Dad and the Boys

(By guest blogger Jonathon)

Sarah slept in yesterday, leaving the boys and me unsupervised. So, of course, we watched videos on YouTube. I was showing them some of the many Lego stop-motion videos when Christian wondered how they were made. I told Christian and Andrew about it, and they immediately wanted to make one. So we got to work.

However, it is much harder than I thought it would be. As it turns out, of the three of us, I have the least amount of patience for this kind of thing. Anyway, we took 40 pictures with my iSight camera (the webcam on my laptop) slowly moving each car forward a cm at a time. Then we loaded all of the pictures into iMovie and put them together at a rate of 10 pictures per second. After an hour, we finally got a pretty bad 4 second video done.

I thought our little educational experience was done and I could move on with my life, but the boys thought otherwise. After much persuasion, I finally agreed to try again this afternoon. It went faster this time and turned out much better. The video is only 18 seconds long, but it includes several camera angles and even has dubbed audio. It's nothing much, but the boys had a blast. We will see how long it takes them to convince me to do it again.

Here is our final product which the boys lovingly refer to as Cars 4:

30 Years Young

Jonathon had a birthday this week. It was kind of a big one... The Big 3-0! He has been stressed about getting and feeling old lately, so I wanted to make sure it was an especially good birthday. The celebration started on Wednesday and lasted for the rest of the week. We had a ton of fun, and hopefully, 30 will be a wonderful year for my wonderful husband.

About a month before his birthday, I got on the Internet and signed us up for a whole bunch of free meals/desserts on your birthday from our favorite restaurants. The week leading up to his birthday, we got all of the free coupons in the mail, so we have had fun using a couple of them. We may be cheap, but we sure had a good time. Here are some of the restaurants that give out free stuff for birthdays: Red Robin (free burger), Chili's (free brownie sundae), Mimi's Cafe (free meal),  and Tucanos (free meal). There are probably many others, but those are the ones we got. Most of them require the purchase of one entree, but it still makes for an awesome date!

First, we took the whole family to Red Robin where Jonathon got a free gourmet burger for his birthday. Red Robin might be Jonathon's all-time favorite restaurant, so it was a fun treat for him.

Then on Saturday, we headed down to Provo to celebrate with his family. We dropped the boys off with his family, and then went to Tucanos for another free meal for Jonathon. Tucanos is a Brazillian churrascaria where they slow cook many different varieties of meat and bring them around for you to try throughout your meal. Every time I go I am shocked at how good everything tastes. They will keep bringing delicious meat (and fruit and veggies) around until you are too full to eat anything else. To signal that you are done, you turn a little stick (called a cue) at your table to red. We had a great time and a great meal.

This was when we first arrived. Our cue was definitely on green. Bring on the food!

Jonathon served his mission in southern Brazil where this type of cooking is famous, so it is always fun for him to go to these kind of restaurants. He had beans and rice, guarana (soda), pao de queijo (cheese bread), and lots of his favorite meats picanha (top sirloin) and fraldinha (beef tender).

After we finished eating, we went back to his parents house for a fun party. He wanted cheesecake for his birthday, so I took the challenge to attempt to make it. {On a funny sidenote: when Christian found out that we were having cheesecake, he said, "Oh no, that means we have to go back to New York." Even Christian knows about famous NY cheesecake}. 

Cheesecake is kind of temperamental, so I was a little bit nervous. I went to youtube and watched an episode on cheesecake from our favorite cooking show, Good Eats with Alton Brown. He explained everything and gave me tons of important tips. Did you know the best way to cook cheesecake is in a water bath? I was so excited when it came out perfectly! It was moist, creamy, delicious, and no cracking whatsoever. Hurray! You can find the recipe here.

We put cherries and whipped cream on top.  MMMM!

Blowing out all 30 candles... in one breath, even.

 Everyone loved it. Andrew was especially funny dipping his binky in the whipped cream and then sucking on it. Haha.

Jonathon got a whole bunch of new things so he could go fishing. His siblings got him this awesome pole. Now he needs to find someone to go fishing with. {Joe, when are you going to be in Utah again?} He also got a gardening book and gift card to start our garden. He is anxious for Spring.

To end the day on a perfect note, we stayed and watched the BYU/Gonzaga game with his family. Jimmer was nice and put on a show just for Jonathon's birthday.  Go Cougars!

He's saying "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Can't you tell?

It's That Time of Year

My oldest child started school today... preschool.

He was thrilled.

I was thrilled.

It's a happy day.

Dr. Jonathon

The long awaited day finally came.

Jonathon officially earned his PhD and became Dr. Jonathon.

Thursday, August 5th was the day of Jonathon's dissertation defense. 22 family members from 4 states travelled to New York City to watch Jonathon present his talk. He spoke for about an hour about his various projects and the results and conclusions that he got during the past 5 years. I couldn't have been prouder. After the first 10 minutes, most of us didn't understand much of the information, but we knew that he was doing a fantastic job. He was calm, smooth, and thoroughly engaged in his presentation.
After the talk, Jonathon went into a conference room with his committee and they grilled him for an hour on everything they could think of related to his project. When we all arrived back at the reception to hear the results, we found out that he had passed with flying colors. He answered every single one of their questions, and they couldn't stump him. His committee only had to confer for 5 minutes to decide that he passed. He did so well, in fact, that he not only passed, but he was awarded "distinction" as well. That honor is only given to the top 10% of Columbia students. The day could not have gone better! What a wonderful experience it was to see 5 years of hard work culminate in such a positive and happy occasion.

Dissertation and Digi-Scrapping

The last few weeks have been a blur...

I've heard horror stories about trying to finish a PhD, but never understood them fully until now. A graduation date {August 5th!} is exciting, but so stressful. Jonathon works 10 hour days in the lab, comes home for dinner, then works for 2+ more hours writing his paper. It is hard on him and hard on us. To be perfectly fair though, Jonathon is quite amazing about the whole thing. He has a total of an hour of "spare" time in his day, and he spends it helping me make dinner and telling the boys bedtime stories. I really couldn't ask for more, except maybe more hours in a day. We will get through this, and luckily, he is making great progress.

In the meantime, I have plenty of time in the evenings to do whatever I choose. Digital scrap-booking has been a prominent pastime recently. Last week, I had 54 pages printed that I made since January. I was nervous to print them because it is a bit pricey, and I wasn't sure how they would turn out. Luckily, I LOVE them! They cost $1.99 per page at scrappingsimply.com (which is probably a little more than I would normally spend paper-scrapping), but for me, the benefits FAR outweigh the slight cost difference. If anyone is interested, here is my analysis:

Digital Scrap-booking Pros:

1. Speed (after you learn the basics, you can really crank the pages out)

2. No Clean Up-- start and stop whenever you want or need to

3. Less storage space needed for supplies (always a plus in a small apartment)

4. So many FREE options-- I haven't paid for a single thing (besides printing). My favorite sites are CBH, craftcrave.com, and scrappingsisters.blogspot.com

5. The printed pages lay so nicely in the albums and take up way less space because they are thinner.

6. You can print multiple pages for multiple kids or reprint a page if needed

Digital Scrap-booking Cons:

1. Lack of texture-- There are some tricks to make digital pages appear textured and layered, but it's not quite the same.

2. Learning curve-- It takes a little bit of time to learn how to do things, especially if you have to learn a new software too. (I use Adobe Photoshop Elements) Sometimes it is frustrating spending an hour trying to learn a technique that would take you 5 minutes to do by hand.

3. Color Adjustments-- Computer screens always make things look slightly brighter than prints do, so I am going to have to compensate a bit on the next printing batch.

So, there you have our life in a nutshell. It looks like the next four months are going to be more of the same.... lots of dissertation and digi-scrapping.

Central Park Bike Ride

For Jonathon's birthday, I promised him a bike ride through Central Park followed by lunch at the Shake Shack. Thanks to our amazing friend and great babysitter, Andrea, we were able to go today. It was perfect weather for a bicycle ride, and Central Park was in full bloom. 6.2 miles of pure BEAUTIFUL! Come on a tour with us...

March Hodgepodge

*Happy Birthday to my one and only (on the 16th)! We celebrated with angel food cake. This is the last year he can say he is 29 and have it be the truth:)

*I have been attending a weekly Institute course on "World Religions and the Gospel." It is a special class where mothers can bring their kids. It gets a bit chaotic at times with 20 kids running and playing around the room, but I love that our church does things to benefit mothers. As I sat in our first class, I realized how much I love to learn. For so much of my life, school/learning was one of my major strengths. In the last few years, I have really missed that outlet. It has been a great opportunity, and I never want to go this long again without taking some kind of class. Luckily, I am married to a future professor who will, hopefully, get major discounts on tuition!

*The Inwood Community had an Easter Egg hunt on Saturday. The boys had a great time even though they were limited to finding 3 eggs each. (That is NYC for you!) Regardless, they were thrilled with their prizes.

*The month of March saw the return of decent temperatures and thus a return to my running. Yikes! The winter was BAD for my cardio. It was so sad that I had to start all over again. My goal is to run a 5K this Summer. I shouldn't have a problem getting back up to 3 miles (hopefully), but I have to sign up for a race and actually do it.

*Today Christian gave the scripture in Primary. He quoted Amos 3:7 from memory. I had one of those proud Mama moments. Seriously... I got teary-eyed watching him stand up there without any help. I can't imagine how I'll feel when he does something big.

My very own copy of Molecular Endocrinology

The February issue of Molecular Endocrinology is hanging out with all of our regular magazines for awhile.

Why, you might ask?

Because Jonathon is published in it!

I know that someday we won't be so excited about every publication, but for now... we discuss the research for months beforehand, anxiously await news of its acceptance into a journal, and then lovingly take pictures and blog about it. Such is the life of a PhD student (and family). Each publication is an important step in a long journey and represents a lot of hard work.

2 down, 2 to go. Great Job, Jonathon!

Oh, and if you are interested in a taste of what the article is about, I have included the abstract. Just to warn you... I have no idea what it is saying.

Nkx2.2 is an essential regulator of pancreatic endocrine differentiation. Nkx2.2 null mice are completely devoid of beta cells and have a large reduction of alpha and PP cells. In the place of these islet populations, there is a corresponding increase in the ghrelin-positive epsilon cells. Molecular studies have indicated that Nkx2.2 functions as an activator and repressor to regulate islet cell fate decisions. To determine whether Nkx2.2 is solely important for islet cell fate decisions or also has the capability to control ghrelin at the promoter level, we studied the transcriptional regulation of the ghrelin promoter within the pancreas, in vitro and in vivo. These studies demonstrate that both of the previously identified transcriptional start sites in the ghrelin promoter are active within the embryonic pancreas; however, the long transcript is preferentially upregulated in the Nkx2.2 null pancreas. We also show that the promoter region between -619 and -488 base pairs upstream of the translational start site is necessary for repression of ghrelin in alphaTC1 and betaTC6 cells. Surprisingly, we also show that Nkx2.2 is able to bind to and activate the ghrelin promoter in several cell lines that do or do not express endogenous ghrelin. Together these results suggest that the upregulation of ghrelin expression in the Nkx2.2 null mice is not due to loss of repression of the ghrelin promoter in the non-ghrelin islet populations. Furthermore, Nkx2.2 may contribute to the activation of ghrelin in mature islet epsilon cells.

Don't call us Traitors!

Most of you have probably heard by now, but we are so excited to announce that Jonathon accepted a postdoctoral position at the University of Utah starting September 1, 2010. He will be combining bioinformatics (computers) and molecular biology (test tubes) to study how genes get turned on and off in heart development.

This whole process has been a whirlwind, and we feel we were guided in all of our decisions to get to this point. We never even considered the U of U at first because they didn't have anyone working in Jonathon's current field (pancreas development). Last year, Jonathon started working on a side project in the bioinformatics field. That led to him taking a 2 week intensive course in gene regulatory networks last Fall. He realized how much he loved it, and our options for post-docs suddenly took a whole different turn. One of his former teachers recommended the U of U as an amazing place to study this particular subject because of all of the collaboration that they have become famous for. After a little digging, Jonathon discovered a lab that is doing exactly what he wants to do. The professor he will be working with is one of the top in the field, but most importantly, the project is interesting and exciting to him.

It has definitely been an adventure living in NYC, and we are going to get everything we can out of these last six months in the city. That being said, we are just thrilled to be moving closer to so many family members and friends. And despite the fact that we will be working for the U, we will be cheering for the Cougars. We are blue, through and through!

Halloween 2006/March 2009

Little Miracles

Jonathon had jury duty last week. It was really awkward timing for us because he is trying so hard to finish his PhD. by the summer and has an interview at the U of U later this month. He had already postponed jury duty twice, so he knew he would have to do this one. With much difficulty, he cleared out two weeks in his research in case he got seated on a jury.

When he arrived at the courthouse, he found out that he would be interviewed and questioned for a month-long trial involving second degree murder of a baby. 4 weeks at this crucial stage of his research would be brutal on our graduation schedule, not to mention having to deal with such a horrific case. The judge, however, would not buy his "I've got to finish my PhD and get out of New York before I run out of money" defense. He was the last person they interviewed on day 1 and was halfway through the process. When he came home he was so discouraged because he knew he would be picked. He had no answers or circumstances that would exclude him, and they were having a lot of trouble filling the jury.

That night, we tried to plan our life for the next month. He would have to postpone his job interview, go into the lab early every morning, go to jury duty all day, and then stop at the lab on the way home every night. Needless to say, we were both stressed and discouraged. That night my prayers were simple. "Please help us to be able to finish school on schedule, and please help us to get through the next month." I figured this covered all of the possibilities and allowed Heavenly Father a way to bless us no matter what happened.

The next morning at 11:00 A.M. I received a phone call. Jonathon had been released. We don't know how or why he was not selected for the jury, but we are so grateful to Heavenly Father for hearing our prayers. I have always believed in miracles and consider this to be a special one for our family at this time.

Jonathon, The Pie Maker

A little known fact about Jonathon is that he is an amazing cook. He won first prize in a Heritage Halls (BYU) cooking competition for a delicious stir-fry recipe that we still eat several times a month. On Saturday, Jonathon entered his second cooking competition. He entered a pie in our ward pie baking competition. He made a dutch apple pie with a streusel topping. To finish it off, he drizzled caramel sauce over the top. I carried the pie over to the church, and the whole way my mouth was watering because it looked and smelled so good. (Sorry for the stinky cell phone pic... it really did look amazing!)

In the end, he took 2nd place (out of around 15) for his yummy pie. Yay, Jonathon! He won a nifty towel for his efforts. Now... why is it that I do all the cooking around here?

Ghrelin is dispensable for embryonic pancreatic islet development and differentiation

What?

That, my friends, is the title of Jonathon's first publication.  It was accepted in the science journal entitled "Regulatory Peptides." Not exactly dentist office reading material, but exciting none the less.  HOORAY!  

As a graduate student, Jonathon has been researching the development of the pancreas in hopes of someday finding a reason/cure for diabetes. A graduate student's career is based on the number and quality of publications that they can produce. In order to graduate, it is usually necessary to have at least one publication. We are so happy to have this first one under our belts. Meanwhile, he is working on projects that will, hopefully, produce 3 more publications by the time he graduates.  I am so happy for him and proud of all of his hard work.  If you are interested in seeing his name in print, here is a link to the online copy. It only shows the title and abstract for free, but it is doubtful that any of our readers will want or be able to understand more than that. It is all very technical.  Congratulations, honey!

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.regpep.2009.02.013 

I've Got a Secret Admirer

Or a nice, cute husband!

After our first "real" snowfall of the season, I looked out my window to see this written on the sidewalk below.  It totally reminded me of something Jonathon would have done when we were dating.  It is nice to know we aren't old fuddy-duddies...yet. 

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

We stumbled on a blog today that was talking about using My Heritage.com to find your celebrity look-a-likes. So, we thought we would give it a try. Here are Sarah and my results. I'll take Matt Damon as a top hit, as long as I get amazing CIA fighting skills. I don't know about Eleanor Roosevelt, though. . .I guess I should just be glad that 7 out the 8 were men. Sarah's on the other hand is way more "interesting." Tell us what you think of them.

New York is the Most Expensive City in the U.S.!!!

Remember the song "New York, New York" by Frank Sonatra? In the song there is a line that says, "If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere." Well, apparently he was right. Forbes magazine came out with their top 10 most expensive places to live and New York City came out as number 1. So, neener, neener, neener, we are number one and you aren't. I bet you're jealous. -JH

No Wonder People are Nostalgic

The Sandlot gang

Remember the movie The Sandlot? The movie chronicled the summer of a group of boys that spent every day of their summer playing baseball in an old vacant lot. The major appeal of the movie was in its nostalgia. Viewers remembered "The Good Old Days" when life was simple and kids were allowed to be kids. I loved that movie and hoped that my kids could have the same type of summers.

Boys playing Wiffle Ball on self-built field

Well, today an article in the New York Times confirmed that those days are officially dead. The story talked about a group of boys in a small New England town that found a vacant lot and transformed it into a small version of Fenway (complete with a green monster). They did all of the work themselves using mostly old, discarded pieces of wood. Sounds just like a Sandlot/Field of Dreams plot (interestingly, Field of Dreams is mentioned in the article, but The Sandlot is not). However, it is what happened next that told me that the good old days are dead. Neighbors of the property filed complaints and even hired a lawyer to stop their activities. Among their concerns were things such as decreased home values on neighboring property, liability, lack of adult supervision, risk of injury (note here, they were playing Wiffle Ball, not even baseball), etc. Some of the comments in the article are very interesting. My favorite was when one boy commented that is seemed that the adults preferred them to "be inside playing Grand Theft Auto." So, what happened? When did we get so litigation happy that kids can't even play anymore? And, most importantly, who's responsible for this attitude? I would like to sue them.

-JH

Professor Hill

If you are anything like me, the title Professor Hill immediately brings to mind the opening scene of the Music Man where the salesmen on the train are bopping up and down and discussing/chanting about the sneaky Professor Harold Hill.  This post is about something way cooler than that.  This professor is not a music man at all, but a biology man...Professor Jonathon Hill.

Okay, technically Jonathon is not yet a professor, but yesterday was his first step on the way to becoming one.  A few months ago, he interviewed for and was accepted to teach a Summer Biology course for minority students (at Columbia University, no less).  This is a real job, people. He designed the course completely, has his own classroom, his own TA's, and even receives a "small" salary.  Yesterday was his first day.  I think I was far more excited than he was.  He did call me afterward though to tell me that everything went smoothly and he felt good about it.

The class is very interesting.  It is an enrichment biology course that teaches biological principles by following a specific disease.  Since Jonathon's specialty is diabetes, that was an easy choice.  In his lectures he will talk about everything from homeostasis, to the nervous system to current research strategies using diabetes as a backdrop.  Since the course is specific to the teacher, he has had to come up with each and every lecture, activity, and assignment by himself.  It was a lot of  work, but is such a great opportunity to learn what it will be like when he has a permanent job.  Teaching at Columbia for his first job does set the bar awfully high, but I have complete confidence in his abilities.  Congratulations Jonathon!

Death of a Computer

At 4:14 P.M. on April 12, 2008, the Hills computer silently slipped away as the cord was pulled for the last time.  PC had lived a long and fulfilling life in the Hill household.  Originally a hand-me-down from Grandpa O., PC had a severe virus and was deathly ill.  We thought we would lose him at that time 4 years ago.  Through major invasive surgery, PC recovered and lived to serve for many more years. However, age slowly caught up with PC.  As his processor began to slow, he found it more and more difficult to keep up with new technologies. We will miss PC and the many fond memories we have made over the years.  PC was special because he was with us our entire marriage to this point.  PC was a faithful servant and friend. There is some sadness as the old passes and this new chapter in our lives begins. However, on that note... 

We would like to announce a new addition to the Hill household. At 4:15 P.M. on Saturday, MAC arrived.  Weighing in at 26 pounds with a 20 inch screen and beautiful HD resolution, MAC has given us nothing but smiles and joy.  We look forward to working with him for many years to come. 

 

Happy Birthday Jonathon!

Jonathon turned 27 yesterday. It is always fun to celebrate Jonathon because we love him so much. He really wanted to take a cake into his lab, so I attempted to make a "DNA cake" stylized, of course. It turned out to be a lot harder than I expected, but I'm sure it still tastes good. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to list 3 of the many reasons why Christian and I love Jonathon.

3. He is a Nerd! (meant in the nicest way) Let me expound...today I was reading a paper that Jonathon is working on for school. He wrote, and I quote, "Immunohistochemistry could not be performed with Tm4sf4 because there is not an antibody readily available. Therefore, RNA in situ hybridization was performed to look at the Tm4sf4 expression pattern in Nkx2.2 knockout and wildtype tissue at e14.5." I'm sure all of this gobbledegook is really cool and important to Jonathon. This is why I love him. He gets such a thrill out of learning and discovering. I don't understand 90% of what he tells me, but I love that he works so hard to support his family and use the talents that he has been given. Oh, and funny side note... after I finished decorating his cake, his first comment was "I wonder if that DNA pattern that you drew codes for anything?" You just gotta love it!

2- He is a great Dad! Christian wakes up at 6:30 prompt whether we like it or not. A few weeks ago I was really tired and Jonathon was nice enough to get up with him and let me sleep for a few minutes. When I woke up, I found Jonathon and Christian staring at the computer screen with huge smiles on their faces. Jonathon had searched Youtube and created a special playlist for Christian that included: a school bus parade, a Thomas the tank engine cartoon, and a video called Lots and Lots of Firetrucks. To our 19 month old son, Daddy was his hero!

1- He is a great Husband! Jonathon has shown time and time again that one of his main goals is to make me happy. How could you ask for anything more than that? He shows me this by being willing to do things that I like--even if I know he would rather be doing anything else. This has been extremely evident the last few weeks. Here are just 3 things that I have put him through recently...

*He watched High School Musical with me and didn't make one mocking comment the entire show. I think he even enjoyed it a little.
*He did Tae Bo with me again even after I laughed at him the first time. (There were a few grumbles here :)
*He helped me with my scrapbook and made really valuable suggestions.

So, as I said in the beginning, it is really easy to celebrate Jonathon because he is a wonderful person. He makes us so happy. Here's to many more birthdays to celebrate!