Road Warriors

We were going to try and blog about Feb. in March and that never happened, so here is the cliff note version prior to my recounting March. Zaida grew, Eden worked and Adam wrote his thesis. That about sums it up. I did take a trip down to Missouri and Oklahoma the end of the month to meet with my major professor since he retired in December and fled the Intermountain west, I also toured Oklahoma State University to see how I liked it.

March however was a more eventful month. Due to the imposed furlough at the University Eden had spring break off so she and Zaida accompanied me to Nebraska. The purpose of this trip, besides freezing, was to determine if the University of Nebraska was where we should go. I met with professors in North Platte, where they have an extension center and then the next day went to Lincoln to tour the main campus and their facilities. Upon completing the tour I was very impressed with the facilities and the program and haven't seen anything like it.

My older brother, Ryan, and his family live 4 hours east of Lincoln so we went to visit them. We went to see the sights of Coralville, however the only thing we got to see was the mall, the outlets, and hobby lobby. It didn't help our cause that the temperature was -7 the first day and about 20 the following two days. Ryan and Rachel were gracious hosts and did give us the windshield tour of the flood zone and the campus of U of I. However, I have made a conscious decision to never visit them again in the winter due to the cold temperatures causing us to only have shopping for an activity.

The rest of the month we were busy as Zaida determined it necessary to start trying new foods. We found that she hates rice cereal, pears, oatmeal and loves potatoes and bread. We found out this week that she will eat sweet potatoes, but I think that is due to the ability to read the label and see the word potatoes, she is a very advanced individual. She also got two teeth, earlier than we expected, but they are here, and she reminds me often by grabbing my hand and putting it in the chomp zone before I can remember that she has teeth.

We went to Vernal for a lamb sale, but half way there my dad called and said he wasn't coming with the lambs, we continued on our journey anyway and had a good time visiting the Bingham clan. It was good to see them again and I enjoyed helping Jake by tearing out trees in the pasture.

I defended my thesis on the 26 and now am finishing up the revisions on my thesis as graduation nears. We also made a final decision on where we will be living next fall. I was lucky in that I was accepted to all three schools that I applied, but we are headed to Lincoln. So if anyone is in Nebraska in the next 3-4 years let us know we would be glad to have you stop in. I will be changing my focus from animal nutrition to animal reproductive physiology, but will still do a lot with nutrition and reproduction interactions so I am pretty excited. Eden's job ends June 30 so we will be moving in mid July.

January 2009

In case nobody noticed, Christmas came and went, as did the New Year. We spent both of those holidays enjoying the company of family. This past month we went on our first major road trip with Zaida the road warrior. I have been conversing with several different schools, and by several I mean two, about pursuing a PhD. One of these schools happens to be Washington State University, which invited us to come up over the 3 day weekend and tour their campus.

For our navigational assistance we borrowed my dad's gps. This device allowed for ease of travel when trying to find houses or hotels, but gets really confused when you deviate off course, which I did constantly because I am a guy and as such have an acute sense of direction.

We went to Boise the first day of our travels and went to the outlet mall and visited one of Eden's friends from high school, Carlee ( who is married to Kurt, who isn't one of Eden's high school friends, but due to matrimonial vows has been accepted into the group, as was I). We had a good time catching up and visiting with them.

Sunday was our longest day in the car, we went from Boise to Pullman, this trek took about 6 hours and was very unpleasant for those with weak stomachs. It was mile after mile of twisty turny roads. At first I was a little disappointed with the city of Pullman. Although it is small, it is based on four hills and any time I thought I was discovering something new I was really just driving around the hill. This disappointment was alleviated a little when upon turning around one bend in the road we were greeted by two brown bears sitting in a large pen staring at a group of Rocky Mountain Big Horn sheep that were in a large pen across the road from them. Apparently the University does studies on these animals.

Our tour of the University was very good. The professor who showed us the sites and I would be working under was a very nice guy and would be great to work for. At the end of the visit I was informed that I was accepted to the school, which was another bonus.

We took a different route home, traveling up to I-90 and through Montana, and then down I-15. This was a preferred route and would be the route I recommend to anyone that wants to go to Pullman and visit the bears.

Other news includes Zaida turning four months old. She has an appointment with the doctor this week so that will be fun for her. Eden hasn't had to go back to school this semester so she fills her free time, which isn't much, with reading all sorts of random books and magazines. As for myself, I have one class on-line to finish my course work and then have been spending the bulk of my time writing my thesis, which is a real treat.

Here are some pictures of Zaida for her fan club:

What's up

Sunday we had the opportunity to bless Zaida. Due to the over stimulation that seems to occur every Sunday at church we set forth a plan which we thought was fool proof to ensure happiness and sleep for the baby. Eden took Zaida during Sunday school and fed her so she could fall back to sleep and thus be in a state of rest during sacrament meeting. However, Zaida, upon finishing her meal determined herself to be in high spirits wanted nothing to do with sleep and went about her time smiling and attempting to laugh, which turns out to be a lot of heavy breathes and squeaky sounds. Then sacrament meeting began and with the opening hymn so did the face of irritation. Zaida started to frown, then grunt, then scream. I took her out and tried to quiet her in the hall but she thought voicing her opinion was more important. Luckily there was another baby blessing so they went first. Eden came out to assist with damage control and almost had her back to sleep when the bishop went to the pulpit and invited us to come forth. The hand off woke Zaida back up and she cried through the blessing. It was a great experience, albeit stressful with the screaming, but we still like her.

After the blessing we went back into the hall for more screaming. I took her down to the kitchen where we had her vibrating chair thingy and placed her in it. She immediately stopped crying and started to smile and coo. It was almost like she was saying, SUCKER, it made me laugh. I finally got her back to sleep and we enjoyed the rest of the day with family and friends.

Other news for the week, include Eden's graduation this Friday. I would like to congratulate her on completing her Masters. She is amazing and I look forward to hearing everyone call her Master Eden. (You call people with PhD's Doctor, so why not people with Masters, Master?)

2 months

Here are some of the latest pictures per the request of her cousin Jane.

Happy Halloween

Zaida was a horse for the ward holloween party

This is an outfit some of the sorority girls gave her. They said they bought it because the skeleton glows in the dark and they wanted me to be able to find her if I went in to get her in the middle of the night.

Meetin' and a Greetin'

Zaida has been off her oxygen for a week now and we haven't had any problems with her at all. Her two week appointment went well and things are great, the best part is that she doesn't have that annoying little moniter attached to her foot beeping all the time for no reason other than that she wiggled.

Due to Zaida's new portable condition we took her this weekend on her first outing. She went an met all of her great grandparents from Kaysville all the way up to Blackfoot. She even experienced her first trip in the mountains to see her great-grandpa Tom's cows, even though she slept the entire time. So here are some more pictures of little spike.

Home at last

Sunday evening we were finally able to bring our little girl home with us. It was much prefered to the arrangements of staying in the NICU any longer. In the NICU she was having about an episode a night were she was in such a deep sleep that she would forget to breathe and the nurses had to give her a little oxygen to bring her out of her little spells. That being case, they sent us home with oxygen and a moniter to watch her. The only part we don't like is they have to be on her at all times even though her episodes only seem to be happening between 12:30 and 2 am. On the bright side she didn't have any issues last night with her breathing but that might be due to the fact that she was awake during her favorite hours instead of asleep. However we are going to look at it possitively in that she is done with this whole mess and just waiting patiently for us to take her off the oxygen.

Here she is sporting her oxygen in her car seat ready to get out of Dodge.