Haleakala

Subalpine zone, Haleakala National Park

One of our last days in Hawaii J and I took a daytrip with the kiddos up to Haleakala National Park, the big crater in the middle of Maui. We wanted to see a wild Sandalwood tree (J's Master's thesis study organism), some Silverswords (plants native to Hawaii, some of which are endangered), and some Nene (Hawaiian Geese). We struck out on the Nene, but found some introduced Chukar near the top of the crater. I grumbled a little about the chukar, as a guy had pointed us to the trail saying "There's some Nene right over there!" Oh well.

The sandalwood was everything J had hoped, and even had some bracken fern (his PhD study organism) growing up and out of it. We stopped and botanized in the subalpine zone, where I would definitely spend more time given the opportunity. We saw some Vaccinium (Hawaiian huckleberries), a bunch of neat leguminous shrubs, and even found a cute yellow-faced solitary bee!

cute little male solitary bee!

The silverswords were beautiful, especially in the near-barren alpine zone where they grow. The visitor center at the top is just short of 10,000 feet elevation, and you can see everything from up there. We could see the ocean all around the island, and some of the nearby islands. It was beautiful. I'm glad we decided to head up country because we got to see some beautiful areas and explore some ecosystems that are very different from the beach.

On the long, winding drive up the mountain we saw some hitchhikers with longboards and helmet-cams, and realized they had just done something like this:



We totally would have picked up the guys just to hear their story, but with the carseats and kiddos we didn't have room for them. Bummer.

A little farther up the mountain we saw another pair of guys coming down on their longboards. Looked a little scary, but definitely a rush. The road is perfect for this; it's nice and smooth, long, well maintained, and low traffic. I'm under orders from my mom to not tell my brother about this.



Pretty amazing, don't you think?

Return from Paradise

We're back and alive. Still struggling to get back on Eastern time after switching to Pacific (+3 hours), then Hawaii (+2 more), then back to Pacific (-2), then Eastern (-3, and we got home at 4am Tuesday). Our internal clocks are all effed up. We're getting there, though.

Hawaii was beautiful and warm and wonderful. Roo still has sand on his scalp, 6 days later. Doodle and I have swimsuit tan lines. What I don't have, yet, is photos. Our camera has been on the fritz with a busted flash for about three months now (hence all the crappy, blurry photos I've been posting. Sorry.) so we decided not to bring it. My mom, step-bro, sis and sis's friend all took plenty of photos and promised to share, so as soon as we get some of those I'll post photos of our sunny, warm, beautiful escape.

In the mean time I'll work on posting some stories and tidbits from the trip while we get back into the swing of our cold, Eastern time zone days.

Happy New Year, friends!

Fishin'

Doodle & J went fishing while we were in N.C.

No fish were caught, but she had a lot of fun in the process.

Thankful in N.C.

We're enjoying North Carolina. The kids did well on the drive Wednesday, and we only got lost near the very end of the drive (curse you, Google Maps!). Yesterday we hung out, relaxed, chatted, and baked. J made the pecan pie while I got Roo down for a nap - his first pecan pie attempt and it turned out great! A former undergrad lab tech of J's, who is now in J's Uncle's lab here, came to dinner and it was fun to catch up with him and his wife. Dinner was delicious and the company was great.

Today Doodle and J are off with Cousin R to try and catch Doodle's first fish. R is an avid fisherman so he's playing guide today and humoring Doodle's interest in fishing. I'm curious to see how it goes.

After they return we'll make an outing to J's Uncle's Lab (at UNC Chapel Hill), then we're off to the children's science museum for additional geekiness that's right up our alley.

Tomorrow: meeting up with a friend from Duke for some indoor rock climbing and a social gathering of pteridologists (fern folk). Then Sunday we hit the road back to PA.

I'm very glad we've made this trip. NC is pretty, and it's fun to see new areas. More importantly, though, it's nice to spend time with family and get to know people better. So in this season of feeling thankful I'm thankful for every member of my family, be they blood relative or not, and whether I've seen them in the past week, month, year or decade. You're all in my heart and I'm glad to have you there.

N.C. bound

Tomorrow we hit the road to North Carolina, where we will be spending Thanksgiving with J's uncle and his family. I've met this uncle once, and not yet met his wife or kids (college-age). I'm both excited and a tiny bit nervous, but I think it'll be really good.

Happy early Thanksgiving everyone!

Host/ess gift ideas?

We're heading to J's Uncle's house in N.C. for Thanksgiving. J hasn't spent much time with this Uncle, Aunt and cousins, and I've only met him once (in October at the wedding).

I'd like to bring them something as a thank you for hosting us, ideally something we can make. I've thought about homemade cloth napkins, a loaf of bread... I really don't know.

Any ideas? What's your favorite "thank you for hosting me/us" gift? Help!

An Outing

We went for a hike again on Saturday, exploring another state park.

Some of us worked on our skipping technique

...while others simply hiked, exuding cuteness.

I love getting outside and exploring with them.

Getting settled

We're in the house, getting settled. I'd say the past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind, but I feel like I've been saying that for the past two months.

Oh wait, I have.

A couple weeks ago I attended the Pollinator Conference here @ PennState while J was a full-time papa. Met a bunch of bee folks here and made some good contacts. Presented a poster and did some schmoozing. Also hung out with some BeeLabbers, drinking beers and showing them what little I know of State College so far. After the conference J was scrambling to get his presentation for Botany ready, then took off to R.I. for 4 days.

He flew out on the 31st, the day we had to vacate the apartment, so I was scrambling to get all of our gear we'd unpacked repacked and back to the storage unit. The kids & I stayed in a hotel, then got the keys to the house the following morning. My brother flew in that afternoon and helped me haul beds and some essentials to the house. In keeping with tradition (tradition being that I traumatize my sibs by losing something large & important off my vehicle on a busyish highway), we had to reload & retie the mattresses after they slid off the Jeep just as I stopped on the shoulder. Lesson learned, and thank goodness for protective mattress bags.

(My sister got to experience a faulty bike rack dropping my bike onto the trailer yoke, inches from hitting the road, in an I-5 construction zone in Portland. I think my sibs may start requesting that nothing be attached to the vehicle when they ride with me. I wouldn't blame them.)

The next day we loaded up a BIG Uhaul trailer with 2 loads of our stuff and hauled it all to the house. Bro & I alternated between hefting boxes of books (holy hell, how many books do we own?!) and resting our arms while entertaining the kids. I am so very very VERY grateful for all his help, patience and endurance. I owe him big.

After The Day of The Trailer we took it easier, slowly unpacking boxes and scouting thrift stores for furniture. Both Doodle & Roo loved having Uncle T here and were sad to see him go. J flew in 16 hours before T flew out, meaning even more transitions and change for an already transitioned-out Doodle. So she's been a bit crabby with so many changes and all the un-fun house setup stuff going on. Hopefully soon we'll have her Very Own Purple-rific Room(!) set up and she'll start to feel more at home here.

In all the bustle we still managed to celebrate J's 31st birthday yesterday. I picked up a wet bottom shoofly pie at the farmer's market for dessert. Not the most appetizing name, but yum that pie was good. That plus a new-to-us comfy chair, some beer, and a movie on demand courtesy of internet! at home! made for a nice evening to celebrate my very favorite person. Happy birthday my love.

'Splorin'

That's Doodlese for "exploring". Still stuck in the Utah routine of being unable to conduct business around town on Sundays, we've taken to making Sunday our splorin' day.

First we headed northeast to Black Moshannon State Park. Took some windy dirt back roads (yay!) to get there, marveling at the green everywhere. People keep telling us it's been dry this summer, and counties around us are on a drought watch, but it seems really wet and green to this western girl. Heck, we've had at least six rainstorms since we've been here. Big thunder-n-lightning rainstorms. Very wet. But I digress. My point is it's really really green here.

We had a picnic then walked the bog trail at Black Moshannon. Found an orchid (Epipactis helleborine - a non-native), a mycotrophic plant (Monotropa uniflora - Indian Pipe), a carnivorous plant (Drosera rotundifolia - a sundew) and a couple of cute lycophytes. Great outing.

This past Sunday we went south to Bear Meadows Natural Area, another beautiful boggy spot. J heard that the blueberries were ripe down there, so we decided to check it out. Sure enough, blueberries galore. We picked for a while, but Doodle got bored so we kept hiking along the loop trail. We saw a ton of Rhododendrons and Vaccinium (blueberries), plus some ferns and a whole bunch of deciduous trees that I don't know. Boy do I need to learn my Eastern trees. Made it about a mile before Doodle decided she was done hiking and we turned around.

After Bear Meadows J wanted to check out a bouldering location further south. By the time we got there both kids were sound asleep. He hiked off to find the boulders while I sat in silence (ahhh) and read. I finally woke the kids up when I realized we were all slowly roasting in the car and should get out to enjoy the shade of the forest.

We got out and had just started our hike up the hill to find J when we heard him hoot, letting us know he was on his way back down. We met up and decided to let the kids play in a nearby stream. While Doodle was eyeing the water striders Roo was trying to launch himself headlong into the stream. J set him down in the shallow stream and Roo was thrilled, splashing and crawling to his heart's content. I caught a crawdad the size of a half-dollar and showed Doodle. She held it, let it go, then begged me to find another. J and I caught a bunch, one after another, to be examined and liberated by our little crawdad aficionado. Once Roo got cold and Doodle became less enthralled with the crustaceans we went back to the car.

On the way I spotted a log sporting a sizable clump of oyster mushrooms. Yum! Mushrooms were collected and put in the cooler for the drive back home. Successful outing in the form of blueberries, both in bellies and in the cooler, mosquito bites, tired forearms, photos of crawdads deemed "cute!", and mushrooms for the cooking.

I'm really liking Sunday splorin'.

faster faster

This is one of those times in life where, as you start to wish for time to slow down, it speeds up even more. Yesterday J defended his dissertation(!!!!!!) and is now making edits to get it through the Graduate School's master editor dude. The past 2 months leading up to the defense have been crazy, with J pulling all-nighters and generally being away from home far more than he'd like. The defense was a huge relief (and a huge success), but now the next step is coming up quickly.

We set a move date last week, and immediately June 22nd started to race toward us at a ridiculously fast pace. June 22nd. That's the day we roll out of Logan, now as a family of 4.

We're heading to PennState, where J has a post-doc position lined up in a lab, and where I'm hoping to schmooze with pollinator folk and get an in this summer.

Do you know how far it is from Logan, UT to State College, PA? 1,960 miles. That's a really freakin' long way.

We have three weeks until the trailer gets here. I have a whopping two small boxes packed (though I picked up a bunch earlier today, and will head out to get another free batch as soon as Roo wakes up).

In those three weeks we have to pack, plus we're taking all next weekend to hang out with friends up at The City, and fitting in as many social engagements as possible. Oh, and a bellydance show. A bit going on.

That said, blogging may be very meager until we're settled in PA. We'll see. Wish us luck!

Four

Our days are packed right now, though with what I'm never entirely sure. It's kind of a whirlwind, a crazy blur. But I wouldn't trade a minute with this little family of mine for the world.

Which is which?

I guess my babies *do* look similar.

He's here!

Tyler Jesse was born on Thursday, 8 Oct. at 6:25am. He's 7lbs and 20 inches long. Labor was less than 3 hours long. Our midwife, Melissa, was here for 8 minutes before Tyler was born into his Papa's hands. We're all doing great.

I'll post the full birth story plus cute photos of my little harvest baby soon.

We can do it! (I hope...)

Today marks the start of what may end up being a very VERY long week. You see, J will be spending the next week on the far side of the country from us, doing big collaborative things with his data and an awesome bunch of people. This trip is really a great thing. It's a wonderful opportunity for J to get help with analyzing a metric shit-ton of data while networking and schmoozing and being Mr. Independent PhD Student. It will help him A LOT.

The only drawbacks: I teach this week (meaning some creative Doodle-juggling is in the works), and I'm 37 weeks pregnant. So I'm tired exhausted most of the time, becoming progressively less comfortable by the day, and am totally stressing about all the things I need to get done *NOW*. Or yesterday, really.

At least today went well. We'd planned a big full day of a newborn-wearing sling tutorial followed by errand-running, more errand-running, grading and a midwife home visit. We ended up lounging, relaxing, coloring, doing minor errand-running, texting J a lot, and chillin' with the FanClub. Doodle had a couple minor meltdowns which started out as "Ow I smushed my toe" and ended up each time as "I neeeeeeeeed my Paaaaaapaaaaaaa!" But we got through. And now, courtesy of an early wakeup, no nap and fun with the girls this evening, she's asleep 1.5 hours before our usual bedtime. Ahhh, sweet tranquility.

I do have most of my major nesting projects done, so now it's time to buckle down, turn on a DVD (or five) this week and get some more thesis writing done. And grading.

Feel free to send any Mellow-Doodle and Baby Stay Put! vibes our way this week. Hopefully we won't need a lot of them, but you never know.

Preparation

I'm in the last trimester of this pregnancy. I'm feeling great. But a nagging voice has started up in the back of my brain. "You need to prepare," it keeps saying. Prepare what? We already have diapers, we're not changing around any sleeping arrangements for now, and I've done this before (the whole giving birth thing). What do I need to prepare?

I don't know. But I need to prepare something.

I feel like I've been totally slacking in the pregnancy front. I haven't been reading up on birth options, or breastfeeding, or cloth diaper choices, or the bazillion other things I researched while pregnant with Doodle. I haven't read any of the labor and birth books on our bookshelf that I poured over last time around. I haven't even pulled out my prenatal yoga dvd yet.

What HAVE I been doing?

Well, I've been writing and rewriting drafts of my thesis. I've started putting together my presentation for the Botany conference in a couple of weeks. I've done laundry, dishes, vacuuming, sewing, some cleaning, some wall scrubbing, and lots and lots of food prep. I've traveled to SoCal and EWa to visit family and celebrate with them. I've trudged through the long drives associated with the family visits. Best of all, I've been playing with my Doodle: embracing the imaginary play, dancing to Metallica, filling up the wading pool, coloring on the sidewalk, and loving the moments of "Mama, I love you" and "Mama, come cuddle".

I may not be filling my brain constantly with the latest research on newborn eye drops or the merits of certain diapers, but I am certainly filling my days. And this feels like what I should be doing right now.

Season of perpetual motion

This summer seems to be going by at a breakneck pace. GoatFest was a success - we have a freezer full of vacuum sealed goat steaks and roasts, waiting for us to get the hankering to eat meat once again. I may post pictures (nothing gory) once we're back. Yes, back. We are embarking on yet another roadtrip.

This summer seems to be our season of perpetual motion. Sunday we were at the City of Rocks all day. Yesterday we recovered (somewhat). Today we scramble to get last-minute things done around the house because tomorrow we hit the road again, this time for WA.

This trip will be full of family and family events. Not too much bouncing around, but we will have a full 4th of July weekend with wedding festivities galore. I'm looking forward to seeing family, maybe getting in some climbing near Spokane, and finally making the trek back to our wedding location to see if we can find the tree we planted. Good stuff. Photos will be posted sometime...eventually...after things calm down. Say, September?

Waterplay

It began so innocently, just wanting to touch the water.

Sleeves got wet, so the jacket came off. Splashing continued.

Then the sandals came off.

Before we knew it, she was in.

She seemed to be enjoying herself, so we let her play.

One soggy kid and a change of clothes later, no one would know how much fun a toddler had just had in the CalTech Gene Pool.

Cali pics, part 1

In lieu of a post of substance, I present photos from our recent whirlwind trip to California.


Doodle with her Great-Grandma May. Me, 22 weeks pregnant (please ignore the blurriness and double-chin. Those really only happen in photos. Really.).


Doodle, J, and Great-Grandpa playing.


Doodle being cute, with strawberries on her face. Luring in the turtles at CalTech.


Giggling uncontrollably at Auntie H and bubbles. Group photo at the turtle pond.

Quiet

The house is quiet. J and Doodle have taken of to east-central UT for a couple days of camping, playing on boulders, and papa-daughter bonding time. I'm home, working on my thesis. I know they'll be fine, but at the same time I'm really anxious being stuck here, unable to do anything if they need me. *deep breath* It will be fine. I know it will. They will have a blast.

So I sit and write. The only non-thesis things I will allow myself to work on while they are gone are: making food, doing dishes, and getting the mower working if I can. Everything else - the cleaning, laundry, sewing, gardening, puttering - all that will have to wait. I must use my time efficiently and get a lot done.

If you see me on Facebook or Twitter or posting another blog entry here, please gently remind me to get back to work. Thanks.

Easter-y fun

Here are some photos of our Easter. I didn't get any good ones of our busy, busy Saturday, but took a bunch on our much more mellow Sunday at home.

Grandma Sabrina made these awesome Easter gifts, all knitted! The basket/nest looks very realistic. So cool! Doodle loves them. (Bonus: the hatching chick also fits in some of the larger plastic eggs we have, so Doodle can make it hatch out of lots of things).

See? She loves it!

We started letting Doodle take pictures with the camera. This is J after the 8th photo in a row that Doodle took of him.

J and Doodle dyeing eggs.

The finished product (yes, we only dyed 7). Doodle working on opening a plastic egg found in the yard.