News!!

FINALLY!!! We have some news on our plans for the future. I haven't said much because there were SO many options and we've just been waiting for some definitive answers instead of putting plans A-T up (and yes, there have been about that many plans!).

Daddy is hopefully a week or two away from graduating! Yea! And why are we SO excited - we're getting a Wii!!!! We decided almost a year ago that would be an appropriate gift for Daddy and for the family. I actually bought it a few weeks ago (I didn't want to have to track one down during the holidays!) and it's sitting in our closet until the final papers are signed :)

While we're excited about his graduation we don't want to go anywhere until his big project is published. He hopes to submit the paper within in the next two weeks. If the journal is interested they will peer review it (could take 3 weeks or more) and then usually request a few changes or an additional experiment. This was creating a huge amount of uncertainty in our life! We're looking forward to knowing what the journal says.

If they are not interested in it or they want a LOT of work done before they'll accept it then we'll send it on to another journal. The other jourhal he could send it to published a paper very similar to his a few weeks ago (but Jon's data is much better!) so we expect they will take it without much of a problem. But if they don't want it then he met someone at a conference who said they would take it (and be happy to have it!). We're REALLY hoping to do better than that though :)

The other big question (are you bored yet! Remember - this is my journal, too!) was whether or not he had a job. He had two interviews in the summer at the University of Utah and had verbal offers from both. He was REALLY excited about one of them and the other would be doing exactly what he is doing now, which is not what he wants to do the rest of his life. When Daddy graduates he was supposed to contact the one he really wanted to work for so they could make an official offer, assuming all the funding was in place. He contacted that professor a week ago and today we finally heard news that the professor's clinical trials are going well and the first phase is almost completed (checking for safety) and so they are submitting grants for the second phase and he will include Daddy's name as a co-investigator and as soon as they hear about those grants Daddy will officially join the lab! Yea!! Daddy is unbelievably excited! :) He really liked this lab and their research. So for us it means we will NOT be moving over Christmas break but rather January or more probably February or even March. Of course there are still LOTS of unanswered questions but at least we know we are not moving over Christmas break and that the lab he wants is still willing to take him on. Life is good and we are grateful!! For us it means staying in a place where we are happy and still close to some family and we will also have an increase in pay which will help us with moving expenses and we are grateful for that. We'll keep people updated whenever we hear concrete information - hopefully SOON you'll be seeing some Wii pictures!!!