Moab with a baby!

Sunrise breakfast with the La Sal Mountains in the distance.

Life is good. From mountain biking in Moab, to playing softball on a sunny day in the Fort, to just hanging out on the floor in Emmaline's room - life is just plain good. This last week has been especially enjoyable, mostly for the reasons I just mentioned. But it's also just been nice to not be at work and to have taken a brief respite from moving/packing stuff.

Last week was spring break at CSU, so we did what any sensible couple would do when presented with a week off less than two months before moving overseas - we left town. Last Saturday we packed up the car with baby accoutrements, strapped our mountain bikes to the roof and got ready to make our journey 7 hours west to Moab, UT for what would be Emmaline's first camping experience. We made it all of 10 minutes to the Chick-fil-a before having second thoughts. "What are we thinking driving 7 hours for her first camping outing? What if she's miserable in the car, let alone three nights in a tent?" But after feeding Emmaline her lunch and munching on some waffle fries, we decided to carry on with the trip and head out. So at 11:45am Saturday morning we finally set off from the Fort. Emmaline was great in the car and we made it to Moab around 7:00, found a site and set up camp in the dark, then headed into town for some grease at the Moab Diner. When we got back to camp we had been joined by our good friends Jeramy, Christine and their 2 little boys - Carson and Bryce. Just five years earlier we'd made our first mountain bike trip to Moab with them over spring break and now we were back with kids in tow! My how time flies...

Moab 2007Moab 2012

The camping trip was mostly a success. Emmaline slept great at night - probably cause we had her so bundled up that she couldn't move to disturb herself. She did struggle with naps cause the tent was just a big playground for her and there was no real way to confine her movements. We ended up having to strap her in her car seat to get her to be still enough to actually go to sleep.

Our sleeping arrangements - Emmaline was all wrapped up!

The only real issue on the trip was the sand. We were camping right next to the Slickrock Trail, which is famous cause of it's unique path across the sandstone. Well, as you might imagine, when sandstone erodes, it turns back into sand. And we might as well have been camping on the beach. It wasn't a huge deal until the wind kicked up the last couple of days and we ended up with sand blowing into our tent and coating everything. It was a mess that took us nearly two full days to clean up from after getting back home.

We went on one hike to Corona Arch. The arch is pretty impressive and it's only 3 miles round trip, so a great family hike (if you don't mind a couple of ladders). We enjoyed lunch under the arch and watched a couple of people jump off it!! (Like this). Hiking with kiddos can be a slow process though and I'm afraid we only averaged about a .75 mph pace. :)

Emmaline enjoying her lunch under the arch.

The mountain biking was amazing, as it always seems to be in Moab. Chris and Jeramy rode the Slickrock Trail the first day we were there, then watched the kids while Christine and I rode Fins n' Things. The next day Chris and I rode together while they watched E and we then watched their boys while they rode. Chris and I decided to hang out and get in one last ride on Tuesday before heading home, so that morning I headed out to do the Two Tortoise Loop I found in a guide book we had. I rode up Gemini Bridges Road, which believe me had a lot of up in the first two miles! The road emerged into a large valley, which I followed for another three miles before the Singletrack gods smiled upon me - a system of slickrock singletrack trails had been constructed since the book was written, so I spent the next two hours blissfully riding on smooth, fun trails with awe-inspiring views of the Moab valley.

I'm happy about singletrack!

When I got back to camp Chris and Emmaline were hunkered down in the sweltering tent trying to escape the incessant winds and blowing sand. We broke camp and I dropped Chris off at the Poison Spider Trailhead to do his ride around 4:00. The book we had mentioned a trail that rode a cliff edge back from the end of the Poison Spider Trail, but since he was riding alone he assured me that he wouldn't take it though it did intrigue him. Well, I got a call around 6:30 saying that he was on the edge of a cliff on said trail because in his words "I'd rather risk falling off a cliff than ride back down Poison Spider." It turned out that it was really sandy and not much fun to ride up, and the cliff hanging Portal Trail was a welcome alternative. He survived, so I don't mind.

Chris defying death on the Portal Trail. The road is at least 500 ft below him.

We finally got on the road back home around 7:30 and after a stop for dinner in Grand Junction, powered through the night to arrive home at 3:00am. As we figured would be the case, Emmaline slept the whole time which actually made driving at night something of a pleasure. It didn't feel like we were keeping her strapped in against her will when she wanted to be out crawling and climbing.

So yeah, life is good...

Crawling!

At 8 months old, Emmaline can move all over the place now. She's also getting very good at pulling herself up on short objects. She loves to play with the game table that Chris' mom got for her - she'll stand at it and ring a bell or move gears. We had to rotate it to put the frogs out of her reach because every time she hit them, they would ribbit Old McDonald and we start to feel a little loony after about 5 minutes of that.

She's also imitating sounds, which is my favorite thing to do with her. She makes clicking noises and blows out of her mouth like an elephant (people nearby might need rain gear for all the spit she sprays). We're trying to teach her to say "cat" because she lights up when the cats are around. Sometimes she says "Ca" when she sees them, but she also says that when she sees a box, chair, or food - so the connection isn't quite there yet but she's getting close!

This morning she crawled around the kitchen chasing a ball. We have fun in the mornings - she's in a good mood after breakfast and I am too if I've had coffee ;). She has been sleeping through the night for about a month and it's magical! Only problem is lately she wakes up between 6:30 and 7:00, which is a little early for us but well worth the uninterrupted sleep at night.

Also yesterday Chris and I went cross country skiing (for the first time!) with Mollie and Levi. It was gorgeous - we went along Michigan Ditch to American Lakes. The last part involved lots of uphill, and therefore lots of sliding/falling on the way back down. But it was a magnificent day, and we're super grateful that our daycare provider didn't mind us doing that while she watched Emmaline. Enjoy a couple of photos from our outing!

We had great views of the Nokhu Crags on the way to the lakes.

The final uphill push! We had to take our skis off, it was getting comical (especially when one of Levi's skis went zooming down the trail after took it off).

The GORGEOUS basin of the American Lakes.

PS I was going to upload a video I took but it is WAY too big so I'll post a smaller one some time soon!

Yes, it's true - we're moving to England!

For the second time in my life I will be living in jolly England*. I've taken a post-doctoral research position at the University of Exeter. I'm really excited about the work and who I'll be working with, and Chris and I are excited about the adventure of living abroad for a while.

Details are still fuzzy because the University was on break last week (random week-long breaks in February are a good sign). I've been told I can start working from Colorado and move a few weeks later. Which is good because we have A TON to do before moving, not least of which is sell (or rent) our home and my car, and find a home for our cats, and sell/give away about 90% of our things (since the new job isn't paying relocation, we're only bringing the essentials and stocking up on the rest at Ikea once we get there). I also have a few papers I'd like to get submitted from my PhD and other loose ends to tie up with my research. My desk at work still looks like I live there, so maybe one day I will tidy up my office, too. Oh, and the position lasts until the end of 2013 - but that is about all I know!!

I'm not sure what type of visa I'll have yet, but we're hoping that Chris can work too if he wants. We sent off for Emmaline's passport the other day. Both Chris and I had to be present - I guess they don't want one parent taking a baby out of the country without the other's knowledge. That's a sad situation :(. Anyway, the hardest part was getting a good photo of her. Here's a montage of all the pictures Chris took. I adore some of the faces she is making. She looks downright evil in one of them - not a very convincing passport photo. Anyway, I'll try to keep the blog up-to-date as this adventure unfolds (although I will have to change the name once we move)!

* The first time was right after college, when my best friend Kristi and I spent 4-1/2 months in Oxford working at Starbucks.

Update

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

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

(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

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!