Another Year Gone By...

Happy New Year from the Del Balso Family! I used to sit down to write/type our newsletter thinking, “Wow, that was a busy year, maybe next year will settle down.” Alas, with two kids I am resigned to the fact that life will not likely slow down until we are at the empty nest stage or retired. As you can see from our blog (the last update was about a year ago) - life has been crazy!

One word can be used to describe 2009 for our family = TRANSITION! Jamie transitioned from pregnant to mom of two. Aviella transitioned from only child to big sister. Ryan transitioned from student to employee. Caelen transitioned from immobile infant to very mobile crawler. The whole family transitioned from a wonderful community at Smiley Court in Boulder to a rather lonely Green Mountain neighborhood in a suburb of Denver.

Caelen has brought great joy to our lives with his wonderful smile and cuddly nature (which Aviella never allowed). Recently he has been keeping us on our toes with his two missions in life – Move and Chew! At six months he skipped past the sitting phase (that I now fondly remember from when Aviella was an infant) and moved right into the army crawl. Now at eight months he still rarely sits, but rather props himself up on one arm so that he is ready to go. Cords and items plugged into outlets are of special interest to him. The one that really boggles our minds is the carbon monoxide detector, which emits an ear piercing alarm when removed from the outlet, but he gets so excited and zooms towards it.

Aviella has been an excellent big sister; making sure to care for her animals and babies the same way that mom cares for her brother. Her favorites get fed (breastmilk of course), diapers, cream when their bottoms are red and they enjoy being carried around in a sling. Now that Caelen is on the move, Aviella has moved into the role of “protector.” She is very good at telling him, “No, no, no;” and removing any and all toys in his path claiming that they are all hers. Aviella enjoys doing art (when mommy has time), playing with playdough, cooking/baking with mom and pretending. She loves the zoo, aquarium, pet store, fish store and parks – especially when there are dogs to pet. For awhile we just called everything a zoo and she was happy to go. However, when we got to the “zoo store” or “zoo park” or “zoo mall” she would keep saying, “No, I want to go to the other zoo!” I believe we chose the right theme for her second birthday party (Aviella’s Animal Adventure) – she had a blast, as did her friends that came.

Ryan realized that he would not be able to complete his PhD on the limited funds he was receiving, so he opted to finish with a Masters degree instead. While he still needs to finish a master’s project to get the actual degree, he set out to find a job. After interviews with several companies (mostly in Colorado) he started a job at Ambient Energy (a sustainable building design firm) in Denver, hence our move to Denver. In November Ryan was contacted by Summit Blue Consulting (one of the companies that previously interviewed him and is based in Boulder) with a job offer that will bring us back to WI (yippee!). He is training in the Boulder office for 3 months and then will transfer to the Madison, WI office. He is enjoying the new job and looks forward to being closer to family and hunting in WI again.

Jamie took a break from leading her English conversation group and caring for a neighbor’s son (Hunter) shortly before Caelen was born, but she did continue to serve as Secretary and Treasurer for CU Family Housing Resident Council through September. Due to the move in October to Denver she did not return to those activities. And she has been doing a lot of packing, unpacking and repacking for the next impending move. Although Jamie misses her friends at Smiley Court and hates to leave the beauty of Colorado as well as the sunshine and mild winter weather, she is excited to be closer to family and friends in WI.


We had the most amazing Christmas this year! Since we traveled to WI in August (avoiding the snow and frigid temperatures that we usually experience when traveling in December) and planning to move back in March, we settled in for a somewhat lonesome Christmas. Turns out having no place to go is a wonderful thing! We relaxed all day (stayed in our jammies) and the kids got to enjoy all of their gifts. I think we will try and keep this tradition (if possible) - at least Christmas morning we will stay put!