A Little Adventure

The other day, the kids and I were with my mom. We had been to a cousin birthday party and my mom had given us a ride.

For a while now, Milo has known what T-I-R-E-D means. If he sees someone yawning, he’ll point at you and say “T-I-R-E-D.” On the way home with my mother, we were yawning. Milo noticed and pointed his finger and said “T-I-R-E-D.” My mom said, wow, he knows how to spell that word. I said yes, he knows what that means.

After my mom made a quick trip into a store, she said to me. “Do you guys want to go get a D-R-I-N-K or some I-C-E C-R-E-A-M?” Milo pipes up and says, “ice cream?” I looked at my mom and we said, he knows how to spell ice cream? Wow.

After the ice cream spelling incident, Milo was watching Curious George one night. When they showed the title of the show, Milo said “Oh, its the camping one!” He read the title and knew which episode it was.

Since this experience, Scott and I have been trying to figure out where he’s learned it. We don’t often spell out words. We’ve come to the conclusion that he is learning quite a bit from watching PBS Kids, specifically, Word World, Super Why, Between the Lions, and Sesame Street. We know Milo watches too much TV, but it appears that we now have a sort of justification…

We’ve been working with him on letters and sounds and other things related to kindergarten. He seems to be brushing it off. We are beginning to understand that he comprehends more than he is willing to admit to his parents.

We are hoping that kindergarten won’t be a huge challenge. He seems to understand reasonably well. He does understand that kindergarten is coming soon…I guess we’ll see how it goes when the time comes.

I finally got around to getting the photos off Milo’s camera and thought you might enjoy his perspective on our trip to Moab.

Here are a few of the Green River Overlook

Monica

The windows area in Arches NP

Holly eating dirt.

The North Window

Turret Arch

Landscape in Arches NP

Rocks

Turret Arch

A yucca plant

Self-portrait

Milo turned 5 years old a few weeks ago. He was very excited about having his parties. We had two parties, one with each family.

We had the party with Scott’s family on the Saturday before Memorial Day in Morgan at Grandma’s house. We had a BBQ and then had an ice cream cake. It was something new that Scott and I tried. We quite liked it. You can find our recipe here. Milo loves to blow out candles and was anxious to do that.

He got a lot of great gifts. Milo was super excited to receive the Star Wars movies. He got Episodes 1-4. He was concerned that he didn’t have the other two. He also got a scooter (which he loves riding). Milo got a few Star Wars transformers and a rescue car transformer. He also received some supplies for school and a few clothes.

Milo with his party hat under his sign he requested Jill to make.

Milo smirking while we sang Happy Birthday.

Milo blowing out the candles.

Milo reading his card.

Milo and a Star Wars movie.

Milo with another Star Wars movie.

The next day, Milo was so excited about his Star Wars movies that he woke up at 5:30 am to start a Star Wars marathon. He started with Episode 1 and watched it all the way through. He then went to 2, then 3 and ended with 4. It took him most all day to do it. He woke up the next morning early to watch some more.

Milo and his movie marathon.

We had his party with my family at my sister’s house. It was a little rainy so the kids enjoyed some time playing in the hot tub. They also played some games and wrote with chalk in the garage. All the cousins enjoyed playing with each other. It was a great time. We had a red velvet cake and ice cream cones. (We are looking into some other red velvet cake recipes. We will post a recipe on the recipe blog for the cake when we get an opportunity…it might be a few months.)

We’d like to thank everyone for the gifts you gave Milo.

Each year our ward has a campout in early May. We usually go down a day or two early to make the trip worthwhile. I think that going to Moab on a Friday and coming home on Saturday isn’t the most effective trip…although, I have been known to do it. This year we didn’t leave as early as we had hoped, but we did manage to get down there on Thursday in time to setup camp at Dead Horse Point and get back to Canyonlands – Island in the Sky for late afternoon/evening light. We hung out at the traditional sunset spot in Island of the Sky…The Green River Overlook. It is a location that screams panorama, so I took a number of panoramas. They aren’t fantastic, but they are nice.

Holly exploring a tent for the first time.

Holly quickly decided the tent was boring and found the sand.

Milo loves sleeping and more importantly playing in the tent.

Medium sized version
The Green River Overlook in the late afternoon. This is the version using my telephoto lens.

Medium sized version
Here is another Green River Overlook panorama using a wide angle lens.

The plan was to get up bright and early to photograph Mesa Arch one last time. I really love Mesa Arch at sunrise. It is something everyone should see at least once in their life. I love watching the underside of the arch light up, but the pain of photographing it can be quite high. Since it is so spectacular, there is usually a reasonably large group of photographers hanging out in a very small space. I thought it would be nice to scout the area the night before just to make sure I had an idea of how things would work in the morning. Milo and I hiked out to the arch. We had a nice time.

We successfully woke up early and got everyone into the car and to Mesa Arch in time for me to claim a decent spot in the line of photographers. I still wish I could do a better job exposing the arch, but the photos are nice.

Here is one image that is pretty typical of what you can get out of the camera as the sun rises. The arch lights up more brilliant right at sunrise, but it is much easier to photograph 15-30 minutes after the sun comes up. You can still see the glow, but it isn’t as strong.

Here is a photo that I have played with a bit in Lightroom. This is closer to what you see with your eyes. Amazing stuff.

Medium sized verison
Here is a panoramic image of the entire arch a few minutes after sunrise.

Just as I was packing up to leave the family came to see what I was doing. I guess Milo was getting restless, so Monica agreed to take a trip out to the arch. Most of the photographers were close to being done by this point in time, so we grabbed a quick family photo.

Milo and I went to scout a hike in Canyonlands that I was supposed to lead the next day. It is a hike that isn’t officially on the NPS maps, so I wanted to make sure the trail was in good condition, etc. During that hike, Milo informed me that he wanted to go see some arches. I had wanted to go check out the ghost town of Cisco, but Milo’s idea also seemed fine. We finished the scouting trip, tore down camp, and headed off to Arches NP.

We thought that Milo might enjoy the windows area, so we started there first. We hiked around to see Turret Arch and the North and South Windows. Milo busted out his camera and took a number of photos. Holly just wanted to play in the dirt. Mom and Dad simply tried to keep them from injuring themselves or others.

We gave Milo the choice of taking the “primitive” trail around the back of the windows or returning to the car. He chose to keep hiking. We stopped about half way through the hike to have a snack because Milo was tired. Holly also used the stop to grab a bite. The only problem was she wanted to eat rocks. Not so good…

Holly and Scott walking down the trail.

Milo stopping to eat trail mix.

Holly feasting on about the largest chunk of sandstone she could carry around.

Holly wanted to keep going, but that silly brother of hers was still eating.

We finished the primitive loop and headed down the road to the Sandstone Arch area which is a nice place for kids to play. On the way, Holly fell asleep. Monica quickly volunteered to stay in the car and read with the sleeping Holly. Milo and Dad took off to investigate Sandstone Arch. Milo wasn’t too impressed with the arch or the sand (that may have been because the wind was blowing the sand all over), but he did enjoy a slot like section beyond the trail. He also became obsessed with removing the sand from a smallish hole in the rock.

Milo exploring his “slot” canyon.

The triumphant explorer returns.

Milo cleaning the sand out of this small hole in the rock.

We finished off the day with a short hike out to Landscape Arch. Milo was pretty tired by the return trip and whined so much that Dad actually put him on his shoulders for the last few hundred yards. We setup our tent and went into town for pizza at Zax. No trip to Moab is really complete without a trip to Zax. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos from the remainder of the trip. The most eventful part was Milo’s lizard count on Saturday’s hike. He managed to count twelve lizards. It was a nice way to keep him occupied on the hike out. He is a good hiker but was a bit tired because of the long hours he had kept the previous couple of days. Holly even slept well both nights we spent in the tent. All in all a great trip.

Since Scott graduated, that means that we will be leaving our comfortable grad student lifestyle for a real job.

Initially, Scott wanted to go into academia. After several academic interviews and an industry offer, Scott decided that he would like to get some industry experience before returning to academia. Therefore, Scott took the industry offer and we are headed to Austin, Texas this summer.

As a consequence, we are going to sell our condo. It is currently on the market. We hope that we can find a buyer in the next month or so. If or when that happens, we’ll start looking for a house in the North Austin area.

We are planning to spend a few weeks “living” with our families in Morgan before leaving for Texas at the end of July or the first part of August.

Scott is planning on starting his job the second week of August. Milo will then start kindergarten the last week in August.

It is a huge change for us. We are excited for the opportunities we will have but are sad to be leaving our families and friends in Utah. We hope to come back and visit often.

Graduation day finally arrived although it isn’t always very meaningful for graduate students. You see, graduate students are allowed to walk before they actually finish. It isn’t uncommon for them to walk an entire year before they actually finish or even walk multiple times. That was more or less my case. I was walking, but I only recently started writing my dissertation in earnest. I do have a date when I need to be done, so it seemed reasonable to walk. In fact, I now have a defense date set for the end of June and have given my dissertation to my committee for review.

It was a busy day between putting together the food, finishing up a few last minute issues related to the course I taught in the spring, and getting into the silly set of clothes required. It all worked out, and I was even smiling afterward…

The graduation ceremony wasn’t too bad. A little long, but that is to be expected. I would like to thank the people who attended and gave their support.

The “fun” part about graduation for Ph.D. students is the hooding ceremony. Your advisor and the dean of the college put the hood over your head. It isn’t really anything super special, but they do spend a bit more time on you which I guess makes you feel special…or something.

Yep, here I am being hooded. That is my advisor Chris that you can see helping out.

After graduation, I hung around talking with professors and other students longer than I should have considering quite a few people were waiting around for us to get the grub going.

Priyank (a professor), Scott, and Chris talking.

Scott and Chris talking.

We ran into a former student of Chris’s, Eric Mercer. Eric really helped mentor me when I started working for Chris. It was great talking to Eric for a few minutes.

Monica and Scott after graduation.

We were sure to bring Milo’s camera. He was taking all kinds of pictures after graduation.

Holly wasn’t too bad. She was very curious about the whole thing and did take a little nap.

Everyone took turns taking care of Holly.

We had the after-graduation party at our church. Everyone beat us to the church, some of them waited a LONG time…because I don’t know when to stop talking. We had a nice party which doubled as a birthday party for Holly. Yeah, we are lame like that and combined the two parties. Anyway, it was a good day and a milestone of sorts…I guess.

Okay, things have been a little crazy around and we are WAY behind on the posts. Things have gotten a touch less crazy, so I am hoping to push a few posts out the door. This post relates to the trip I took in April that started with the wave.

On day two, we were a bit tired from the previous day’s adventuring around the wave, so we decided to take it easy. I hadn’t been out to see the Wahweap hoodoos, but really wanted to see them. It is best to make the trip in a high clearance vehicle which we had…at least if you come from upstream. There is an approach from downstream, but the hike is much longer although you don’t need a high clearance vehicle to access the trailhead. We opted for the shorter hike. The road was in pretty good condition, and we arrived with little incident. We headed down the wash which still had a bit of flowing water and quickly found the hoodoos. They are striking! The beautiful white hoodoos against the blue sky look fantastic.

Below are photos of the “main” hoodoo in this group. There are lots of angles to shoot, and I couldn’t decide which angle I liked best.

I thought this photo nicely foreshadows the future. The hoodoo in the foreground has lost its cap rock. Sometime in the future, the hoodoo in the background will suffer a similar fate.

I liked the abstract nature of this shot. I love how it shows the flow of the water which hails back to how it was formed. Nice stuff.

There are several other groups of hoodoos in the area. We visited a few of them. Here is one nice photo.

Medium version
Here is a panoramic image of one hoodoo group.

We ended this lazy day by taking the short hike out to the Toadstool Hoodoo. It is a nice hike.

Overall, it was a fantastic trip with a great group. Good times!

For a number of reasons including our upcoming move (there is a draft post about that…I will try to get to it soonish) I have decided to move the blogs off our home server.  That happened tonight.  Hopefully things should be normal by Monday.  If anyone notices anything funny after Monday please let me know.  I am sorry if the way I did the upgrade gave you a bunch of posts in your RSS reader.  I wanted to do it another way but couldn’t get it to work.  Hopefully this is better and won’t need to change again soon…hopefully.