The Phearsome Phive

I just finished my fifth year committee meeting. Ooh . . . I have mixed feelings on this one. I went into way too much detail, one of my committee members looked like if there was just one less computer cord between us, he would have jumped across the table and throttled me. On the other hand, one of the other members loved it. One of the other committee members, looking at the tall chilled water bottles I provided remarked, "Wow Chris. Concerned about the environment at all? What's with the huge water bottle?" Um . . . great start to the meeting. But, when I answered the questions, it was also the first time that I thought, "Huh, maybe I could be a PhD." Whatever, my problems are comical compared to what has actually happened to others in their meetings. In short, I'm supposed to finish up a few things and defend in December. It seems unlikely, but seriously, I've got to work . . . harder? Really? Yup. We'll see. It could be WAY worse. Oh, and I got accepted to present my research at the NIH in September. So, that blocks out all of Augusty-Septembery (Oxford, Peru, D.C.) so . . . when am I going to write this? Oh well. Work to do! Fewer trips? Not likely. I'm headed to Utah on Wednesday. Goodness!

Camping in the San Juans.

Hmm . . . maybe I should remember the first part of my mantra and work hard because two days after I got back from South Dakota, I packed up with Emily, Suzy, and Megan and went to the San Juan Islands. We took the ferry up to Lopez Island and got a great camping site right on the water. Thanks Emily! Okay, I know we were in nature, and should have been excited . . . but nature is noisy folks! Just as we were all snuggling down to sleep on Friday night, the ocean (remember we were on the beach) started lapping up on the shore and then four hours later, the birds started chirping. One of them had such an odd "chirrup" that I thought it was Megan's cell phone and I couldn't figure out why she would set an alarm for 3:48 in the morning. Megan thought it was my cell phone. What bird it actually was? No clue. So, Saturday morning, we had fruit, bacon, and bacon toast (bread toasted in bacon grease . . . YUM!). Here's the view from our campsite. After breakfast, we went off to Spencer Spit. Emphasis on SPIT. The shore was crowed with geoducks that were spitting about 1-2 foot siphons of sea water. At first we couldn't figure out what they were and Suzy coerced Emily and Megan to use a giant shell to dig it up. Once they started poking, the protrusion would sink into the sand and then spit, and then we'd all scream. It was the best part of our whole trip. After the Spit, we trotted off to the Farmer's market, Shark's Reef, and then Iceberg Point. We picked up scones at a bakery, ate some ice cream, and took a lovely afternoon nap. This is us walking back from Iceberg Point. We were hoping to see some orcas but all we saw were some seals and a snake. Here's a picture of Emily making our dinner of pulled pork sandwiches during which we sat by the fire for about five hours. Staying a second night was the best idea because we got to see this beautiful sunset in the San Juans. And yes, the ocean and the birds were just as noisy the second night. I could barely keep my eyes open during the 2 hour fireside that we had that Sunday night. Did I mention it was 2 hours?

Sing along! "O Give Me A Home, Where . . . "

the buffalo roam even today. Except let's stop fooling ourselves. They're bison. They've always been bison and will always be bison. A buffalo looks more like an ox or a yak. Okay . . . now that my classification rant is over, let's get on to the prairie! My family and I just got back from South Dakota where we saw bison roaming, deer and antelope playing, we seldom heard a discouraging word, and the skies were only cloudy part of the day. In short, it was amazing. On to the picture gallery! We drove up from Denver through eastern Wyoming and I couldn't stop myself from staring out the window at the plains. Real plains! Grass. Green. Waving in the wind. Oh yeah, and sky! I had the song, Don't Fence Me In, running through my head. Result of graduate school anyone? Methinks yesh. On the first day, we went to Mount Rushmore. Yes, Mount Rushmore is in South Dakota. It's even prettier close-up. Did you know that they were originally planning on sculpting the statues as entire torsos? And, did you know that there is an actual reason for having Teddy Roosevelt on there. i.e., he wasn't the president that commissioned it? I learned a lot. This is my dad and Isaac walking toward the monument. There's a huge granite amphitheatre and viewing area. Inside the exhibit, they had a mock dynamite plunger connected to a video screen that showed rock being blown off the monument. Isaac and Carson went beserk. The next day, we went up into Custer State Park and to Sylvan Lake. Sylvan Lake is featured in the latest installment of "National Treasure" which we watched later that night. To think I was standing right on the opening of the Lost City of Gold and didn't know it! Later that afternoon, we went out and played croquet with the kiddos. They're not ready for the Champion's League yet and let's be honest, I'm just glad that no one was missing teeth by the end of it. In fact, I'm still surprised about that one, those mallets were swinging higher than regulation permits. This is Isaac and Grace and the next one is Carson and Colter. Okay, see what I mean about the teeth? Carson's mallet is about 14 inches from Colter's head. But, it goes to show what a good aunt I am. I watched 'em carefully. The next morning, we went on a legit steam engine up through the Black Hills from Hill City to Keystone. I think the engineer had spent some time as a soccer announcer for Mexico because when he said "All Aboard" it was really "Allllllllllllllllll Abooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd!" This is Grace in the open air rail car. The next day we went to the Badlands and if South Dakota hadn't already topped the list of favorite states in our beautiful union, then this day trip put it up and over the top. Oh, this is funny. We were driving through the park and saw some goats climbing on the steep rocks. Lots of other cars were pulled over, but the car in front of us had a girl get out and approach the goats wearing a wolf hat. What? Why? Why do you have a hat like that? Why are you wearing it? And why do you think that approaching a goat with two kids (goat kids, not people kids) would be a good idea? I got a picture of her just before she got back in the car, I hope you can see the hat.
On the way back from South Dakota, we decided to take a four hour detour through the middle of Wyoming to see the National Trails Historic Monument out in Casper. It's situated at the last crossing of the North Platte River where the Mormon, California, Oregon, and Pony Express Trails meet. Best visitors center EVER!!! They had a fake wagon crossing that thoroughly confused the kids (wagon box actually moved with a video screen filming an actual crossing), telegraph game, diarama of pioneers, handcart connected to treadmill, Wells Fargo wagon journey, and a room that got cold while depicting the tragedy of the Martin Handcart company. Go if you ever can. It is worth the four hour detour, even when that means showing up at the Denver at 7:38p for your 7:55p flight. (Fortunately the flight was delayed 13 minutes or I would have mised it.) Meanwhile, here is a picture of the largest open coal mine in North America. It's in Wyoming.

Straight outta Cape Cod we're keeping it real.

This past weekend was Emily's birthday and as that girl would love to own a yacht and host parties on an east wing veranda, we decided to holla back to Martha's Vineyard and celebrate a West meets East birthday bash. We went out to Alki for a bonfire replete with bubbly libations and cucumber finger sandwiches. Here's Kurt and Suzy. Kurt decided to shave the beard the next day to a Brigham Young. Huh.Here's the birthday girl herself. Yup, behind her is the sun setting over the Olympic Peninsula. Seattle is gorgeous.And here are the finger sandwiches. Suzy and I were laughing when we made them because we didn't think the cucumber mix looked right, so we kept adding all of the ingredients again in unequal portions. We finally settled on just sticking them in the fridge but I was a little sick from snacking on the crusts. Yikes.Jonny and Emily enjoying the Martinelli's.Megan, Lisa, and KurtSuzy and I enjoying the freezing cold weather. Oh it looks warm, but that is a negative. Little did we know that we would be heading into a new month, Juneuary.Tee-hee. This is my favorite picture of these two. Although they're great friends, this is a typical exchange between the two. I'm guessing that Jonny is telling Emily the way he thinks things are and Emily is incredulous that Jonny has again failed to see another point of view on the matter. I love it. They're both fabulous.Sarah, Emily, and Jonny. Funny thing about Sarah. She and I had the same Institute teacher during the summers at BYU and she remembers assembling Olympic Closing Ceremonies with my mom like six years ago. She also remembers sitting next to me at the Closing Ceremonies. I have a horrible memory but then again, that was when I had spent the last three weeks getting up at 2 in the morning to point people in the direction of the biathlon in 10 degree weather.Gorgeous picture of Megan Webster, Emily's roommate.