The Big Ride

Four years ago yesterday, Ryan and I pedaled out of Seattle beginning our journey east across the country. We did the ride with the Lung Association, and it was easily the best summer of my life... spending the whole summer outdoors, on the bike.. meeting new people .. watching the terrain change as we rode .. words can't really capture it. Although at the time, I tried. I am sure blogs were around but I didn't have one. I sent e-mail home from every rest stop describing my adventures (and there were many)

Every year since, we have hosted riders from out of town. This year, two lovely college students -- Ane and Liz -- from minnesota spent the weekend with us. We showed them around, reminisced about our ride and took them to the start this morning. They were really nervous but I was so excited for them.

Ryan and I have vowed to do the ride again but we have to wait until our wee one is much older -- We will be in our fifties (as many of the riders are). Kind of weird to think about..

Anyway, here is a photo of Ane, Liz, and Jack. If you want to live vicariously through them, I have linked to their blogs.

Berry picking

Today Jack and I drove up to Bellingham to meet bridget, her 4 month old nephew and sister-in-law to pick strawberries. It became a lovely day .. we ate lunch downtown, then did the required stop at mallard's ice cream for a scoop of the best ice cream anywhere (and i have eaten a lot of ice cream.. so I know this). Then we headed out to pick berries. My plan was to hold Jack in the ergo as I picked:



But strawberries grow on the ground and Jack was tired so he didn't enjoy hanging out as kneeled on the ground picking the berries. So he ended up supervising from the sidelines:



Archer (his 4 month old counter-part) was much more amenable to being carried around by his mom. We got some cute photos of them after the harvest:





the daily rant: if you ever begrudge a migrant farm worker decent housing or health care I suggest you go out to pick strawberries one day. After about 40 minutes, my back hurt, I was sunburnt and done.. it was fun as a lovely outing at a quaint local farm but not so fun as a way of life.

Happy Father's Day!

Included in the long list of things-I-did-not-know-before-Jack was what kind of father Ryan would be. During my pregnancy I thought (worried) a lot about how things would be once the baby arrived. Ryan did not. I asked him once if he thought much about it, and he said no. He reported not feeling particularly excited. I thought this might forecast problems. However, luckily for all involved, this has not been the case at all. Ryan and Jack are crazy about each other. It's a beautiful thing.



This weekend was also notable because we spent our first night away from our wee one. Our dear friends courageously accepted the challenge to babysit for almost 24 hours -- this includes waking up at 5:30am on a Sunday.. something baby civilians do not normally do. I hadn't thought much about leaving until about 5 minutes before I had to do it. Then I was sad and tried to convince my friends to come to Leavenworth with us (we went to a wedding). They declined .. and in the end, all was well. Our friends have a dog who Jack loves and he was completely unaffected by our absence. Every time ryan and I do something on our own, I am reminded how important it is for parents to get away. Happy parents = happy baby. It's such a simple equation but for some reason requires great momentum so a more accurate equation is energy + happy parents = happy baby.

Our pals with Jack



Us right before leaving (I was fretting that I had not written our will yet -- something I have been meaning to do in case - knock on all products resembling wood - something were to happen to us.. yes, I think hypervigilance about all possible scenarios of tragedy is either related to estrogen or some strange gene only expressed when there are two x's):



and on a complely unrelated note, Jack as the commander of the exer-saucer

will jack love science

I love science. I am currently taking immunology and it is damn fascinating. While I will grieve my entire life about not breastfeeding Jack, my class has made me feel better about it. Our immune systems have back-ups for back-ups and immunity is something you are always building. Women secrete one type of antibody and then other more general immune cells through breastmilk but the antibody is only one of 5 that we make.. and we also make our own general immune cells. I have no doubt it's better to breastfeed but Jack can still have a kick-ass immune system without it.
As I study, I feel a little regret that I wasn't introduced to the greatness of science at a younger age; and now that I have a child I think, I will show him how cool science is and then he will love it and become the scientist I won't ever be. This is a slippery slope. Jack may hate math and think the laws of thermodynamics are boooorrrriiinnggg. Then will I be disappointed? I hope not. I hope I can be the kind of parent who gets to know him and loves him as he is.. even if he hates math and is a republican.. although the republican part would be a serious challenge.