Sam at Work

This is Sam hard at work doing research with rammed aggregate piers (Geopiers) at his lab at Virginia Tech. (He does stuff indoors as well.) I don't totally understand what he does, but basically he plays with sand, gravel, metal piping, and water. Kind of like a sandbox for grownups. And he puts stuff in big ovens and weighs sand and gravel on scales.

His other research is all computer-based, which is nice for it's flexibility and so he can work from home. As long as I don't bug him--like here when I distracted him.

Wendy's Endowment, May 15, 2009

Right after the family reunion, Wendy went through the Los Angeles Temple for the first time. I was grateful she could do it when so many of us could be there with her.

We were still missing a few siblings, and of course, we were all missing Ginger, but felt her presence there as well. I loved what the assistant to the matron said in that regard; that the temple is a gathering of families on both sides of the veil. I've always known that, but the significance of it hit me much more profoundly.

Afterwards, we were also able to do some temple work for Grampa Clarke's father and grandparents, which was also a really neat experience.

37 Weeks and Contracting

This was me at 37 weeks (Aug. 8, 2009). A few days later my doctor said the baby's heart rate was dropping and gave me an ultrasound. It was so cool to see our baby's cute little profile and head of hair and little fingers. Wished we could have spent a few more minutes there. When the doctor showed me his beating heart, I was totally oblivious that the heart rate had dropped again. Next thing I knew, Sam and I were driving to the hospital for a non-stress test. After being hooked up to monitors for a while, the nurse told me that I was contracting more (more than 5-6 an hour and longer than a minute) than the patient that was actually in labor, and that was why the baby's heart rate kept dropping, which was fine. But apparently I was no where near labor and they sent us home. Sam was disappointed we weren't having it right then. I was a little disappointed, but mostly relieved.

But now my bags are packed, and I'm ready to go! 39 weeks (Aug. 20) along and counting.

Dismal Falls, Aug. 1, 2009

Dismal Falls is about an hour away and just a short walk down to it. The falls were small, but it was fun because you could climb up them. (Carefully--it was slippery!) We had fun doing that and wading in the water and swimming in the small swimming hole at the base of the falls.

Sam apparently thought he should draw attention to my belly (36 weeks).

We saw some little fish and a small snake. As much as I love finding snakes on land, I do NOT like seeing them in the water while I'm in it. Especially when I have no idea what kind they are and whether or not they are poisonous.

Sam did a little cliff jumping, which scared me, because I was afraid he'd hit a rock.

M+M Visit, July 30, 2009

Morgan and Melissa made a detour on their way to the coast to come visit us. We were excited to have family visitors way out in Virginia.

Josh and Sam

We decided to check out the frisbee golf course and played just a couple of rounds. I can't ever play disc golf very well anyway, and especially now that I'm large with child, but besides that, I have to admit that my biggest goal was to avoid poison ivy. I seem to have acquired a patch or two on every outting we've gone on out here. So I never threw it anywhere near the woods. Sam and Morgan went hunting in the woods a couple of times. Of course, their rounds were 2 and 3s where mine were 6 and 7s.

Eli found a little toad. He also impressed us with his frisbee skills--throwing and skipping.

We unintentionally (at least most of us) had a blue theme that morning.

Poison Ivy

So I don't really know what it is for sure--some say it's poison ivy; others say they're spider bites. But since our first week here, I've frequently had new itchy rashes show up on my arms and legs. These are just a few of them. (Sam's also had his share, but in different forms.) We've been outside and in the woods a lot, and poison ivy seems to be everywhere. I thought I was being careful, but now I'm really careful. And paranoid of any unfamiliar plant.

Pandampas Pond, July 27, 2009

Summer's family invited me along for a little outing. We walked down to Pandampas Pond for a picnic lunch. There were little turtles, fish, and salamanders to see.

Paige, Clint, Summer, Kaden, Lindy

(Lindy had been fully dressed when we started the excursion--long story.)

What I wish I'd gotten on video: While we were still on the boardwalk, we saw some geese (?) coming down the path a ways off. We decided to go feed them, but Kaden couldn't wait for the rest of us and took off running down the path with his bagged sandwich in his hand. As soon as he got a little close to them, he threw a couple pieces of bread towards them. As soon as the geese took one step towards him (and maybe made some noise), Kaden dropped his bag of food, turned around, and ran yelling back towards us. You can see in the picture he was still pretty hesitant. I can't really blame him--they were pretty bold and feisty.

Pioneer Day Ward Campout

For Pioneer Day, our ward had a big campout. We shared four or five campsites, and there were several families in each campsite. We hung out at the campfire, had a little fireside talk (finally, a literal fireside!) about the pioneers and ate s'mores. Sam and I did what we could to make sure there weren't many leftovers. We had a great time, and it was nice having a chance to get to know more of the people from church.

Pioneer Day was for me a bittersweet day, remembering Ginger's funeral exactly a year earlier. It was kind of comforting to be sleeping in the tent she gave us for our wedding just a few weeks before she passed away.

Sam and our bishop and his wife.

The "Virginia Walk" hike was only about a mile, but you actually cross into West Virginia and back.

There was a cool stream that ran through our campgrounds. The kids caught crawdads.

Cascade Falls, July 19, 2009

We took a beautiful two mile hike (one way) to Cascade Falls. Sam was very patient with my slow pace and frequent rests.

I was pretty excited to see begonias growing in the wild. (And I just love the moss and the trees.) Sam pretended to share my enthusiasm.

Belly shot: 34 weeks along

The trail had a lot of stone trails and stone steps and followed the river the whole time. Really a thoroughly enjoyable hike.

The falls are 66 feet high. You could get pretty close to them without getting too wet.

Sam contemplating a swim. Right beyond the shelf was a deep swimming hole. We'd planned to go swimming, but I wimped out because it was little chilly and I was already a bit uncomfortable. There was also a place where some people were sliding down the gently slanted slippery rock that looked pretty fun.

Beautiful wild rhododendrons. There's another reason I took this picture, but I'll leave it at that.