Kyle Brunner

Adorable

2009-06-12T20:27:00.001-07:00

At Auntie Theresa's house.

Does this little girl look ready for China? We might head out October of this year. We'll believe it when we have plane tickets :) Kyle brought the outfit home from Chinatown in San Francisco.

Photographer

2009-06-08T19:08:00.000-07:00

My friend Jessee is a photographer, and she's having a contest to win a free photo shoot. Check out her cute pictures at her blog and call her to take your family photos!

http://www.jesseephotography.com/

Teeth

2009-06-05T07:26:00.000-07:00

Eliza has three teeth. Can you see two on top and one on the bottom?

It's about time

2009-06-03T15:04:00.001-07:00

I'm posting a couple of pictures of baby nightgowns I made out of t-shirts. The pattern is from http://thismamamakesstuff.blogspot.com/2008/08/tutorial-t-shirt-to-newborn-gown.html
Models are so hard to work with! (and the gown is 0-6 mos. She is 13 mos.)

Here are a few pictures of Eliza. She is growing taller, she has 3 teeth, and she is one happy litle girl.

We are not in China yet, and have no idea when we will be.

Christmas time

2008-12-23T17:22:00.000-08:00

We are in Vegas. Eliza did wonderfully on the drive down. (It helps to stop at great grandma's half way there.) We went caroling to the neighbors yesterday, watched a bunch of Christmas movies (and non-Christmas movies), ate caramel, doughnuts, and hot chocolate. We have been staying up way too late, and some of the family are sick.

Happy Christmas Adam! (If tomorrow is Christmas Eve, what does that make today?--Thanks, Karrae!)

Various Topics

2008-12-11T11:34:00.000-08:00

We had a lovely Thanksgiving with my family. My parents and brother drove down from Missouri and spent a week with us. We gave my parents their Christmas present.

Here is Eliza with Uncle Drew.

Eliza does not like "tummy time".

Rolling

2008-11-25T20:07:00.000-08:00

Eliza has finally figured out how to roll over on purpose. She has rolled over before, but it was always on accident. She wasn't able to duplicate it. Today, every time I put her on her stomach she rolled over. Sometimes she had to fuss for about 30 seconds and then she would just roll onto her back. Wahoo! She is progressing! She also ate a bigger bowl of baby oatmeal than she has before. What a fun little girl.

Bread and Toast

2008-11-21T08:04:00.000-08:00

On Monday for Family Home Evening, Kyle taught me how to make bread. My mom always made her own bread (yum), and I made it once under her supervision (when I was 13?). It turned out dense and heavy. I never made it again.

Here's a video of Eliza eating her toast.

Happy Birthday to me!

2008-11-17T13:41:00.000-08:00

Saturday was my birthday party. We ate yummy, chocolatey cupcakes that Bethany made. We played the picture/sentence game, Apples to Apples, and Isaac Zumba. It was fun.

Eliza ate her first baby toast on Sunday. Once it went in her mouth it didn't come out until she had eaten up both corners on that end. Then she played with the crumbs.

For Drew

2008-11-10T07:43:00.000-08:00

Here are more pictures and a longer video.

How big is that baby's mouth?

Eliza was sucking on her big toe until she saw the camera. I'm not sure how to line up captions with pictures. I'm sure I will figure out this blogging stuff eventually.

China

2008-11-04T08:22:00.001-08:00

The scoop on China is that we are still planning on going, we just don't have a set date. Once we have visas, tickets, and housing we will be able to tell you all when we are leaving. Until then, we don't know when we will actually leave. We will give you at least a few days warning before we actually leave the country :)

Eliza in her blue dress

2008-11-02T19:22:00.000-08:00

Here's a close up of Eliza's costume. I knitted and felted the crown and then sewed on the flowers and ribbon.

I want to start a weekly post every Sunday. The only interesting thing I have to write about is Eliza. Here are some pictures taken 3 days before she turned 6 months old. She likes to sit up, reach for her toys, talk to herself, squeal, smile, grab her toes, and eat anything she can get near her mouth. Anything.

Halloween

2008-11-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

Here are our Halloween costumes. Kyle was a monk, but got teased at the ward party about not shaving his head. So he became Nacho.

Post

2008-10-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

I've had a request to post regardless of the availability of pictures. Here goes.

Eliza is adorable as always. She is sitting up on her own. She is starting to reach for things and can pull herself back up to a sitting position. She also likes to stick her tongue out and make very juicy noises... She also says "goo" and likes to squeal and squeak. She is going to be a princess for Halloween. aww.

Jenny spends her days taking care of 'Liza. This week she has been stressed out trying to put together costumes, especially Kyle's that she is making from scratch with no pattern! Yikes! We'll post a picture and you can judge the final product.

Kyle is still doing research. We aren't sure when we'll be heading to China, but it's still in the relatively near future.

Blog Beautification Project

2008-10-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

Theresa showed me how to make our blog all fancy. Maybe we will add new pictures someday :)

Family Pictures

2008-04-19T11:03:00.000-07:00

It is amazing to me how long it can take to feed 4-6 tablespoons of milk to a tiny baby! Jenny and I are having a lot of fun learning about how to take care of our precious little girl. Part of the problem with feeding is that it is very hard for Jenny to bend her neck far enough to see whether Eliza is fully on and engaged or not. So far feeding has mostly been a 4-6 hand (2-3 people) affair, but this morning Jenny and Eliza were able to have a good breakfast all by themselves without help. We are all proud of their success!

Here are some picture from this morning. We finally decided we were actually home from the hospital and ready for some family pictures.

Eliza Nicole Brunner

2008-04-16T10:52:00.000-07:00

Announcing the arrival of Eliza Nicole Brunner at 8:57 PM, 15 April 2008!

Jenny surprised me yesterday with a phone call. She had this week off of work for Spring Break and spent Monday cleaning the house in preparation for the baby (due on May 9th). She was feeling a little sick and decided to spend the day sleeping and watching movies. About noon she threw up violently about 4 times and felt much better. At 1:50 PM she was lying down on the bed watching a movie and felt an explosion and lots of wet running down her legs. She tried to call me but I wasn't in my office and finally was able to talk to the hospital and her mother. She asked her visiting teacher to take her to the hospital and finally reached me just as they were getting to the labor and delivery floor of the hospital at about 2:30.

I walked home - contemplating my last few hours before the noble station of fatherhood forever descended upon me, gathered all of the things Jenny didn't have time to grab (cameras, journals, movies, books, clothing, me, etc.), and headed over to the hospital.

Jenny was having contractions according to the monitors, but she wasn't really feeling them. They were very irregular and 5-7 minutes apart. In retrospect, she says she may have been having occasional contractions like that for the previous 2 months but simply didn't realize it.

Because the water broke, the hospital wants the baby to come within 24 hours to avoid the risk of infection getting to the baby. The nurse told us that the doctor would give us up to 3 hours to try to start labor on our own, otherwise they would induce the baby. We wanted to try to have the baby without medication, so we started walking around the corridors. We walked pretty fast to try and jump start the contractions.

After an hour of wowing the medical staff with our speed walking (got lots of comments on that), the contractions were much stronger, about 2 minutes apart, and finally were uncomfortable for Jenny. She went back to the bed and the contractions slowed to 5 minutes apart, but were still twice as strong or more than original. By 6:00 PM, Jenny was having very hard contractions and was dilated to 6 cm. By 7:00 or 7:30, she had an uncontrollable urge to push and was dilated to 10. The nurse checked and the baby had dropped, so it was time to push. We were told the doctor was on her way, but we didn't know if she would make it before the birth. The nurse wanted to wait, but we talked her out of it.

The doctor got there by 8:00 PM and the baby started crowning by 8:20 PM. Jenny was pushing really hard and she and the baby were doing really well, but by 8:45 Jenny felt she had given everything she had. The doctor didn't want to perform an episiotomy because of the risk of tearing, but she thought that Jenny had enough room to be fine. She thought that a little cut would make the baby pop right out. Jenny said please do it and with a 1/4 inch - 1/2 inch incision, Eliza arrived at 8:57 PM.

Eliza is 5 pounds, 5 ounces, 18 inches long, and has a little brown fuzz on her head. Her APGAR (measure of "aliveness") scores were 8 and 9 out of 10 at 1 minute and 5 minutes.

Officially, Eliza is 3 weeks and 3 days early so she is 3 days premature, but the pediatrician considers her essentially full term.

Mother, Father and Baby are all doing well. We are excited to have Eliza with us. She is so tiny.

Baby Update

2008-03-23T15:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I didn't update this blog nearly as often nor as much as I originally intended.

We are down to 6 weeks left before Eliza (aka. Kumkuata) rearranges our lives. I am very excited and think it is going to be so much fun to have a little kid taking up all of my spare (and not so spare) time. Here are some pictures from today (23 March 2008):

Jenny was in Mexico last week presenting some of her research on children's folk music at the first meeting of the world's experts in the subject - there were 6 people in attendance - but she said it was a lot of fun to talk to people who really enjoy doing the same thing she does. There were persons representing Europe, America, Mexico and South America, and the Pacific Isles. The representative from China was unable to attend. They spent a week talking about their research and their individual challenges finding credible sources.

Jenny goes to Denver on Wednesday for another music conference where she will have some of her students perform in the national choir.

Two weeks ago I presented some of my research at a conference in New Mexico. It was well received. My topic was a computer model of a reactor for converting coal, biomass (grass/tree clippings, etc.), or garbage to gasoline and diesel fuel. The feed stocks are first converted into carbon monoxide and hydrogen through a gasification process before they are converted to liquid fuels in my reactor. Companies can use my model to help design reactors for commercial production. My professor will present nearly the same talk (and most of the same slides) at the American Chemical Society meeting in Louisiana on April 5.

We are excited for the end of this semester and for me to finally be done with classes so I can focus on research. With any luck, I can get my dissertation work done in no more than two years.

Well, who knows. Perhaps I will update this again soon, then again, the next log might be pictures from Eliza's first birthday!

Stuffed Mushrooms, Steak, and King Crab

2007-11-18T17:24:00.001-08:00

That's what Jenny got for her dinner birthday today (I won't have any time to make dinner tomorrow). She really liked the King Crab Legs. I marinated the top sirloin steak in 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/4 c Worcestershire sauce, 1 clove of garlic, 1 green onion, two teaspoons pepper, and 2 teaspoons salt. The mushroom recipe was from Better Homes and Gardens. The crab legs were already cooked, but I put butter and parsley and a minced green onion on them (cracked open shell). We also had salad and asparagus. It was yummy.

The good news this week is that Dr. Gaufin can't find any evidence at all of any tumors in the recent MRI's Jenny had taken. She will have another set take at the end of May and if those are clear too, then we don't have to get another for a year after that. It is a big relief to be so far out from the last surgery and have no recurring tumors. It is a big blessing - thanks to everyone's faith and prayers in our behalf and that of the doctor.

So, our little shrimp morphed into an apple this week - about 4 1/2 inches and a few ounces. It is exciting to see Jenny's belly expand (little by little). This last week, she was lying in bed and felt something flutter inside her. It was very exciting. I think it was trying to get her attention because she describes it like someone tapping you on the shoulder (or belly lining in this case) very lightly a few times. Maybe it was having a craving for ice cream, but she didn't comply.

Here are our Halloween pictures. Yes, they are a bit late getting out, but you do what you can.

This last week I spent running the reactor at school as the other graduate student is out of town visiting plant locations of companies that want to pay him lots of money to work for them. That means that I fill up a bucket of ice and carry it across campus everyday (leading to sudden onset sore back and shoulders). The ice is used on the product stream leaving the reactor to trap out any water that was formed in the reaction (it interferes with the instrument readings if it is left in the system). I haven't discussed any Thanksgiving plans with the other graduate student yet, but neither has he talked to me and it is really his reaction, not mine, that is going on, so I will inform him that I am out of town starting Wednesday.

School is still busy, but not nearly as bad as before. I am still trying to be there everyday by 7:30 or 8:00 AM and I usually don't leave until after 5:30. My professor and I are working on preparing a publication (for a journal) and we are submitting a paper to be given at a conference in New Orleans next April. If we get it, he or I will give a 30-45 minute presentation on the work I have been doing since March. I will most likely present the same information at another conference a month or so earlier. The paper is on a reactor design model code that I have helped develop. There are some 30-50 different user inputs and the code tells you how long your reactor has to be in order to meet your criteria (and whether or not you can expect it to blow up). The reaction is the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (turning carbon monoxide and hydrogen in to diesel fuel and gassoline - its like turning coal into gas for your car).

SHRIMP

2007-11-02T16:31:00.000-07:00

Jenny and I have exciting news. An alien shrimp thing has been growing in Jenny's abdomen (her weekly email told us it is about the size of a shrimp). It is due to pop out around May 9th. We are SOOOO excited. It is great to finally start our family. We can't wait to be parents. We will continue to post updates on our progress.

Alaskan Cruise

2007-08-19T22:25:00.000-07:00

This last week was spent with my family on a cruise to Alaska. It was a lot of fun. All of my brothers and sisters were there with my parents which was nice since it has really been 4 years since we were together (Skyler left on his mission to Croatia before Seth returned from his in Brazil - but only by 2-3 months). We stayed up late most nights, ate more than was good for us, and played a few games.

We stopped in a couple of cities (Ketchikan & Juneau), an island (Icy Straights), and saw the Hubbard Glacier. The glacier was really neat - I didn't know those colors of blue existed outside of a Crayola box.

Icy Straights (village of Hoonah), we went down the world's longest zip line (just opened this year). It was a thrilling 90 seconds of beautiful forest scenery down a 1.2 mile line that droppes 1300 feet (at no time do you feel like you are free falling).

We saw the Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan and window shopped in both cities. We collected all of the free promotional gems, etc. you get just for going in the shops and had fun not spending any money.

Also during the cruise, there is an on-board art auction. I enjoyed just looking at the pieces and learning about the artists. I won the raffle for a supposed $500 piece of art not once, but twice during the cruise (there were 3 auctions). The first piece was painted by Krasnyansky and is entitled Street of Old Prague.

The second was painted by Tarkay and is entitled Blissful Moments.

We like the Krasnyansky a lot better than the Tarkay, but Jenny is not ready to give it up to ebay yet. Also, she fell in love with a Bellet entitled "Le Pianista" which is currently going for about $2,350 - $4,000. The auctioneer wanted us to buy on the spot and offered it for us at $2,200. When we said we didn't have it, he responded "that is what credit is for." I told him him if it was worth owning, then it was worth saving up for. I guess Jenny has a savings goal now.

Pirates of Penzance

2007-08-08T23:18:00.000-07:00

Evan's stake produced a lovely version of this Gilbert and Sullivan favorite. It is highly endorsed by Kyle & Jenny. We enjoyed it thoroughly and everyone agreed that Evan's was the best performance in the musical. The director took some small liberties with the comedy, but it was all in good taste and fun. Click here to download a 30 MB *.mp4 (mpeg4 for ipods) video clip of Evans performance (runtime: 4 min 30 sec). You will need the mp4 codec to view it in Windows Media Player.

If you want to see a performance, you have 3 days left. The musical is performed in the cultural hall of the:

400 N. 700 W. Chapel in Provo
Admission is free
The doors open at 7:00 PM and the musical begins at 7:30 PM.

Evan grew out his beard and had to get a temporary waiver from BYU. After the performance, one lady was about to take a picture when she said "Wait - those are real!" and she had to give his chops a tug.

Congratulations, Evan - it was masterfully done.

The Brown

2007-08-07T21:23:00.000-07:00

So, in case some of you have missed it, my custom message on Google Talk for the last 2-3 years has reflected my progress in karate. In other words Kyle, The Green = Green Belt. Kyle, The Blue = Blue Belt.

I am pleased to announce that I have changed my custom message to . . .

- drum roll -

The Brown

Grading and practices these last couple of weeks have been really good. I didn't feel ready to grade up, so I was very surprised when the instructor announced my name (all lower belts are told when they are ready to grade, but brown and above just get surprised).

For those of you who don't know, in Shotokai Karate, Brown Belt is the last student grade/first instructor grade (I am now qualified to teach karate). After Brown comes 1st Black and then up to 5th Black (5th is the highest rank). Jenny is almost as excited for me as I am to see my progress.

Chemical Engineering Annual Review

2007-08-06T16:25:00.000-07:00

PhD students are required to give an Annual Review of their progress each year before August. Mine first review was today (a bit late, but they are forgiving). It went well and there was really only 1 question that I didn't know how to respond to. I am happy to report a "Saticefactory" rating (the best they give) meaning that they will continue to pay my stipend and tuition and allow me to do research.

For those of you who don't know or are still not clear about my research, I am studying the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. It is the chemical process of turning CO and H2 gas into Diesel Fuel, gassoline, and waxes. Through this process, you can turn coal or biomass into fuel for your vehicle.

The US and China are understandably very interested in this process as it means domestic sources of fuel for the military and less dependence on foreign stability. In light of that . . . Jenny and I might be on our way to China in about a year from now! I contacted a professor in China who offered me $2,000/month to do Fischer-Tropsch research with his group. He said all I need to do is come up with a research objective and a time-table and they would fund all of the research. We are very excited about the prospect as are my professors. It will be a lot of fun if it works out.

So, how about Christmas in China next year, Brunners?

BookWise

2007-08-03T04:05:00.001-07:00

I am so excited about BookWise that I have to share it with you. First of all, please visit the following websites as they explain BookWise so much better than I can:
bookwiseopportunity.blogspot.com
www.mybookwise.com/kmbrunner/
http://www.winninginthemargins.com/ (use the passkey: kmb)
If you are as excited about BookWise as I am and would like to get started today, Join Now or use the link located on my BookWise site above and click on "Join Now." It is a simple application and process. My associate ID is 107662. Enroll as a New Associate, input some information, choose a default book category, and you are ready to develop a new stream of residual income.

BookWise, the most intelligent home-based business in the world, was started in January 2007 by Richard Paul Evans (author of the Christmas Box) and Robert G. Allen (real estate millionaire and best selling author). It is a fantastic new way to run a business focused on promoting wealth and literacy through books. The first 10% of company profits is given away to carefully selected charities to promote world literacy.

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5. BookWise monthly newsletter to keep them up to date
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7. Weekly AuthorWise webcast in which associates talk to bestselling authors
8. Monthly TaxWin training on preparing taxes especially for a home business
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So, what do you have to pay to receive all of these incredible benefits?
$40 one time sign-up fee
$35+$5 shh monthly fee
But if you tell me that this blog influenced your decision to sign up, I will send you a check for $35 to cover your first monthly fee! (send me an email at the time of your sign-up: kyle.brunner@gmail.com)

How does the compensation plan work for you?
The BookWise compensation plan is based on a 5 wide by 9 deep unilevel matrix.
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To receive commissions on the first 8 levels of your organization, you must qualify by personally enrolling 3 people. To receive commissions on the 9th level, you must personally enroll 9 people. There is no qualification necessary to receive the signing bonus for enrolling new associates.

BookWise is an inheritable business and makes no restrictions on associates with regard to belonging to any other business or organization. Your business can be passed on to your children or on to your favorite charity, providing an income stream that will continue indefinitely.