1640 miles of chasing pteronarcella

If you want to know what John is researching for his thesis please feel free to ask him, but be prepared for at least a good 7 minutes of answer time. There really is not a short way to describe what it is that he is studying, but for blogging purposes I am just going to say that he is doing a population genetics study on two types of aquatic insects (Pteronarcella badia, or more commonly, the least stonefly, and Drunella grandis, or the green drake mayfly) which involves going all throughout the western United States to collect the insects, preserving them in 100% alcohol (which we cart around in our trunk in illegal amounts), extracting their DNA to learn about their genetic structure, and then generating their mitochondrial genomes. And if that all means nothing to you then you are probably normal :).

John has gone on several collecting trips on his own or with other students, but a couple of weeks ago George, Pearl, and I decided to join him when he headed down to southwestern Colorado and then New Mexico. His research is funded through a grant at BYU so he typically takes a university-issued car and credit card on these trips to pay for the gas, but since we were all coming along we had to take our own car, which means the university will reimburse us for the gas at 50 cents/mile. Which, if you do the math, means that we spent about $350.00 in gas and get reimbursed about $800.00. It almost feels dishonest, but that's how it works, and I won't complain. I think I should get paid to go on road trips with my family more often :).

It's becoming clear to me as I get started on this that there is no possible way for me to make this just one post. I'm going to have to break it up. We'll just see how far we get right now, I guess. 

There was driving. Lots and lots of driving. We went 1640 miles in 4 days. I was (understandably) anxious about how the kids (especially Pearl) would handle all of that time strapped down in car seats, but God must've wanted to spare me a nervous breakdown because both of them were pretty great. This fact is even more remarkable when you take into account that the only amount of time where any type of electronic device was used for entertainment was when George got to play games on the iPad for about 45 minutes total spread out over those 4 days. I am not against electronic entertainment on road trips; we just don't have a portable DVD player and our iPad was having charging issues so we needed to preserve the battery since we were using it as a GPS. It might sort of sound like a nightmare, but it was actually really nice to be unplugged from anything other than each other for the whole time. Both kids read/looked at lots of books, played with lots of little toys, ate (way too many) snacks, and George learned the art of the knock-knock joke. (Which, trust me, gets pretty old after 45 completely random and made-up jokes that you have to pretend laugh at, but was highly entertaining in the beginning when John or I would tell him a joke that went something like this: J: Knock knock. G: Who's there? J: Ipe. G: Ipe who? Us in the front seat: snicker snicker, laugh laugh. G: I said, ipe who?! IPE WHO?! Us: uproarious laughter. This sequence was repeated multiple times with words like grape, wipe etc. Poor George.) John also told many, many stories. George would ask him to tell the Toy Story story or something, and John would proceed to relate the entire story with precise detail and many actual quotes, which was thoroughly entertaining for me as well as George. So anyway, there were definitely some rough moments where a little more thoughtless entertainment would've been welcome, but all in all, it was really fun to drive all that way just giving each other our attention. We had fun. Here are some of our en route pictures.

Lots of snacks, like I said. Most were not as healthy as these bananas :). (This was during one of those blessed iPad moments :). And yes, I did keep Pearl rear-facing the whole time. I debated about it because she does weigh (barely) enough to switch and she is 15 months old and I thought she might enjoy the ride more if she could see us and out the windows. In the end I just still felt like she was too small to face forward so I kept her rear-facing, knowing that if she was having a hard time or something I could always switch her around. She did pretty well, though, so it ended up working out.)

We drove through such a variety of scenery, and I was grateful for the opportunity to see places that we would never have reason to go to otherwise. There were some spots of breathtaking beauty, but I seriously have a hard time pulling out my camera just for landscapes, so there aren't many pictures. Here is one shot of a quaint little town called Ouray, Colorado. 

And another one of some place in Colorado that I am sure John could tell you the name of, but he's not here right now. I snapped this out the window on our drive home.

George is almost always really good to his sister, and it was so nice to have him back there to keep her entertained when she would get bored or restless. 

I love this one of their sweet little hands holding onto each other.

Remember that I said George is "almost always" really good to his sister? There were times on the trip where she would want something that he had (which she always does) and he wouldn't want to give it to her. Under normal circumstances, I would let him have the freedom to make that choice and then just redirect Pearl to something else, but when you are stuck in the car with limited items of entertainment and a baby is screaming for one thing in particular that her brother happens to have, sometimes the opportunity to choose is taken away and there is not another option other than to give the toy to the screaming baby. Which results in this:

He can keep the pout up for about 2 seconds, at which point he starts to cave and succumbs to my pathetic and humiliating (but effective) attempts to get him to smile.

"Must. Stay. Strong. Must. Not. Smile. Must. Cover. Face."

And then he gives up attempting to be pouty and angry and we have a happy boy again. If only adults could be pulled out of grumpiness so readily!

This was what John looked like most of the time. He just kept his waders on all day as we drove from location to location so he wouldn't have to take them on and off constantly. If you look closely you can see that he is absolutely soaking wet in this picture. We were up in a canyon in New Mexico and it started to pour. Like super pounding, huge drops of rain. Of course he still got out to sample the river there. There's not time to have a rain delay, I guess :).

When we'd get to a new river or stream John would typically get out and go do a quick sample to see if there were the right bugs in it before the rest of us got out. Here he is walking back towards us at a spot that there weren't any pteronarcella or drunella (which I was thankful for because I didn't really want to haul the kids and collecting stuff all that way down to the river).

This is a shot of him walking back to the car (in a rainstorm) letting me know that he had found one. One solitary little pteronarcella. 

And this one is from a location where some fisherman and his wife saw John out kicking up rocks in the river and collecting the debris in his net and asked him what he was doing. John showed them some of the bugs from the river and the fisherman politely asked if he could have some to fish with. Luckily they weren't the species of bugs John needed so he was happy to give them away :).

Okay, that's it for this post. More of this:

and this:

to come.

knickety knack i call my seat back

Remember when I said I went on an impromptu road-trip with my family back in July? Yes well, I did and I am now (finally) ready to post about it. Baby G and I had just left J for The Farm a couple of weeks earlier, so I had decided not to join my family (including, of course, the T-bo fam) on this vacation. I called my mom the morning they were supposed to have left to ask her where they were and she said they hadn't even left yet. My husband had just informed me that his plans for the next five days included nothing but eating and studying for finals, and I was feeling lonely just thinking about it. So imagine my jittery excitement when I learn that my family hadn't left yet! I threw some stuff in a couple of bags for the baby and me and we met up with the motorhome in a parking lot and crammed in. Some people (names not mentioned) weren't pleased to have to share the already cramped quarters with two more people (there were 9 adult sized people and 4 child sized ones), but whatever. I knew they'd be glad to have us in the long run :).

We headed west toward Nevada first. Baby G was most helpful in driving the motorhome.

He was also pretty happy about taking showers and baths whenever he wanted. This picture makes me laugh because he looks like a tiny adult taking a shower and washing himself.

Our first main stop was Lake Tahoe. 

The little kids had so much fun playing in the water, throwing sand and rocks. I can't get over how universally appealing things like that are to kids. Baby G loved the water and demanded that his shorts be removed as soon as he got wet.

Most of the crew rented bikes and went for a ride around the lake. There wasn't a bike carriage for Baby G so a few of us stayed behind. The bikes were fun, I'm sure, but the highlight of our time in Lake Tahoe was definitely when Josh impaled himself (mostly just his shins) on a sharp cinder block wall and my mom got the whole thing on camera. It was so painful to watch-- we actually had to stop watching because our horrified reactions made my tender little boy just sob.

Next stop was Yosemite. We were only there long enough to see some of the main sites (most of us had been fairly recently), but we figured since we were so close we should at least drive through. 

This picture is a good representation of the trip for me. It is so nice to travel with people who take care of your baby like he is theirs. Baby G has SO many people that love him and want him. With the exception of nights, I really didn't even feel like I had a baby-- he was always with someone else having fun and being cared for. I never had to ask, someone just always took him.

Two pretty girls in a pretty place.

The real adults in front of El Capitan.

After a glorious night in a hotel (our only non-camping night of the trip), we drove into San Francisco. We were greeted by some lovely fog and some not so lovely nudity (let's just say that driving in a motorhome provides you with a helicopter view into the privacy of dirty men alone in their cars--my poor little sisters). 

Love the fog.

You know we had to go get a hot fudge sundae.

The whole group except me 'cause I'm always the responsible one who brings her camera.

Jake and my boy with Alcatraz in the background. Jake and Baby G were best friends.

Baby G working the equipment on a U.S. submarine from WWII (I think).

Oh, this picture is funny. Josh bough some "Fart Bombs" in China Town and decided to break one open right as we were getting into an elevator. He threw it outside, but the smell was seriously so, SO bad. This poor Chinese woman entered the elevator on the next floor, and oh my gosh, her reaction was the most hysterical thing ever. We were all laughing so hard we couldn't breathe and she was dying trying not to inhale and covering her face with her hands. Poor thing, we are bad people.

Then we headed north and stopped in some forests to see the giant Redwoods.

Those forests are so incredible because they are thick and lush, and then the size of some of the trunks just blows you away.

Baby G playing in a rotted out tree trunk hole.

A bunch of the kids.

Jake balancing on a fallen trunk. Our family got lots of mileage out of this particular trunk. We played on it for a good thirty minutes.

See?

This is the game we were playing. We were all jumping and the trunk was moving up and down and Ken was pushing on it trying to get us to lose our balance and fall.

Baby G wanted in on the action, too.

See Ken pushing? It was harder to stay on than it looks.

We kept heading further north to the Oregon Coast. We camped at a few cool places near beaches and had fun playing in the sand and water. 

Rach wouldn't have actually gotten this far in on her own, I don't think (the water is COLD!). A wave took her down though, and she was all smiles.

Baby G is so much braver around the ocean now than he was at the beach this past Christmas. He loved getting wet and didn't mind the freezing temperatures.

I love his cute little body in this one, exploring the feel of the wet sand on his feet, hand up in the air for balance.

Let me just say that sleeping in a tent with a two-year old by myself every night (not to mention setting up and taking down the tent daily) was not my favorite part of the trip. We did, however, get to go to so many beautiful places and spend time with people we love so it was worth it. Next time I'll be bringing my husband, though. Here are some pictures from the various campground adventures.

Baby G is quite the marshmallow roaster. Check out how he is totally focused on trying to blow the flame out.

Nothing like a good s'more to end the evening with. I think Baby G ate at least two every night.

Ken doing what he does best-- wielding an ax.

Many hot dogs were roasted and consumed.

And isn't this the quintessential camping picture? S'more in one hand, can of root beer in the other, face covered in combination of dirt and sticky marshmallows, undone hair, and the filthiest hands in the history of earth.

These brave ones slept out under the stars one night. Ken couldn't quite muster the gumption to do it again even though the girls were game.

When I was in high school my family took this same road trip. One of the highlights for us all was going on the Mail Boats up the Rogue River in Oregon, so we made sure to get there again this time. 

Some of the kids on the boat.

We loved it again this time, and even saw a black bear again!

Towards the upper sections of the river you get to go through some rapids and get wet, so life jackets are required. At first Baby G wasn't pleased about his life jacket, but as soon as we started spinning around and getting splashed with water he was in heaven. He loves getting wet.

Our last day before we started the long drive home we went back down to the coast. It was unbelievably windy, but so beautiful.

Baby G kept grabbing my legs and holding on to me for dear life because the wind was so strong. I'm so glad I thought to hold the camera out and get this picture because I love it.

We pretty much had the beach and tide pools to ourselves. Maybe because no one else was dumb enough to be out in the whipping wind.

We found lots of starfish.

Rach and Emma trying to get warm in their towels. 

Baby G wasn't wanting to get wet this day because it was so cold. He would run down to the edge of the water and then run back up as fast as he could when the waves would come in.

Walking back towards the campsite. Baby G was unsuccessful in one of his attempts to avoid the waves and again, demanded his wet shorts be removed.

You know the prayer you say before you leave on a big road-trip about being safe and the car running well? We said that prayer. And it was answered. Right at the end of the trip (the last day, I believe) we pulled into our campsite. We hadn't even been stopped for a minute when we heard a loud bang (sounded like a gunshot, actually), and we went out to discover a back tire had blown out. A man from AAA came to fix it and discovered that both right back tires had blown out. Can you even imagine how dangerous that could have been if we would've been driving when it happened? We feel very grateful that we were blessed with safety. 

Here is the man (who brought his pet wolf along) and my dad fixing the tire.

The drive home wasn't as long or miserable as you might expect. Ice cream and movies always help to pass the time quickly :).

P.S. About the subject... the WHOLE dang trip was filled with an incessant chorus of "knickety knack I call my seat back!" that could be heard at any given time. I don't know which of the kids came up with it, but EVERYONE started saying it to claim their spot back when they would get up (and in a motorhome with 13 people you better bet than when anyone moved someone was looking for a more comfortable seat). We started saying it just to say it, and by the end we were all pretty sick of hearing it. I won't be sad if I never hear/say it again.