeks gone?? We move in a little over a week......SO much has happened in the last month our heads are spinning. In fact I kind of think we look like dogs chasing there tails....

The weekend of our birthdays was wonderful. We spent a beautiful day driving out to Wendover and Robert dove at Blue Lake with Neptune's March dive-a-long and finished up his navigation OW cert, while Drake, Widgeon and I explored the area, hiked and of course.....TOOK PICTURES....it was wonderfully relaxing and I even got a sun burn. The boys had a great time swimming, getting muddy, exploring, chasing the frisbee and running about.....

After a long day at Blue Lake we came home, bathed the dogs and ourselves and met friends at the Bayou for dinner, drinks, and a wonderful birthday/ getting into vet school/going away celebration. We had a great turn out of people, the place was packed...and we had a DD!!!!! Sunday morning hurt before Saturday night even started.....We had a great 26th and 29th birthday!!!!

Sunday we spent the day installing a new door to our bedroom, working on re-building the side steps to the deck, and raking up, mowing and cleaning up the yard. It was beautiful day and the boys enjoyed playing in the yard and lounging outside in the sun.

While Robert thought Sunday morning was going to hurt after the big bash, nothing was as bad as Monday when a small lump on his head started hurting....by Wednesday after I got off work at 9pm we were taking him to the ER to be checked out for swollen neck lymph nodes, swelling of his head and a nasty infection of the scalp. After spending a crap load of money at the ER and no real answer later, Robert went home with antibiotics. Thursday morning her felt even worse with a second lesion starting on his face and by Friday afternoon he had to come home from work because of the pain and nausea. The following Monday we found out that his dive partner had a confirmed case of MRSA. Luckily Robert was on the proper antibiotics to treat. Thank God after a weekend of resting he felt better.

Thursday evening my mom flew in from Seattle to help out for the week. It was such a relief to have her here helping back and organize. We even got in a day at Enizio Salon to have her hair cut and dyed, with Cynthia (Love that woman she is AMAZING!)

I finished up my job at Banfield Saturday the 3rd, and after a hard good bye to "the team" almost 6 years of employment with them I headed home to pack and help mom pack and tend to Robert being sick.

Sunday we attended a lovely mass at St. Johns celebrating Easter....during which Deacon Paul, who married us, gave the perfect homily summing up Easter as the season of new life......

Followed by a wonderful dinner with Janice and Aaron Hamm and Easter egg dying.

After a pretty productive week, Thursday afternoon, before my mom left, mom got sick with a bad sinus infection and felt like poop. Poor thing slept for bit and then got up and kept on trucking through the packing and list of things to do. Mom felt guilty about leaving me all weekend with a HUGE amount of stuff and furniture to sell, so I called in Heidi to see if she could drive up from Williams, AZ and help me out.

She left her boyfriend Tyler on his birthday to drive up Friday morning an arrived in the evening after a 9 hour drive. After getting going to bed a 3 am and getting up at 6 am to get my mom to the airport, Heidi and I stayed up late and organized for the early Saturday morning yard sale. Luckily we had Erin Evans who was kind enough to come over and get things out to the front yard and spread out, and out neighbor Jeff who came over and helped lift heavy things, as well. With out Heidi, Roberts patience and Erin and Jeff I would have been crying by 8:30 with the overwhelming amount of people and stress of the whole situation. Mom as usual was right.......Thankfully we were able to make $1,700 and sell a good portion of our belongings, and only managed to have a ipod nano stolen from the yard sale stuff. The day was gorgeous and reached 65 degrees. We all even managed to get sunburnt, some more than others. After a long day and no real belongings left we went to Tucci's Italian restaurant for dinner and stiff drink. Well I figured "sex on the beach" was appropriate way to end the day. We cam straight home and crashed at 8:30PM.

The alarms went off promptly at seven o'clock and we hauled all of the stuff we didn't sell back out to the front yard for another go round......we managed to sell another $100 dollars worth of stuff.....what was suppose to be a gorgeous 75 degree day turned in to 80 mile per hour winds and overcast. We had had it chasing our belongs around the yard and breaking glass item by 11am and called it quits. We were unsuccessful at selling the love seat, chair/ottoman, the kitchen table or my 3 35mm camera's. We hauled all the big ticket items all back into the house and Jeremy we nice enough to haul the rest of it off to Savers for charitable donation.

The weather turned so foul that I had to call and cancel my photo session scheduled at 2:30 at Wheeler Farm with a couple high school seniors.

After running to the store for a few groceries, my brain, body and being was trashed and needed a long break. Heidi and I spent the afternoon watching New Moon on my laptop. Luckily a few hours after hauling our crap to Savers, Jeremy called and bought the kitchen table and the love seat/chair/ottoman!!!!

So as you all can tell the last few weeks have been CRAZY and the fun is only starting. Heidi is staying through tomorrow to help me get some more packing and organizing completed. Tuesday I have my physical exam, testing and vaccines. Wednesday is Roberts last day of work...............and it goes on from there......

Thank goodness for patient husbands, good friends, and a loving family.......thats the only way someone could get all this stuff done......

St. Kitts and Vet School Here We Come

After submitting my application to Ross, I took a day trip to San Francisco on the 9th of March for my personal interview.....I took the morning and walked around the city including walking 3 miles to pier 39 and back to the subway.....I was a gorgeous morning....and all the omens were there.

Stange Day.....

I wore my eagle feather necklace my dad gave me, my pearl earrings Robert gave me and a bracelet my mom gave me. I figured I needed all the good luck I could get....but my charms brought more thank luck.....they followed with numerous coincidences.....

During my flight from SLC to San Fran. I was seated in the last seat on the plane. After landing I was sitting waiting for the whole plane to offload and was laughing to myself that baggage might have been a better seat. I then began pondering the idea of the boys being shipped to St. Kitts and the chapter in Marley and Me that painted a picture of the yellow lab barking the whole plane ride....with my luck I thought that would be Drake or Widgeon!!!!......and to my surprises as I walked off the plane on to the tarmac there sat a yellow lab barking in his kennel at me. How strange I thought and immediately began thinking of Grams and how she must be up there behind this coincidence. As I walked into the airport I immediately began smelling cigaret smoke and as I took the escalator up...there on my right was a smoking room (a place my grandmother would have immediately ran to after having to sit for 25min to get out of the back of the plane)........and there sat an older lady that looked very similar to Grams happily smoking her cigaret and smiling back at me......I than began to think I was imagining things....but these coincidences didn't stop there.....I bought my ticket to ride the BART system (subway) and got on the train headed to down town for some site seeing before my interview. After hanging up the phone from calling Robert, I looked up and to my surprise saw an add poster on the train car's billboard for Ross University ......during my 6 mile round trip walking excursion from the subway station to Pier 39 and back, I was excited to find what I thought was local bagel shop and stopped for some food and a break on the way back to the subway. Upon making the choice to eat at the bagel shop I laughed to myself that it was fitting to choose a bagel shop to spend my morning milling over my future and my interview notes since I spent a large portion of mornings during school meeting Margaret for breakfast at Einstein's, studying and talking about our life decisions to go to vet and med school. I had wrote her about need her here before my GRE's!!! and as I walk into this "local" bagel shop and look around.....it almost looks just like and Einstein's......little did I know that Einstein's has sister store called Noah' Bagels (or something like that).....how random....

My interview was nothing like what I expected or had prepared for.... I thought I would be asked ethical questions including my thoughts on euthanasia, terminal surgery for education use, lab animal medicine, comparisons of animal welfare vs. animal rights, and what aspect of veterinary medicine I was interested in and what I wanted to do with my degree if i got in. I was prepared to answer a million questions...none of which were asked. I was feeling sort of dismal about my interview and was skeptical of the outcome......The beautiful morning had turned into a very blustery day with horrific winds......and as I left my interview the office space next door was being advertised for lease by Kate Walsh......so after a strange day with weird but good omens.....a conflicting horrible interview (well on my standards) and my plane leaving San Fran being delayed.....I was feeling a conflicted..........

Yet after waiting a little of over a week....

We finally heard back from Ross Vet School that I HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED!!!

This leaves us with a little over a month to get packed and details situated...... including travel, housing, financial aid, the boys...and our vehicles and house here in Salt Lake taken care of. I have to be on island between the 29th of April and the 2nd of May.....

So, we have both put in our two week notices/quite our jobs and we are quickly trying to make arrangements.....

While we are EXTREMELY excited to be taking this enormous step forward, yet we are both stressed and nervous at the same time......this is going to be a huge adventure and change.

Tomorrow is Robert's 29th birthday and my 26th.....we are planning on spending the morning out at Blue Lake. Robert has a couple dives out there with Neptune and the boys and I are going to take in some fresh air and pictures. We are going to spend the evening with friends at the Bayou celebrating birthdays, getting into vet school and our going away.....this is the last free day in Salt Lake......we now have to kick our butts in gear and get our check list completed before heading home to Skagit Valley before leaving for St. Kitts....

Some pictures from my day trip to San Francisco for my vet school interview.....

Famous Two Story Carousel At Pier 39

Sea Lions Pier 39

Cool Sculpture

March Is Already Here.....

Well we are completely unsure of where January and February have disappeared. January started of with Kate's first round of GRE's which didn't go as well as she would have liked. The following week Robert started his open water certification for scuba. Yes, he is now officially Scuba Robert! After several weeks of night classes and pool sessions he dove two days the first of February and completed his open water certification at Seabase. Seabase is a salt water spring that supports tropical fish including angel fish and nurse sharks... in the middle of the desert!!!

We spent Valentines day taking in fresh air and looking for topaz at Topaz Mountain, which is out by where Kate helped the Dearing Lab trap mice for Hanta Virus research. Unfortunately we did not come home with any jewels, but did come home refreshed by clean air and sunshine with happy dogs and ready for a busy couple of weeks ahead of us.

The following weekend started with Widgeon needing to go under anesthesia to have his left eye de-brided of what we thought was a foreign body in his cornea. We were able to get his teeth clean and remove a small skin tag but were not successful at taking care of his eye and so now he needs to visit the veterinary opthamologist at the specialty clinic here in Salt Lake.

That weekend Robert went with Aaron Hamm and dove at the Crater. They had a wonderful dive and Robert was happy to be able to dive in 95 degree water instead of 70 degree water and with out a 7 mm wet suite.

The following Monday, after two months of re-studying for the GRE and sulking from her previous score in math Kate had to retake the test. While the writing and the verbal portion of the test did not go as well, she was happy to get over 100 points better in the math section and prove that she could get above a 600 in math!!! Therefore, now Kate is scrambling to get her application in to Ross University by the end of the day. It could be possible that we could be moving to St. Kitts in two months for her to start vet school the beginning of May.

We are super excite and are crossing out fingers that this all works about, but are both nervous and stressed about the numerous things that would need to be taken care of before we would leave. We won't know for sure till around the middle to end of March...Kate has to get an interview first!

On top off all the diving and vet school application process, Robert is taking another semester of school at the University of Utah and is enrolled in a photography class. Of course Kate is enjoying getting out to take pictures with him.... We took the boys to Wheeler Farm last night to check out the farm animals and give Robert some time to take a few photos for his class!!!

So things over the next few weeks are apt to be extremely busy...Robert is taking more diving classes, Widgeon needs to schedule a visit to see the eye doctor, and Kate has more than she can handle on her plate. On top of all that we really would like to get home to Washington to see family before we possibly move out of country...not to mention there are numerous pople back home hoping Kate can take some pictures for them this spring........We will continue to update everyone on our adventures and possible up coming move to St. Kitts!! Check out the pictures below!!!

Scuba Robert (Seabase)

Flippers up!!

Open Water Cert. Seabase

Help I Hate Swimming but I Love Diving.....does this really make sense?

Drake and Daddy Looking for Topaz at Topaz Mountain on Valentines Day

Sunset Topaz Mountain February 14th, 2010

View Across Valley Atop Topaz Mountain

Boys At Wheeler Farm

Another Great One!!!

Robert Diving At The Crater!

Kate Walsh Photography NEW WEBSITE AND BLOG

My photography business now has its own Dot Com and new blog. To visit the site and blog go to www.katewalshphotography.com

I also have a new business e-mail at katewalshphotography@gmail.com

Please visit, check it out.....and let people know!!!!

Sundance Film Festival 2010

So after a very busy month, including the GRE and Robert starting scuba certification and classes at the U, we finally got a weekend together. One of the girls at work was even nice enough to change me shifts on Friday so that I could be off early so we to go away for the weekend. We even had a dog sitter. Yet, as our luck goes, the Titan's brakes went out on Thursday night and Robert had to take it to the shop Friday. What was suppose to be a 130 dollar brake job turned into 400 dollar brake job and new rotors in a blink of an eye...and there went our weekend away money. So we opted for a quiet weekend at home and around the area.

This weekend was the kick off for the Sundance Film Festival and I was dying to run into Kristen Stewart or some other cast members of Twilight, which were rumored to be in town this week. Stewart has a movie with Dakota Fanning that is premiering at the festival and is in town......we also had heard that Lady Antebellum was playing in Park City at a limited capacity venue which was open to the public as well as credential holders.....so we headed to Park City for the day in hopes of running into some celebrities and seeing Lady Antebellum.

While we got to the venue where Lady Antebellum was playing with hours to spare, they were not letting any more public people into the venue......they only let 10 people in at 10 in the morning. So we spent the day walking Main Street and catching a bite to eat. We were able to see Ben Afflack, but unfortunately did not get to see any other famous people. We had a nice warm lunch at the Eating Establishment before heading back home.