friends and their babies!

i've been lucky enough to see or meet two sweet babes and their lovely parents in the last couple of weeks. tish, morgan, and melina stayed with us on their way to a conference in monterey. we also got a chance to do some tidepooling with melina on a spectacular november day. 

melina hanging out with her (favorite) auntie and uncle. :)

loving algae from an early age! 

hooray for the intertidal

hard core training for the "wife carrying relay"

 there were lots and lots of humboldt squid washed up on one of the
beaches. as i was taking this photo, i realized that this one was still
alive. i put it back in the water and it started turning all sorts of cool
colors. it eventually swam away from the beach a bit, but they all seemed
to come back and beach themselves after a short while. and the gulls
were waiting for them in droves....

this past weekend i got to meet my kiwi niece - sofia louise barnes. jen, grant, and sofia arrived from new zealand early in the month to do the U.S. grandparent tour through oregon and california. i cannot wait to see them all again soon in auckland! 

we stopped in at OSU for a trip down memory lane - go beavers!

while i was in oregon, i took the opportunity to scatter some of cassie's ashes and hike in a place we both loved and spent many of our days. cass was my #1 running buddy when we lived in corvallis and would keep me company while running the trails in mcdonald forest. there are so many good memories in those trees and trails. i miss them both...

visit from mama foley

my mom was able to come out to california for ten days at the end of the october. my goal for her for the trip was rest. she had carpel tunnel surgery at the beginning of the month and had since been raking piles and piles and piles of leaves. not the best thing for healing, in my opinion! so we did lots of activities that required little wrist movement, including lots of hiking and sight-seeing. 

 monarch butterflies congregating for the winter at natural bridges

 hearst castle! i've been wanting to visit since i moved to
california, so my mom's visit was the perfect excuse to go!

 so out of place, but crazy cool...

 the view is pretty spectacular!

 a few yearling elephant seals were hauled out at piedras

 the weather was amazingly beautiful - piedras blancas

 we toured the piedras blancas lighthouse

had a very nice hike out to my old field site along the big sur river

a little beach time at natural bridges

we also squeezed in a trip to the san francisco to hear lang lang (an amazing pianist) play with the san francisco symphony and evensong at grace cathedral. a work trip took us to sacramento. in exchange for seven hours in the car, we decided to treat ourselves to a tour of the california state capitol. it is a really beautiful building, so i'm glad we got the chance to check it out. 

thanks for visiting, mom!

a quick jaunt to seattle & seward

pete and i had planned to be away for two weeks in early september to visit our godbaby and friends in seattle, attend a wedding in seward, and play in denali. unfortunately, cass was sick so we cut our trip off after the wedding. despite being really worried about cass, we had a nice few days with tish and morgan and a fun 48 hours in alaska. here are the highlights!

 pete holding melina for the first time...
he's not so sure about this baby thing

smiles all around...getting more comfortable

embracing the role of godfather

 ultimate bravery - pete changing his first ever (and possibly last) diaper!

 story time with mama and uncle pete

sleepy time with melissa

hiking in sunny seattle! 

 our yummy dinner one night. between tish and i these were the food restrictions - NO gluten, eggs, dairy, soy, corn, or meat. we were kind of a disaster. but the spring rolls were so delicious!

 ALASKA!

a bit of pre-wedding hiking in seward (aka looking for bears & moose)

the wedding venue on fox island (loved the algae!)

the happy couple - terry and moorea

trying to stay warm on fox island

i found the moose!

we got to spend a bit of time at the alaska sealife center in seward. the photo is a bit fuzzy, but this is a baby walrus...and the cutest thing ever!

 we managed to get in a slightly soggy hike to exit glacier before we flew home. i had hiked to this glacier five years ago with my parents...it was amazing to see how much it had retreated over that short period. 

pete with part of the glacier - there were lots of bits floating in the river

the giving tree

there are many things in our lives that bring us joy. sometimes, unfortunately, we do not realize how much joy they bring us until they are taken away. today, i had a Giving Tree moment - the giant sycamore next to our house is slowly being removed with a crane, chainsaws, and a chipper. 

i am most often a practical person...this tree would almost certainly take out our house in one fell swoop if one of the gigantic branches decided to give way. the impetus for the removal, actually, is because that very thing happened a block down the street with a sycamore of similar age. this giant is not on our property so this wasn't our decision, but the decision is actually quite positive for us in the practical sense. and i try to remember to be grateful for our neighbors...they are spending a small fortune to remove a tree that poses very little danger to their own house.

emotionally, i am so incredibly sad to be losing this tree. yes, i rake two giant yard waste containers of it's leaves from our yard every week for nine months of the year. yes, it drops small limbs at random. but oh, the wood ducks! and their babies! where will they go in the spring? they have come to this tree every year like clockwork at the end of february. we loved watching them through the skylight in our bedroom. and the juncos, banded pigeons, warblers, woodpeckers, ravens, hawks, barn owls, squirrels... watching the leaves sprout in the spring, bringing a tint of green back to the neighborhood. this giant, in all of its hundred plus feet of glory is simply amazing.

i am sad. this tree has given so much to so many...for over one hundred years. like any good biologist, i will be counting the rings on this tree once they have brought it to the ground. she is old for certain, and i hope her days on this earth have been good. 

i just talked with the crane operator while they were on lunch break and he said that i must be really happy to see this tree come down. i hesitated...and then told him it was a mixed blessing. when i told him about the wood ducks, i think he understood that there were tradeoffs...even if this is his livelihood. 

setting my emotions aside, the operation is quite impressive. a very brave man strategically climbs to dizzying heights, attaches the sling from the crane, uses his chainsaw (yes, he is climbing a tree WITH a chainsaw attached to him) to cut small portions of the tree off, and then the crane threads the tree branches over the power lines and down to the street where they are munched by the chipper. oh, and it is 94 degrees in felton today. 

giant, we will miss you. thank you for the joy and healing you have brought to my life and undoubtedly many others.

 our giant prior to removal

 the crane

 the giant coming down, one limb at a time

one side down, one to go

mr. tree climber removing a limb

mama cass

today we said goodbye to mama cass - the best dog anyone could ask for. her health had been declining slowly over the last few months, but took a drastic turn for the worse about ten days ago. her vet thinks that it was likely an intestinal cancer that finally crossed an intolerable threshold. pete's parents lovingly provided cass with "doggie hospice" until we could get back from alaska to be with her. she was having a good day today...the way we want to remember her. 

i was there when cassie was born in minnesota in december of 1997 along with seven litter-mates. she was the last remaining pup from the final litter of birch coulee black labs my dad bred. losing cass is devastating enough, but losing her also feels like losing my most proximate, physical connection to my dad.

we have had many, many adventures over the last fourteen years and we are so grateful to have had her in our lives for as long as we did. 

a short video of cassie's adventures can be seen here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113112843970263288979/Movies?authkey=Gv1sRgCPHEmcOIgc2zwQE#5785269684182957538 

thank you all for your support and love.

a new job!

i have officially passed my background check, so i can *finally* make this announcement public - i will be starting a mendenhall postdoc at the u.s. geological survey in santa cruz in march 2013!!! if the exclamation marks didn't convey it, i am incredibly excited about this upcoming adventure.

my postdoc at the center for ocean solutions was supposed to come to an end in september, but my boss graciously extended my term until march so i can finish a number of projects that i am working on. i will also be heading to new zealand for much of january and february to work with a scientist from the national institute of water and atmosphere (NIWA) on a visiting scientist project. it is going to be a crazy six months, but i am hopeful that i will be able to wrap up some loose ends by the end of that time. i am also grateful to work with my colleagues for another six months...i am going to miss them a lot when i leave. what a fun crew!

when i start at the usgs, i will be stationed in santa cruz (at the same office that pete works in) but will travel to washington state to do fieldwork. my project is yet to be totally determined, but it will focus on the effects of dam removal on the elwha river on the olympic peninsula. i was lucky and got to travel to my field site last week to see the watershed, dive in the ocean, and hear many talks about the work that is currently going on up there. the dam removal project is cool - the largest removal in the u.s. the impetus for removal was mainly salmon, but there have been a number of other deleterious impacts to the watershed and coastline since the dams were built in the early 1900s. here are some of the highlights from my field trip...

glines canyon dam being removed - about 70 more feet to go

the old reservoir that was behind glines canyon dam. this is a constantly changing place right now and much of this sediment will ultimately be moved downstream by natural high river events. notice all the stumps - this area was logged before the dam was finished so the submerged trees would not be a hazard to boaters.

this is the old reservoir behind the lower dam. it is kind of other worldly to walk around this place. despite being underwater for 100 years, these stumps look remarkably fresh!

the beach! this is the likely end of the watershed where i
will be doing my work - mostly in or on the ocean.

the lower klallam tribe has been a partner in all of the dam removal work - politically and scientifically. during the conference, one of the tribe members cooked us a traditional salmon feast. it was delicious! we also heard stories about the tribe, their ancestors, the language, and what the elwha looked like before the dams were built. it was a great week and i am so looking forward to spending more time up there in the coming years. 

equally important on the trip was my brief visit with tish and the first chance to meet our god-baby melina! we are also currently with them now, so there will be more photos to come, but this is from our first meeting. sweetness.

melina florence bond!

minnesota. one year later...

i spent last week in minnesota with my family to observe the one year anniversary of my dad's death. it is so hard to believe that we have crossed that one year threshold. truth be told, it felt no more significant than some of the other days that have come and gone throughout the year. but we have now navigated all the "firsts" and are embarking on round #2. we gathered at the cemetery on the 27th to support each other, remember, and even laugh. i have felt my dad's presence on many occasions since he's been gone and know in my heart that his grave is a place for remembrance but not a place where he dwells. irregardless, the headstone is such a stark reminder of the permanence of loss. 

the weather somehow managed to cool off a bit while i was there and the thunderstorms were plentiful for the first part of the week. the dogs and i made it into the house just before these clouds opened up.

lily and stormy skies

stormy skies over lake rachel while katie fishes and
koda swims laps (no kidding - koda swims back
and forth for HOURS while katie tries to catch fish)

the weekend i was there was officially small town festival weekend or so it seemed. sarah spurred us all to run a 10k in glenwood as part of waterama - the first race all four of us have run together. there have been multiple combinations of two and three of us running races or relays together, but not all four. sarah beat the pants off of all of us. she might be the oldest, but she is still the fastest! 

stephanie, melissa, matthew, and sarah - the running quartet

i also got to spend some quality time with my nieces and nephews - swimming and croquet were the highlights. and yes, i was beat by a six year old. good work kieran!

 kieran the croquet shark

 luke taking a rest between wickets

 miss madeline getting her game on

 who knew croquet could be so exhausting?!