Wyoming

We are having a great time in Wyoming, as always. Monday and Tuesday we left Carina with her grandparents and did some hiking. We went to Lost Twin Lakes in the Bighorn mountains.

It was about a 5 or 5.5 mile hike in. This is the first time I've used my new backpack for actual hiking; I bought it before our trip to Patagonia, and we haven't been backpacking since. I was pretty tired by the time we got up there, but I can still walk a ways, it seems. We camped below the "lower" Twin lake. Before hiking out on Tuesday, we were discussing hiking up to the "upper" lake. Gavin turned to the side, though, and said "I'm interested in what's up there." So, we climbed a small mountain, instead.


We've been mainly playing with kiddos since. Carina is having fun with Cousin Caroline, although Caroline is a bit much for her sometimes. Carina has also definitely started talking. In addition to "daw" (dog) and "meel" (milk), which she's been saying for a while irregularly, we have heard new words "bir" (bird) and "Dacks" (Jackson).

Maroon Bells Photos

I'll write more later about the trip, but for now here are some photos.


by jmendeck

Photos Galore

I haven't done albums in months, but today I went nuts and made albums for the second half of Carina's first year. They're on the Baby Countdown page here. It's probably a bit much for most people. But, she has grandparents and they read this site.

Why did I have all this time on my hands? Because I'm sick. Again. This is after the stomach thing last week that had everyone convinced that I was pregnant. My runny nose isn't a patch on Carina's, of course, but unlike some people I do care if I have snot running down my chin. (Ew!)

Really, You Have a Blog?

During my ascent sim last night, which was boring for me since they aborted every single run, I spent the time comparing baby notes with the guy sitting next to me. At one point I went to the blog to find a picture of Carina to show him. It has been a while since I posted any! We'll take care of that.

Having fun in the garden at Grammy and Grandad's.


Playing distrustfully with that messy birthday cake.


Finally eating some birthday cake.


A great one I got of her first trip to the neighborhood pool.


This is why the dogs have been banished to lie at least 5 feet from her chair during mealtimes.

T+2 minutes

The launch was great! We were maybe 3 or 4 miles away from the pad, and plumes were brilliant against the blue sky as the shuttle climbed. The photo above is just a few moments after SRB separation, at the full-res you can see the pinpoint of light as the shuttle races away from the 'dirty' SRB exhaust clouds. And if you zoom in, you can make out the SRBs tumbling away but they're only a few pixels big.

We're meeting some friends tomorrow and maybe we'll hang out on the beach near Canaveral. Mom and Dad have been emailing us some photos of Carina, and with those plus the ones Sarah put online we're managing to not call every day and see how things are going. :)

Baby's First Ski Trip

In spite of hurting my knee, the ski trip was not a complete failure. Our one day of skiing together was quite nice. Here's Gavin at the top of a couple double blues we tried early in the day. I have another nice panoramic shot from the top I'll have to add at home after I stitch it together.

And here's pictures of the both of us with Carina watching the Rusted Root concert from our balcony. She liked the music just as much as either of us. She didn't seem to mind the cold air, either, or the snow. That girl just rolls with it.

Design Block

The other night I was amusing myself and exploring PaintShop by working on a custom design invitation for Carina's 1st birthday party. I like what I've done so far, but I'm at a loss as to what to do with the background. Maybe a couple catapillers? Flowers? What goes with alphabet blocks? And an apple?

(Completely random aside - I just saw a trailer for a new movie with Jackie Chan AND Jet Li in it. Gavin's head is going to explode!)

Anyway, back on the invitation... I welcome all ideas. I thought about just sending it to Sarah and seeing what she came up with, but I'm having fun doing it. I just need help getting past a little creative block here.

Easter Photos

Carina's grandad took lots of great pictures on Easter weekend.

I love my Grammy, and Grammy loves me!

We got her "Easter toys" instead of Easter candy.

You guys, this dress totally messes up my crawling!

Grandad labled most of these "Carina Happy". I guess that pretty much summs it up.

She's starting to climb, people!

Shona is way more willing to get up close and personal with Carina than our dogs. Carina loves it usually, but that nose is cold!

Laughter is the Best Medicine

Amazingly, I had a few minutes today to put together some recent baby pics and movies.

She can stand up now herself by holding on to us or the furniture.


Gavin really liked this one. He seems to have a thing with me wearing stupid stuff on my head.


And then for movies...

This first one is several weeks old - just to capture her laugh.


This one is more recent - just having fun.

Making Friends

We've had a pretty social month. First, Kennda was in town for a few days. We got together with her, Becca, Cari, and the Pettys. Carina and Aerik got to know each other a bit.


Then last weekend, Carina had a play date with Lily. Here they are playing in their nearly identical exersaucers.


Carina had fun helping do the laundry this morning.

Snoozing

I think Carina inherited her sleeping habits from me. When we don't have the daily necessity of getting up in time to get to day care, we tend to sleep later every morning and stay up later every night. Gavin says that we're just getting her on Pacific time early, but by the time we head back to home she's going to be on Hawaii time at this rate.

I bought my brother-in-law a game called "Masons" for Christmas. We played it a couple nights ago, and it was pretty fun. It's sort of in the "Settlers" category of games. It doesn't have the trading aspect of Settlers, which is one of my favorite things about the game. Masons can be played by two people, though, which could be very useful.

For Tracy...

Apparently, I've been terribly remiss in posting photos of the Chunk-A-Monk. Let's remedy that a little.

This one I like to call: I'll smile when I'm on my belly, but only if that other baby smiles back!


She won't consider washing dishes entertainment for long.


I love the doggie, and the doggie's scared of me!


Isn't that cute? With the slobber all running down her chin?

I'm Thankful For

We had a great time in Conroe for Thankgiving. We didn't do much; ate some yummy turkey; watched some football; played with the baby. It was perfect.

Just last Wednesday I was having trouble believing that it was actually Thanksgiving. Today, I'm having the typical post-holiday reaction: "I can't believe I have to work tomorrow." And have to work, I do. I have so much to do in the next three weeks or so before we take off for Christmas, it isn't even funny. I'm also a bit worried about being lead for the first mission after the holidays and taking 2 1/2 weeks off, but I'm trying to sooth the guilt with the idea that nobody else will be at work then either. I do expect that it will make January that much more hectic, though.

Auntie M and Auntie L

I can't belive that Thanksgiving is over already. This fall has gone by so quickly. Carina had fun having her Thanksgiving dinner (squash and peas) at the table with us while we had dessert.



Lauren and Melissa have been having fun getting reacquainted with Carina. She's so much bigger than the last time they saw her.

My flying plans for tomorrow are pretty likely to be scuttled by weather. It's hard to be terribly upset about not having to drive 1 hr each way to get there, though. Here's hoping for next weekend.

Baby Food Face

We took Carina to the doctor today. She weighed in at 14 lb 9 oz! The doctor said to start giving her solid food, rice cereal first. So, tonight we put her in her Bumbo (love that thing!) and made our first foray into spoon feeding. It probably didn't go as well as it could have, since she also had shots today and was feeling a little under the weather. We got baby's first food face on camera, though.



I've been intending for a while to post some video of her splashing in her bath. Once she figured out how to do it, she got really into it.



And to round out the baby show, here's her playing with one of her toys. I think it's still a bit of a mystery to her how it works. Gotta work on that cause and effect reasoning!

Why I'm so silent

Yeah, I haven't been posting much lately. I'm pretty busy, work and home, and the only thing I have to talk about is baby stuff. How many posts can you possibly read about how Carina is now *almost* sitting up.

People do like photos, though, so here are some of our 3-month-old.


Oh yeah, I also broke the plane last week. Nothing dangerous - I backed the elevator into the side of the hangar when I pushed it in. :( I'm trying not to think about it.

Snakes in Mission Control

No kidding - they found a baby coral snake inside mission control this morning. It was apparently living inside a steel door. I'm not sure if this beats the aligator they caught inside a building at KSC earlier this year.

CRAZY NASA ANIMALS!

Show-Off

Aren't I cute? Would you like to see more? Well, you're in luck. My mommy loves to show me off.

Smile!

We finally got a picture of Carina's smile. She's been doing it for a couple weeks, but it has been tough capturing it.



I'm going flying tomorrow, if the weather is OK (knock on wood). It will be good to get out again. Some progress has been made on the written test front. I'll get there, eventually.

vindauga update

I seem to be in the habit of spasmaticly posting pictures to the photoblog. There's another update there, with lots of great material from our recent guests and trips to the zoo and Minute Maid Park.

I'll try to post more often.

Caroline and Carina

Here are a couple shots I took with my new camera of Carina and her Cousin Caroline.

Photos

Pictures of Carina during the last couple weeks.

Pictures of Caroline (and others) during her visit.

Bring on the Bottle

More Carina photos...

My mother-in-law just cleaned my whole house for me. It's pretty nice walking around barefoot without getting dog hair stuck to my feet. Thanks, Meg!

We're going to Texas Roadhouse tonight with Carina to have dinner with Sarah in honor of her mom being in town. Carina had a pretty big crying spell just now, so we'll see how she does tonight. We're going to pack a bottle, just in case.

Carina is 4 weeks old today, so I'm going to start pumping enough for at least one feeding a day. Then Gavin gets to get up and feed her at 5AM instead of me. :)

Bathtime

Carina's umbilical cord stump fell off a couple days ago, and tonight we gave her her first "real" bath. In the infant tub, of course, but she actualy got to sit in the water. I think she liked it a bit better than the sponge bath - she didn't start really screaming for a few minutes. It may have taken us a bit too long, though, because I think she was a bit cold when she came out. She's been sleeping like a dream this evening, though. :)

Last I wrote, I was starting to plan my first Astros outing since the birth. A) I needed a break and B) it was the Mariners! Sarah was out of town this weekend, but Jason thought he'd be able to go. The idea grew on me to the point where after I found out Jason was going to be stuck at work and couldn't find anyone else to go with me, I went anyway. It wasn't bad. All the season ticket holders around us wanted to hear about the baby, so it wasn't really like I was there by myself. I had to leave at the 7th inning stretch because I really need to get to bed early these days. But, still, go me!

More Baby Photos

Because, at the very least, her grandparents will care...


Photos of Carina in the NICU and at home are posted on her web page. The NICU photos are a little sad with all the tubes coming out of her, but it's all good now that we've got her home. :)

Same old, same old (or same new, maybe) here. I got out of the house to go to lunch with Becca yesterday. I'm considering trying to go to part of the baseball game on Saturday. I'll probably have to leave early, because 9:00 is a pretty hard bedtime for me right now, but it would be nice to use a ticket.

Vail Trip Photo Recap

Here's a quick photo survey of the trip...


Warming up in Vail



Snowmobiling



A beautiful day at Breckenridge

20 Weeks

I have to admit to being slightly disappointed at today's ultrasound. It wasn't as impressive as the last one. I don't know whether that's due to the baby being in a worse position or just being bigger and not fitting all on the screen as much. I thought the last pictures were cuter, though. Maybe it's that I'm looking forward to 4 1/2 more months of the heartburn I've had for the last two days. Or maybe it's that the last time we had a lot of fun watching the kiddo litterally bouncing around my uterus. It looks a lot more cramped in there now. Can't imagine how much more so it's going to get before baby's born.

Anyway, the important part is that baby seems healthy and is growing right on schedule. This scan put my due date on June 5, one day before the one we had been told 12 weeks ago. Here's a "video" if you're interested. WARNING: 7+ MB file for 3 seconds of movement!

Baby M - 20 weeks

Look What We Bought

the vindauga is back open

Sorry for not posting much over the holidays. I went back and put up 12 pictures for your enjoyment.

Ghost Baby

OK, so I know I promised these weeks ago. Here are the pictures from my last ultra-sound. That was at 12 weeks. I’m in my 15th week now, and have another doctor’s appointment in about a week, but…

This one is the cute one. See the little hand?


This one is the one Becca says makes the baby look like a ghost. Well, how good do you think you looked when your facial bones were only half formed?

Family Moment

We're having fun in Wyoming. Caroline is, as expected, pretty much stealing the show. She is definitely 2 years old. Last night, I was instructed to "sit in the chair" rather than help color. Gavin seems to be the favorite at the moment.

Wind Eye

Busy morning. I stayed up until 2am working on the layout for my first ever photoblog, then I took the dogs to the vet this morning at 9am. Roxy was fine, but Zoya was very scared. I wonder if Roxy is more comfortable around strangers when I'm there, and Zoya is the same with Jen? They both also gained 10% weight from the last time we took them. I blame Becca's house with its fabulous cooking.

Anyways, here's the link to my photoblog. It is currently driven by Blogger, although I suspect I will continue to make changes to the template. Feel free to make any comments on the layout, etc. The photo on there today is actually an old scanned image from a picture I took in 1997, so, it isn't the best quality. I'm going to have to figure out a simple way to allow people to flip between previous and next posts.

Pictures from Colorado

by jmendeck

Speaks to me Today

Like the picture, love the caption

At least somebody's flying

World without color

Pictures from Casper

by jmendeck

On Fire

My little hometown of Casper, WY is making national headlines today. A wildfire burning on Casper Mountain, which is covered with cabins and homes, is on fire. Casper Mountain hasn't had a major fire in about a century, and there is a lot of dead, dry wood lying on the ground up there.

My parents, who live about 1/4 mile into the prairie below the forrested area have been evacuated from their home. Right now, most of the fire seems to be burning to the west - away from my folks house, but the fire is uncontained and unpredictable. My parents are staying with friends in town, and all the family animals got out with them.

The fire started on Saturday due to a lightning strike. That lightning came from the same storm that drove us back to our car early from our hike on Casper Mountain on Saturday. It smouldered without anyone realizing it was there until Monday (a couple hours after we left to catch our airplanes in Denver). Yesterday, it spread quickly and burned over the top of the ridge.

The fire is front and center of the Casper Star Tribune, understandably.

BlazeBlog
Photos

In Wyoming

We're having a great time on vacation so far. We spent most of the day traveling, but we got here in time to play with Caroline for a couple hours before she went to bed. She calls us both by name already. Gavin and she bonded by playing in the sand table for 15 minutes.



More later...

Growing Up

I'm getting very excited about going to see my family in a couple weeks. While I've always wished that I could see them more often, it was never such a pressing thing until Caroline was born. Now, I'm always wondering how much she's changed since I last saw her. I wish she knew who she was talking to when her mom puts "Aunt Jen" on the phone. My mother told me the other day that Caroline pointed to a picture of me and said my name when she was babysitting the other day. I'm holding out hope that she'll make the connection between the picture she recognizes and the person that's coming to visit.

This picture was taken a year ago, when I went to Wyoming for her 1st birthday. It will be interesting to compare the pictures from her 2nd birthday soon.

Jen @ 3am

Sure, to the unfamiliar eye she looks like the steely-eyed mission controller, reminescent of the early Apollo days. Sharp. Calculating. You'd trust your life to her, never mind a billion-dollar spacecraft.

But to her husband's eye, she looks like she's on her second cup of coffee at 3am and is just starting to really wake up.

Nature

As it turns out, I had a lovely day yesterday. I took my time getting up in the morning, took a nice long bath, and watched some TV. Gavin came back and took me out to lunch at Big Boy Diner, because it's next to his hotel and we just had to, you know? Then he had to go back to work for what he estimated would be at least four hours.








So, I kidnapped his car and camera and drove up the Angeles Crest Freeway until I got up above most of the pollution. I took my time, stopping at all the turnouts to get out of the car and play with the camera. I didn't have a destination in mind, so I just followed the road signs to wherever seemed interesting.







I ended up driving up Mt. Wilson. As it turns out, I'd just missed the walking tour of the observatory. Darn! OH well, I spoted a sign pointing to a trail that says "Vista Point .8 miles". That sounded like a good place to see. So, I walked about a mile down the Rim Trail through the telescopes at the observatory.









When I reached Vista Point, I was rewarded with a somewhat hazy view of another mountain that still had some snow left on top! I haven 't been able to learn the name of that mountain... Any California readers that can hazard a guess? The view is to the north from Mt. Wilson.







Since I didn't have any water, I turned back at this point. I drove back toward LA a bit, and with some help from the ladies at the Native American Culutral center found a great little hike by a stream, through the woods, to Switzer Falls. That hike took a bit longer than I'd anticipated, mainly due to me stopping every 20 ft to take pictures (SLRs are fun!). I had to hoof it back to the car to get back down to JPL to pick Gavin up.



Gavin decided that I hadn't walked far enough at that point and took me to Brand Park. This park is only a few blocks from his hotel, and is huge. We climbed a little mountain in the park. I was pretty tired at this point, and the air was pretty smoggy, so I didn't take any pictures there.

All in all, very satisfying. I love the idea that you can go hiking for an afternoon and be back by dinner!

LA Obscured

I'm in California this weekend to visit Gavin. Unfortunately, he's got a lot of work still to do. He's there right now, and may be there all day. I thought this might happen with next week being the review and all, but it was the only weekend that I could come. At least I'll get to see him at night. :(

I was watching Supernanny on TV the other week, and they had this family on where the dad worked 3 1/2 hours away from home and only came home on Sundays. They'd been doing that for years. How crazy is that? I couldn't ever do something like that long term. Even this 4-month thing is driving me nuts. The craziest part was that the wife was a stay-at-home mom. Hello! Move closer to work!

Anyway, it's a nice day outside, but the air is LA polluted. I can see some hiking trails on a mountain about a mile away, but I'm afraid that getting there would induce resperatory failure. Seriously, look at this mess!

Land of my Youth

All my life when people find out that I grew up in Wyoming the first thing they ask is "Really? I didn't know anybody actually lived in Wyoming." This is usually followed by "What's it like there?" Well, the answer is that it's like this, and this, and this.

The guy that takes all these pictures actually lives in Montana. But the landscapes are very similar and every time I see his pictures, it always transports me back to Wyoming and my childhood. There's a wild, desolate sort of beauty in Wyoming that I didn't appreciate well when I lived there. From the distance of my years in Houston, though, I find these images of "my homeland" breathtakingly beautiful. Even that brown prairie grass looks beautiful to me compared to the swampy scrub brush that persists in undeveloped areas around here.

I think my love of open spaces is probably mainly due to growing up in Wyoming. There's nothing I love more than hiking up above the treeline in the mountains and being able to see for miles. On a clear day, you can see the Bighorn Mountains from my parents deck - they're like 250 miles away across rolling prairie land. I feel blind here in the land of the flat, where if you drive up onto a freeway overpass you can see all the way to downtown, 20 miles away.