Boise

We made it safe and sound to Idaho yesterday. The trip was totally uneventful except perhaps the small roadside fires and storms in Southeast Oregon. It took us 11 hrs 30 mins with all stops included. Not bad. When we got here last night I was exhausted though - perhaps from being wide awake at 5am. I read about poison oak online. Apparently it's supposed to last 12-15 days. I'm in day 7, so hopefully it'll at least not be getting worse in the near future. It's awfully itchy.

AWAKE

I don't remember doing this as a kid, but nowadays before a big exciting trip I can't sleep. True to form, last night I tossed and turned but didn't sleep too much and then this morning when the alarm went off I just bounced right out of bed and now I have a little extra time to write a blog entry.

Last weekend while kicking through the woods I must have rolled in a poison oak plant. I think this may be my worst case ever, although not near so bad as that time I (literally) swung on a poison ivy vine and not near as bad as my friend Fraser's case of PO that arose from using PO as toilet paper and then sweating a lot and rubbing his face with his hands (holy cow that was a bad one). But my worse case of PO. I think when I got in the shower after being in the woods I missed the back of one of my legs - it sounds pretty likely really. Over most of my legs I have just little dots but on the back of one leg there's a lot of it. Doesn't this sound like fun? Hydrocortisone is going with me to Idaho.

Yay! We leave very soon!

Aunt Teresa

I am so in love with baby Amelia. I went over last night - she's 8 days old! We ate dinner (I brought over chili and cornbread) and I held her and we went for a little walk. It was fun to get together with Brandy and Yasha - they were in rare form. I laughed so hard. Anyway, I have some photos for you below. I've volunteered to be a babysitter as often as I can manage it. Brandy is already talking about not wanting me to graduate so that I can continue to be around to help out. She's been calling me "Aunty T" but I think that sounds funny. I guess I am kinda an aunt though - these days when people are so spread out from their families, your friends are your sisters. When I was at the hospital during Brandy's labor they asked if I was her sister and Brandy replied, "Close enough."




Speaking of sisters - mine told me I should have a baby soon. I told her I'd like to be married first and she replied, "Oh, that's not that important these days." I told Chris this and his response was, "I think your dad would kill me." I guess it's still important to some these days. He he... My mom's been teasing me too. Actually, I think they're all getting quite a laugh out of this. I've been, up to now, practically baby-phobic. I just never understood why little girls play with baby dolls or what's so cute about a onesie. Maybe I just wanted to go against female stereotypes on principle. I don't care though. They can make fun of me all they want - I'm still going to be very attached to Amelia.

The only other news is that I leave to drive to Idaho at the crack of dawn on Saturday for a rockin' raft trip. Yay!

Ow ow ow

Today I shut my fingers in the car window. It's kind of broken so you have to have your hand nearby while you're closing it so that you can guide it up the track. I was kind of hurrying though and neglected to pull my hand out at the last minute. It made such a horrible crunching noise but I don't think anything was broken. I'm typing with those very same fingers now.

I gave group talk today and it went fine - I just don't have much to say having spoken less than 2 months ago and having been gone a lot of that time.

I just finished making a CD of lullabyes and slow sleepy music to give to Amelia/Brandy tomorrow when I see them - my favorite new acquisition is Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - he's this 700 pound Hawaiian guy - sadly, deceased in 1997 - with a beautiful voice. So now I'm listening to the CD I made and getting very sleepy...

And stuff & stuff

Amelia Rose Spong got to go home yesterday. She's doing well and she and her mom are both sleeping a lot. I can't wait to see her again! I visited the hospital on Saturday and she was awake, so I got to see her pretty blue eyes. I'm thinking there must be something seriously hormonal (or phermonal?) about a baby. I mean, I've never felt so attached to anything after so short a time. I feel like a little girl who discovered baby dolls 20 years late.

The weekend was good and HOT. I found geocaches with Julia, ate Susan's Downfall with Chris at one of our favorite restaurants, laughed really hard at Wedding Crashers, and ate and played Settlers of Catan with Steph and Bruno - I'd not hung out with them in so long and it was really great to reconnect. Oh, and I saw an a capella concert that a friend of Chris's is in - those concerts are pretty fun because all the music is basically all music I already know.

No news on the work front, except I have to give a talk tomorrow for my lab group and otherwise things aren't really going anywhere. Except my advisor tells me I need to publish a paper because otherwise my funders will be unhappy. So that's a good thing.

I'm really looking forward to this weekend! We're driving to Idaho on Saturday for a 1 week rafting trip. Yayayay!

Photos

Click on photos for a larger view.

Baby Spong

So they haven't officially named her yet, actually. The only name that's consistently been in the running is Amelia, so I expect they'll name her that, but they haven't decided. There's no name on the birth certificate. Yasha (her father) has like 10 middle names. He came from a hippy family and everyone who was at the birth got to give him a name. The one he uses though is Zeke. The other names are really whimsical - things like Zeus.

Oh yeah, so I went yesterday and got to see Brandy and the baby and hold the baby. She's very cute with a full head of hair, and doesn't look like "a little old chinese man" (Brandy's concern because she looked that way at birth apparently) and she doesn't look like Winston Churchill (Ab's thought on what most babies look like at birth) but her head is a little cone shaped. That'll go away though.

I have a photo or two I'll post later in the day - baby only because Bran didn't want her photo taken because she was so tired. I really want to go see her in the hospital again today but I'm under the impression that she's been overwhelmed by all the visitors and just wants to rest. So I'm going to resist. When I saw the baby yesterday apparently she had never yet cried (I'm sure that'll end soon enough) and the night after her birth they were a little worried about her lungs so they kept an eye on her in the nursery. But I think they're not really worried.

So I'm starting to understand about the cute baby clothes. It's not that the clothes are that cute, it's that you're imagining a cute baby in them. :)

Oh, and Chris's mother informs me that Chris was only 8 lb, 2 oz but since the birth was natural he sure seemed like 10. Ha. Also, Baby Spong was 7 lb 13 oz (I think). Still big, but they were guessing 8+ and Brandy is only 5' 3" or something like that.

Amelia!

Good news! Amelia Spong was born at 8:32 pm. Yay!

Brandy

I have had the most amazing experience today. I called Brandy around 11am to see what she was doing today, and the answer was that she was delivering a baby. She invited me to come to the hospital with her and Yasha and so I arrived on my bike just a minute or two after they did. She had gone to see her OB in the morning at 10 and the doctor asked her if she realized she was in labor - apparently the initial contractions were very gentle. Anyway, by the time we got to the hospital she was dialated 6 cm and was starting to feel some real pain. They were really trying to go without doing an epidural or much else in the way of pain medications, but after about 4 hours of serious contractions and valiant effort she finally decided to have an epidural. When the anestesiologist arrived that was when Melanie and I were kicked out. What an amazing and strenuous thing to be part of. I mean, I wasn't doing anything but watching and I'm totally exhausted! I'm just so amazed at how brave and strong Brandy is.

I left before the baby arrived but I called back to see what was going on and apparently Brandy is now pushing. Or maybe has already delivered a baby by now. I didn't go back to the hospital because I wouldn't be allowed to see anyone anyway. I've talked to a few people on the phone and apparently it's not that common for anyone but the father to get to see the delivery. So I feel very blessed to have been a part of that.

It's amazing too how much you learn about birth just from watching. Like how tremors are normal because of all the adrenaline in her body. And that there's a wives tale which says that every time you throw up you get another cm dialated (nausea is another common reaction). They broke her water at the hospital and I got to see that too.

Oh, and another thing, hopefully Bran doesn't have to have a c-section. They think she's having an 8lb+ baby and they were worried that no matter how much she dialated it wouldn't get through. Though since she's pushing now probably it's fine. (As a side note, Chris tells me he was a monster 9 or 10 lb maybe. Maybe his mom can confirm or deny this... makes me want to strengthen birth control measures... ha...) Oh yeah, which reminds me. I think I'll have my teenage cousins come watch me have a baby. That might help keep them out of trouble.

Wow. What a day. Can't wait to post the good news that her baby is doing well...

Relaxation!

This past weekend was great. We didn't go out of town, we slept in and read Harry Potter (and I read my book club book too - I don't want to get too far ahead of Chris in the reading) and I did some laundry (that I didn't immediately then put in a suitcase) and we ate dinner at CPK and went to a pool party at Heather's amazing parents' house and sat around a lot. It was really fun.

Oh, also on Friday I had a pretty big work breakthrough - I'm able to show that the controller I made up for my robot is going to work better in certain circumstances than the one being used currently. It's taken me a long time to be able to show this.

And the weather has been gorgeous and hot. Usually it's not this hot around here but I've been wearing shorts and loving it.

Inspired by Weight Watchers cards

Ok, so I was inspired by the weight watchers cards mentioned in a previous log. Make sure you've read those first, then go to my creation. This was inspired by reading about those cards, reading the 70s fondue book I got Chris, and some nasty, but thankfully few, experiences with such food on my own. (I'm pretty sure this Princess Pudding recipe was served at a friend's before-wedding party... he he)

And a related IM contribution from Matt:

matt: that sounds like the mixtures i made as a child which we called "oogy noogy"
matt: the best part of my concoctions was that i put them in a mixing bowl and set them on the back deck in the hot summer sun to cook for several days
matt: that way they'd develop a hard crust
me: nasty
matt: ask chris
matt: he might remember
matt: hehe
matt: definitely not edible
me: i'm gagging
me: while laughing
matt: since it basically consisted of every ingredient i could find in the kitchen

I'm still gagging... while laughing.

Drama!

Such drama today! You'll have to read it on the sly though - I've passworded my blog with the same username and password that I use for my private photos (see more here). If you don't know what that is, don't worry about it because you don't want to read my boring work melodrama anyway. I just passworded it so that the key players involved don't pull up their own names on Google and find it...

I also got to see Brandy today and she's about to pop. Boy is she big. She's due in a week and she's in really good spirits and not frustrated or unhappy or anything. We went and heard a concert in the park and chatted and it was just so good to get to talk to her. I hope we don't have to stop being friends just because she has a baby and people with babies only hang out with other people with babies or something. That seems unlikely, but you never know. It's a big change.

Yesterday I managed to tie with Chris at 9 holes of frisbee golf - he has an 8 point handicap on a full course because of his strong manly arms, but the handicap is a new thing. Anyway, this is the first time I have even tied him, much less won. I made up for it though by clobbering him at Settlers of Catan later. Tee hee.

And you know what else I'm excited about? I'm not going out of town this weekend! Yay!!

Dang.

Check out these photos of the burned down house. Pretty impressive. Don't miss Kelly's captions - she's gone through this with a lot of grace and humor. It's interesting - I was told that the fire started from fireworks or cigarettes on the back porch. But if you look at the section of deck near where the fire started it seems totally intact. Johnny had said he thought it was something electrical in the family room and everyone said "Yeah, right." But I have to agree with him, from the photos. It really looks like the fire started in the house near where the TV was. Of course I'm just looking at a few photos...

More Prague

Oog. Tired jetlagness. I managed to post Prague photos though. The end of our trip was really fun - we saw some of my favorite parts in the last couple of days actually. I thought the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul in Vysehrad (right near our hotel) was the most beautiful church and the park Petrin Hill was really beautiful and there were hardly any tourists.

On the way home we volunteered our seats on the New York to San Francisco flight (because ours sucked - two middle seats apart from each other in the back of the plane) and we got bumped - to business class! They did everything but give us foot massages in that cabin. We got great food and the seats laid down almost flat and the flight attendents were incredibly nice.

In other news, while I was out of the country Uncle Jack's house burned down! Eek! I'm really glad everyone is ok though.

Also, today we went to the San Jose Obon festival. We ate yummy sushi and tempura and corn and watched the San Jose Taiko. They're so awesome. Now I'm really tired and it's only 8pm. Sleep soon. Hopefully.

Prague

Hello from Prague!

Chris and I arrived here on Sunday evening after leaving on Saturday around noon. It's not as bad as it sounds though because there's a 10 hour time change. We flew through Dallas and London and finally got to Prague. There was no problems - in fact, in Dallas there was a 3 hour delay but it worked out nicely for us because when we got to London we were having to switch airports from Gatwick to Heathrow and the airline was worried we wouldn't make it so they gave us a voucher for a free taxi ride. We made it in pleanty of time. (As a side note, I've realized after a short while in those airports that I don't speak English. I speak American or something...)

We're staying at a nice hotel in Prague - 5 stars allegedly. 5 stars in Europe is a little different from 5 stars in the US. It's like a nice Holiday Inn in the US. There's no rats or anything and we have our own bathroom, so compared to last years' European adventures it's a great housing arrangement. Also it's really near the conference hall (only a 5 minute walk) so that's nice. I keep going back to the hotel room for naps and stuff. (The jet lag has hit me pretty hard.)

Last night we went to a beer garden and that was fun, but this afternoon will be our first actual tourism stuff. Should be fun!

2nd Anniversary

Chris and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary yesterday. We began the day by getting up late. Then we opened presents. Last year I got Chris a used book for his anniversary and he got me an iPod. By guilt and by desire I'm coming around to being a better gift giver... this year I preordered the Harry Potter book for him and got him an electric fondue pot and a Better Homes and Gardens fondue book from 1970. I got the fondue book because it was the only fondue book at the used book store I went to, but amusingly he seemed to like it best of everything. It reminds us of those Weight Watchers cards. This book has funny photos and descriptions of the After-ski party we should have, and recipe names like "Creamy Ham Towers" and recipe ingredients like "garlic cheese food." That last one about made Chris fall out of bed with laughing. Anyway, we may try out the very normal looking cheese fondue recipe for dinner tonight.

Chris got me a camera - the new little Canon Elph. It's the 5MPix one and it's so tiny. It's about the size of my iPod. It's really fun. To try it out we took it to Monterey to the aquarium and I took a bunch of photos. Most of them turned out badly (aquarium lighting is kinda poor) but some of them were really pretty. They're included below. For dinner we went to Saturn Cafe in Santa Cruz (my favorite!) and we watched the movie Saved!. It was a really fun day!

After you...

Scary roller coaster / robotics news. As I type this I'm sitting in front of a robot that looks rather like the one holding onto the chairs in this image. In fact this was all brought to my attention by Jack who walked in and suggested we strap a chair to the end of our industrial robot. I'll plead likely motion sickness and send someone else first...