My Pregnancy Journey

I love being pregnant! It has been quite a journey, one that, as much as I'll be so happy to meet baby, I'll be a little sad to leave behind!

I was really suspecting I may be pregnant on Super Bowl weekend, February 6-7, and fortunately we were making a run to town on Monday Feb. 8, so I didn't have to wait long to buy a test to confirm - and it was positive! We were so excited!

So, I chose my health care provider, a midwife in Elko, and scheduled my first appointment for Monday March 8 - at eight weeks pregnant. We got our first ultrasound.


Looks like a little lima bean huh?

My next appointment was at twelve weeks...

...and just so happened to be the day before my 30th birthday!

Here's me at 16 weeks:

At my 20 week appointment, we got a second ultrasound - the doctor who did it said we had a "gorgeous baby", and everything checked out! Mom and Dad were in town visiting, and got to go along! We're very careful to make sure everyone knows we do NOT want to know the sex of the baby. So far, so good!

We didn't take a pic of me at 20 weeks, but I then went home to Alabama for three weeks, and Mom took this 21 week pic:

I'm starting to show!!! For the first time, people were stopping me to ask when I was due, touching my belly, talking about my being pregnant.

She also got artsy, and took some pregnant belly pics...

We joke that this is my "trailer bride" pic... (hey, I did live in a trailer for a year!)

And while I was home, she did two more ultrasounds on me! A 2-D, and a 3-D. I hope they don't find ultrasounds cause some sort of adverse effects, because this poor baby has had more than its share!

Before I left AL, we took a 24 week photo:

Once back in Nevada, I REALLY started to grow! On August 2-4, we took a camping/hiking trip with my five Haas Hall students and the five YCC kids to Great Basin National Park. On August 2 I was 29 weeks pregnant, which just so happens to the be the day we hiked to the ancient Bristlecone Pine Grove and Wheeler Glacier. Here I am in front of one of the world's oldest living organisms:

FYI - 29 weeks, that translates to 7.5 months pregnant. And I was feeling it! Within the past couple weeks I've finally started to feel pregnant - it's hard to bend over and put on shoes (I no longer untie, just slip my tennis shoes off and on), and I had to stop a LOT on this hike to take a breather! Of course, we WERE at 10,000+ feet elevation! I'm still incredibly lucky though... never battled morning sickness (save the sick feeling the wood-burning stove smell gave me for about a 3-4 week period), not having trouble with heartburn, still have lots of energy... no complaints here!

This week we went in for our 30 week appointment, as we now are going every two weeks, and had yet another ultrasound. Baby measured right on target, weighing in at 3 pounds 10 ounces - and we got a great look at its little cute face!

The Grandest Show on Earth!

Well, that may be pushing it, but it was pretty spectacular!!!

The hummingbirds at my feeder have really peaked this last week - it's hard to count (if you want to give it a shot, let me know!), but I figure there's been at LEAST 10 at once at one of my two feeders at any given time.

Here are some photos Rod took:

And here's the video, where you really get a sense of what it's like!

And here's a video of me holding the feeder while they eat (if anyone can figure out how to flip it on its axis please let me know! Sorry for the sideways viewing!)

Field Ecology of the Great Basin Desert

I was fortunate enough to be the science teacher at Haas Hall Academy for 3.5 years, from 2006-2009. It was a GREAT experience, I LOVED my job, LOVED my school, LOVED my faculty, and LOVED my students. Rod even had the opportunity to coach PE there for 1 semester, after he graduated and before he got his new job, and was pretty fond of the place too. It will always hold a spot in our hearts! So, when we learned we were moving to Nevada, we started thinking of ways to maintain a relationship with HHA. We decided to offer a summer class titled Field Ecology of the Great Basin Desert. We just hosted the first one, from July 28 - August 4, and it went off wonderfully!

I drove to Salt Lake City on the 28 to pick the five participating students up from the airport: Zoe and Eli Barton, Cayenne Buell, David Halperin and Katherine Magoulick. They all seemed excited and in good spirits. We stopped on the way back to Ruby Valley for a Burger King lunch and to buy a week's worth of groceries. We also stopped to take photos of a dead porcupine on the road - they were excited about everything, and it was contagious!

The first morning they participated in a Leopard Frog survey - we found five. They are considering listing it under the ESA.


That afternoon they got started on their individual research projects. Eli and David were going to examine mosquito larvae densities, but after not being able to locate any, instead, compared species diversity between habitat types for aquatic invertebrates.

Katherine looked at how soil crust varied as you moved linearly away from roadways.

Cayenne and Zoe looked at whether people attempted to avoid or hit a snake in the road, using fake snakes for models.

They had some interesting results, including this man who got out, retrieved a fishing pole and approached the snake with it, before realizing it was fake!

Their fake rattlesnake

It wasn't all work and no play. They went fishing one afternoon, got a refuge tour, toured the fish hatchery, visited Fort Ruby...

...went wildlife watching, and road cruising at night looking for snakes. Zoe, our budding herpetologist, couldn't get enough of that! Rod let them watch him process a rattlesnake one night too.




And finally, they were able to go on a 2 day field trip with the YCC crew to Great Basin National Park. We had a really great time! We hiked to an ancient Bristlecone Pine grove, the oldest organisms on earth, and a glacier below Wheeler Peak, the second highest point in the state.

I felt really pregnant for the first time! That hike was pretty tough!

We also were fortunate enough to have Bryan Hamilton, the park biologist, come talk to us and even take us tracking two of his transmittered snakes! Very cool.

We (Rod, the 5 HHA students and I) headed out at 5:30 am from the park to get them back to the airport. All -in-all, I think it was a great time! Maybe they'll drum up interest from their friends and we can do another next year!

On the way back to Ruby Valley, Rod and I stopped on the Bonneville Salt Flats to get a closer look.

California Baby!

When I was in high school, we had an exchange student from Norway, Astrid, live with us for part of a year. Her husband Knut, daughter Madeleine, and she came to the states for the second time for a visit, and this time they spent part of their time in California. As that was closer for me to travel to than going back to Alabama (where they spent the second part of their visit), I decided to head to Cali to hang out with them.



I headed out of Ruby Valley, and right into the middle of a cattle drive - something definitely different about living out west!

On the stretch between Ruby Valley and Elko, I saw a live badger (my third, but first in broad daylight!) and a dead one. That brings my total to 5 live and 3 dead - pretty sad that I've seen more dead than alive. People here do NOT yield to wildlife, and it's a real shame. The only saving grace is the low population out here... if there were as many people in the wide open west as back home, the animals would be doomed!

The first night I drove to Sacramento and stayed with my cousin Maria - actually, she's my cousin Jasin's wife, but he was out of town, so we just had a girly evening. We went to a great Mexican restaurant and spent the evening playing with her cats and watching HGTV. It was nice to see her home and spend some time with her!

The drive west was beautiful - there was a stark contrast in scenery between all of Nevada east of Reno, and Reno and the Truckee River west into California. I climbed up and over the Sierra Nevadas, saw a turnoff for the Pacific Crest Trail and the Donner Pass.

The next day I drove on to San Francisco. I was ASTOUNDED at the pollution - the sky was PINK and HAZY with SMOG - it was disgusting. The air seeping into the car smelled of chemical stench. It was pretty unbelievable. How did we allow this to happen? The traffic was unbelievable. Everywhere. I was never in California, ever, that I wasn't in heavy traffic. What a shame. Made me long for that clean Nevada air!

As I was approaching San Francisco, I nearly had a heart attack... the realization hit me that I was driving a standard transmission, and about to visit the hilliest city in the US! Oh my gosh... I mean, I can drive a stick really well, I think, but in San Francisco? THAT'S another story! I started sweating it. Thankfully, they'd chosen a hotel right on the coast so I avoided any severe hills.

It was nice to see them - we did some classic San Fran touristy things: walked on the Golden Gate Bridge, rode a double-decker bus on a tour around the city, saw Lombard street...

IT. WAS. FREEZING. None of us had packed appropriately. Knut and I both bought a fleece jacket from street vendors. Our hotel even had fires going outside!

As I left, it took me over an hour to get from the parking lot to the interstate, which was maybe then blocks away. Ridiculous. Traffic. Ugh.

I stopped back by Sacramento for a night, and spent it with my other cousin, Marjo Muir. I spent the evening catching up with her in her new apartment, and got to meet her boyfriend Tony. The next morning we had breakfast before I hit the road.

After a long drive home, and stopping in Elko to get an oil change (hey, when town's a 3 hour drive round-trip, you do things when you have the opportunity!), this was the beautiful scene that greeted me once I arrived back home in Ruby Valley.

Good Friends and Good Times

Our good friends Ambre and Brad Brewster, and their kiddos Owen and Addyson, came to visit us for 9 days! It was so nice to spend time with them - too bad the times are so few and far between these days. They flew into Salt Lake City on July 3, and we drove over and joined them that evening. We took advantage of the hotel's happy hour, then retired to the room and ordered pizza in for supper.

The next day we spent at the Hogle Zoo, which we were all impressed with. The habitats were ideal, the animals all seemed content, and best of all the zoo did a great job with conveying conservation messages - what I think should be the point of a zoo. The visitors were amazingly respectful - unbelievable, I didn't see ONE PERSON banging on the glass or saying something negative about the animals, which was a first for me!

After we left the zoo, we went to The Mayan for supper - they actually have cliff divers for entertainment while you eat! Even though it was a day early, we "celebrated" Rod and Brad's birthday (they share their day!) by eating a chocolate cake with a sprinkler in it.

Later that evening, Rod and I celebrated the 4th of July by watching a fireworks show from the top deck of our hotel.

The rest of the week was just really relaxing and especially enjoyable for me, having good friends around to talk with! We caught up on lots and had some good quality time - how I miss that! We went hiking, the boys went fishing, we toured the fish hatchery and Owen and Addyson got to feed the fish, Ambre and I went mammal-hunting on the roads at night, we watched a movie while the kids (and Brad!) were napping, we took the dogs for LOTS of walks (which both the dogs AND the kids, who got to walk them, really liked) - it was really, really nice.

Their final weekend here, we took them to Lamoille Canyon - we'd loved it when we visited with Mom and Dad and thought they would love it too. We had lunch first at a little tavern with a great front porch, and the weather was perfect.

We were hoping to find more mountain goats, or even better bighorn sheep, but no luck this time. However, the avalanche blocking the road was all cleared up, and we were able to drive to the top of the canyon and hike 2 miles to Lamoille Lake, a beautiful pristine alpine lake. Finally, Rod and I found our Clark's Nutcrackers - and there was a grove FULL of them!

Since we're about to be parents ourselves, it was particularly cute for me to watch Rod interact with the kiddos - he's gonna be a great dad!

Thanks again, Ambre, Brad, Owen and Addyson, for making the trip to come and visit us - it meant the world! Come anytime!