Snow

No pictures yet, but I'm in Forest Grove with Katherine and there is close to 2 feet of snow outside. And not just snow, but snow then 1/8th and inch of ice, then a whole bunch more snow. It's snowing now even. And I'm supposed to drive to my poppa's house today. I'm not sure I can even unbury my car enough to get the chains on!

Foggy doggy

It has been ridiculously foggy here the past few days. Cooooooold too. By the time we get to school, Rinley is frosted. you can see it best in the picture below. I just posted the one above because he is so darn cute. I love my dog!

Grandma!

After the girly time of wedding dresses, I headed over to hang out with my Grandmother. We went out to dinner with my Aunt Krista, so much fun!

Dress fitting

I went with Jenise to San Francisco this weekend (and her momma and Stephanie too) for her first dress fitting.

I have to admit it is pretty cool that she is having a dress actually made for her body. This is the mock up dress that they made specifically to write on and mess with. Even it is amazingly beautiful, raggedy ann rips, writing and all.

Do you think she likes it?

Lab meeting

We had our annual Christmas lab meeting at Konditorei last week. Here are the current members of my lovely lab. From left to right:

Evan, Eliska, Stephanie, Emily, and Jenise

Turkey Day!

This year, thanksgiving dinner was up at Grandma's house. An opportunity to get together as a family and try to help each other through this first holiday without Karen. Uncle Dave carving the turkey, Grandma making gravy (yummy)

Lots of good food.

The next day, we went hiking to try to work off all that food.

Katie and her Justin

I climbed this tree to get some mistletoe for Katie to create mischief with

Pretty view on the ridge behind Grandma's

The Family

Hiking

I went hiking with Erik a few weeks ago, just now getting to posting pics. It was lots of fun, very pretty. My legs hurt after though, quite a climb.

Bella Rose!

Katherine and Isabella Rose came to visit me last week. She is the most adorable child.
Totally had me wrapped around her pinkie finger

It was an adventure having a small child in my house though. Not to mention just having a dog, a cat, 2 adults, and a child in my tiny place. Hard to walk from one end of the room to the other without tripping over someone.

We took her to the arboretum and let her visit the ducks. Happy girl.

And it was absolutely wonderful to have some time with Katherine. Even if it takes significantly longer to have a good conversation with a 18 month old constantly demanding attention.

Supposedly, we were to have our talks when Bella slept, but wouldn't you know, we fell into bed almost immediately after she did! weeee

Bella loved Rinely.

She insisted on taking his leash whenever we went on walks.

Loved petting him and playing with him in the house.

To the poor boy's chagrin.

But he did really well, even if he is a bit traumatized.

Avocado lover!

Who could possibly resist these blond curls and dimples!?

Foolhardy birds!

A few weeks before turkey day... roaming the streets of Davis...

Halloween

Yep, that's me! I make a goofy looking blond, no? Stephanie had quite the costume too. I'm not allowed to show the pictures though. ;)

Experimental torture

It has been a crazy week plus of harvesting my big common garden experiment
As you can see, everything has grown quite a bit. You might also notice the sun is setting. Well, it was one of those kinds of weeks.
We had to take water samples from every pot.
Wear protective clothing

Deal with funky bugs (any idea what this is anyone?)

Be a little silly, just to keep sane.

Recruit random people (ah the theme of my PhD) to carry heavy pots. I think these things weigh around 40-50 lbs. yippie! There were 216 of the buggerdly things. Buff girls.

Look at those roots! That is the amazing Huanchaco. This silly plant just kicked but compared to all the others. Not so fun to clean though. Those roots are harder to clean than a child's hair with gum, I swear!

Lots of opportunities to get slimy.

And man, did those plants stink sometimes!

Ah, the joy of working sun up to sundown! My darlin Stephanie was sure a trouper though.

Spontaneous adventure

I went to Yosemite this weekend with a bunch of boys. It was a totally last minute decision and admittedly kind of crazy after the exhausting week I had with my experiment, but hey, it's Yosemite! It was a bit of a shock to the system to be around so many boys after my time in the girly wetland lab, but it was also tons of fun.
I know this picture is basically the same as the first one, but I couldn't decide, so you get both. It was spectacularly beautiful there (duh).

The group that I joined was a bunch of climber boys. Yosemite is a happy place for climbers. And, to be totally crude, a happy place for the girl who watched them. ;)

I even climbed a little bit myself. If you blow this picture up, and look really close, you can see me up on the rock.

I made it to the top, but I must admit, I was quite happy to reach the ground. That rock was hot. (hope this doesn't freak you out too much Mom, but see, I made it safe)

Interesting belay technique.

If you think the view is nice from down here, you should see it from the top. Not that I was going to carry my camera up there! This is Erik and Patrick standing with me.

Not a terrible way to spend a weekend, no?