For years Steve has looked at this blog as my voice. My perspective. My thoughts. I view it more of our family’s blog and our experiences together. I have encouraged Steve to post from time to time and he has always kindly denied my request…until now. I came home from Utah this weekend and he shared that he had written a guest post. I was shocked and excited that he had finally come around. So here is Steve’s voice – hopefully he’ll come around more often. 😉

I am a private person! I am not one to share my thoughts for all to see online. For this reason, I don’t do any social media and have stayed away from this blog until now. I just keep to myself. This is a good reason why Kara balances me well.

Many of you have come to know Kara’s whit and personality from her blog but I thought I would share a few things you might not know about her, that she probably wouldn’t share. This might or might not have to do with the fact that we recently had her health scare or that she left me with our 4 youngest monkeys for a long weekend and I might be extra grateful for her at the moment!

Here are 5 things you might not know about Kara.

• Laughs with and gets to know strangers. – Kara has this incredible ability of making a perfect stranger like the teller at the bank, check out lady at the grocery store or waitress at the restaurant be at ease and open up. Without fail, she will strike up a conversation and get them laughing or talking about themselves like they are old friends. She has a gift of getting people to open up.
• Wakes up 20 minutes before kids go to school. – Kara has raised incredibly independent children. On most school days they wake up, get ready, fix breakfast, make lunches and are ready to go to school by the time Kara rolls out of bed. I am not sure if teaching independence is out of a desire to create self-reliant kids or to sleep in, either way it works!
• Wears her robe until noon – Kara loves her robe, a lot, especially in the wintertime when it’s chilly! She has been known to wear her robe late into the day. Even more strange is that she will put her robe on over her clothes and when someone rings the doorbell she will throw it off and look perfectly dressed when answering the door. Side note, 90% of the time her getting dressed involves yoga pants. She has more work out pants than a yoga instructor.
  
  This was what I saw one day coming home from lunch. Fully dressed, with her bathrobe on, noise cancellation headphones, pumping up a unicorn water toy for a work project.
• Is the first to extend the olive branch – Whenever we get in a disagreement she won’t let any time pass before saying she is sorry and trying to work it out. She can’t stand letting bad feelings exist with me or anyone else she comes in contact.
• She is the most talented person I know – No joke, I have never met someone more overall talented. Clearly from her blog you can tell she is talented but what people don’t know is that she is not naturally talented. Kara works hard to be good at what she wants to learn or do. Kara doesn’t have that voice that you and I might have that says “you can’t do that because you don’t know how.” None of us know how to change out a water heater by sawdering pipe but she thinks, “I can look that up, learn and do it.” The phrase, she can do anything she puts her mind to, describes Kara perfectly.