Life Out West

Update

2012-02-04T00:27:00.002-07:00

A lot has happened in the past two weeks, and more excitement is around the corner. In chronological order:

- I had a phone interview for a job in Exeter, England but haven't heard back so I'm losing hope for that one.
- I went to Urbana-Champaign to visit the atmospheric science department for a potential post-doc. While there, I found out I got the NASA post-doc fellowship I applied for, to work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena (LA). And Chris got invited for an interview for a job in Boulder.
- We had a relaxing weekend at home and threw a low-key baby shower for some friends.
- Our cat Nora had surgery to remove a mass of rubberbands in her stomach.
- I got invited for an interview at Scripps Oceanic Institute in San Diego.
- I came to Pasadena for two days to meet the people I would be working with.
- Emmaline began to crawl!
- I met Chris' aunt, uncle, and cousins for the first time (after 8 years of marriage!), although I've met one of his cousins Mary before. We watched old home videos of Chris wearing short shorts with suspenders when he was 8 :)

Now I'm spending the weekend in Pasadena with a friend, and heading to San Diego on Sunday for the interview at Scripps. I'm sad to be away from home for another six days. Chris and I will probably decide on our next step soon - depending on how each of our upcoming interviews go. Life has been very interesting lately, but I will be happy when we know what we're doing next.

The Beginning

2012-01-26T20:32:00.001-07:00

This is a story not many of our Colorado friends know. Almost eight years ago, Chris and I came to Fort Collins on a rainy August weekend. It was one of those random cool summer weekends, not one of Colorado’s marquis “300 days of sunshine.” We flew using Airtran tickets I had won in a raffle, and stayed with a family friend who we had never met. In that weekend, we decided we would carry through with our plans to move to Fort Collins. Jeff, our gracious host, showed us around town (lunch at Avogadro’s Number and of course a stop at the New Belgium brewery) and helped us find a duplex to rent. Then Chris and I took our rental car up the Poudre River for a short hike.

“This is where we can be the people we were meant to be.”

I don’t remember if one of us actually said those words, but that was the sentiment of the weekend. The deal was sealed when we drove back to the airport. It was very early, and the sun was beginning to rise over the plains to our left as we headed down I-25. To our right, the moon was just ducking behind the mountains, which were slowly being illuminated by the sun. It was a magical scene – a typical glorious Colorado morning.

Two weeks later, we packed everything we owned into our cars (plus 8-linear feet we rented in a semi truck). Tiger came along too, to make sure the next 3 days were anything but quiet. We were leaving Georgia just after Hurricane Ivan made landfall, and hoping to get through Alabama and Mississippi before the storms hit. It was Labor Day, 2004. We had been married less than a year, and were ready to create a new and exciting life together. It took 2-1/2 days to get to Colorado. Tiger kept me entertained, after I learned that he was much happier choosing his own fate than locked in his carrier. Sometimes he ended up walking across my lap as I drove, but mostly dozed in the open carrier or on the floor in the backseat. We tried to let him walk around and go to the bathroom at a rest stop in Alabama (with some makeshift leash tied around his neck), but he was pissed to say the least, and I don’t think he peed once the whole trip. Chris was driving his little red truck with a small U-Haul attached to his truck (the bed of which was full with our 4 bikes).

Not many people know that we came to Colorado with no jobs and just a month-to-month lease, in case things didn’t work out. (Although Chris had some job prospects and I planned to apply for grad school once we established residency.) Within 3 weeks of being here, we climbed a fourteener (Harvard) and did a 16 mile “circumnavigation of Mount Wuh.” Chris found a job in his field, doing video production at Media Tech. I helped pay the bills with a housekeeping job at a nursing home (!). Then I got a job at Peleton Cycles – which helped escalate my interest in cycling into a full-fledged addiction J. We started going to a church that advertised free Wednesday night dinners (First Presbyterian), and met other young couples in a Bible study group (Matt and Beth were two of our first Colorado friends). Our Bible study started meeting at the Bean Cycle right after it opened. Eight months after our arrival, I found out I was accepted into the atmospheric science graduate program at CSU. We ended our month-to-month lease and bought a house. I guess the rest is history.

From the beginning we’ve lived in Fort Collins because it feels like it is where we should be, and not because of a job or school. So now the idea of leaving for a job feels kind of wrong, in some ways. When we were deciding where to move, one of the con’s for Fort Collins was that moving to Colorado seemed cliché. But whatever, it worked and became our home. Our lifestyle, our friends, the opportunities we’ve had (work, school, mission trips) – it is so intertwined with where we live. Heck, we even started a family in Colorado, something we never dreamed would happen (we figured we’d only stay a few years). Now Fort Collins feels like home, and it will be hard to leave. I’m writing this as I fly to Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, to consider a post-doc position there. Who knows what will happen next. I hope we can approach the next stage of our lives with the same excitement we had when we packed the cars up and headed west 7-1/2 years ago.

On Nursing

2012-01-26T20:21:00.002-07:00

(Note: if reading a whole post about breastfeeding makes you uncomfortable, stop here :)

Before Emmaline was born, I really thought I would hate nursing. My goal was to nurse for 6 months, and then I figured I would be overjoyed to stop. Luckily things were different than I expected. Feeding her has been a privilege, and some of the tenderest moments of the past 6 months have been spent in the glider with her curled up against me. Now I think it is about to stop. I made it 6 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days J.

The thing about nursing is there are two different parts to it. One is actually physically feeding Emmaline, which I’ve enjoyed. Aside from the reasons above, it forced me to sit down and relax every few hours while I was home with her (although I would have rather slept in the middle of the night!). Sometimes I felt very refreshed afterwards. I learned which tv shows were on when Emmaline got hungry, and watched lots of “How I Met Your Mother” and “Friends”. It was also nice when we went out, because I knew that I was all she needed. Now we have to bring bottles and formula and who-knows-what-else.

The not so fun part of nursing was pumping. It is a drag. This is the main reason I’m giving it up. I must say, I am pretty psyched that my life is no longer divided into 3 hour increments. If you figure I was pumping up to 6 times per day sometimes, at least 20 minutes each time – I’ll now have more than 2 hours of new time for myself! Now I can afford to spend more time doing the things I enjoy, like exercising, sleeping, or playing with Emmaline. I will miss my podcasts though, which is how I made it through the work pumping sessions (two college football podcasts – the Dawgcast and Solid Verbal – and Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me).

Considering I went back to work after 2 months, I’m pretty pleased to have made it another 4 months of nursing. Emmaline is growing well and is healthy, which is the most important thing. I definitely noticed a decline in milk as soon as I went back to work. It’s interesting how your hormones are all linked, because I also started having my cycle again at that time. Then it fell more right about the time I decided to set a defense date (I guess because of stress?). I started taking fenugreek and drinking more water, and that definitely helped. I also took over the nighttime feedings again (Chris had been giving her a bottle so I could sleep). The nail in the coffin for my supply though was AGU. It was such a busy meeting, finding time to pump was very hard. So Chris and I agreed to start giving Emmaline formula a few times a day. Ever since then, she’s had a mixture of milk and formula, and doesn’t seem to mind switching back and forth. Now that she is eating some real food, it’s a good time to switch to full formula.

I’ve managed to schlep my pump and breast milk to Palo Alto, San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale, and Atlanta. I’ve pumped on mini-vacations to Steamboat, Winter Park, and Breckenridge. I pumped mid-way through a hike with Chris, at about 10,000 feet in 35 degree weather with snow flurries falling. I’ve pumped at trailheads before and after mountain bike rides (and considered using my own milk after bonking only halfway through a 15 mile ride). I’ve been “busted” by mall security when I stopped to pump on the way to Breckenridge (apparently those big, empty parking lots have pretty high-res security cameras!). All in all, it’s been pretty entertaining. I think I will miss feeding her but am ready to move on to a new phase in our lives together.

Goodbye two thousand and eleven

2012-01-01T13:26:00.009-07:00

It's a new year! 2011 was very different from previous years, like 2009 and 2010. Obviously the highlight of the year was Emmaline's birth. But what were some other highlights of 2011? ...

January: I went snowshoeing a couple of times. I love snowshoeing - the quiet of the mountains, the crunch of the snow underfoot, the gradual warming up as you exert yourself (even if it's cold outside), the delight of a warm thermos of tea, and knowing that you are in a wilderness that in many ways seems more true to itself than the hot and fair days of summer, and yet is also a little sleepy.

February: We started on our kitchen remodel. It took a lot of work, mostly on Chris' part. But now almost a year later, we are so happy with the finished product!

kitchen before

kitchen after (a little messy, but better!)

March: I celebrated my 31st birthday while at a meeting in Boulder. I stayed with my friends Michelle and Leigh, and I had the best burger ever (4 words: blue cheese, onion rings). I ran a 5K with my other preggo friend, Mollie, in 32:30, and then gave up running for the rest of the pregnancy!

April: Chris and I went on our "babymoon" to Colorado National Monument. I hiked, he trail ran, we rode our bikes 1 mile in a torrential downpour, we sat in the tent a lot, and ate a lot of chinese food. Also, Chris ran in his first half marathon. I got vengeance for all the post-race pictures he's taken of me, and he figured out just how not in the mood you are for photos after running 13 miles as fast as you can.

May: We started to get more excited about the baby after taking a birthing class!

June: One of my favorite outings was to Rocky Mountain National Park with our friend Nick. We drove up to an overlook at 10,000 ft. on Trail Ridge Rd and set up some easels. Many people were curious about our artwork, but were very confused when they looked over our shoulders and saw us painting tropical scenery in a paint-by-numbers. It was pretty funny, and a beautiful day in the mountains :)

July: Our lives were changed forever on July 5!

August: I will always remember our first family vacation to Steamboat Springs. It felt like paradise - a perfect mesh of our old (bikes) and new (Emmaline!) loves.

September: Chris did a solo backpacking trip in the southern Rawah Mountains.

October: My mom came to visit and we did a "zombie crawl" - dressed like the living dead, we went from bar to bar in Old Town and tried to revive ourselves with some spirits. It was a pretty silly night, and the only time you could just start moaning while walking down College, and hoards of people would join in. We also each had a chance to enjoy the fall colors - I went to Breckenridge with Mollie and Cindy of a weekend, and Chris went up to Rocky Mountain for a day.

November: We celebrated our first Thanksgiving with the newly expanding Harper/Biagi family. My brother, his wife, and their 14 month old daughter were in town for a week, and we had a great time. There was lots to be thankful for!

December: I returned to the running scene and ran a 5K in San Francisco in 27:00. It feels good to be active again! And, finally, after 6-1/2 years of work, I finished my PhD! I'm still coming to terms with the fact that I'm done - it feels strange. My mom and stepdad came out to help us celebrate, and since then Chris and I have been pretty lazy! Just enjoying each other's company and time with Emmaline.

I hope your year was full of fun and blessings, too! And may 2012 be even better!

San Francisco - Part 1

2011-12-06T22:15:00.005-07:00

It's Tuesday December 6, and we have so far survived 2+ days in San Francisco with a baby. The flight went pretty well. Emmaline got sleepy about halfway through but was too interested in everything going on around her to fall asleep for about 30 minutes. In the mean time, she was not happy, and Chris and I took turns holding and rocking her. It felt like a flashback to her first 2 months of life, when she was much fussier and had a hard time falling asleep. In fact, that's kind of a synopsis of how she's been this whole trip. She is mostly happy but when she gets tired it's a challenge since we're often out and about.

Monday morning I didn't have any talks to go to right away, so I went for a run while Chris scouted out a good place for coffee. I had a nice run, with a half mile on a street so steep the sidewalk had stairs! I am not in shape for that kind of gradient, but the view at the top was worth it - the bay, Alcatraz, the Bay Bridge, and a beautiful crystal clear morning! I met Chris and Emmaline at the Blue Bottle coffee shop - they roast their own coffee and have 'siphons' for brewing it. It looked like an alchemy lab. We just got drip coffee, but it is brewed to order and was really delicious.

After I went to the meeting, Chris took Emmaline on an adventure across the Golden Gate Bridge! He said it was really windy and she slept most of the way. Today they went to Fisherman's Wharf, so she is getting to see all the sites! She has progressed a lot in the last 2 weeks. She is super grabby - she will reach for anything within 1-2 feet of her (watches, nalgenes, coffee cups, menus, airplane tray tables, etc). It is amazing that now when she wants something, she just picks it up (and puts it right in her mouth). Also yesterday, she was on her tummy and pushed up to her hands and knees! She is so active! But so cute too - she makes the cutest noises :)

The meeting is going well for me. I've been to some interesting talks (& some not so interesting), and have made some good contacts during the poster sessions. I'm trying to focus on meeting people and networking! I have a few leads, we'll see where things go. I think the name badges for people like me should say something like "Looking for a job" instead of "Member". Tomorrow and Thursday there will be even more sessions relevant to the Amazon and drought, which are my current interests, so I'm looking forward to that. I've also had some failures - like when I spilled coffee all over my bag and then put the bag on, therefore getting coffee all over my white jacket. Or when I sat in a session for 10 minutes before realizing I was in the wrong room. Or when I went into the "mother's room" to pump and was in and out before the two women already in there were done, giving me mammary envy. I often feel like I am equally on the cusp of having it together and completely falling apart.

Anyway, I need to get to work on my defense - I am defending on the 19th!! Yikes. Chris is out with some friends, and I'm watching Emmaline (which is pretty easy since it's past her bed time!). I feel very fortunate to have such great friends, who my husband also gets along with! :)

4 months!!

2011-11-18T17:39:00.008-07:00

I'm processing some results and was reminded by a friend of mine that I haven't posted pictures of the Cute One lately. Although she is about to wake up, so I might not get much up, but here are a few gems from the past month:4 month picture

She is getting really good at holding her head up, and also enjoys checking out the baby in the mirror from time to time.

Lately Chris has taken to giving our daughter a fauhawk.

The purpose of life at 4 months is to put everything possible in your mouth. This ball can be a little perplexing though - how do you fit something big and round in your mouth??Nora is still safe around Emmaline but I don't think this will last much longer!

This is Emmaline's "talking" face.

Update from the lazy blogger

2011-10-17T21:08:00.006-06:00

I realized today it's been almost a month since my last post!! Wow. We are doing great. Chris worked almost every day last week, so it was a struggle to stay on top of life, but I think we are managing (barely). Emmaline is great - she now is wearing 3-6 month clothing because she is so tall! She is "talking" a lot, and it's really fun to go back and forth with her making all sorts of funny noises. She is also able to hold her head up very well, and sometimes we put her in her bumpo seat. She tolerates it for about a minute but then begins to slouch. But Chris and I are still impressed she is able to sit in it at all (only 3 months old seems early to me).

I almost have a draft of a paper done, which might sound impressive until I mention this is the third draft of this paper I've written this year, and I haven't even submitted the darned thing yet. I've also been applying for a couple of jobs - one in Hamburg, Germany, and one in Pasadena, Cal. Thinking about getting a job and leaving Fort Collins, and finishing my degree, and traveling to conferences, all in the next ~6 months makes my head want to explode. So I'm trying to just take it one day at a time and stay focused.

My mom is coming to town Wednesday and it will be great to have her. I know she's looking forward to seeing Emmaline (she has grown a lot since her last visit when she was ~1 week old!), and I'm looking forward to the help around the house and a little extra time to get some work done. Also, tomorrow is Chris and my 8 YEAR wedding anniversary, and so we'll be able to celebrate this weekend with free babysitting :).

We've had some fun lately, too. I'm really enjoying being able to play softball and kickball again (you heard right, I'm in an adult kickball league!). The weather has been unusually warm so we haven't had a freezing cold game yet, which I think is a first in the 6 years I've played fall softball in Ft. Collins! Our last games are this week and I will miss playing. Especially since this is probably our last softball season in the Fort :(. Well, I'll end with some more pictures ...

My friend Jennifer got married at the end of September at Red Rocks State Park. It was a gorgeous day for an outdoor wedding. The ceremony was equally beautiful. They had written their own vows and signed them to one another, while some interpreters said them, and they were very personal, loving, and sincere. I loved how they were able to use body language in professing the vows since they were signing, it seemed even more meaningful than if they had spoken them. Anyway, here are some pics from the day:

Chris has a fancy new lens, so we have been taking even more pictures of Emmaline. While I was away on a girls' weekend in early October, Chris took these pictures:

The juggling act

2011-09-20T21:39:00.003-06:00

Mommy's sunshine!

My life has taken on a bit of a personality disorder. On one hand, I enjoy what I do and the people I work with, so I was somewhat looking forward to getting back to work. I'm making some progress again on my dissertation, after a couple of weeks slow-down due to idiotic supercomputers and buggy code.

On the other hand, I love being with Emmaline. Plus, Chris' schedule has forced me to be home a few days the past couple of weeks (last week because of a hike, and this week because he is working). Also our daycare person has previous commitments to watch another infant for a few weeks, so she can only watch Emmaline for half a day Tuesday and Thursday. It is challenging to find time to get work done in between watching her and keeping the house somewhat orderly. Yesterday I got up at 7:00 but didn't get a chance to work until about 5:00, and ended up staying up until midnight doing some work. Yuck.

Even when I'm at work, I can only do so much because every 3 hours or so I take 20-30 minutes to pump. This has been my least favorite part of motherhood! I don't mind feeding her myself. It's usually fairly relaxing - I often either watch TV while she eats or just stare at her and wonder at how awesome she is. But pumping at work sucks (haha). It's boring and an intrusion on whatever progress I might happen to be making. Also it's awkward to have to stop talking science with someone because I'm getting painfully full. My goal is to nurse for 6 months and I know this work/pumping balance will be the hardest part. On the bright side - I'm almost halfway to my goal and physically there haven't been any huge issues.

But staying home with Emmaline can be a lot of fun. I enjoy hanging out with her on the floor - looking at her colorful toys, listening to her make funny noises, singing Frank Sinatra to her, reading books, & watching her work her muscles during tummy time. I think she likes baths now and those are fun, too. She especially enjoys being wrapped in a towel after her bath. I've been able to see some friends, too. Last week, Kim and Cedar came over for a little bit. And yesterday, my friend Mollie and I went on a walk (she had her daughter Charley last Sunday - I can't believe she was able to walk for 1.5 hours with me!!).

A couple of weeks ago I had a realization. I've been coming home during lunch on the days I work. It's nice to feed her myself and to see Chris in the middle of the day. One day, she fell asleep in my arms after she ate, and I just sat there for a while with her. I tried to make a mental image of the moment so I can remember the feeling and look of her at this time in her life. I have some other happy places I have mentally stockpiled - the Lizard Head trail in the Wind River Range, the Needles district of Canyonlands, the vistas and small villages we visited in the Alps, and the Flattop Mountains. But now I have a totally different kind of happy place :).

I'll have a few more days to work on this juggling act because Chris has some more work to do. That is definitely a blessing. I just hope it doesn't postpone my defense date by too much!!

Sometimes when I come home I tell Emmaline what I've been working on. She doesn't even pretend to care:

Tummy time!

Life is good today ...

2011-09-07T14:01:00.002-06:00

I'll keep in the spirit of blog posts for the time-crunched, and just update some highlights over the last few days. As the post says, things are going well lately.

This morning Emmaline looked at the monkey on her mobile, smiled, and then grabbed it! So awesome. (I realize if you don't have kids this sounds like no big deal, but after 2 months of her hitting herself in the face with her flailing arms, it's exciting that she is beginning to control them!)

Last night I went to see Zac Brown Band at Red Rocks with my friend Michelle. It was a great concert, even though it rained almost the whole time! I forgot how much I love concerts - it's so much fun to sing along and dance, even though I am awful at both. I've never been to a concert at Red Rocks and it was as great a venue as everyone says it is. I missed Emmaline, especially since she had been in daycare all day, but it was also really nice to have a night "off". So thanks, Michelle, for thinking of me and letting me be your date for the night!! :)

We moved Emmaline into her nursery on Sunday night, mainly for the benefit of whoever is not feeding her. Also we thought maybe we would sleep more soundly because she is a grunter! So far it's been working. I'm not sure if it's related or not, but she went 7 hours between feedings Monday and Tuesday nights! Monday night was the best because she was asleep from 10-4 AM! We went to sleep at 11, and I was so excited about getting 5 hours of consecutive sleep that I couldn't get back to sleep - ironic.

I decided not to do the half marathon in November. For one thing, I am barely running - maybe 5 miles a week. I don't want to injure myself trying to do too much too quickly. Also, I underestimated how much I would want to be with the baby, instead of working out. Since I'm also trying to finish my dissertation, it just seems like too much. However ... I think I will register for a trail 10K in San Francisco the weekend before AGU! :)

Speaking of finishing the dissertation - it's not going well.

The babe and the 'boat

2011-08-27T16:35:00.013-06:00

Since I'll be working full-time again on Monday, Chris and I decided to escape to the mountains for a few days. We chose our favorite mountain town, Steamboat Springs. We've been here since Wednesday, and it's been pretty much like paradise! We've been mountain biking, hanging out with Emmaline, and watching some bike racing. The baby has been pretty good overall. Her sleep schedule is a little messed up, but other than that she has been a trooper.

We are high maintenance coffee drinkers, this is everything we brought for making coffee!Getting dressed on Thursday. It's been sunny so she needs a hat (pants are on the way). She is definitely smiling these days, it is really cute :)
We've mostly enjoyed the trails on Howelson Hill/Emerald Mountain. The singletrack is AMAZING!! Chris hung out in a park with Emmaline while I enjoyed the tight, smooth trails through aspen glades, and the sweeping switchbacks through wide open meadows - heavenly! I've been pretty slow but very very happy to back on the bike.

Emmaline really loves her dad, and even when she's tired she'll get a smile on her face when he's around. This is before the family nap on Thursday (7 miles of mountain biking really wipes you out when you're out of shape!).

Speaking of sleeping, Emmaline was awake 2:30-5 AM Friday morning. So instead of riding that morning, we all hung out in bed a little longer.
Friday we took turns riding at Howelson, and then met up to watch the end of the US Pro Cycling Challenge in downtown Steamboat. Chris bought us oreo-covered doughnuts!! Oh my gosh, what a way to end a ride :)
I painted a onesie to look like the Leopard Trek kit, so Emmaline could cheer on Andy Schleck, her favorite rider!
There were people everywhere to watch the end of the race. The atmosphere was electric! The bikers came by so fast, but it was worth the wait.
After a hot day, we let Emmaline hang out mostly naked, and Chris and I enjoyed a dip in the pool.

Watching the sunset from our patio - a perfect ending to a perfect day!!
Today we drove about a mile up Rabbit Ears pass to watch the bike race. Once again, it was super exciting!! First a breakaway of 5 guys passed us, followed by Cadel Evans (winner of the Tour de France) and another dude chasing them down, and then the peloton came wooshing by.
Chris spent the afternoon riding on the Beall and Ridge trails at Emerald Mountain, and I sat in a park with Emmaline. Tomorrow it's my turn to ride, right before we had back home and to reality :(. This has been a wonderful break. I'm glad we've been able to get out and about with Emmaline. And I've really loved spending time on trails like this ...

Snippets

2011-08-22T20:00:00.003-06:00

I started this post almost 2 weeks ago!

The baby
Alright, I know this is the only reason most of you read my blog these days ;), so I'll start with the good stuff. Lately Emmaline is really becoming more aware of her surroundings. It's so much fun to watch her discover the world around her. Last night Chris and I took her on a walk in her stroller. Usually the best we can hope for is for her to fall asleep. But last night she was awake and looking around the whole time. She seemed to be in awe of everything she saw, even if it was just blurry shapes on her periphery.

She's also been growing quite well. In her first month she went from 6lb 12oz, to 8 lb 13oz! Most of her newborn clothes don't fit well, which makes me a little sad, even though I should want my daughter to grow. The funny thing is her newborn diapers don't come all the way up her back, which kind of makes her look like a plumber. Not so good for leak protection, though!!

Work - blah
Chris took on a huge project in early August, which in his words "Nearly killed him". He probably worked 80 hours the 2 weeks he was working on it. Luckily my friend Laurie was out for one weekend during that time, and she was a great help (and fun to be with!). Chris also got sick, so he was either working or quarantined away from Emmaline the whole 2 weeks. It was very hard for both of us. We were grateful for the income, but very glad when he finished the video (which you can see here - he did everything from casting to shooting & editing).

This past week I also went back to the grind. Honestly, in some ways I was looking forward to it. I enjoy what I do, and am anticipating wrapping things up sometime soon(ish?). I also really like the people I work with, and was missing some of the social interactions. So for all those reasons, it was good to be back. I missed Emmaline though! The hardest thing is the mornings. Usually I go back to sleep after her last feeding (anywhere between 5-7 AM), but this week I stayed awake. So I'm operating on about 6 hours total sleep each night, but it's not really enough! At least she doesn't mind when I drink coffee (in moderation), thank the Lord! :)

That's all I have for now. Emmaline is asleep but I bet she will wake up soon (she ate at 6:40 and it's past 11). In other news, the garden is doing pretty well! Although we have very little time to tend to it or fix the veggies that come out of it. But they sure look nice :)

Cuteness Overload

2011-08-04T22:37:00.009-06:00

Today was fun. I hardly slept at all the day before, so was very pleased when Emmaline let me sleep until 10:00 (with a few interruptions, of course). Then we rushed over to my friend Kim's house, who had her son Cedar just two days after our new arrival. It was nice to visit with her and laugh about some of the crazy experiences we've had over the past month. Then we had a photo shoot with the two new friends. Cedar was wide awake but Emmaline slept through the encounter - although that didn't stop her from snuggling up with her new friend! It was super adorable.

Next we went to Starbucks to catch up with my Bible study friends, Deanna, Lyndsey, and Jennifer - what a great group! I miss meeting with them regularly, but life is so busy for all of us. After coffee, I came home and decided to play with Emmaline. Kim mentioned playing with Cedar and I thought ... what does it really mean to play with a 4 week old? But it seems like a good idea and a good way to let her know I'm interested in her and help her development.

So today playing consisted of laying on a blanket on the nursery floor, looking at colorful toys, staring at the singing caterpillar, and some tummy time. I also don't quite get tummy time. Emmaline is doing great at holding her head up anyway, and she usually doesn't enjoy being forced onto her stomach. But today she enjoyed it and turned her head from side to side a couple of times. It was actually really fun "playing" with her, and I'm excited about the developmental strides she'll be making soon.

Is that a smile?

Okay, tummy time has officially pooped us out

"What the freak is up with that caterpillar?"

The downside was maybe she was overstimulated, because playtime ended with an hour of cry time. Beginning with this video ...

But eventually she took a nap and I was able to get some work done, something I'll be trying to do a little each day from now on. Chris has been working a ton since last Friday (~30 hours in the past 2 days!). He got home around 7:30 and held Emmaline (she was being fussy again), so I got to eat dinner and relax for a bit. I don't know how single moms do it. Having him around, even just for a few hours a day, is a huge help and relief.

She fell fast asleep in this position - but it didn't last

The Silver Lining

2011-07-31T17:21:00.005-06:00

Just when I am feeling super tired or worn out, something will bring a smile to my face. Either that, or I will give up and take a nap! For instance, one night last week, as I was feeding Emmaline, she reared her head back and let forth a massive projectile vomit all over me and her. It was EVERYWHERE!!! I called Chris into our room to help me clean up, I didn't want to move her for fear of making it worse. So he was dabbing spit up out of her nose and telling her what a mess she was. I was deciding where to start on me - with the spit up on my shirt, in my bra, or on my arm. And then (most likely on accident) Emmaline smiled at Chris! And then we were all smiling and having a ball. Who knew I could be so happy while covered in spit up??

As promised, here are some pictures. Thanks for stopping by!
My aunt and uncle sent Emmaline some Braves clothes, so she wore them while we were watching the Braves and Rockies play a couple of weekends ago. Interestingly I went into labor while we were watching the Braves and Rockies ... not sure who she will grow up to cheer for!

Emmaline hanging out on my lap a couple of weekends ago. I took a bunch of pictures of all of her faces, this is one of my favorites.

Last week she put on this pretty dress I bought her.

Chris' parents gave Emmaline a bath last weekend and she hated it less than usual. They enjoyed loving on her while they were here, and she loved the attention!

We went on a tour at New Belgium (yes, E came too!) with Chris' parents. I had a little bit of beer and Emmaline didn't seem to mind - woohoo!

Chris and I took Emmaline on her first hike at the Caribou open space near Nederland. The wildflowers were amazing, some of the best I've ever seen in Colorado!

Chris got a freelance job that required scouting out a location with 360 degree views, so we spent Saturday afternoon driving along the Peak to Peak Highway. We stopped to feed Emmaline at this scenic vista.

Trigger happy

2011-07-27T11:12:00.007-06:00

I hate to admit it, but I am already one of those moms who is very trigger happy with the camera around my child. The other day I took about 20 pictures of her in 10 minutes while she sat on my lap. Every time she made a different face, I snapped a picture of it ... and she makes a lot of faces! I feel like I have to take so many pictures because: 1. She is so stinking adorable, and 2. She is growing fast and seems to change every day.

Blogger is not cooperating and I don't have the time to fool around loading pictures, but just be forewarned that you might be subjected to more photos of Emmaline in the future!

This is my mom with Emmaline on July 9. She stayed with us for a week and a half, and she was a huge help, and of course enjoyed every second with her new granddaughter.

Welcome Emmaline!

2011-07-13T17:32:00.007-06:00

8 days ago my life changed forever when little Emmaline came into the world. If I had known how much I would love her or how happy she would make me, I might have appreciated pregnancy a little more!

Her birth was incredible. Last Tuesday, Chris and I woke up at 6:15 to schedule the induction. The hospital was very busy (lots of 4th of July babies!), and they said to come in at 12:00. So we showed up at noon, with tons of stuff for the next few days. It felt kind of like we were leaving the house for vacation, but not like any vacation I've ever been on!

It was 1:30 before I got my first dose of cyto-something (cytotac?), which was supposed to help my cervix open. We hung out ... and waited ... and waited. A few times Emmaline's heart rate dropped and so I had to stay on my side to make sure she was stable. The nurse and midwife were worried that she wouldn't respond well to labor and contractions. There was a bit of a negative atmosphere brewing as things like 'it could take up to 2 days to induce' or 'we might have to just take her out' were mentioned. We waited on the next dose of cytowhatver to see how she was responding.

At 6:30 Terry, my midwife, checked my cervix and it was only 1.5 cm dilated. Fail. Chris and I were feeling kind of down. We sent an email to family asking for prayers. Then around 7:00 I started having some bad cramps. The monitor I was hooked up to wasn't registering any contractions. I was upset - first the uncertainty of how Emmaline & my body would respond to induction, and now I was feeling like crap for no reason! (This proves that I would not have known labor if it hit me like a mack truck.)

Pretty soon it became apparent that these were contractions, and they were coming fast & furious. They were only 2 minutes apart, and lasting 30-90 seconds. We were very relieved that I was in labor! The contractions steadily got more intense, and at 8:30 Terry rechecked my cervix. I was at 6.5 cm. I decided then it was time for the epidural. Things were moving so quickly, I didn't want to miss my chance. It seems like as soon as I made that decision, things got more painful in a hurry. I didn't regret the decision at all!!

By a little after 9 the epidural was in and I was fully dilated. Holy crap, that was fast!! Terry told me to rest and I 'labored down', which just means my body gradually moved the baby down through the contractions while I relaxed as much as possible. About 1-1/2 hours later, we decided it was time to push. It didn't take too long before little Emmaline was just about ready to come out. Apparently at this point, her heart rate decelled again, and Terry was worried about her. She wanted to vacuum her out, which didn't sound all that appealing to me. So we pushed a few more times, and this time I put everything I had into it ... and out she came!!

Brand new baby!

It was an incredible moment. Chris was totally blown away and completely amazed. I was very very happy but also pretty dazed. She was tiny and precious! It was great holding her for the first time. She is beautiful :), and it didn't take long for Chris and I to be completely in love with her (I think it took me a little longer because I was a little overwhelmed from the whole delivery process).

Chris really enjoys holding her, they had some great father-daughter bonding while we were still at the hospital.

The downfall of staying at the hospital was people were constantly coming in and out to check on Emmaline and I. One visit was for her hearing ... she looks like a little alien!

She was born at 11:08 PM, weighing 6lb 12oz and 19.5 inches long. She lost about 6 oz. the first day but we had a doctor's appointment on Monday and she has gained it all back. A little surprising given that she likes to fall asleep while eating. She definitely did not inherit her mom's appetite! Everything looks good though and she seems perfectly healthy. :) Yay!

Ready to go home! She looks so little here. We came home on Thursday, it was nice to be somewhere familiar and peaceful.
Our friends Matt & Beth were waiting for us at home with some tacos & took this picture. We don't know who put up this cute sign, was it you??

At her first doctor's appointment, back at her birth weight.

Day 2: What I've learned about pregnancy

2011-07-03T19:29:00.003-06:00

It's hard to believe our baby is due tomorrow, and that I am being induced in less than two days (unless she comes before!). I was put on bed rest last Tuesday and thought I would blog a lot, but it's been so boring that I haven't had the motivation. Also I don't want to subject you to reading about my awesome days: "Today I watched TV, and slept in, and ate, and talked to some friends." That just about sums up the last 5 days.

But for fun I thought I'd share my list of "Top 10 things I've learned while pregnant". Sorry in advance because some of these are sappy (blame it on the hormones).

10. I like meat. Usually I shy away from things like pepperoni and sausage, but with the excuse of eating for 2 and needing protein, my diet has expanded. Now I'm all about some biscuits and gravy, or meat-lovers pizza. Yum!

9. I am not a nester. No surprise here, I never got a huge instinct to get the house perfect. In fact, the baby's room is still a mess!!

8. Fat ankles piss me off.

7. Pregnancy would be great if it only lasted from week 12-32. Before then, I was feeling sick and miserable. After that, I started feeling more tired and huge. But that middle section is golden. Then again, I've needed 40 weeks to prepare myself mentally and emotionally for this change.

6. I miss all the things I expected: biking, running, beer, and coffee (although I have been drinking a cup a few days each week - how could I be productive at work without it??).

5. We have great friends We've had lots of friends help us out as we get ready for the baby and I am so grateful for all of them.

4. Trust. I don't usually bring up my faith on here but this is a big one. I've had plenty of fears about whether the baby will be healthy, and whether I'll be a decent mother. I'm learning to turn all that over to God and trust that no matter what, He will watch over our daughter and help me be the best mom I can be.

3. Contractions do not equal labor I've been having them for weeks! It makes me glad I'm being induced, I think otherwise I would completely miss all the 'early labor' signs and probably end up being one of those people who delivers on the way to the hospital.

2. I married well! (Warning, sappy part 1) For the last 7 years (since we moved to Colorado), Chris and my life together has been very much about seeking adventure outside. I couldn't help but wonder if losing that aspect of our life would hurt our relationship. But I've learned that I can enjoy sitting on the back porch with him just as much as spending a night in the backcountry. This next phase in our life will be very different but I know we'll still have fun together and support each other. If anything, I love him more now than I did before being pregnant.

1. It is hard to anticipate what this little girl will mean to me. (Sappy part 2) Seeing how much I love Chris, I can't imagine that I might possibly love our daughter even more. Is that possible?

0. I will never finish my paint by numbers

Day 15: Baby Update

2011-06-19T21:05:00.007-06:00

Chris took some nice pictures of me last weekend (37 weeks), better than my usual quick snapshots (it helps that we just went on a date so I look nicer than usual). It's hard to believe we're getting so close to the end! I'm now going to see my midwives once a week, and the baby is considered 'full-term', which I think means she is mostly just putting on weight the next few weeks. It turns out she could use a little extra weight, as we found out at my appointment last week. Despite eating copious amounts of meat, desserts, and mayonnaise-covered dishes at a friend's cookout over the weekend, I had lost weight and my belly was measuring 1-2 inches smaller than my previous visit. My midwife was concerned that the amniotic fluid wasn't being regenerated and ordered an ultrasound for later that day.

This was both exciting and frightening. It was scary that something might be wrong with our baby's living quarters. Chris left work a little early to meet me for the ultrasound. We learned that the fluid is fine and the baby looks healthy - what a relief (although I guess I will be a good mom because it took me a couple of days to get over the worrying).

On the plus side, we got to see the baby at 37 weeks, which is a rare treat. She has a small head and a long femur (taking after her dad in the latter category), and they estimated her weight at 6lb 4oz. The coolest part was seeing her face! We saw her eyes (they were opening and closing) and nose, and it looked like she was trying to fit her entire fist into her mouth! Here's a picture of her - starting on the left is her arm and, then fist in front of her mouth. You can see her right eye and nose. It's hard to pick out any real features though, she looked very smushed. We are very much looking forward to meeting her!
Lastly, here's a picture of me today (38 weeks) at Rocky Mtn National Park (Chris, Nick and I went up there for some silliness -no hiking- which I'll hopefully post about soon).

Day 17: 'Some things never change', or 'what I do at work when I'm not working'

2011-06-17T17:17:00.003-06:00

Today I put some thought into whether or not I might be able to run the half marathon I did last fall again this year. Last year I was about 7-8 weeks pregnant, and as soon as I finished the race I started day-dreaming about doing it again this year. For one thing it was on a really great trail, and I was just starting to fall in love with trail running when I got pregnant. Also I had to hold back and not let my heart rate get too high. I think I could have gone quite a bit faster, and would love the opportunity to try (although this year a goal of finishing in any time is probably more realistic).

I decided it's possible, barring a really difficult delivery or maybe a c-section where my recovery time will be longer. The half is on November 12, so hopefully a full 4 months after I have the baby. With the goal of just finishing, I think a moderate 10 week training plan would suffice, which would give me more than 2 months to work up to running about 12 miles a week. I'm also assuming I won't feel like or have time to do any exercise for about the first month of motherhood. Anyway, now I'm really excited about the prospect of running again.

On the other hand, I have totally lacked motivation to exercise recently. It is so boring ... just walking around the neighborhood or swimming the slowest laps ever, blah. Hopefully I won't be a total sloth by the time the baby is born.

Day 20: A day in the life of crazy me!

2011-06-14T12:58:00.018-06:00

There is so much going on in my head lately, this post might be a little frightening. It could also be inordinately boring. Either way, I apologize in advance.

8:30 Finally get out of bed. By some divine miracle, I was at work every day last week by this time, but this week I just cannot wake up. Part of the reason is I am losing any hope of being at a good stopping point when the baby comes. I feel like a lot of my research is not going at all the way I would like, and I'm finding more problems than solutions. So needless to say, writing up results seems like a long way off right now.

9:30 Show up at work ... think about roots ...

11:30 Have coffee (just a little) with Nick and Levi. They spend most of the time talking about a few hiking/backpacking trips they're planning for the summer. I listen in as if I'll be going too, and try not to think about how much I miss being above treeline. But then I think about all the new ways of enjoying the outdoors Chris and I will find with our little girl and it makes me happy. It also dawns on me that I have NO plans between now and ... September, maybe. Oh, other than seeing Harry Potter some time around July 15, haha. It is an unusual feeling!

1:00 Hmm ... I still haven't really gotten back to work since having coffee.

2:45 Chris interrupts my thoughts on negative runoff with some good news. A few months ago, he bought tickets to the Mumford & Sons concert for tomorrow night. Considering I prefer to sit down while drying my hair now because my feet/back hurt so much, I decided standing in a crowded concert for several hours didn't sound too fun. He was still going to go with another friend of ours. Just for fun, he posted an ad for $125/ticket on craigslist, and someone wants to buy them for that price (he paid $80 for the pair). People are crazy!! It would be a really fun concert to go to, but considering our current financial situation it would be dumb to pass the sale up. Just think of how many diapers that can buy ...

5:15 Back at work after a GLORIOUS pre-natal massage. Thanks to my friend Kate who passed along 3 free massage tickets at Amara!!! Who knew my back, hips, and feet could accrue so much pain and tightness from just day-to-day existence. Also went by the house to make iced decaf lattes and heard from Chris about training he received on this electrocution unit we can use for pain management during labor (Strange? Yes. Effective? Apparently). Sounds like he had a little too much fun seeing how high he could turn up the voltage.

5:46 Waiting for code to run ... here are some pictures ... This is me and my friend Kim, we raced together for the CSU cycling team. Our babies are due just one week apart! So funny. :) She's having a boy.

My mom came to visit over Memorial Day weekend. It was really really nice to have her here. I had high hopes for our productivity in the baby room, and we did get a lot done, but mostly it was nice to hang out. I have to say, the highlight of the weekend for me was breakfast at Lucille's. :) (Apologies this is not the best picture of either of us, we didn't think to take a picture all weekend until we were dropping her off at DIA!)

6:35 Soil texture is my enemy right now. It is poorly observed, highly variable, and makes a big difference in water retention of soils and root depth. Between a wacky soil texture map and the negative runoff problems in my code, I'm looking at rerunning about 15 simulations. Each one takes about 20 minutes, and I've already made a gajillion plots with the old results. See why I'm feeling pessimistic about work?

7:15 2/15 runs done. Heading home. Plans for the night include grilling hamburgers, washing off the veggies we got from our CSA (lots of lettuce!), and vegging out (probably watching 24). If something interesting happens I'll let you know :)

Day 23: Country music, & Hopes for my daughter

2011-06-10T23:33:00.002-06:00

I'm not a huge Carrie Underwood fan anyway, but there is one song of hers that really drives me mad. Here's the short version: Man wants to have a son so he can go fishing and play baseball with him. Fine, I can understand. Then he finds out he's having a daughter, and ends up falling in love with her, which is all very sweet, but instead of the rest of the song being about how he realized he can still go fishing and play ball with a girl, it's about how "sweet, little, beautiful, wonderful, & perfect" she is. Oh and her big accomplishment in life is that she makes the quarterback of the football team fall in love with her. Ack! Give me a break!

Luckily a new song is out now that makes me much happier, from Trace Adkins. This one is about a father who is fishing (gasp, outdoor activities!) with his daughter, spending time with her like he probably would with a son. It's a nice song about the memories they're making, and of course at one point he mentions how she's going to grow up to be beautiful like her mom, but it's not the point of the song.

I like to think of the things Chris will do with our daughter to make her feel special. It's true that even little things can turn into great memories. My dad used to take me out to Shoney's on Saturday mornings. My cousin takes his six year old daughter to baseball games every chance he gets, and I love that about their relationship. I swear one of her first words was "ball".

Probably I am over-analyzing things here. Maybe I am oversensitive to gender stereotypes. But I am so happy to have grown up feeling like I could do anything that the boys could do. Maybe my daughter will end up being super girly and despise fishing, but she is going to have the chance to make that decision for herself.

Day 24 - What life throws at you

2011-06-09T22:17:00.005-06:00

The cowboy couldn't save the garden ... no riding off into the sunset today.

I had planned on writing a post about how amazing our yard looks now. This is the time of year when everything is growing, and before we get tired of watering the lawn. Also it is a little early for the weeds. So in general our yard looks like we give a crap.

I have two things I love about our yard this time of year. First, next to our house are two bushes - one with white pom-pom looking flowers, and one with very fragrant purple buds. I love coming home in the afternoons and smelling those flowers - the smell permeates the air near the house and it reminds me of happy things and spring time. (Do I sound like a spaced-out hippy yet?) The second thing I love is our irises, one of my favorite flowers. They come in so many different colors, and the petals are just so beautiful. We have a row of about 40 purple iris flowers in the back yard (thanks to a friend who planted them back there 2 years ago). They were just starting to bloom this week and I was super excited.

Exhibit A: The offending hail, still hanging around 7 hours after the storm.

Well ... it hailed last night. Many of the plants in our yard were pretty badly damaged. Luckily I think the garden plants will make a come-back, since it's still early in the year. But I was kind of sad to lose the flowers on the bushes and the irises. I should have written this post two days ago, and then these pictures would be much nicer!!

Spinach, which we have been eating for the past month, now trashed.
Oh, Irises, what could have been ...

On a slightly related note, we had dinner tonight with some good friends. We have lived in Ft Collins for almost 7 years and these friends have been a part of our lives for almost as long. Over the years, we've been with each other through lay offs, stresses with work, health issues, births, family problems, and other life events. It seems there is always something that could get us down, but it's thanks to friends like these that life stays as good as it is. We touched briefly on the hard things in life now, but spent most of the evening cracking up over silly stories or teasing each other. So I'm sad about the flowers getting trashed, but grateful for the reminder that life moves in cycles, with both ups and downs, and can still be beautiful even amid chaos. If nothing else, life is very interesting right now!

Counting down ... Day 25

2011-06-08T22:20:00.002-06:00

Hypothetically, Chris and I have 25 days left as the two-person Harper family. Yesterday, I was wishing that number was more like 1. It was just one of those days when all of the pregnancy symptoms were present. I had another restless night on Sunday and was out of bed by 5:30, and was still exhausted on Tuesday. Also, my feet were HUGE, and this was what was really ticking me off. It's not that big of a deal but is kind of the icing on the cake. I expect to get fat in other places during pregnancy but now I am just embarrassed by my feet, ankles, and calves, and don't like the feeling of my pudgy toes rubbing up on each other. I didn't know such swelling was possible in the absence of broken bones. So I felt very tired and uncomfortable and annoyed all day.

Today has been a lot better. Partly because I've decided to give myself a bit of a break and work at home in the afternoons. So today I was at work until about 2:00, then I went swimming, and then worked at home until about 6:30. This worked out pretty well except that swimming (as with most other activities these days) wiped me out and I wasn't super productive after that. I think I will keep up this schedule but try not to have such an exhausting "break".

The big downside of the day was finding out that Chris got laid off. Talk about bad timing!! Luckily his boss is going to pay him through July, and I have my own insurance, so we will still be able to pay for minor things like delivering a baby. It is disappointing and will be a challenge, though. But we are trying to be optimistic. Chris was out of a job for 8 months a few years ago and we were just fine. Also, now we don't need to find child care, and we will qualify for Colorado's low cost health insurance plan for the baby. Between those two things, we will probably save ~$800 a month. And we'll have the benefit of Chris getting to spend more time with the baby. As long as I can finish my PhD sometime later this year and hopefully make more money, and/or he can find a new job in a few months, we'll be alright. Even if not, we'll find ways to make things work. This is a time when I'm glad we have our faith to help us out, and we can hopefully be a support to each other as I'm sure there will be some stressful situations in the next few months!

Relaxing ... kind of

2011-05-23T04:12:00.006-06:00

This weekend we had some leisure time. Friday night we went to the drive-in movies near our house with Rachel, Ben, Katie, and Jim. We saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It was entertaining, but not as good as the other three - I really missed some of the cast from the previous movies, although I don't think Chris was displeased with the addition of Penelope Cruze (or whatever her name is).

Saturday we went on a hike to Greyrock Mountain with Nick, Dave, Jim, Pete, Sierra (Dave's dog) and Winston (Pete's dog). This is an excellent hike most times of the year, especially since it's only about 30 minutes from home. The views from the top of the mountain are well worth sitting and enjoying for as long as possible - you can see for miles to east (flat), north (to the bumpy mountains of Wyoming's Vedawoo area), and west (from foothills to the continental divide). We hiked up the Meadows Trail in hopes of finding some wild flowers. We saw several lanceleaf chiming bells near the streams (petite blue/purple bell-like flowers) and little white and yellow daisies on the way up. In the meadowy area below the summit there were a few Pasqueflowers, which I just learned are in the buttercup family, and is the state flower of South Dakota. They are a pink flower with a fuzzy stem. The higher the trail went, the better the views of the surrounding foothills. While not as impressive as the snow-capped peaks, there is something serene yet wild about seeing mile upon mile of rolling wooded slopes.

There is a fair amount of elevation gain in the first few miles of the Meadows Trail , which makes for super-slow preggo hiking.

At the end of the Meadows Trail (about 3.5 miles), you rejoin the Summit Trail, and from there it's a rocky, steep .75 miles to the top. I was hiking extraordinarily slow and opted for a nap nestled among some boulders and spruce. It was super nice to just lay around in the grass for more than 1-1/2 hours while the men and dogs went to the top. It was a windy day (of course) but I found a perfectly shielded spot in the sun.

The meadows and Greyrock Mountain to the right.

Dave, Pete, and their dogs on the summit. At first we weren't sure if Sierra and Winston would get along, but then Winston made it his mission to hump Sierra - which didn't help matters because Sierra has high standards.

The hike back to the cars (along the Summit Trail) was of course way easier, being all downhill. The only problem for me was that my ankles were swollen and didn't fit very well into my boots. They were extremely sore last night as a result, and I have never been so tired from a 6.5 mile hike! Overall though it was so so nice to be outside and getting some exercise. The company was great, and the guys pretended to not be waiting for me when they had to stop every mile or so. Chris, Dave, Nick and I ended the hike in perfect fashion, with a trip to one of my new favorite restaurants, Lupita's. (We even discussed naming the baby Lupita since she has spent a fair portion of the last 7 months swimming in their green chile sauce.)

PS. I started writing this at 4:30 AM on Monday because I couldn't sleep! Then I got it in my head to make strawberry-rhubarb crisp (I've actually been wanting to do this for days because our rhubarb is going bananas after last week's rain). So ... here I sit, at 4:50, eating the crisp (with vanilla ice cream, of course), and watching the horizon turn orange (man, the sun comes up early in the summer!). Maybe I will sleep now ...

Different but the same

2011-05-10T21:45:00.004-06:00

Last week Chris and I had a friend, Arthur, visit from Liberia. We really enjoyed his company. He was a pretty easy-going visitor except I was constantly worried we were going to turn him into a popsicle. We usually keep the heat at 58 at night, which is probably colder than it gets all year in Liberia. So we had the heat running more than usual last week, and hopefully he was comfortable. It was fun being able to talk about a whole range of topics with him - from funny topics like African baby names and the wonders of hamburgers, to more serious things like differences between Liberia and America, faith, and how things are going in Liberia with an upcoming presidential election and war in neighboring Ivory Coast.

That I can recall, this was our first international visitor, and definitely the first person to stay with us from a developing country. It was kind of eye-opening to think about how my house would look to someone coming from a country where the average income is $1/day. Chris and I are middle class by American standards, but we are basically swimming in cash from a Liberian point of view. We have so much stuff we don't need, and so much money just sitting in the bank (again, relatively speaking!). Arthur's been living in the US since January, but I can't imagine the culture shock. And I think it would be frustrating to see the wealth of this country, knowing what a difference just a fraction of that wealth could make for my family and friends back home. On the plus side, he's here to get a job and further his education - both of which will ultimately help him and his family.

Anyway, his visit was great for us personally and furthered our friendship with him, and it also helped remind me that we are very fortunate to live where we do. It helps to get a more global perspective on life now and then. I'm glad we're staying connected with the people we met in Liberia. Some members of our church are returning there in June and we won't be joining them, but I would love to go back one day. Who knows what the future holds :)

Focus

2011-05-03T10:23:00.002-06:00

This post could also be called "Insert expletive here", but I'm trying to optimistic! Yesterday was a frustrating day - bad enough that I made a list while at work entitled "Shit that sucks today", and came up with 9 things. Then added another when I got home and found out my step father is having a procedure on his heart on Thursday (#10) and my mom needs to be with him and so can't make it to Colorado this weekend (#11). I figure enough bad things happened yesterday that I should have met my "bad karma" quota for the week. Hopefully it can only get better from here!

We had a nice start to the day - coffee with a friend Russ, and our friend Arthur who is visiting from Liberia (well, technically visiting from Boston, where he lives now). Now the goal for the next 7 hours or so is to focus on my work, so at least some of the work-related frustrations can get better. I am having a bit of trouble focusing and thinking clearly lately. Hopefully the next 9 weeks won't be like this all the time!!

Letting Go ...

2011-04-27T21:40:00.003-06:00

Sometimes in life I get hung up on how I want things to work out - especially pertaining to deadlines. A classic example is wanting to get everything taken care of before going out of town for a vacation - clean the house, weed the lawn, catch up with friends, write a will, update the budget - you know, basically anything that's been on my to-do list for the last 12 months.

Now is a time when I need to let go of the way I wanted things to be in the final months of my pregnancy. I will (probably) not be:
- designing the perfect baby room
- composing long love letters to my daughter to give to her at key moments throughout her life
- touring the hospital
- spending my evenings contemplating the joys of pregnancy or discussing the future with Chris
- taking time off work to "nest"
- exercising more than the minimum
- keeping up with the yard at all

Okay, so not all of those things were goals to start with. :) But you get the picture. I will be:
- working
- sleeping
- taking a few nights off a week to rest & enjoy myself, be healthy, and be with Chris
- drinking a little bit of coffee

The impetus for all this, you ask? Well my committee meeting went pretty well. We decided to change my dissertation from 4 parts (with a couple parts being kind of hastily done), to 3 parts (ideally spending more time on those couple of parts). I'm pretty happy with this, I would much rather do quality work than rush and cram to get more done that's not as thorough. The good news is now I can somewhat realistically aim to finish writing my dissertation before the baby comes. That is also the bad news, and why I have to give up on the idea of taking it easy at work the last few months.

I do feel that it's a little ridiculous to even be considering this time line with my dissertation. I finished my masters in August 2008. Three years is really quick to finish a PhD in my department. I think it's crazy. I think four years might be nicer, but my adviser seems to be in a hurry to get his students done with whatever they're working on. On the bright side, I can stick around and work for him for at least a little while after I finish and earn almost twice what I do now. Even though I'm not usually motivated by money (hence my decision to be a doctor of atmospheric science rather than a doctor of medicine), in this case I guess I kind of am.

In other news, I had my 30 week appointment today. The baby is measuring at the just-right size, and I am healthily weighing 15 pounds more than I ever have before. It seems that she and I are both healthy and growing!

Finally, for your viewing pleasure, here is a picture from Chris' first (& very hilly) half marathon - which he completed in the magnificent time of 2:02!

Nap time!

2011-04-25T16:54:00.002-06:00

Tomorrow I have a 'proposal review' meeting with my PhD committee. I'm supposed to tell them what I plan on having in my dissertation, and they're supposed to provide feedback and basically say whether it sounds like I'll be able to defend in the next 6 months or so. It's the last big hurdle before the official defense (oh yeah other than actually writing the dissertation!), at least as far as my committee goes. I've had some friends say it was really easy, and other friends who had a really hard time in theirs.

Maybe I should be more worried, but today I was so tired that I came home and took a 4 hour nap! So much for last-minute preparations. It was one of the few times over the last few months that I've given into the "I'm pregnant" feeling and gave myself a break. I might start being nicer to myself. I'm feeling a little burnt out from all the work, and I want to be home more often to do things like get the baby's room ready and spend time with Chris. I guess it will depend on how tomorrow goes. Right now even just working 8-5 M-F sounds like a nice break!

Sometimes it helps to think "What's the worst that can happen?" Realistically, the worst that can happen tomorrow is my committee will give me a really hard time, and then tell me they don't think I can finish any time soon. In which case ... I'd be pretty relieved! :) Haha. The best case (and an unlikely one) is I convince them I've done enough work already and can finish by July. In which case, I'll have to keep working really hard and maybe that won't be the best situation, at least for the next 2 months. So either way, I'll be happy, just for different reasons. That's why I'm not really nervous. I've done what I can up to this point, no use worrying too much about it. At least I know I'll be well-rested! :)

Growing baby, growing belly

2011-04-17T21:16:00.005-06:00

Well, it's been a while again! Between fixing up our kitchen, trying to make progress on my dissertation, and getting ready for the baby we have been very busy! But I thought it was worth posting a few updates. I'm now at 29 weeks - in the third trimester! I can't believe I am so far along now. Our baby will be here in less than three months - crazy! She is moving around a lot. One of my coworkers commented that I had been making a lot of funny faces lately and I said it was because I'm constantly being kicked from the inside. :) It can be distracting while I try to work but I really love feeling her move. Now that she moves around so much, Chris and I are really looking forward to meeting her and seeing what she looks like when she does all this squirming. Everything is progressing well with the pregnancy. At the doctor appointments, they measure my uterus (from the outside!) to see if she is on track with her growth. At my 24 week appointment, I was 1 inch too small, but last week at 28 weeks I was 1 inch too big! So hopefully that means she is growing well :)

Anyway, here are some pictures from the last few weeks ...

After spending several weekends in a row doing work in the kitchen, we enjoyed a nice hike on a trail near our house. We're lucky to live so close to some really nice trails.

Chris was impressed how the curves of the road below matched my belly. This was at 25 weeks.Last weekend we took a mini-vacation to Colorado National Monument, on the west side of the state. It was very scenic and we went on a few really nice hikes. Camping with a belly was challenging at times, but well worth the effort to spend some time outside and with Chris. Now can you tell I'm getting bigger?? :) This is about 28 weeks

Here I am without the jacket but still looking large and in charge.

We were expecting warm temperatures, but it was actually really windy and cold, and snowed on us a couple of times. The last night we were there, it was kind of warm enough to sit on the rocks near our campsite and enjoy the views. We had a great view!

On the way back to Ft. Collins we stopped in Glenwood Canyon and hiked to Hanging Lake. It was gorgeous! It doesn't look like anything you would expect to see in Colorado - with blue-green water and moss-draped waterfalls.

The hike to the lake was VERY steep and snowy at the top. I was nervous about slipping in the snow, so I sat on Chris' raincoat and slid down the trail. It was quite the sight, I'm sure, but really fun. I think I've discovered a new way to "hike" :)

Lunches

2011-01-10T16:06:00.002-07:00

Lately my lunches have not been very healthy. For a while, I was eating out most days because I didn't know what I'd be in the mood for come lunch time. That was getting expensive though, and takes a big chunk out of my work day. Now I'm buying frozen lunches, because I've been enjoying eating something other than PB&J for lunch. I'm trying to get organic ones (like Kashi or Amy's burritos) that are relatively low in fat and sodium, but most of them still have 20-30% of my daily sodium, which seems like a lot. Also, it's still not very cheap.

Meanwhile ... I'm getting weekly emails from babycenter.com. I just got the '15 week' email the other day (my baby is the size of an apple). The email had 3 recommended, healthy lunches. I'm excited to try them (once I finish my current supply of frozen meals), and thought I'd share. They sound tasty and healthy for anyone, not just a pregnant person :)

• Pita Pocket: Stuff 1 whole-wheat pita with 3 ounces of crab salad (use canned crabmeat mixed with fat-free mayo and spices), 2 tablespoons of avocado or guacamole, 1 ounce cheese, and lettuce and tomato. Serve with a piece of fruit.

• Crunchy Fiesta Salad: Mix together a handful of chopped lettuce, 1/3 cup black beans, 2 tablespoons of corn, 2 tablespoons of guacamole, chopped tomatoes, 2 tablespoons of pine nuts (optional), and 1 ounce shredded low-fat cheese. Top with salsa or low-fat dressing (cilantro works well too!).

• Mediterranean Roll-Up: Spread 1 whole-wheat tortilla with hummus, cover with fresh spinach, tomatoes, and cucumbers. Top with a sprinkling of pasteurized feta cheese and a dollop of plain yogurt.

I'm Still Here

2011-01-09T14:24:00.009-07:00

I guess it's been about 7 mo. since I blogged last - oops! Our summer was ridiculously busy, I think we had plans every weekend for about 3 months. Then, I got pregnant, and didn't really feel like doing much. But, now we are public with the pregnancy (and I'm at 15 weeks and feeling better). Also I think more people might interested in what I have to say now that I'm harboring a little fugitive. The due date is July 2! But I'll try not to overdo the baby stuff, because although I'm excited there are still other interesting things going on in life.

For now, I'll do a little catch up on the end of 2010. I'll try to sum it up using the metrics that mean the most to me :)

Nights spent outside: 19

Favorite backpacking trip: I have two. First, our adventurous friend Eric came out to visit in September and we spent 7 days in the Maze district of Canyonlands. This is probably one of the more remote places in the Lower 48 and we didn't see any other hikers the whole time (although we passed some roads and saw some folks driving and on bikes - smart). We covered 65 miles of beautiful and dramatic scenery.Sunrise from one of our campsites

We smelled pretty bad after 7 days in the desert :)

Second, in July, Chris, Nick, and I went on a great backcountry trip in Rocky Mountain National Park. We didn't see any other people for 2 days and enjoyed some wonderful scenery. We also had a delicious trout dinner our second night out. It felt like we had found a secret wonderland in the usually crowded park.

This is from an overnight trip in the Mt. of the Holy Cross Wilderness with Nick, Levi, and Matt. It was absolutely gorgeous. We wanted to summit the Mt but it was still too snowy in mid-June.

Miles biked: Since I started keeping track in April, I rode 1950 miles - including a 90 mile ride from Frisco to Glenwood Springs, and a weekend of 215 miles in the beautiful mountains of southern Colorado. Unfortunately the combination of the darkness of winter and being pregnant has made me completely uninterested in my bike since October. That feels strange.

Miles run/hiked: Again, since I started counting it's 493 miles. I still want to meet my goal of running 625 miles before April!

Races: I purposefully avoided racing too much this year, I felt like I needed a break and to refocus my life on other priorities. However, since I'm addicted, I did a few. :)
In May I ran a 5K to gauge how my "non-training" training was going and finished in 24:36, actually my third fastest 5K.
In July, I did an offroad triathlon at Beaver Creek. It was pretty brutal with lots of elevation gain. My friends Rachel, Michelle, and Jenn came to keep me company and enjoy the mountains so it was a nice weekend. I want to do more of these :)
Also in July I did a mountain bike race in Winter Park. Let me tell you, mountain bike racing (especially at ~9000 ft) is hard (but exciting)!
In November, while I was about 7 weeks pregnant, I did my first trail half marathon with Nick. Due to my "condition", I didn't push it too much until the last few miles. The upside of that is I finished with lots of energy and have never felt so good running 13 miles. Also, now I have a time to beat (about 2:20) when I run it next year! :)

New love: I started trail running more this year. Partly because some friends at work and I began running weekly on the trails near my department. Now I am hooked and wish I could do it all the time. I just finished reading "Born to Run" which has only fueled this flame.

Most worthwhile trip: I guess it depends on your point of view. Personally, the trip to Liberia was life-changing because of the amazing people we met and the things I saw.

Professionally, I had a great time in Brazil at the American Geophysical Union conference in August. It was a case of being in the right place at the right time. There were so many other people there who focus on the Amazon - I learned a lot and made some good contacts. I gave a talk on my research and I think it went well, and I had a poster on a "side project" and got some good feedback on that too (unfortunately I'm not sure if anything else will come of that project).

Also I had a lot of fun with my friend Melissa ...

Visiting one of the world's most amazing waterfalls, Iguacu Falls.

Taking a boat trip under the falls (w/ my advisor, Scott)

And eating great food at a Brazilian barbecue (and drinking some delicious Malbecs from nearby Argentina)

New experiences: Chris and I spent a lot of time this year talking about if we're ready to have kids. I think there will always be more adventures we want to have - there is always "one more" backpacking trip to take or place to visit (or we want to go back to Moab just "one more time"). But we are excited about being parents, and I know that having a baby will be an adventure of its own. I expect it to be challenging but, as with everything else we do together, I also expect to find lots of laughter and fulfillment along the way.

Honestly, so far being pregnant has not been all that fun! But now that I'm feeling better I'm appreciating it more. Some highlights have been the day we found out I'm pregnant (Oct. 30), having an ultrasound and seeing that there actually IS a PERSON growing inside of me!, and hearing the baby's heartbeat at my appointments. That is so cool! :)

Peanut butter goodness!

2010-06-14T20:10:00.003-06:00

I made these cookies this afternoon and they were sooo good. Very peanut buttery. Usually my oatmeal cookies come out flat and crispy, but they even had a nice texture after baking. I was worried because the dough was really dry and I had to work to form the balls into, well, actual balls and not just dough crumbs. The only adjustment I made for altitude (or maybe just b/c I'm impatient) is cooking them at 375. I highly recommend!
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Us vs. Weeds

2010-06-05T22:46:00.009-06:00

This weekend we had the opportunity to go to Steamboat with our friends Mollie and Rob. Steamboat is one of my favorite mountain towns, and has amazing mountain biking, so I was pretty excited. But, in a rare act of responsibility, Chris and I decided to stay in town instead so we could work on the yard! We have several busy weekends coming up, and were out of town last weekend, so it actually has been really nice to be around today.

Last night, our friends Jeramy and Christine stopped by for "happy hour" on our back patio. Their 2-year old son, Carson, was a big help and watered the lawn for us. He is a cutie! Check out this picture, he is kind of sticking out his tongue from the effort - that watering bucket is pretty heavy for him.

Today, I spent 4 hours (and Chris spend 5-1/2!) battling the weeds in the back yard. I decided to take before and after pictures, so I could prove to myself that I've been productive. We got a lot done today, and will probably work for a few more hours tomorrow too.

Along the side of the house, the grass had gotten REALLY tall. It was a struggle to pull some of it up, I might have fallen over a few times - and I might have really sore hamstrings tomorrow!

Last summer we planted wildflowers along the side of the yard, but since then the weeds have helped themselves to this area (along w/ a family of snakes who lived under the plastic last summer, which is why I haven't moved it yet!). We've reclaimed it - for now.

Chris really had his work cut out for him in the garden, but now it looks much better than before, and some of the veggies are doing really well. We have a lot of lettuce to eat over the next few days - yay for salads!

Here's what happens when an over-analytical person is also obsessed with biking, running, and hiking

2010-06-01T10:47:00.007-06:00

About two months ago, I made a goal to run 625 miles and bike 3000 miles in a year. (What was I thinking??) 9 weeks into it, how am I doing?

So far, I've ran 84.3 miles and biked 545.8 miles, and according to my goal I should be at 108 and 675 miles. I am little behind, but oh well. I had some pretty pathetic weeks (a few weeks ago I only rode 13.5 miles, and last week I only ran 3.2), but also some good accomplishments (last weekend I mountain biked 42 miles, I rode over 200 miles in the last two weeks, and two weeks ago I ran one of my fastest 5Ks in 24:36). Also, I've commuted almost 273 miles (about half of my total riding), which since my car gets about 25 mpg has saved me more than $28. And honestly, another major accomplishment is not letting the "need to train" take over my life.

Since I am a dork, I've included some charts :). I count playing softball or kickball as running 1 mile, unless it's a really slow game. I haven't done any trail running yet, which needs to change ASAP because it's so much fun.

I have two races I'm planning on doing in the next two weeks: the Boulder Sunrise duathlon on Saturday, and the Winter Park hill climb on June 12. Hopefully I can continue to enjoy all this exercise, and not obsess over it too much, although the pie charts on this post might suggest otherwise ... :)

SPRING!!!

2010-05-17T18:51:00.014-06:00

According to the weather station near our house, today is the fourth day this year that it's been above 70. We have been yearning for some warm weather (after snow and high temperatures in the 30's last week), so this feels amazing! We've done a little bit of work in the yard - mostly Chris has been expanding his garden. Today we moved a truckload of dirt into a new section of garden in the back yard. I have to admit, I was not psyched about shoveling dirt on such a gorgeous day (my bike was calling to me). But after we were done I felt very satisfied (and tired).

He's been talking expanding the garden for a couple of years, and this year our friend Rachel said she'd like to grow some vegetables in our garden, so that was the impetus he needed. A few weekends ago, they both worked for a few hours moving rock and breaking up the ground. It should be ready to go soon!

So far, Chris has planted leeks, spinach, swiss chard, peas (ick), radishes, beets, carrots, onions, potatoes, cabbage, kale, and a variety of lettuces. Rachel planted arugula, peas, carrots, and beets. And, we have some nice looking pepper plants. Soon Chris will plant even more veggies, AND, we signed up for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share with Grant Family Farms - so we are going to have vegetables coming out the ying-yang this summer!!

Chris also planted 2 raspberry bushes, and we have 2 blueberry bushes, so we'll see how that works. They need a lot of water, so we have to keep on top of that (the raspberries are in the picture to the right, along with 2 rows of irises Chris' friend planted for us last fall).

In the front yard, we have some irises that are about to come up (I love irises!) and some nice tulips in bloom, and the landscaping we put in a couple of years ago is doing pretty well, too.

And the last project has been our compost pile. After a few years of just accumulated waste, Chris made an "official" bins in the back so that we can rotate them and finally start using the amazing looking dirt on the bottom. You can tell it's cooking, too, Chris said it was steaming when he turned it the other day. Yeah, microbes!

Above: the new bins, "dirt" after and before composting. (It's amazing how little we throw away when most of our kitchen scraps go into the compost pile.)

What's my story?

2010-04-26T23:24:00.006-06:00

Friday we went to a talk from Donald Miller, who is a Christian author whose most recent book ("A Million Miles in a Thousand Years") I read a few weeks after getting back from Liberia. I think the timing of it was just right. The book (and his talk Friday) is focused on the concept of "story". Basically, a director contacts him about making a movie about his life (based on his earlier book, "Blue Like Jazz"). But as he thinks about how the movie will go, he realizes his life doesn't really tell a good story. So he sets out to discover what makes a good story, and makes some interesting changes to his life in the process.

He finds that the elements of a good story are: "A character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it." (Although of course there is more to it than that, since he wrote a whole book on it.) The thing I liked about the book is that it makes you think that your life doesn't have to be just a series of moments of you living, working, playing etc. No matter what you love in life, it's exciting to think that you can write a story through your life. Not that there's anything wrong with enjoying the moment and living for each day, in my opinion. But after being in Liberia, where I felt like what I was doing mattered in a much deeper way than just sitting at my computer all day, it affected me strongly to think that even living in Fort Collins, Colorado, I can live out a life that "tells a good story". Beyond that, I am kind of lost, because what would have to change for me to live a good story? Is my story decent now? Or should I sell everything and move to Africa? That seems a little extreme. These are kind of deep "life" questions that I don't intend to answer in this blog (or any time soon, to be honest).

But it's been on my mind lately and I think a great thing to think about. I do know that my life will involve working with Transformation International for the foreseeable future. It's a good thing I've already decided not to devote much time to training this year because that time has been easily filled up doing things related to the Peanut Butter House. I'm planning (another) event focused on it and other grass roots projects going on in Africa. I think it's going to be really neat, but maybe I should have gone into event planning rather than grad school.

Pictures

2010-04-21T21:57:00.002-06:00

Here's a quick post of some of what we've been up to lately. First, a poignant photo from a coffee shop in Laramie. We tried to go snowshoeing in the Snowy Range a few weeks ago but bad roads in Wyoming resulted in us just getting coffee and going to Sierra Trading Post.

Last weekend though we were successful in our first backpacking trip of the year - yay! The weather was great except for a brief spurt of thunder-snow, which changed to some pretty intense graupel/hail for about 10 minutes. After that, though, it was clear skies.

The next morning we hiked up a little mountain near our campsite that had amazing views! Maybe I'll post more about that trip in the coming days. :)

Back to School

2010-04-11T21:41:00.004-06:00

To anyone who thinks nothing good can come from blogging, I would like to say that after my post yesterday, I was motivated to get up bright and early this morning and call Christine in Liberia. It was great to talk to her, and the rest of the morning I was back to thinking about how much I just want to go back to Liberia (as hard as it was while we were there).

She said that Alfred has been registered for his classes and will start this week! Yay! She and Luther (her husband) went to Alfred's house a couple of times to speak with his father, but both times Jerome wasn't there. Apparently he was with one of his daughters, but I don't know for how long. I hope everything is okay there. The good news is that she is going to ask if it's alright for Alfred to come to the Transformation International house on the weekends to hang out with the boys there. I think that will be so good for him and fun, too, so that was exciting to hear. I'm so happy about how much they are reaching out to him.

Chris told me nice work on getting him to school but I have done basically no work on this. I just got suckered in by a little boy's smile, listened to a little nudging from God and then gave some very busy people more work to do. But it's great to hear that it is working out so far, and Christine said Alfred was very excited about going back to school.

I want to send all the kids who live in Alfred's house to school. I know some of my friends would help since it is so cheap but can make such a difference. Which is why I need to go back to Liberia, so I can set this up. (haha, now I'm daydreaming) :)

Alfred

2010-04-10T12:30:00.005-06:00

Here is the rest of the story of the little boy I met in Liberia, Alfred.

After meeting Alfred’s father, Jerome, and seeing the tight-knit community he was a part of, I thought the best I could do for him would be to send him to school. Even at a public school, students have to pay for a uniform and their books. This comes out to about $35 a year – which is nothing to us but can be insurmountable for a large family with little to no income.

While I was in Liberia, I read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and it impressed upon me the importance of education. Especially somewhere as poor as Liberia, having an education could make a huge difference in how someone’s life turns out. Depending on the person, that is, because with an unemployment rate of 85% it takes more than an education to get a job.

Another thing that had inspired me to help Alfred was a story that Luther told us about his childhood. He got very sick as a boy and his family couldn’t afford to take him to the hospital. He was sick enough that he thought he was going to die. But some missionaries came along and took him to a hospital. At first they just dropped him off. He ended up in what he called the “hopeless” room. It was just him and a crazy lady, who kept talking to herself. He knew he was there to die because no doctors came by to check on him.

Then this man Jonathan came along (I might be off on some details here) and took Luther out of the hopeless room. Jonathan paid for his care until he was better. They have been friends, close as brothers, ever since. It was amazing to me because Luther does so much good work. At the very least, he has completely turned around the lives of 18 teenage boys who had no hope for a future. All of this wouldn’t be possible if not for the intervention of one man. So, you never know, the one person you help could make a huge difference!

After thinking about helping Alfred for almost an entire week (& yes I’ll admit to wondering if I could just take him home with me), I was anxious that my chance had passed. We were leaving for the States in a few hours! Christine had agreed to help me, but she is very busy with teaching at the Baptist seminary, helping Luther with Transformation International, taking care of her own children, and who knows what else. So I was extremely grateful when she said she had some extra time to go to Alfred’s house with me.

We pulled up and Christine was clearly touched by their living situation. From my perspective, the children are dirty and half-clothed. Some are clearly malnourished. They are small. Their home is a looted shell, a reminder of the war. I know why she was touched by their situation because I clearly was, too.

But the people living there are so friendly. Fatu remembered my name, and asked how Cindy and Chris were doing. She had a great personality and was very smart. Alfred had actually gone to the Peanut Butter House site to look for us so we just spoke with Jerome. Christine told him that I wanted to send Alfred to school. Alfred was in nursery last year and Jerome got his report card from Kendeja School. Christine said she would keep the report card so she could know where to go to talk about registering Alfred. She gave Jerome the task of finding out what needs to paid for and how much.

Unfortunately, that is where the story stops for now. I sent some money to pay for Alfred's school (thanks to a friend of mine from church for chipping in, too) but still need to talk to Christine about what she has found out. I hate that I've been home for over 2 months and this is still on my 'to-do' list, it's amazing how quickly time can pass and how easily I fill it with other things to do. Since I've gone through the trouble of posting this, I am making a promise to myself (& Alfred) that I'll call Christine tomorrow. I would really love to talk to her anyway because she was one of my favorite people that we met! So hopefully I'll have more information soon. Thanks for reading this kind of long story, but it was something that had a really big impact on me while in Liberia.

I heart supercomputers

2010-04-05T12:35:00.004-06:00

OK, so my title is a lie. I'm trying to debug something on a new supercomputer and it's going VERY slowly. I learned that running my job interactively is much faster than going in the debug queue but it's still pretty tedious. So ... while my code does nothing I thought I'd write about my weekend, which was much more exciting.

Chris and I went for our first mountain bike ride of the year - a nice loop up Maxwell behind CSU's stadium, along Shoreline Trail, then linking up with some of the Foothills trail to Michaud Lane. Overall it was about 14 miles, a perfect length. Although in general Chris is better than me, one thing I am better at is keeping my expectations low after not riding for a while! He got frustrated a little easier when he couldn't make it through some rocky sections, whereas my response was just, "Yeah, I expected that". But I am excited about riding more and all things considered it was a very fun ride.

In the evening, I spent a few hours at the Bean Cycle reading for my class. Considering I was working, it wasn't too bad. Maybe that is because I didn't have coffee Friday (horror!), so a couple of cups made me very happy (until I couldn't fall asleep that night).

Easter was really nice. We went to church at 8:00 to avoid the crowds, and then had a relaxing morning with breakfast, getting ready for lunch (we had some friends over), and I went for a run. It took a lot of effort, but I didn't freak out this Easter like I usually do. In Georgia, Easter is BEAUTIFUL. The weather is warm, the flowers are blooming, and every one wears dresses to church. As a child, I associated this awesome weather with God being happy on Easter. Here, it's still mostly brown, cold, and snows sometimes (even this year it snowed for about 10 minutes). One year, I had a fit b/c I'd been planning on wearing a nice dress to church and it was a freaking blizzard. So I pouted on the bedroom floor for a few minutes and then had to wear pants and a sweater. What is Eastery about that?? Anyway, this year I was better, even when it started to snow. And by about noon it was gorgeous weather for my run, so I guess God likes Colorado Easters after all.

We also had our first softball game on Sunday. We continued our dominance in the rec league with a shut-out against a kind of intimidating looking team. AND I hit a triple!!! Sweet!! It must have been my belly full of macaroni and cheese (although that made running to 3rd a little painful). I hit well my first game of the year last year, too, and then ended up sucking a lot the rest of the year and perfected the art of hitting to the pitcher. So I really hope that doesn't happen again this year! We have another game tonight so I guess I'll find out soon.

A new goal

2010-04-01T11:11:00.006-06:00

Well Chris and I have decided to put off children for a little bit. His job is very much up in the air right now and it doesn't seem like a good idea financially. Plus now we are seeing signs of summer and having conversations about backpacking in the Rockies, and I don't want to give that up! I think being pregnant in the winter sounds better, so we'll probably revisit this topic in a few months, depending on his employment status.

I was thinking the other day how my fitness level is very yo-yo like. Last summer I was probably the fittest I've ever been after doing the half ironman and 200 miles of backpacking. I think I did a reasonable job of staying in shape over the winter, but traveling and health issues have left their mark.

So, my new goal is to be CONSISTENT! 12 months a year! I get motivated by having concrete goals so I came up with some reasonable ones for the next 12 months:
- Run 625 miles ... that's an average of 12 miles per week. I've maybe averaged 10 miles a week the last couple of years.
- Bike 3000 miles ... This comes out to 30 miles a week in the winter, and 75 miles a week in the warmer 6 months of the year, plus a few hundred miles thrown in for good measure. :) Although when I was racing I definitely put in more than 75 miles a week, for a yearly total 3000 would be quite a lot for me.

A little motivation from some of my favorite runs and bike rides over the past year or so:
road bike ride in Arches National Park:

Views along my run along the Pacific coast in San Diego:

I think I can do this and have fun without overtraining and getting burnt out, like I kind of did toward the end of my half ironman training last summer. Also I figure things like hiking count as running so I can be flexible. Most of all, I am really excited about the spring weather and a summer full of good times in the mountains!

Of course, if I get pregnant then this will all change. But part of the motivation for doing this is that the better shape I'm in when I get pregnant, I would assume the more I'll be able to work out through the pregnancy and the healthier I'll be in general.

Things in My Car

2010-03-06T17:32:00.002-07:00

Maybe we need a lighter post so I thought I'd share some of the interesting things I found in my car. I just finished cleaning it (well, it still needs to be vacuumed) for the first time in weeks. Ok, maybe it's been more like years, but who's counting!?

- A hand-made wooden cup from Nigeria. We must have meant to give it to Eric when we drove to Georgia for Christmas 2008!

- Maps from Arches and Canyonlands from Chris and my road trip in Sept. 08.

- Special cat food from when Tiger was feeling sick in July 08.

- Grease from somebody's head on the back window.

- Grand prize: Exploded mini-coffee creamers I picked up at Ted's Place on the way to a yurt about 2 or 3 years ago. If you've been in my car in the last year and wondered why it smelled, this is probably why!!

My Friend Alfred

2010-03-05T22:54:00.003-07:00

There were many kids who hung around the Peanut Butter House site, and they were all great. But something about Alfred stood out to me. He’s probably about five and has a sweet smile. And, we understood each other, which to be honest was hard to come by. Even though the Liberians speak English, it can be really hard to understand! After a while, he said to me, “My pa is sick.” I asked him if his mom was alive and he said no. We’d been to a few orphanages by then and I just thought, “I do not want this boy to end up on his own.” I said maybe I could come see his pa one day to say hello. He said he didn’t live far so it was a date as far as I was concerned.

A couple of days later the opportunity came up to go to Alfred’s house. I decided that going along might not be the best idea, so Cindy and Chris came with me. We were also escorted by Abraham, another little boy who lives close by. We started to walk – past some houses, through a field, through a garden, past a school, past some more houses, up a hill … I guess Alfred’s idea of far and mine are different! Finally it became apparent where we were headed – to a burnt-out concrete building at the top of a hill. Honestly, it looked creepy.
The house on the hill is not actually where Alfred lives, but his house is just next to it and looks very similar.

We approached the house. It was three stories high, but completely gutted. No windows, doors, roof, or floors. All that was left was a concrete shell, blackened by the rains that fall in the summer. Alfred took us to where he lived – just one room – with his father Jerome. Jerome was healthy until about 8 months ago, when he fell (maybe he had a stroke?), and now he has lost feeling in half his body. I would guess Jerome is around 50-60, and Alfred has a brother and sister but they are both older than him and don’t live at home any more. So Alfred helps his father, he brings his cane and a small chair for Jerome to sit in while we visit. We said a prayer with him, and I could feel God working on me to do something to help.

About 2 or 3 other families are also squatters in this home. One of the women, Fatu, gave us the grand tour. The house must have been pretty magnificent before the civil war. It used to belong to Liberia’s former President Samuel Doe’s brother. Now the only decorations that remain are a few tiles in the bathrooms and some drawings on the wall. The drawings are of soldiers with large guns. Some of them have “boy” written above them. One looks like he is holding a knife and the head of a corpse that is by his feet. It says, “War in the city.”

A few of the kids who live in the house. 2nd from the left in pink is Abraham, and Alfred is in green next to him.

You can see the hardship in these people’s lives. Jerome can’t work anymore and can’t afford to send Alfred to school. Other boys living in the house have huge bellies from malnutrition. But they are all smiling and grateful to God for what they have today. Fatu was as hospitable as any woman wanting to welcome you to her home. Another older man who lives there took his machete outside and came back with 2 big sticks of sugar cane for us. And they have a poster of Barack Obama, who has brought great pride and hope to everyone we spoke to in Liberia.

After a while, we left but Alfred’s situation stayed on my heart the rest of the trip. The next day, I asked Christine for advice on the best way to help Alfred. Something hard to figure out while in Liberia was how to help people well. We have enough money to temporarily fix people’s problems, but setting up a pattern of sufficiency isn’t really the answer. She said she would go with me to see him and ask his father what we could do. So I know this is getting long so I will leave you in suspense for part two!
One of our gracious hosts showing us how he will get us some sugar cane! :)

Day 14: Domhutte to Zermatt in pictures

2010-03-02T02:58:00.004-07:00

I can't find the journal I kept on the trail so for now here are some pictures from our final day on the Haute Route.

The view from the Domhutte as the sun rose was amazing. We wouldn't have seen any of this if we had stayed at the Europahutte or descended the night before because of the thick fog in the valley. So it was well worth the trek!

These are the stairs leading to the part of the hut w/ the beds. I met an interesting guy up here who said he had fallen on a glacier the day before trying to summit Dom. He asked if I could look at where he fell to make sure he was okay, and then pulled down his pants and showed me his butt! Luckily Chris was there but I tried to not make a big deal of it and kept talking to him. Then he pulled out some ointment and asked if I was a nurse! Eek! Apparently the whole time we were talking he was rubbing it ALL OVER but I was determined to keep my eyes on his face and no lower. Crazy Europeans!

It wasn't as scary going down as it had been going up the night before.

We made it to Zermatt! I don't know if I've ever been more exhausted! :)

Day 13: Gasenreid to Domhutte!

2010-03-02T02:34:00.005-07:00

The Domhutte

Chris’ stomach hurt this morning and he didn’t eat much. I was wondering if he’d even be able to hike but eventually he felt a little better. By now, our anger, or any frustration we felt about the difficult trail, was taken out on Kev – the author of our guide book. We’d already grown tired of making fun of his disdain for the ski industry. We dropped to the level of speculating why he uses the word Pennine so much and that he has wet dreams about the hamlet of Jungu. Today was the last straw, because he hardly mentions the trudge up to the Europaweg and uses the word “belvedere” to describe what I can only guess is the trail. So our insults were in full force when we could actually gasp out a few words because the first 2 hours of the hike were brutal!

There's a fine belvedere over there somewhere ....

I just might not make it!

We finally reached the fine belvedere and our moods improved with the expansive views. The day before, as looked across the valley to the slopes where the Europaweg lays, I wondered where on earth the trail could possibly be – the mountainsides were so steep and rocky. It turns out that those two words also accurately describe the Europaweg. Sometimes the going was very slow because of all of the boulders we had to pick our way through. The Weisshorn, meanwhile, continued to look like one of the most bad ass mountains I’ve ever seen and a huge glacier on one of its flanks began to come into view.

We finally reached the Europahut at 3:30, after leaving Gasenreid 7 hours earlier! We held out a small hope that they would have 2 magical openings so we could stop hiking and enjoy the afternoon. So, to say we were bothered by what we found would be an understatement! First, the hut was full because someone had rented it for a private party, and every single one of the people relaxing on the deck with a beer had been flown in by helicopter! When I heard this, I had to get Chris and I out of there ASAP because we began to think of many not-so-nice things we wanted to say to the people walking around in $50 United Colours of Bennington t-shirts. This greatly diminished the Swiss Alpine Club in my esteem. I guess I thought they harbored ideals of outdoorsmanship, but when someone offers you a load of cash to turn away all hikers for a night – the very clientele you were purportedly founded to serve – well, who can blame you for accepting, right?

Second, one of the hut hostesses kindly informed us that the Europaweg was closed between there and Zermatt. We would have to detour down to the valley floor and then do the heinous hike back up if we wished to take the famed Europaweg all the way. Yeah, right. Well, as upsetting as these two pieces of news were, I believe things worked out for the better. We began hiking to the Domhutte on the trail labeled “alpine route” on our map. It quickly went from steep to SCARY! The fixed cables, hand-holds, and ladders were usually on some pretty exposed rock. The beginning was the worst because were going along a ridge or nose of rock that began to make me very nervous. I was also anxious about the trip back down the next day. Going down always seems scarier than up, for whatever reason.

About an hour into the trail, we took a break and almost decided to turn around. But we kept going and eventually left the crazy death-defying jungle gym for a boulder field which was much easier to navigate. Still, you can’t imagine our relief when the hut appeared above us. I was so happy I cheered and gave Chris a kiss. He was too exhausted to celebrate with me. The hut is on a broad slope below one of Dom’s many ridges. It is right beside an impressive glacier spilling down the ledges of the mountain. But the most impressive part was the view! The tallest mountain around, Monta Rosa, was a huge mass dominating the upper left side of the valley. Part of the mountain is in Italy, so it’s not officially the tallest mountain in Switzerland. That distinction belongs to Dom. Directly across the valley was the Weisshorn. And between that peak and Monta Rosa was the royal queen of the Huate Route – the Matterhorn. Yes, I’ve finally seen it in it’s entirety. It is an impressive pyramid rising imposingly above the valley. That mountain is really fickle though, it is often covered in clouds. I think some of the other mountains around it don’t get the proper attention for their own individual badassness. In any case, the vista from the Domhutte is probably one of the best anywhere in the world and made the strenuous hike up well worth it.

Staying in the hut was a humbling experience. While the “alpine route” had challenged our nerves and bodies, most of the people in the hut were preparing for an epic 12+ hour climb to the top of Dom in the morning. I was very impressed and have never been around so many crazy, death-defying people!

A couple of views along the Europaweg

I was so relieved to make it to the hut!

veg-heads

2010-02-23T19:50:00.003-07:00

Chris and I decided to give up meat for Lent. It's not too much of a sacrifice, since we already don't eat a lot of meat. But, as Chris pointed out, knowing we can't have it makes bacon and hamburgers sound even better than usual! But our church is doing a focus on hunger issues for Lent, plus being in Liberia made us aware of what a luxury meat is in much of the world. So we are 6 days in and going strong. So far, we've made vegetable stirfry with tofu, french onion soup, and pizza (it's cooking right now and I can't wait!). We've also enjoyed eating at Chipotle, Spoons, and Mad Greens. And Sunday we had amazing hamburgers at Five Guys!

I tried being a vegetarian in college, but it was really hard and I ended up getting sick about once a month during my 6-month stint. Oddly enough, it took my family about 6 years to figure out I was back to eating meat. (Between studying geology, enjoying spending time in the woods w/out showers, voting democrat in the last 3 presidential elections, and marrying a guy with a big beard, I have definitely been stamped the family hippy, even though this is far from the truth!)

Anyway, last weekend I made a bunch of vegetable broth so we could have some stored up for making soups during lent. It was an interesting process, mainly because it involved A LOT of vegetables - carrots, celery, leeks, butternut squash, onions, sundried tomatoes, and red peppers. It was easy to make and basically involved cooking all of these together for about 3 hours. The only sad part is that all of those beautiful veggies turn into mush and then get thrown away. But we made french onion soup with it last night and I was pleased with the flavor.

Here are the veggies before and after broth making:

If you have recommendations for vegetarian meals, let me know! :)

Day 12: Gruben to Gasenreid

2010-02-17T22:37:00.002-07:00

We got an early start because of an ominous sign in Gruben stating: “St. Nicklaus 6 hr 40 min.” and we were headed 1-2 hours past St. Nicklaus! We left the hotel at 7:45, bought some groceries at an extremely limited shop at the main hotel in town, and started straight up! The views were nice but we felt kind of rushed by the long day. We made it up the Augstbordpass by 11:00. Unfortunately I was exhausted at the top. This was probably when the cumulative fatigue of the past 11 days really caught up with me and never really left. We were relieved but somewhat sad to leave the top of our last pass.

Our lunch spot was an amazing perch looking up the valley of our final destination. I admit to feeling very tired – almost more sleepy than anything else. I finally pulled out of it by thinking about my office, of all things, and how in a couple of weeks I would kill to be back on that mountain side, enjoying the limitless views and sunshine. So just remembering to appreciate the moment boosted my spirits immensely, although the insistent downhill began to get to both of our knees!

In St. Nicklaus I decided to respect my own limitations and took the bus to Gasenreid. Chris, with his superhuman powers marched straight up the valley side to the very small village. By the time he got there, I had checked us in to the Alpin Rosi (we were the only guests!), showered, and bought lunches and snacks for the next two days (and wine, of course!). The gracious hotel owner cooked us a comfortingly delicious meal of beef stroganoff. It was about time we stop just walking by the cows and finally eat one! We were both completely beat after dinner and barely finished our bottle of wine. I slept soundly but Chris was restless and felt bad in the morning.

Our last pass

Switzerland's tallest mountain, Mt. Dom (14911 ft)

Our lunch spot

Nice hamlet of Jungen

A nice church w/ a beastly-looking glacier spilling off Mt Dom in Gasenreid.

Day 11: Zinal to Gruben

2010-02-17T22:16:00.003-07:00

Today didn’t start out too well, except that breakfast was a smorgasbord of cheese, ham, chocolate granola, yogurt, and fruit. Then we realized that somebody (me) had made a slight scheduling error. If we continued to Cabane Bella Tolla as planned, we still had five days of hiking, but we need to be in Jena for my conference in five days. So we changed plans and decided to hike over the Forcletta directly to Gruben. We spent the next few hours making sure we would have a place to stay that night and the last night on the trail. Staying in the Europa hut and hiking the Europaweg were billed as the crowning pinnacle on this amazing hike, so we were upset to find out that the Europa hut was full Friday night. We looked at the map and decided to reserve beds at the Domhutte, on the slopes of Switzerland’s tallest mountain.

We finally left Zinal around 11 AM, a disappointingly late start since Gruben lay a solid 6 hours away. The trail out of Zinal was straight up but then leveled out to a very beautiful, nearly flat trail. The vista behind us (up valley) was impressive! On the other side of the Forcletta, we were treated to the visual wonders of the Turtmantall valley. The most impressive part was the Weisshorn, whose knife-edged summit was creating its own weather as snow blew off the ridge. The hike was beautiful and only gradually downhill until the end.

We walked through a sheep farm with some very cute, confused, and noisy inhabitants. At one point, the farmer lit a small fire. They all started bleating and ran toward him. Then just as the first sheep got to him they suddenly realized that you shouldn’t run into a fire, and the whole herd took a sharp right turn, bleating even more. They were very wary of us, too, but were cute even when they were running away baa-ing.

We had to stop for several pictures on the way down on account of the views. Once the trail started descending in earnest, we high-tailed it to Gruben in a record downhill time for the Harper’s. We made it to our hostel right about 7:00 – a long day!

On top of the Forcletta, we had decided it was time to eat/”cook” the food we bought in La Sage. So Chris poured macaroni into his nalgene to let them soften. Then in Gruben we combined the wet, mushy noodles with a can of diced tomatoes, tuna, and cheese. Holy crap, it was disgusting!! We both ate as much as we could but were gagging by the end and threw a bunch away. We took our cheap butts into the hotel restaurant and each had a beer. Chris had an enormous plate of fries and I had some delicious homemade pumpkin soup. I think it made up for the awful macaroni mixture and only cost about $16. Our beds were in the attic but were the only ones up there and the beds were amazingly comfortable.

Leaving Zinal, far below

Hiking up the Forcletta

The Weisshorn is my new favorite mountain.

Our hotel in Gruben, the Waldesruh

Day 10: Moiry to Zinal

2010-02-17T22:08:00.003-07:00

Compared to yesterday, the views today were only okay. The best part of the day was finding a hotel by 2:30 and having all afternoon to unwind. It was so cold when we woke up! We broke camp and were on the trail in 30 minutes. We passed the Alpage again in time to see a cow herder taking the cows out for the day. It was a funny sight – this rough looking man yelling in a monotone voice, the cows spilling out of a barrack, blinking in the sun and slowly picking their way through the shit-strewn exit. Now that’s a slice of Switzerland not everyone gets to see!

We made it past the dam (“barrage”) of Lac Moiry after an hour, had breakfast, removed some layers, and were on our way again. The climb up Corne de Sorebois was supposed to take 1:50 but we got into a really nice rhythm and made it in 1:30. Woohoo! I guess 9 days of hiking is starting to pay off. Also, Chris was brought down to my pace because he carried all the food, to help give my knees a break. What a guy!

The hike down sucked, except for the views of the 4500 m tall Weisshorn (14,700 ft). It was definitely knee-jarring, and Chris took my sleeping bag to make sure mine weren’t completely destroyed. The other good thing about the descent was a playground near a lift station with an awesome zip line.

We spent the afternoon drinking coffee, browsing the grocery store and sports shops ($30 for a pair of hiking socks!?), searching for a mysterious sizzling cheesy dish (maybe Raclette?), making phone calls and writing post cards. We also ran into Mike and Jenny, it was good to see them! We splurged on dinner since last night was free. I accidentally ordered a plate of meat (“asainette Valainase”) that turned out to be delicious (bacon, salami, proscutto, and something else salty and amazing), and Chris got glorified macaroni and cheese. Mixed together, the two plates were phenomenal!

I'd been wishing for a zip line on every down hill.

The nice town of Zinal, which we had several hours to enjoy.

One plate of meat, coming right up!

Day 9: La Sage to Alpage du Moiry

2010-02-17T21:47:00.005-07:00

I realized last night after reading a friend's blog about following her dreams, that I never finished posting about the Haute Route. I should probably be writing about Liberia but let's take this one country at a time ;)

Day 9
Hiking in the Alps rules! This was one of my favorite days. Amazing considering the day started with a slight hiccup. We left the gite fairly early and went to a grocery store. We bought all sorts of stuff to make dinner at the Chalet du Moiry. Then we called the Chalet and found out they were full … and there are no other options within a 1-1/2 hour walk! Well, we decided to just figure it out as we went and set off toward the Col de Torrent. It was a long hike up but the views were amazing. One of the most impressive sights was an icefield at the head of one of the 2 valleys below us. The largest peak emerging from all the snow and ice was Tete Blanche, which is in Italy. Even though the hiking was hard at times, all I needed was to take in the views and I would feel re-energized.

We spent an hour at the top enthralled by the vista. It was amazing how much of our journey we could see. There was Rosa Blanche (above the Grand Desert), the Grand Combin, the Pigne de Arolla, Aguilles Rouges, Mont Blanche de Chielon (above Cab. Dix), and Grand Dent! Whew! As we headed down toward the absurdly blue Lac Moiry, we decided we wanted to camp. The day was pristine and the mountains at the head of the valley were impressive and glacier-clad – the kind of thing you could look at for hours. We tried to find the owner of the alpage (which maybe means “ranch”?) but he wasn’t around, so we headed back up the trail and found a perfect campsite in between some of the small hills. It was heavenly!

We laid in the sun and read, and watched shadows creep across the glaciers. Can life get any better?? As the sun got lower we set up the tent and “feasted” on half of our lunch for the next day, plus a bottle of wine and a chocolate bar. It was a very cold night, though, and a frost set in and dusted our packs. Not the best night’s sleep but worth it for the views and tranquility of the evening!

PS This morning Chris’ pack weighed 35 lbs and mine weighed 30 lbs (pre-groceries). We had no coffee, and our heart rates were below 52 bpm each!

A view back up the valley on the way up the Col de Torrent. Arolla is up the valley on the right. Les Haudres is on the valley floor.

One of the best lunch spots of the trip.

Typical signage at trail junctions.

I wouldn't mind being back here right now!

Best camping spot ever! We spent the afternoon lounging in the grass and reading.

Sad News

2010-02-17T10:55:00.004-07:00

My adviser's son was in a really serious car accident early Tuesday morning. I don't know all the details but it sounds like he was thrown from the car and has several broken bones. :( He's had surgery and is in stable condition but probably has 6-12 months of recovery ahead of him. This is really sad news, and I feel really bad for my adviser. He's had to deal with lots of frustrations and set backs in the last year and this must be really hard.

Now I am even more convinced that I will be getting very little input as I go forward on my PhD, at least for a few months (which of course I completely understand, he should be with his son right now). Becoming more independent is the point of the doctoral degree anyway. Today I took part in a poster session being held for the National Science Foundation's review team - they are determining whether or not CMMAP (where my funding comes from) will be renewed for the next 5 years. I hope so - I'm enjoying the research here and the opportunities to interact with other grad students and scientists, and the educational and outreach activities. Anyway, doing the poster made me realize how many different things I am interested in right now, and it's hard to decide which topics to focus on. I am feeling pessimistic about the feasibility of my proposed doctoral research. The model I'd like to use is still being developed, and could take a couple of years to be ready. But, like I said, I still have lots of interesting things to do and maybe that project can still happen one day.

I went to a meeting at NCAR last week on their land surface model and had a couple of good conversations. I met a PhD student from Arizona, who is analyzing observations and dynamic vegetation models in the Amazon. We are both interested in the drought sensitivity of the Amazon so it was useful to meet him. I also talked with someone who used to be in my research group about looking at a vegetation model forced by future climate scenarios. This sounds great to me b/c I could look at the Amazon forest's response to a range of possible climates, giving an envelope of possibilities. (Some models predict the Amazon forest will disappear by 2100 because of climate change. I am dubious of this result. However I'm also dubious that people will stop cutting down the forest, unfortunately.) Also the model he uses does a good job of representing the current Amazon, which is something lots of land surface models don't do. That is a pretty important first step before predicting the future!

Ok, I've rambled, which is ok because the server with all my data is down right now. But now that I've reminded myself of all these research interests, I'm sure I can find something productive to do, other than writing on my blog. :)

Colorado vs Liberia

2010-02-04T16:20:00.004-07:00

So far, coming home from Liberia has been bittersweet. I actually wish we had a few more days there, things didn't really come together until the last few days and it would have been fun to have some more time to get to know the friends we made there. I keep thinking about how different life is here! So in honor of that, here are some things I've been grateful for since returning, and things that I've missed.

Grateful for:
- electricity and running water
- brushing my teeth with the tap water
- how clean it is here
- my education
- our government (there's plenty to complain about but at least it works)

I don't miss:
- worrying about running over hundreds of pedestrians while driving
- all the attention that comes with being an American in Africa (especially when holding a camera ...)
- people assuming that just b/c I'm American I have plenty of money to spare
- sweating all day
- not being sad or wanting to cry several times a day.

I miss (oddly enough):
- seeing the status of the ants on my bathroom wall each morning
- talking with Chris while showering and filling the bucket in case the water pressure runs out
- waking up to Francis' beautiful smile and hugs
- being surrounded by joyful people
- the inspiration of Rev. Luther and the Transformation International boys,
- coke with real sugar
- swimming in the ocean after a long and hot day.

We have tons of pictures to go through, soon I'll start posting a few at a time with some stories.

YIKES!!!

2010-01-16T17:56:00.002-07:00

We leave for Liberia in just a few days. My bags are packed and I'm physically ready to go, but emotionally and mentally I feel far from ready! I talked to Sarah Jane today about it and she said she thinks she just needs to be there so she can stop worrying about it. I think I might agree with her.

My conference in San Diego went well. I loved the area, and for the first time in a few years I can say that I could see myself living somewhere in California! My favorite part of the conference was when we brought up policy or ethical issues. It's not really related to my research but personally is the most interesting part of what I do. On one hand, I enjoy being a part of a field that is very relevant to society right now, but on the other hand I don't want to get wrapped up in the policy side of things because that is way beyond my area of expertise!

Anyway, I'm just stopping in between packing and cleaning. It is sooo nice to be home, I kind of wish I could be here a little longer before heading out again.

A strange year coming up!

2010-01-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

For the last few years, by this time of year I am either into my cycling base training or getting ready to start a triathlon training plan. I am extremely goal oriented and have become hooked to this lifestyle of training and racing. But this year is different, for a few reasons ...
1. I need something different. I did a lot of base training last year, and it gets boring going the same, slow speed all the time.
2. I'll be in Liberia 2 weeks and won't workout at all, so what's the point in ramping up the fitness until after then?
3. I have no idea what races I will do this year because of the B-word, which Chris and I have been talking about lately. I would hate to register for and invest my time in training for a race and then not do it because I'm the P-word. Then again, Chris also brought up how much he wants to travel still this morning, so maybe we will just never have the C-word. And just because we might start trying to get P-word (which won't happen until after Liberia, at the earliest) doesn't mean it will actually happen any time soon.

So this is strange for me, and I am at a loss for what to do or how to motivate myself to workout when I have no idea what it's for. So for now I am just living in denial and daydreaming about how I'm going to get faster this year.

Differences

2010-01-04T22:30:00.004-07:00

I keep thinking about the man we had dinner with last night during a meeting to get ready for Liberia. He's from Rwanda, but spent much of his childhood in refugee camps in Uganda. He talked about watching his two sisters die of starvation, of barely surviving on a bowl of porridge a day, and of being hurried into a hospital to hide after learning a group of rebels were coming to kill everyone in the village. He kept saying, "It was very hard" or "It was challenging." I kept thinking about all the things I've said are challenging in my life and how easy they were in comparison! We are so lucky for the lives we have.

Also, he started a feeding program in Rwanda that serves a small community of children. He is a student and earns $800 a month, and he sends $300 a month to this program. How can I hear a story like this and not question my own unwillingness to part with my time and money to help others? I'm so grateful that he came and had dinner with us!

2009 - a great year!

2010-01-01T10:55:00.015-07:00

As I predicted back in January of 09, it was an amazing year. One that I don't know if we'll ever top. Right now I'm okay with that, on top of being a lot of fun, 2009 was exhausting and I wouldn't mind a quieter year in 2010. As soon as we get back from Liberia ...

But one thing that strikes me is that even if you take out our life-list type feats, it was still a pretty good year! I attribute that to the Colorado lifestyle and the good friends we've made here in Fort Collins. So for this post, I want to reflect on the more "normal" good times of 2009, the ones that make day-to-day life in the Choice City.

In January, we went snowshoeing at Lake Agnes near Cameron Pass with Nick and Levi. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time sliding across the frozen lake!

In February I went to one of my favorite place, Moab, with two of my favorite people, Michelle and Rachel. Here we are at our campsite with enough supplies for a week:
And we traveled back to Atlanta to visit Chris' grandfather, who since then has turned 90 and gotten remarried! :)

In March and April I taught at Colorado College in Co. Springs. On a weekend back in the Fort, Chris and I went on an urban hike around the city. We saw fox, deer, made a snowman, and had some fun with the prairie dogs (look for the prairie dog and snowball in the picture ... no animals were harmed in the making of this picture):

Chris also came to the Springs for a weekend and we hiked around the Garden of the Gods. I worked a ton while down there but one positive was finding just enough spare time to explore the natural beauty of this area.

May brought us spring and the beginning of our athletic pursuits - the Colorado half marathon, and a great weekend for the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic in Durango.

We went on a couple other hikes with Nick and Levi - first a failed attempt up Mt Spalding (a thirteener next to Mt. Bierstad) where we fought willows and mud and ultimately had to turn around near the summit due to thunder. Then a beautiful hike near Pingree Park, which was a little longer than expected but extraordinarily scenic. And in July, Chris and I traveled to the Cloud Peak wilderness in Wyoming for a weekend of sitting by the campfire trying to stay warm and fend off mosquitos. We'll have to go there again sometime, the mountains were beautiful!
Hiking up Spalding:

Captain of the campfire in Pingree Park:

Chris & I in the Cloudpeak Wilderness:

The lesser talked about part of our Europe trip is the week in Jena, Germany for the International CO2 Conference. I took an afternoon off and Chris and I explored the city, including a small festival where we rode a ferris wheel. We also visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. That was an experience I won't forget, it was VERY sad but a good thing to see. One of the wierdest things about it was the camp was on a hill overlooking a town - I just don't understand how people could be going about their normal life just a few miles away.

In October, we went on a nice hike in RMNP for our sixth anniversary. After hiking in Switzerland, it was a great reminder that we live in a pretty amazing place, too! Just an hour from our house is some of the best scenery in the country, how lucky are we?

In November we traveled back east - for me the trip included a visit to friends in Lexington, KY and my brother in Nashville. Chris also finally taught me how to throw a cast net in our feeble attempt to catch shrimp. Turns out it isn't so easy from the banks of a marsh.

And we ended the year with a relaxing Christmas at home. Here is Chris showing off his favorite present.

The lazy beast within

2009-12-28T12:56:00.002-07:00

Christmas was very nice for Chris and I. We have been so busy lately between work and Liberia preparations that we needed a few days off. I missed being with my family but the quiet time at home was wonderful. We had our friends Mollie and Rob over on Christmas Eve. Kelty, their 2-year-old, kept our cats in line, and Keen, their tiny 1-mo-old just lay there and snorted every now and then. We had some good laughs and it was nice to share the holiday with friends.

We went to church at 11 PM and Christmas day we slept in (the theme of the weekend). Chris gave me some great books I'm looking forward to reading (3 cups of tea, in defense of food, and a slow-cooker cookbook!) and some funny presents. He was simply delighted by the UGA snuggie I bought him (haha). Personally I think it is great for those sub-zero nights we've been having, even if it's not as stylish as the leapord-print snuggies. I stayed in my pajamas all day on Christmas, a feat I have not accomplished in ages. It was great! I even got started on my masterpiece paint-by-numbers (further proof of my inner 80-year-old).

This morning was painful though, and after 4 days of sleeping past 9:00, I realized just how lazy I am deep down. Somehow, I surpress the laziness through early morning workouts and my caffeine addiction, but letting the lazy beast out for a few days made it even harder to fight back today. I lead a pretty active lifestyle and sometimes compare myself to some amatuer triathletes or cyclists, but in this respect I am so different from the super driven athletes. When given the chance, I LOVE to slack off! It just makes me wonder how long I can keep up this act.

Luckily, although it was difficult to get to, I really enjoyed my 6:30 AM body pump class, so I have some hope for returning to a productive human being. Then again, it's 1 PM and I am blogging instead of working, sooooo ...... yeah.

Day 8: Arolla to La Sage

2009-12-21T22:23:00.006-07:00

We took our time leaving today and did some grocery shopping first. We also said goodbye to our British friends, who were taking a rest day in Arolla. Chris and I also split ways early on the trail – he took a more difficult route while I tried to salvage the cartilage in my knees by taking the lower trail. We’ve been having a great time traveling together, but it was a little nice to be on the trail alone for a bit. Solitude is a good thing from time to time.

After about 1-1/2 hours we met up at Lac Blue – more like a pond with very clear, blue water. Well, it was a little warm so I decided to jump in. Once my feet were in I realized I’d have to just dive in or give up because it was frigid! When I dove in, I really wondered if I would make it out – it was probably the coldest water I’ve ever been in! There were lots of people picnicking around the lake and I got some funny looks, including from Chris. Oh well, it was fun!

We then hiked down a lot to Les Haudres, where we had a delicious lunch of Switzerland’s version of a slim jim, bread, honey (from Les Haudres), nutella and plums. Very nice. From there it was just an hour to La Sage, where we are staying tonight. La Sage is tiny and I kind of wish we had just stayed in Les Haudres. Our hostel/gite is kind of dumpy but what else can I expect from an old village on the side of a mountain? I did some laundry, then Chris and I sat on the deck and took in the views and some beer/coffee. Dinner was a very pleasant surprise. Chris got lamb covered in an amazing soft cheese and I had a tasty sausage. Now we are hanging out in a common room with some French people. Oh yeah, there was a bit of communication error with our hostess. We asked for the menu and then waited 30 minutes before deciding that something had been lost in translation. At least that gave us plenty of time to get very hungry!

The silly American

A typical Valaisian home in Les Haudres

Our hostel in La Sage, the food was great

Day 7: Refuge les Ecoulies and Arrolla

2009-12-21T22:12:00.003-07:00

We woke up to less than an inch of snow. Not a big deal but it was very pretty … and cold! The door to the bathroom, outside the refuge, was frozen shut! Today’s hike was very exciting, and we really enjoyed having the trail to ourselves most of the way. We left at 8:45 and walked along the Lac Dixence. We decided to hike by the Cabane de Dix and I’m glad we did. It’s in an amazing setting, surrounded by peaks and glaciers. It would be an awesome place to stay the night.

But we continued on and walked across a glacier! This was one of the highlights of the trip so far. We were on the glacier before we realized it. We both thought we were still on a lateral moraine, but looked down and realized the small rocks and dirt were actually frozen together. If you brushed the top layer of rocks aside you saw nothing but clear ice below! Once we got to the main glacier, it was obvious. Under the dusting of snow, it was just clear. Here and there little streams coursed down the ice and looked like them-park water slides (Chris even tried sliding down a little slope on the glacier). It was very beautiful. The streams were the clearest things you’ve ever seen. I got some water from one and it was refreshing, and also had an interesting mineral flavor. It was also interesting being at the edge of a glacier. You could see how the ice in contact with rocks would melt first, so if there were only very small rocks you’d see little spires of ice between them.

After probably about an hour, we left the glacier and headed up the Col de Chevres. I guess we left the trail because we ended up scrambling up some super-steep, sketchy stuff. It reminded me of some of our Alaska hiking. You can’t actually hike up the Col de Chevres – instead there are four 10-15 ft. ladders linked together scaling a steep cliff! I was very relieved and a little shaky at the top!

This was when we started to run into all the other hikers. It was a nice descent into Arolla. As we talked to people, we learned that our choice to not stay at the Cabane de Prafluerie was a good one. It was crowded and only had 2 bathrooms and no cooking facilities. No one sounded like they enjoyed it, plus the Col de Roux was very icy in the early morning.

We’ve learned that the Swiss seem to be super hikers. I think you have to be pretty hardcore to climb any of these mountains. This point was further driven home when we arrived in Arolla and a 25 km race was ending that went from 1800 m (5900 ft) to 3000 m (9800 ft) and back to 2000 m (6500 ft). The winner did it in 2:15! Arolla was nice but crowded, especially with the “trek” in town. Luckily we found a room and dinner from some folks selling food out of their garage. We had a refreshing beer with dinner and then polished off an entire bottle of wine! A Goron from Cab. de la Tsa – which actually is a cabin you can stay at perched above Arolla. The funniest part of the day was listening to all the drunk racers and festival-goers outside our hostel. They were singing in French along with an accordion – funny how drunk people sound the same in any language.

Cabane de Dix (get your mind out of the gutter, "dix" means ten in French!):

We were hoping to start the 2009 Georgia season right, oh well:

Glaciers and ice outside of Arolla:

Day 6: Cab. Mont Fort to Refuge Les Ecoulies

2009-12-21T20:47:00.004-07:00

Today was a very difficult day in terms of mileage (~11 mi.) and terrain (4 cols), but we both felt great and had a very good day. The only bad thing about the day was the line of people on the trail, thanks to the added traffic from the tour group. We can go fast, but today we stopped so often for pictures or just enjoying the scenery that we were almost the last ones on the trail. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so why rush?

First we walked along the Sentier des Chamois, an almost even trail along the side of a mountain with spectacular views of the Grand Combin and the mountains we’d walked by days 2, 3, and 4. Every now and then we’d look around and realized, “Holy crap, we’re walking in the Swiss Alps!” ☺ We went over the Col Termin, then the much more difficult Col de Louvie. The wind was so fierce at the top that it knocked Chris over when he knelt to take a picture! It was flurrying, too, so we hurried on and had lunch overlooking the Grand Desert glacier.

The hike to the Col du Plafuerie was our favorite part of the day. Past the Grand Desert, we were on flat rocky ledges and passed by a picturesque tarn. The sun even came out, so we stopped to gaulk and have a couple of sips of wine. The wine led to all sorts of silliness heading up the Col (or maybe it was just our ebulence at the glory of the day). We imitated Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin (cycling announcers) and referred to the hikers ahead of us as the breakaway that we were trying to reel in. Then Chris attacked … all hell broke loose! Once the climb kicked in we stopped talking though. We caught up to Mike and Jenny (the couple from Texas) and then waited on them at the top for high-fives and then headed on.

By now it was snowing/graupeling, and that continued on and off the rest of the evening. We made it to the Cabane Prafluerie around 5:00. It was packed. We stopped in for some hot drinks and chatted with Todd. I got hot chocolate and Chris got coffee and they both came in huge bowls! Yum! We somewhat reluctantly left the warmth of the Cabane for Col #4: Col de Roux. It didn’t take long and soon we were overlooking the Val d’Dixence, with a long man-made lake, steep slopes all around, and large glacier-clad mountains at the head of the valley.

We stopped for several pictures and then made our way to the Refuge des Ecoulies. We were the only ones there – a very welcome sight after the Cabane. We had some delicious cold ravioli with cheese, sauce, and 3-day old bread. Add some wine and great views, it was an excellent evening!

Hot chocolate served in a bowl. Score!

Sunshine on the other side of Col de Roux

Our cabin for the night

Day 5: Le Chable to Cabane du Mont Fort

2009-12-13T21:22:00.003-07:00

Today we ascended 1600 m, or 5200 feet, kind of like climbing Long’s Peak! It was difficult yet enjoyable. The higher we got, the grander the views. Relative to the Swiss hiking times posted on signs here, Chris and I are faster uphill than down. I think we just get into a good rhythm and take less breaks going up. Stopping during a climb makes getting going again very difficult. So we just go. Today Chris set the pace and it was challenging but do-able for me. Unil the end, when we came around a ridge and saw the Cabane. It looked so close but was 45 minutes away! I was delirious with exhaustion, but also with the amazement at the views.

I like the cabane, it’s nicer than expected. We have a private room and things seem pretty clean. It’s 3-stories high and has strange horned human heads outside that howl when you walk by. Someone’s idea of art, my idea of creepy!

We are getting to know some of our fellow trekkers. Mike and Jenny are kind and maybe a little overwhelmed by the experience. Todd is a vet from Vermont/Albany (NY). We ate dinner with him tonight. Then there are four British guys in their late 50’s who impress us with their speed. We’ve also met a British couple and a Canadian couple. We were a little bummed to see a group of 10+ show up on a guided tour. The only plus is one of the guides, Dan, went to UGA and has lived in Italy for 15 years since graduating.

Well this hike has been very enjoyable so far. Some times it’s harder than I expected, but the views almost never disappoint and Chris and I are having fun. We came to the realization this morning that our legs will probably hurt the rest of the trip. But, on the plus, they will be made of steel by the time we reach Zermatt! ☺ Oh yeah, the espresso at Hotel la Poste was amazing!

The Cabane du Mont Fort, nestled among the peaks and gondolas

Incredible view from the cabin's deck

Day 4: Champex-Lac to Le Chable

2009-12-13T21:20:00.001-07:00

According to Kev, today was “easy.” According to Chris, “It was steep and far down to the place.” The hike was mostly downhill, but that can be very rough on the legs. It started out fabulously. We hobbled to breakfast and then decided to go for a walk before checking out of the Club Alpin. The walk elevated our legs from very gimpy to slightly sore status. We watched old men fishing along the Lac and fog rolling in over the hills. We spoke with 3 people on their way out on the Tour du Mont Blanc, and one couple from Texas (Mike and Jenny) who are also doing the Haute Route. None of them went over the Fenetre the day before, which made us feel either special or dumb, or maybe just “youthfully” over-ambitious.

We left town about 10:15. The first half of the hike was great – overlooking a very pastoral valley with impressive mountains all around. We passed a handful of hamlets. Many of the homes in this region have their own garden, some of which Chris was drooling over.

If I could go back to this AM however, I would recommend taking the train between Sembrancher and Le Chable. Much of the walk was on a gravel road next to an extensive gravel pit, with lots of heavy machinery and a recycling/compost center. It was ugly, to be honest. One highlight, however, was when we realized the Tour de France had passed through this area in July. Apparently, there’s something called the “Livestrong bot”, which will paint messages on the raods of the TDF. The messages went on for a few hundred meters and made an impression on me. Here, thousands of miles from home, you see evidence of two things probably all people have in common. First is cancer – in some form we all know someone who had or has it. Second is the human spirit – the will to fight, the audacity to hope (sorry to steal the phrase), the remembrance of loved ones gone, the need to cheer for cyclists about to tackle climbs that seem just as crazy as beating cancer. It just made me feel, I don’t know, more connected to the humanity around us, and even to whatever it is that compels so many people to shoulder a pack and traipse through these jumbled mountains (I’ll let you know when I figure out what that is).

So enough philosophy. Le Chable is in an impressive setting, but unfortunately it’s cloudy so we can’t fully appreciate it. We spent the afternoon in an exhausting search for groceries, dinner, gifts, etc. But now we are enjoying our 80 degrees private room in Hotel la Poste. Also we are noticing our heart rates are unusually high. Mine was 86 bpm at breakfast. Maybe it was the 3 cups of coffee, because tonight it is down to 52.

Day 3: Side of mountain to Champex-Lac

2009-12-13T21:14:00.003-07:00

Trient Glacier

Chris didn’t sleep well at our crooked campsite, and I woke up from time to time, too, with fears of marmots getting into our bags or geese flying over our heads (not sure why that was a concern but I woke Chris up a few times yelling at these fictitious creatures). But every time I woke up, I was enthralled by the scene around us. The horizon, or 270 degrees of it, was lined with jagged peaks, and the sky splashed with stars. Down below us, the peaceful village of Trient sparkled in the dark valley. So not sleeping well didn’t bother me too much.

When we woke up, some chamoix were wandering around the hillside next to us. These “acrobats of the hillside,” according to a children’s book we bought for Ashlyn, look like goats with warpaint, according to Chris. They looked like beefy pronghorn to me. Anyway, the closest one to us made eye contact when we started talking, and then ran away. Then all the others galloped off, as if the rocy hillside were nothing. They must have been very spooked because they kept running until they were far out of sight. But I felt like we were very fortunate to see so many of them (8-10), considering how skittish they are.

Anyway, we had seen the trail for the day the evening before, and it looked crazy. This ended up being a very difficult day, but I was glad we at least knew somewhat what to expect. We started hiking at 9:15 and hiked down, down, down. We had to take a break near the Chalet du Glacier at about 11 AM just to give our joints a break. Here’s an idea of the profile: we passed the Refuge les Grands at 2100 m, then down to the Chalet at 1500 m, and then back up to the Fenetre d’Arpette at 2660 m, and back down to Champex at 1460 m! My legs were so tired by the end that they ached.

The hike up the Fenetre (which means ‘window’ in French) was not so bad because we did a good job of pacing ourselves (AKA I was in front, and we stopped every 25-30 minutes). We arrived at about 2:10 and the view at the top was pretty amazing, as were the views of the Glacier de Trient all the way up. I’ve never been so close to such a huge glacier, it was impressive. It was also interesting to compare it to a picture in the book we are using. I don’t know when that was taken, but the glacier seems to have retreated quite a bit since then.

The only really bad part of the day was the water. There were plentiful streams to drink from on the way up but none for about 1-1/2 hours on the way down. It was hot and we were very very thirsty and growing more fatigued with every step. I was so happy to finally see a stream that I was ready to lap the water off the ground, if necessary.

We finally arrived at Champex-Lac at 6:15, just in time to check into a hotel (Club Alpin), rinse off, and sit down for a magnificent dinner. So all told we hiked for 8 hours 15 minutes. Kev (the author of our guide book) said it would take 6.5-7, oh well. We loved our hotel. For 70 francs (about $70), we got a 5-person room all to ourselves, a 4-course dinner, and breakfast (I had 3 cups of coffee ☺). Also Champex was nice, a beautiful setting but not over-developed.

The Refuge les Grands - a nice spot that we passed up in favor of camping last night.

Easy hiking on the western side of the Fenetre

Views along Lac Champex

Stage 2: Argentiere to side of mountain

2009-12-13T21:00:00.005-07:00

View from our campsite

Today we hiked from 10:30-4:45, with about a 1-1/2 hr break at the Col de Balme. The hike up to the Col was much more difficult than I was expecting. We gained 2400 ft. from Le Tour. Mocking us the whole way were gondolas and lifts, but that would be cheating! The views made it well worthwhile, though – especially of Mont Blanc.

At the Col, we had lunch and then napped for 45-60 minutes! We were beat. The trail since hasn’t been difficult, just along the side of this mountain. We decided to camp tonight (even though it’s illegal, for whatever reason). It’s been nice to have this amazing vista to ourselves. Only problem is there’s no room for a tent because the hillside is steep and rocky. So we will be sleeping at a bit of an angle but hopefully won’t roll away!

I’m enjoying our food – salami, local cheese, baguettes, nutella, chocolate, fruit, and wine. ☺ Sleeping outside is great, this makes the trip feel more like what we usually enjoy doing outside.

the dinner table

view of Mont Blanc on the way up the Col de Balme

Pictures from Stage 1, Haute Route

2009-12-13T20:55:00.001-07:00

These didn't work last time so I'm trying again! Better late than never :)

A view from the train in Germany. This is when I was thinking, "I want to move to Europe."

Reto cooking us fondue:

Street-side dining in Bern:

Neat mountains along the trail on the first day:

I'm going to Liberia

2009-11-15T22:38:00.003-07:00

The craziness never ends in the Harper household. Just as the dust is settling from one trip, we up and decide to go on another. In truth, going to Liberia will be much more than a vacation, and will gobble up the majority of our time off for 2010, but I think it will be worth it. I think it will be good for me, it's been 4 years since I went to Gulfport to help with hurricane relief, and that trip was inspiring and humbling at the same time. This will be Gulfport multiplied by 1000 since I have probably never seen anything like what we'll see in Monrovia. The trip will be great for Chris because he'll be able to use his talents at videography to help this project get off the ground and continue. And, I am very happy that we are both going, because I think it will be good for us as a couple.

Here is a news story about Plumpy Nut, which is basically peanut butter with some extra nutrients to help feed malnourished kids. According to what I've learned so far, this simple food can save lives, and is easily produced in countries like Liberia where peanuts are easily grown. So it is also a self-sustaining business. I'm sure I'll have more to say later.

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3 reasons to be happy

2009-11-12T08:44:00.003-07:00

1. This morning on the way to work I had a tailwind (yipee) and one of my favorite songs came on my shuffle, "These are the days" by Keith Urban (the song at the end of the 'be here' CD). I love the words so I thought I'd share. (I also love the guitar and his voice too ;)
My grandmama was a wise old soul
took me by the hand not long ago
Said, son what's your hurry, boy slow it down
taste the wild honey, listen to the sound
of the wind that's blowing through the trees
rivers flowing to the sea
yeah they're all heading home just like you and me
life's for living, child can't you see
that these are the days we will remember
these are the times that won't come again
the highest of flames becomes an ember
and you've gotta live it while you can ...

2. I went to an interesting event last night called Ignite Fort Collins. There were quick 5 minute presentations from everything from building your own bike, to being a tomboy, to chasing your dreams. Somewhere in there was a quote I've always liked from Henry Ford: "Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're probably right!" I think this is true & a good reason to have a positive attitude.

3. The Dawgs play Auburn this weekend! This is always a fun game, especially if you are there. It's the Souths oldest rivalry but also a great excuse for friends from both schools to get together and live it up for the weekend. I have several great memories of traveling to this game and hosting friends in Athens. :) Go Dawgs!

(This is an infamous picture of Uga attacking an Auburn player during the 97 game.)

Brain Overload

2009-11-09T21:50:00.002-07:00

Today has been admittedly unproductive. But seriously, you try getting some work done when all you can think about is ...
- Planning a logical and safe way to drive back to Georgia by yourself.
- Also planning how you will get enough work done while driving and visiting friends to justify taking time off (here kicks in grad student guilt complex).
- Wondering if it's worth thousands of dollars to travel to Liberia to help construct a facility that will manufacture and distribute peanut butter to malnourished kids.
- Feeling guilty for just thinking about taking another 2 weeks off for this trip!
- Missing a best friend who you haven't seen in 2 years and probably won't see or talk to again for who knows how long (another year, 3 years??)
- Wondering what else God has up his sleeves for you in the next 6 months ...

I guess it's not much unusual - just life - but I've been in one of those moods today when I just would rather sit and think and talk about all this than do any work. Hence my blogging at 10 PM when I am supposed to be working on a paper revision!

Off-season Goals

2009-11-05T21:54:00.004-07:00

Technically you could say my off-season began as soon as I finished my half ironman Aug. 9. I am a big fan of taking some serious time off during the year. I know it means I lose some fitness but it's worth it for the mental break. Anyway, I slacked off for a couple of months and now I'm ready to get back into a semi-regular routine. But I still won't consider myself back in "training" mode until January - for now I'm happy just to stay active and do what I enjoy!

That being said, I have a couple of goals. These are flexible though and I try to give myself extra wiggle-room this time of year. Chris and I have decided to run together 2-3 days a week, although I'd like to go 3 times and I want to work on speed. I'm not a fast runner but I think with some work that can change. Last year I worked on endurance, so I think this year I'll focus more on faster, shorter runs.

I also want to ride my road bike 2 times a week, just to keep my legs used to it - I hate getting on the bike for the first time in weeks and feeling like crap. Plus I LOVE riding my bike, so this will keep me happy too.

This time of year is also a good time to work on all that boring stuff, like strength and flexibility. I'm trying to go to yoga once a week, which I really enjoy. Rachel and I are talking about lifting weights together - we started today by meeting at the gym at 6:30 AM - way to go us! :)

So, that's it! Oh yeah, I'm also trying to not give in every time I want something unhealthy. I am not very good at things like "self control" and "just say no". I figure if I say no 4 out of 5 times, then I'm on a roll and deserve to splurge 20% of the time. The bad thing is I'm realizing I want something unhealthy most waking moment, so 20% of the time is still a lot. Something else to work on I guess!

Amazing snow!

2009-10-28T20:38:00.009-06:00

How is it that after living here for 5 years I am still so excited by the first big snow of the year? It helps that this is the second biggest storm since we've moved here! I went to work today and just kept looking out the window in wonderment. CSU shut down at 2:00 but I unfortunately have a lot to do, so I was at work till 4. When I got home, Chris and I suited up in our longjohns and snowboarding jackets and walked to Safeway, about a mile away. Along the way, we jumped around in snowdrifts and took pictures of the flaky, powdery stuff clinging to trees in such a beautiful way. You couldn't design a better scene if you had your whole lifetime to do it in!

We picked up some essentials at Safeway - like a baguette, donut, and coffee. Then we called our friends and new neighbors, Matt and Beth, to see if we could stop by and see their new house. Well they were so nice and said they'd cook dinner for us and they had a keg that needed emptying. We're not the kind to refuse help to friends, so we took them up on the offer.

Now we're home and warm. It is still supposed to snow all night and maybe even tomorrow! What fun!

We've been having fun so far in October. My mom came out last weekend to visit. We had a great time on Friday at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and on Saturday hiking up to Arthur's Rock and watching college football. It was really nice to spend some quality time with her!

Haute Route - Day 1, Chamonix to Argentiere

2009-10-17T22:18:00.004-06:00

I kept a log while Chris and I hiked in Switzerland ... I'll be posting 1 or 2 days at a time over the next week or so. Enjoy!

Our trip so far has been great. Reto and his wife treated us to fabulous hospitality in Bern, Switzerland our first night in Europe. Reto cooked fondue, with gruyere and some other local cheeses, wine, garlic, and maybe something else. It was so good! We ate it with bread and cooked carrots and mushrooms.

I am in love (already) with the European lifestyle. The trains are so easy to take and so far have all gone through gorgeous countryside. It seems there is very little untouched land, and yet the towns are very picturesque and the hillsides are covered in fruit trees and vineyards and some pine forests, and the lowlands are usually filled with corn (at least in S. Germany). Bikes are everywhere, and though I noticed that when I went to Europe the first time with my friend Kristi, I appreciate it so much more now that I am a cyclist.

Reto and Saskia’s apartment was not much smaller than our house and very nicely laid out with an open living room and nice balcony. People walk to the grocery store, where processed foods are far less common than in your average American supermarket. Most stores in Bern were closed this morning (Sunday), and despite being a national capital, the city felt very peaceful. Anyway, I think after 3 weeks on this continent, I will be strongly resolved to find a European post-doc!

Today we left Bern at noon. Our train approached the imposing-looking Alps, then went under them and arrived in Visp. We also transferred in Martigny and Vallercine. The ride between those towns was very scenic and actually went up the mountains.

We started our hike at about 4:00. We wandered around Chamonix before finding our route. It was very crowded because of a 100-mile ultramarathon ending in town today! Just when Chris and I begin to think we are doing something crazy, a few thousand people outdo us! Chamonix has a nice setting, especially because of snow-clad Mont Blanc above it and the Drews (spire-like mountains) lining the valley. Mont Blanc just seems like one humongous glacier that was broadly lifted from the valley.

The hike was confusing – we walked through a golf course and along roads, and when we tried to go our own way on the Petite Balcon Sud, we just ended up back on the original trail. But once we were actually on a trail and away from the road, it was much better. Every now and then we’d get views of the amazing mountains, but mostly we were in a forest. After a bit (around 7:00), we arrived in Argentiere.

The hotel/hostel we are in is nice and has cheap food down the street. Best part is, it’s only 14.50 euros per person (we’re sharing a room with 2 other Americans).Of course, the food has been great. The trip is amazing so far!

P.S. Blogger's not uploading my pictures but check back later to see some of them.

Proof

2009-10-11T18:31:00.004-06:00

Here is proof of the snow. I think we got about 5 inches at my house! To make things even more crazy, I ran in the CSU Homecoming 5K Saturday morning. It was freezing cold but kind of fun. It was a good chance to see where I'm at fitness-wise. I ran it in 27:30, although my last mile was in 8:00. So one of my goals for the winter is to get faster! I can't believe how cold it's been. It hasn't been over 30 since Friday afternoon and yesterday's high was in the low 20's! Yikes. Alright, pictures.

And, happy birthday to my husband who is 30 today! I guess we are entering a new era in our lives, who knows what kind of adventures our 30's will bring us.

The sky is falling!

2009-10-09T22:28:00.002-06:00

What the heck?? It is snowing outside, the second time this week! This is our sixth winter in Colorado and by far the earliest snow yet, especially considering that 1.5 inches have already fallen at our house and it's supposed to keep up all night! I was really proud of us for not using the AC all summer because it was unusually cool for the most part. But I guess the flip side is that we caved and turned on the heat tonight, since it is already 17 degrees outside and 53 degrees in our bedroom! So I guess our gas bill this winter will make up for our low energy bill over the summer. I am caught off-guard by this weather but I am going to try to have a positive attitude this winter. Snow is really pretty, and I love snowboarding, snowshoeing, wearing hoodies and drinking hot beverages. So ... here's to winter!

In the Mood

2009-10-05T16:29:00.004-06:00

I've really been in the mood to cook and bake recently. I think it is partly because we were out of town for so long, and I was craving some home-cooked food by the end of our vacation. And I just really enjoy the act of cooking and trying new things. Chris and I are trying to cut down on processed foods, and he is really good at creating recipes (like the pasta sauce he made last week).

I found a website that I am currently obsessed with. Every recipe on it looks amazing. We are going to make a variation of the chicken pot pie with herbed biscuit topping (http://inncuisine.com) sometime this week. But no Bisquick since it has high fructose corn syrup and I'm pretty sure we can come up with our own biscuit topping.

I'm also on a cornbread kick and just finished making some whole wheat strawberry cornbread muffins. I used the cornbread recipe on the box of cornmeal but did half whole wheat flour and a little extra milk. It was a little like this recipe from another cool website (http://madehealthier.com) I found.

Have you found any good recipes lately?? I know Rachel made some amazing fig-cinnamon swirl bread last weekend, which she shared with Michelle and I after a delectable lunch of taco bell. :)

I love fall!

2009-10-02T12:16:00.007-06:00

Well the Rockies are going to the playoffs for the second time in two years! Woohoo! The only sad thing is they beat out the Braves for the wild card spot. I was trying not to cheer against the Braves the last few days, but as they say, I had to root for the home team! Chris and I are in the lottery for tickets to the NLCS (& world series), so hopefully they make it past the division playoffs! Going to the game 2 years ago when they beat the Phillies for the division title was a blast, so I really want to go to another postseason game!

It has been really windy the past few days (gusts up to 60 mph), but today started out calm and beautiful! I went for a run on one of my favorite routes and was just so uplifted by how pretty it was. It was very chilly, about 30 degrees, but sunny. I really love the sunshine, it makes everything better. The leaves are changing in the Fort and there is a crispness in the air that makes me happy.

The other wonderful thing about fall is college football! Chris and I have yet to spend an entire Saturday watching games since we've been gone, but tomorrow we will at least get to watch the Dawgs play LS-who. I hope it is a good game. If Georgia can keep the turnovers and penalties down, I think they will hang in there and maybe even give the Tigers a run for their money.

The bad thing about how cold it was last night is that the garden is done. Last night Chris made pasta sauce with tomatoes, kale, and onions from the garden. He added some garlic, sugar, and red wine and it turned out delicious! We picked a lot more tomatoes and a large bag of zucchini, so hopefully we can make some more sauce and bread this weekend. I wouldn't mind having a few loaves of zucchini bread in the freezer this winter, and if I make my grandfather's baked ziti again for Christmas the sauce will come in handy! Anyway, we didn't get to enjoy the garden as much as usual this year. It never got really hot this summer, so although the plants are big they didn't produce much until the last month or so. The plus is that we never turned on our AC, either! Ok, enough blah-blah-blahing for now. Hope you are enjoying fall too!

Great American Beer Fest!

2009-09-30T23:23:00.004-06:00

Chris and I solidified our beer snob status (I think it is inevitable if you remotely like beer and live in Colorado) by attending GABF in Denver last weekend. We attended the "Home Brewers" session, though, so we were not nearly as nerdy as some of the people there. Common attire included hop farm t-shirts and pretzel necklaces (so you can cleanse your palate between beers) with (for the truly hardcore) bagel medalions. You definitely don't want to drink all of that beer on an empty stomach, but come on, does your food really have to be hanging around your neck at all times??

Anyway, the experience was slightly overwhelming. There were hundreds of breweries and thousands of beers to chose from, and only 4 hours and limited tolerance to try it all! We started with a plan. Chris was going to try IPA's and sour ales. I was going for wheat beers and porters. However, I soon decided I also wanted to try Belgian strong ales and reds, and anything else that sounded delicious. They are supposed to pour you 1 oz of each beer, but often that turns into about 2 oz, and since many of the exciting beers are also strong (9% or higher), things can get out of hand in a hurry. All in all, it was a great time!

We did manage to take notes (until the last 15 minutes when we were just frantically trying to visit as many breweries as possible ...). So here are some of our favorites, and some that were awful!

Fiftyfifty Brewing Co (Truckee, CA): Concentrated Evil (Belgian Strong - the beginning of the end of sobriety) and Donner Party Porter. This brewery seemed to have a lot of cool beers.

Iron Hill Brewery (Wilmington, DE): They had 16 beers to chose from, many that sounded great. We liked the Coffee Imperial Porter and Dunkelweiss.

Old Forge Brewing Co (Danville, PA): Chris said Petey's Porter was BAD.

Sly Fox (Royersford, PA): More trouble. Ichor Quadrupple (although it tasted kind of strong but was "only" 9%) and a yummy Saison

Upslope (Boulder): This is a fairly new brewery that hopefully we can visit sometime soon b/c they had good beers. A Pro-am ('time of the season') and an easy drinking Dunkel Weiss. Pro-am's are recipes from home brewers brewed by professionals.

Allagash (Portland, Maine): They have an 11% Trippel, which when it was poured for me the guy said, "You're gonna love this beer, but be careful." Then he poured me 2 ounces which I couldn't finish. He was right.

Russian River, CA: We were looking forward to trying these beers because Chris really likes their Damnation Ale. They had a lot of sours. Chris liked Consecration, but Empirical 7 "smelled and tasted like the cat's litter box."

Lost Abbey, CA: A yummy Abbey called 10 Commandments, and a really good sour Cuvee de Tomme.

Dogfish Head (DE): Chicha (strange! Brewed with chewed up corn. Yes, that's what I said. And it tasted like blue corn chips.)
Pangea (An ingredient from every continent. We liked it.)
Palo Santo (strong, good, salty, and sweet ... is this an accurate description or was it just getting late in the day? Drink it and find out.)

Bear Republic: I think my favorite beer of the day was Double Rocket, a red ale. I really like reds, they are just the right amount of hops (unlike IPA's, ick).

Ballast Point, San Diego, CA: Sour Wench tasted like vinegar and was awful.

Port Pizza, CA: Who would think a pizza chain would have such good beer?? We enjoyed a double red and the Silky Smooth Oatmeal Stout.

Stone Brewing Co, CA: Chris had a unique black IPA and liked it.

Blackstone Brewing Co., Nashville, TN: St Charles Porter, I liked this a lot and it won Gold for Brown Porters.

And finally, we are now enjoying Old Rasputin from North Coast Brewing Co. A yummy imperial stout that won Gold in the Harper Brew Fest 09, thanks to my friends Brian and Nikki.

I'm back

2009-09-22T20:18:00.002-06:00

It's been a while but I will probably get back into this blog soon. I keep meaning to write about our last few days in Alaska - I know in my head what I want to say but just haven't taken the time yet. Saturday we returned from 3 weeks in Europe! Hiking the Haute Route was an AMAZING experience and I have lots of stories and pictures. My main goal with those will be to make an actual photo album but I plan on doing some posting online to share with friends who live far away. The conference went well, even though I wasn't super excited about my poster, I feel like I learned a lot and was able to think about my research in a new light (usually I focus on hydrologic cycle and the conf. was on the carbon cycle).

Since getting home I am trying to a) get over jet lag and b) get into a routine that is slightly less hectic than the one I was following over the summer. I really enjoyed eating breakfast with Chris while we hiked (we stayed at a lot of hotels/hostels that included breakfast), so since I'm not training for anything these days I'm looking forward to more relaxing mornings with him. I also want to ride my bike (commute) more often, run a few days a week, and do yoga. Also I have a list of things to do at work that I have somewhat prioritized, so I can hopefully make progress on some of the more important items. Getting back to work is hard but I feel like I got a decent amount done today. The only place I feel slightly overwhelmed is with things to do at home, just because that list seems to be never ending!

Also I have lost interest in facebook, at least for now, so don't expect to find out about my life on there ... instead give me a call :). I will probably post on here more often to make up for my obsessive desire to write obscure comments on my life. So, check back often and as always thanks for stopping by!

Chugach State Park Day 5

2009-08-07T00:49:00.005-06:00

Day 5: Over Moraine Pass into Camp Creek valley, 6.75 miles

Low: Not sure ... probably beginning the day full of doubt and concern after the rough day before. I also was very low on energy toward the end of Moraine Pass, and actually told Chris I didn't care about looking at rocks! I think our low calorie diet was taking its toll, and probably a bit of stress-related exhaustion. Although I'll take this kind of stress over work stress any day!

High: Hiking through Camp Creek valley. We didn't know what to expect, especially as far as vegetation goes. But the descent was gradual and through a wide valley with a picturesque meandering stream. As Eric said, "This is a magical valley." Waterfalls poured down steep slopes on either side of us, and eventually we had views of some imposing mountains on the other side of Eagle River. I was very tired at that point but was celebrating on the inside.

This day was very scenic, so there are lots of pictures!
Looking up N. Fork Ship Creek valley.

Fresh snow on some of the mountains!

A lot of the rocks around Moraine Pass were shattered like this. I'm not sure why, it looked really neat.

Grizzly Bear Lake

Almost to Moraine Pass (aptly named as you can see from all the rocks, left behind by glaciers).

The view of Moraine Pass, to the left, and Paradise Pass straight ahead-ish. We had thought about going over Paradise but it would have extended our trip. Plus I have heard it is very steep, can you tell??

Looking up valley along Camp Creek.

What's that, sunshine?? Beautiful!

Chugach State Park Day 4

2009-08-07T00:34:00.003-06:00

Day 4: Up (north fork) Ship Creek, without a paddle. 6 wet miles

What turned out to be our worst day started with 2 good omens. 1. I had an amazing dream the night before. I was euphoric after our successful hike over the pass and the amazing flower-filled meadow we were sleeping in. I dreamed I was back in Ft. Collins and someone asked me how the trip was. I enthusiastically responded, "It was great! Eagle and Symphony lakes were amazing, the hike over the pass was exhilerating ..." But I couldn't remember the rest of the trip. Then it dawned on me, that was because it hadn't happened yet! I was still in Alaska, and when I woke up, I got to continue living out this dream hike! Omen #2 was a rainbow slanting through Ship Creek valley when we woke up. This was going to be a good day!

Low: the rest of the day. It rained and was windy and cold most of the day. We were bushwhacking so made tremendously slow progress. We didn't make it nearly as far as we wanted to. We stopped by about 6 or 6:30, I was unsatisfied with how far we'd gone but was losing the will to keep trudging on. Eric was done, too, and his knees were causing him considerable pain, as I recall. I felt like we were all at our wits end, being so cold and worn out. Our spirits were as low as were were wet by the end of the day. This nights dreams were filled with concern over the feasibility of the rest of the trip.
A rainbow! This is going to be a great day!

A moose was uphill of us while we ate breakfast.

Sometimes we'd find a great moose or bear trail to follow, but inevitably it would tail off into something like this ...

A rare picture of our photographer.

This look says it all.

Chugach State Park Day 3

2009-08-07T00:12:00.004-06:00

Day 3: Over unnamed pass to N. Fork Ship Creek valley (4.5 slow miles)

Low: I was very anxious approaching the pass. One part was very steep (no way to do it without scrambling on loose rock/scree). That made me nervous (I am a wimp), and the fear of the unknown was haunting me as we crested the pass. What if the other side was as steep? Or steeper?? Which brings me to the high - coming over the pass to an unbelievable panorama of jagged peaks, a huge valley, the water by Anchorage, and a gradual, grassy slope to descend on. :)

The coloring of Eagle and Symphony (foreground) lakes will never cease to amaze me.

Lots of rocks to hike over on the way up to the pass made for slow going. We chose to go up to the right of the two tarns above Symphony Lake.

The bump on the ridge is the scary part we had to go over. Steep and crumbly, yuck.

Looking back into headwaters of Symphony Lake.

We made it to the top!

Obligatory couple shot.

This was the other side of the pass. Eric perfected is sliding down heather technique here.

Chugach State Park Day 2

2009-08-06T23:57:00.005-06:00

Day 2: 5.25 mile hike from base camp along Eagle Lake almost to Flute Glacier.

Highs: Hiking near an idyllic waterfall and enjoying the wonderment of our first full day in the Alaskan backcountry. If this waterfall was closer to a road or in a national park, it would be world famous. (Funny thing is, we soon learned there are dozens of waterfalls in Chugach SP, each one as incredible as the last!)
Low: We chose a poor route to get to Flute glacier and decided to turn around at the top of the waterfall. We hiked along the side of the valley but hiking in the bottom, along the river, which we did on the way back, was much much better! If we had done that both ways we probably would have made it to the glacier :(

It was not easy walking along the sides of the valley:

But we did find an awesome stream flowing from the glaciers and rocks above. Eric and Chris filled their nalgenes up directly from the stream - yum!

View above the waterfall. The valley we didn't get to explore :(

Eric alongside part of the waterfall. We found a slight trail just to the right of it which made me nervous but was passable (we elected to leave our packs behind though).

Chugach State Park Day 1

2009-08-06T23:42:00.004-06:00

I am going to try to only post the high and low of each day, to try and capture as much of our trip as possible without boring you to tears. Also I'll have a few pictures from each day.

Day 1, 6 mile hike to Eagle Lake
Highs: Nap on the boulders next to Eagle Lake. Also the view from our campsite! Here's what I wrote while sitting outside my tent that night:
At the head of Eagle Lake is a much narrower valley, with steep mountains on either side. The valley curves to the right, but from here it looksl ike it deadends into the Matterhorn-like Eagle Peak. We might scoff at its height in Colorado (6900') but this mountain is really badass. The summit is most often shrouded in clouds, and its steep slopes have some very serious looking snowfields. Climbing this beast, at least from this side, would NOT be an easy feat.
Lows: I can't think of any!

I will also put a few pictures from each day. Chris picked out his 200 favorite (out of 700!) on his flicker account (he is Choice City Chris) if you want more.

Amazing colors from the flowers along S. Fork Eagle River.

Eagle Peak:

Alaska Trip Overview

2009-08-06T23:22:00.004-06:00

I brought paper and pencil on our hike but rarely had time to write. But here are some thoughts from the night after we emerged from the mountains (Friday July 24).

The trip is over and we survived! I am happy and sad that we're done. It was very rough - mainly bushwhacking for 4 days wears you down! It is constant work and can be so slow. Even beyond the physical work is the constant searching for trails/routes and being as aware as possible of potential bear or moose around. So this was not like the usual backpacking trip when I have lots of time for reflection or good conversation with my fellow hikers. The brain and body were either completely engaged or shut down. We slept about 10 hours a night, if that is any indication of how exhausted we were!

Today we were on a trial that was mostly easy, and I had some time to think about why I like backpacking so much when it is so hard?! I decided the main reason has to do with accessing places you can't see from a car. And not only that, it's experiencing the landscape instead of just viewing it. Now I know a little bit about what the Alaskan wilderness (or at least this small part of it) is really about. It is rough and tough and wild! It tried it's best to beat us down, and sometimes it succeeded.

Another spectacular thing about backpacking is getting lost ... lost in the routine of just living, day to day, hiking, eating, sleeping, gawking, joking about summer sausage. Life might be harder but in many ways it is also simpler in the backcountry.

We saw 5 black bear, 4 moose, 32 ptarmigan, 1 dall sheep or mtn goat, seagulls (strange), and 1 unidentified gray ferret looking creature that made whistling noises (plus we heard the whistling a few other times). We also saw grizzly fur on an island between Raven Creek and Eagle River, and a lot of poop (everywhere), so we named it Grizzly Island and were very noisy as we walked across it! Chris and Eric even had their hands on their bear spray like gunslingers, ready to fire should anything brown and large cross our path.

..............
The rest of the trip was spent exploring the Kenai Peninsula and eating. I have never been so hungry before - we ate HUGE meals and then were ravenous a few hours later. This continued until Sunday when Chris and I ate 25 wings and a 1+ pound salad. :)

We made it!

2009-07-29T23:05:00.002-06:00

I'm back from Alaska, and it is slowly sinking in how amazing last week was. During the trip, I was preoccupied by trying to avoid the following: getting lost, falling down cliffs, surprising a bear, and cow parsnip slaps to the face (AK's version of poison ivy). It turns out that hiking 4 out of 7 days without a trail in Alaska is difficult! But well worth it when you don't run into another person for four days. I was constantly in awe of the scenery but in an "oh, I should look up for a moment and appreciate how freaking awesome this is" kind of way, but rarely had time to just sit and take it all in. Occasionally my awe turned into, "what the crap, we're supposed to go over/through that??"
Now that I have had a few days to appreciate showers, dry clothes, and food, I wish we were still on the trail. Chris took 700 pictures, and we narrowed those down to 200 last night. One of my priorities in the next few days will be to post just a few of these and share some more of our adventures. So check back later!

Pre-Alaska backpack trip: T-5 days!

2009-07-13T20:45:00.003-06:00

Wow, planning for this trip is a lot of work. Especially since so much of it is being done last minute. Saturday night we spent several hours grocery shopping. It was fun looking for foods with the most calories and fat. Our food will mostly consist of granola or oatmeal for breakfast; summer sausage and cheese for lunch; trail mix, dried fruit, and bars for snacks; and dehydrated dinners. Last night was the real challenge, we spent almost 5 hours getting together all of our gear and agonizing over how to fit all of our food into a ~100 cubic inch canister ("designed to carry 6-person days of food"). There were a couple of things that we kind of skimped on because of space. I think we have enough food but I don't think I will ever feel full. If you know me at all, you know I like to eat, so this will be a challenge. The bear vault is frustrating because normally I wouldn't mind at all carrying extra weight in food. But that's not an option unless you want to lug around another heavy, bulky canister that you won't even need after the first two days. You aren't required to use bear vaults in the Chugach, but it seems pretty necessary since I think treeline is pretty low up there.

Tonight we went to Jax and bought some mosquito netting, liner gloves, and bear bells. Actually the mosquito netting we bought is made for bee keepers. It is very stylish and I'm sure we'll have some great pictures.

Chris just stressed me out because he thinks we have less than 1700 calories per person per day. I am pretty sure this is how much I burn in a day when I sit on my ass. So I'm going to go and reanalyze this food situation.

According to: http://jwbasecamp.com/Articles/Weight_Loss/Weight_Loss.html
Basal calories = 1392
+ Calories burned in 6 hours of backpacking: 3672
= 5064 calories.
Also apparently you burn 10% of the calories you consume just digesting it.
And if you burn 3500 more calories than you eat, you lose 1 pound. Usually I would be super excited to lose some weight, especially since it will probably be fat as we'll be building muscle as we hike. But ... 5000-1700 is almost 3500 calorie defecit each day. I could potentially lose 7 pounds in one week and this does not seem very conducive to my half ironman training/racing. That is why I am a little stressed about it. I've been trying really hard all summer to take care of myself, and this might negate some of it. Then again, coming back from Alaska leaner might make me faster. Who knows. All of this talk is making me hungry though, so I have to go eat.

Where the heck is my brain???

2009-07-13T11:06:00.002-06:00

Any spare minute this weekend, all I could think was, "Wow, I should do some work, I have SOOO much to do!" So now it's finally Monday and I have hours to do nothing but work, and guess what?? I can't focus at all. Ridiculous! My brain is strewn around several places ... anchorage, half ironman in 4 weeks, my bed (I got less than 5 hrs of sleep last night which is never good). I am partly focused on work but just can't get into it.

Also my attempt to not drink coffee leading up to Alaska failed miserably. I am just not getting enough sleep and training to much to go without it. Also tomorrow night I'm seeing *a movie* (that which must not be named) at 12:04 AM, so I will definitely be having coffee Wed. So what's the point.

I have a lot to say but might actually be getting the productivity bug. Actually I am just hoping 12:00 gets here soon so I can eat lunch - I'm hungry!!

Some pictures

2009-07-08T13:30:00.004-06:00

Well our servers are being EXTREMELY uncooperative today, so I can't really get much work done (although I really need to organize my desk but that can wait). So I'm just going to put up a couple of pictures from the last few weeks. The first 2 are from an absolutely amazing storm that passed through Fort Collins a few weeks ago. There was a ton of cloud-ground lightening near my house that lasted for over 1.5 hours. I've never seen such an amazing storm, and luckily for our garden we only got rain (we only got about half an inch but some places nearby got up to 3 inches in about 1 hour!) and no hail. The last is of me hiking when I went to Mt Spalding near Bierstadt. Here you go!
From our back yard:

From the front yard:

Hiking:

Welcome summer!

2009-07-03T11:16:00.002-06:00

I am a little behind the rest of the world on this one, but I would like to welcome summer to my life. Sure, the season began a few weeks ago but I'm talking about the kind of summer where you can leave work at work and enjoy the beautiful weather and good times with friends as much as possible.

Yesterday was a great start - I slept until 10!!! Wow, I didn't even know that was still possible! Then I cleaned the kitchen (Ok, it's not all fun and games), and then ran a million errands, but all on my bike. I was worried it would be really hot but some clouds rolled in so the weather was perfect. My longest stop was at the CSU library. Chris and I are going on a roadtrip this weekend and have decided to not use the internet for planning it. So we've been gathering information from this paper things called maps and then from these stacks of paper called books. Did you know that the library has guide books for travel, and tons of maps, including some trails illustrated maps and USGS topo maps for the whole country??? It took me almost 2 hours to find everything I wanted, but I think we are set. Plus, I got 6 topo maps for Alaska, which Chris and I are going to pour over this weekend. And, to top it all off, I got a "roadside geology of wyoming" book, so I know it's going to be a good weekend. :)

I also went to the Bean Cycle. I really love that place. It's a good place to work but also has a book store in it, so yesterday I went just to browse through the books, and finally decided on Memoirs of a Geisha. It was used and so only $5, sweet. I ran a few more errands, including a trip to the grocery store, so by the time I got home the bike-a-boose was completely loaded down and I was exhausted!

I had two big workouts I was hoping to do yesterday but realized when I got home that I am almost as burnt out from training as I am from work. So I skipped them, hahaha! I am glad I have the next few days off because I will need to get a lot of training in the next 2 weeks before leaving for Alaska. But one thing you definitely learn from training for something is when to listen to your body when it's saying, "Stop, please!! I'm tired!" The rest is worthwhile and will make the training afterward more effective.

Speaking of training, there is a pretty big workout I need to do today and so should get going. 2:15 bike and a 45 minute run! Yikes .... Happy fourth of july!

Observations

2009-07-01T00:04:00.002-06:00

I have now officially decided that 4 days between turning in the written and having the oral exam is not enough time, especially if you take 1 day off to recuperate and then spend another day in a zombie-like state because you hiked too much on your day off.

Also tomorrow I will test the "imposter hypothesis" - which is basically when I find out if my committee finds out I am faking it or if they think I am actually smart.

Finally the helicopter is about to land on the building again so I better go.

How is Anna Doing?

2009-06-26T00:18:00.002-06:00

The title of the blog is something I wrote on my white board to keep my very concerned office mate, Nick, up to date on my status as I work on my written exam. Here is my current status (since yesterday at 9AM):
Cups of coffee: 8.0
Shots of espresso: 2.0
Hrs of sleep: 5
Questions remaining (out of 3): 0.33

As delirium sets in I am also coming up with other metrics of my well-being, Such as:
# of times I've referred to a paper I am looking for as "my little friend": 2 ... make that 3
amount of BS I feel I have put into my answers: 1 truck load
# of pounds I have probably gained from filling myself with sugar to stay awake: 3
# of times I thought the building's AC was a helicopter getting ready to land on the building: 1

Well I am almost done so should stop blogging and get back to work. I have to turn this in in 8 hours! Some sleep between now and then would be nice, too.

Remedy

2009-06-16T14:07:00.003-06:00

When your office starts brewing Folgers coffee, the solution is to add hot cocoa mix and sugar-in-the-raw. That is all for now. Lots going on these days, what ever happened to summer being a lazy time of year? It's my own fault for having a scheduling malfunction - written exam a week from tomorrow, organizing a group ride for Sunday, and doing a tri on Saturday. Oops.

Update from prelim world

2009-06-09T21:44:00.002-06:00

I feel like I ought to post an update, I've been pretty busy with writing my prospectus for my PhD research. It's due tomorrow! As usual I have written more than I am supposed to - it's supposed to be less than 10 pages single-spaced including figures, and I am past that and still adding things :-/. Which means I will be taking things out before the night is over!

I'll feel some relief when I turn this in tomorrow but then I have to start studying for the written and oral exams, which start in 2 weeks. Honestly, I would much rather write a paper than study!

Chris was just watching a special (for some reason) on taylor swift, which reminds me, I have decided I really like her music and her voice. Ironically I've also been listening to a lot of Radiohead the past week. It's really good music to have on while working, actually.

And finally I am drinking some tea that does not have nearly enough caffeine. I was up past 1 AM last night and awake before 6 AM, so I am pretty pooped, but still have work to do! Goodnight!

Hooray for short weeks!

2009-05-28T21:21:00.004-06:00

Our weekend in Durango was great - somehow it didn't rain or snow while we were riding our bikes - but also pretty exhausting! So I am very glad that this is a short week. I haven't been doing too much training but masters swimming Tuesday and tonight was really tough so that's added to my exhaustion.

Yesterday I set a date for my prelim. Scary! I have to turn in a research prospectus in about 2 weeks. Then 2 weeks later I take a two-day written exam. Then the next week (on July 1) I take an oral exam with all of my committee members. It is an intimidating process. Apparently prelims are done different everywhere - in my dept you are supposed to take them within a year of defending your Masters. So it doesn't necessarily mean I am any closer to finishing my PhD!!!! Haha, that is a funny thought, finishing my PhD - I hardly feel like I've begun. Anyway, June will be very busy.

I'm hopefully going hiking (snowshoeing?) with Chris, Nick, and Levi tomorrow night and Saturday up near Mt. Bierstadt and Mt Evans. So I want to do some picking up around the house so I don't have to do it Sunday! I'm going to upload some pictures from last weekend and then start cleaning. :)

Chris riding back to Durango after the time trial. I came in 3rd in my category :)

We decided good motivation for me to go fast in a TT would be to attach a donut to the end of my aero bars and say when I catch it, I can eat it. (Actually a donut in the middle of a race may or may not be a good idea)

We took a trip to Mesa Verde on Sunday. This is from Balcony House - very cool!

The devil cheering on riders on the way up Coal Bank Pass

Iron Horse Classic or bust!

2009-05-22T00:05:00.005-06:00

Well Chris and I have the car packed and are ready to go to Durango! We've literally got a car full of wonderful things like bikes, oatmeal, water bottles, cd's ... what else could you want? One thing I would love is for the forecast to not be calling for an 80% chance of snow on Saturday in Silverton! I am going to remain optimistic that we will get to ride, and I'm trying to prepare myself for a slightly uncomfortable (wet/cold) ride.

Chris succeeded in raising $550 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation - that is great! I'm really looking forward to spending the weekend with him. Here is the profile of the ride, which will top out at 10,867 feet!

Oh yeah, today was a great day at work mainly because I had an amazing meeting with my adviser and some other folks. We talked about my ideas for research and they agreed that they sound good (yes!) and were anxious to get me started. Also Scott read my paper and said it looks ready for submission. So, maybe sometime before June 2010 I will be a published scientist. :) On top of all that, there were leftovers from one of my favorite restaurants at the dept and so I got to have saag for lunch. AND my coffee group had breakfast at Matt's house. What a day! :) Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

PS Here is a picture from my ride to Wyoming with Matt. No welcome to Wyoming sign for some reason ...

Doing Stuff

2009-05-20T08:23:00.004-06:00

Well I have been psuedo-busy lately. Here are some things we've been doing (I like bullets) ...
- rode my bike 75 miles on Saturday and could have gone farther. Wow my legs felt good! I was with my friend Matt and we went at a good pace which I think kept me from bonking like I usually do on long rides.
- cooked out with friends Sunday evening - it is finally summer-like weather here! We spent a surprising amount of time talking about Chris shaving his legs and/or wearing a speedo.
- The National Science Foundation center I'm a part of is going through its annual review. I think it's a good process and helpful for the center. It makes total sense that we should be accountable to the NSF for how we are spending the money! Monday we had a rehearsal of all of our presentations that lasted from 8:30 till about 8 PM (although I left a little early to go for a run!). Then yesterday was the real deal. It was very exhausting but I'm glad I got to be a part of it this year (I gave a pretty short talk on my research).
- There is a 40-50% chance of thunderstorms in durango and silverton on Saturday. Oh no!!!
- I did my part to empty horsetooth reservoir on Monday night by beginning my annual (doomed to fail) campaign of having a nice yard. On the plus side, we have invested in some lawn care (weed killer and fertilizer applied every 6 weeks), so there might be hope this year. I always feel torn about watering my lawn. On one hand I want it to look nice, on the other hand I feel morally obligated to not use too much water. Also our irises are blooming for the second time since we moved in and they are so beautiful!
- As I said, I ran on Monday night and did half-mile repeats at a 7:30-7:45 pace! It was hard but good!
- I cooked green curry veggie stirfry last night. It was good but way too spicy! I realized this could be a good weight-loss tool - I can only eat so much spicy food.
- I love that I can watch the Giro online. Who needs cable? :)
- Tomorrow I meet with Dave and Scott to hopefully nail down some plans for proceeding with my research and setting a date for my prelim (yikes!). I wish we met today but I am trying to stay busy until then making pretty plots and maps and thinking about what they mean. Oh the life of a scientist.

my personality

2009-05-12T08:39:00.002-06:00

I realized this weekend I might not be that nice of a person. As with all great moments in my head, this happened while I was riding my bike. Riding up Rist with the Georgia cyclists, the 2 girls on the team were initially lagging behind. I was caught in between them and the guys and thought, "I should wait for the girls, so they can ride with someone who can tell them what to expect, how much farther it is, etc" Then I thought, "But if I push it a little harder I can catch those boys (and Chris, who always tortures me on hills)!" So did I do the nice thing and wait? Nope. However, neither did I ever catch up to the testosterone train. Plus, about half way up we all stopped and waited till every one was together. Then one of the girls proceeded to drop me. Serves me right.

In the end though, I am always happy to be riding with someone else and appreciative to have a riding buddy - just don't take it personally if I'm cursing you as you ride away from me.

bikes, beer, bulldogs, and boots

2009-05-10T19:46:00.004-06:00

This has been a great weekend! One of the reasons it was so great is that I took Friday off. Also I it was the last few days of my rest week before getting back into tri training (13 weeks till the half!).

Of course, I can't take a day off to just relax, so Friday was still a busy day. I spent most of the day either volunteering at the road races (starting at 7 AM!), watching the road races, or volunteering at the Matthews House. The wind was crazy! I am ashamed to admit this but I ended up walking my bike up stadium hill to watch some of the action because the wind was blowing me side to side more than my legs were pushing me forward. Then my bike almost blew away - maybe the only 'con' for owning a carbon bike! I am impressed with all the racers, it was a brutal day.

Finally I went home for a couple of hours, and Chris and I cleaned up and started cooking dinner for the UGA cycling team. This is how excited we are to have bulldogs around - we cooked dinner for 7 hungry cyclists who we had never met before. But it was a lot of fun and I'm glad we could help them out with some free food. They gave us some Georgia jerseys in return so we will be sporting the red and black this summer! The busyness of the day finally ended around 9:30 and I was exhausted!

Sat. was much more relaxing - we watched the criteriums in old town with our friend Matt, and also Jeramy and Christine stopped by for a bit. CSU did really well - all of the women finished the race strong and the men had 2 guys in the top 10. Way to go Rams!! :) They finished the weekend in 3rd place, I'm really happy for them!

After watching all of those really fit people ride in circles we decided we wanted some beer. Luckily for us it was a beautiful day and we got a table on the patio of one of our favorite bars. Rachel joined us and we managed to kill about three hours just hanging out and chit chatting over a couple of pitchers. It was super nice.

Next Chris and I rode our bikes to REI to see what we could spend our money on during their Anniversary Sale. We bought a bunch of stuff for our Alaska trip, including a bear vault and bear spray. The funny part was when we remembered we were on our bikes. Chris managed to tie the bear vault to his bike using his rain jacket - it looked absolutely ridiculous. We probably looked like the most paranoid cyclists in the Fort.

Today has been nice too. I bought a pair of boots for Alaska (plus hopefully the next 10 years of my life). They were $250 but Jax gave me 20% off because I brought in a coupon from REI that they matched. Goretex Asolos 520 full-grain leather - man, they are nice! I probably spent about 5-6 hours trying on boots over the past week and I am pretty happy with these.

Chris and I also rode up Rist Canyon with the UGA cycling team. They borrowed my car to get to the TTT but decided it was too cold and wet to race, :) so they had some energy left over for some climbing (I don't know how). They took it to us, I'd say they've adjusted to the altitude. But it was a nice ride, minus the finger-numbing descent and those awful switchbacks at the top!

Now I am sad the weekend is over. I will be getting busier the next few weeks as I prepare for my prelims next month and ramp up the training again. good night!

Road race!?

2009-05-06T07:43:00.004-06:00

Yep I am doing a road race Memorial Day weekend. It is insane - 47 miles with 5700 ft of climbing! Two mountain passes: one at 10,500 ft and one at 10,867 ft. Yikes, um what was I thinking? Well I am excited. Who knows how it will go, but even if I get dropped like a bad habit it will definitely still be a beautiful ride. There is a "citizens" ride that Chris is doing, and he is trying to raise $500 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. We'll be staying with an old teammate/friend, Megan Cassidy, and some other crazy bikers. There are crits to watch on Sunday and I'm racing a time trial on Monday. It will be a fun weekend, but I am going ahead and starting to pray for nice weather now because that could make or break it! Check out the website.

More bike-related postings to come since collegiate road bike nationals are in town this weekend!

two good recipes and a great cause

2009-05-01T17:20:00.004-06:00

About a year ago I started volunteering at the Matthews House, which serves at-risk youth ages 16-21 who lack significant family support in their lives. The idea is to create opportunities for positive life change for these youth as they make the transition to living on their own. Many of these youth have not had the influence of a stable caring adult. It's a pretty neat place. At first I mentored a 19 year old young woman who constantly impressed me by how together she was and how much she had learned from her rough life so far. Now I go there once a week to hang out with and offer support to any kids who come by the house. It's usually pretty quiet when I go, which I liked at first. Then I was there on the Friday of spring break and there were about 6 kids there - it was much more interesting. Some of these kids have had many problems - both self-imposed and not - but it is neat being a part of something that is hopefully turning them into adults who can have a good life.

Anyway, I'm bringing this up because they're doing a fundraiser (called Cultivate Hope) next Thursday at 6:30. There will be food, beverages, and a garden-themed auction (neat things like handmade flower pots), and a bluegrass band. It's $25 and I can vouch for what a great cause this is. For most of the youth, the Matthews House is their last chance to take control of their lives and shape positive futures for themselves. I hope you'll consider going!

Part two of this blog has to do with recipes. I like to cook things while I'm there so any youth coming by can enjoy them. Here are 2 that I've done the past couple of weeks. I'm hoping you might have something delicious and relatively easy to share. I'm only there 1-1/2 hours so it can't take too long to cook!

Blueberry cornbread (from Womens day magazine - I have no idea why I get this magazine)

Granola (from my friend Kate)
6 cups rolled oats
2 cups coconut flakes
2 cups chopped nuts
2/3 cup wheat germ
2/3 cup bran flakes
1/3 cup sesame seeds or sunflower seeds
½ cup canola or vegetable oil
½ cup maple syrup or honey

Thoroughly mix all of these ingredients. Spread onto lightly greased baking sheets/pans and bake at 325F for 25 minutes stirring the granola at least once during this time. Once out of the oven and cooled for a bit mix in 2 cups of dried fruit of your choosing. Makes enough to fill 2 half gallon mason jars.