Sunday, May 26, 2013

Catch Up


Kimber has enjoyed much more time at home in the early part of this year versus last year.  This has allowed us to enjoy much more time together and to do a few more activities together. The biggest event in the early part of the year is the BP MS150 bike ride over two days from Houston to Austin. This is the second year Kirk and Kimber have done the ride together. The difference this year is that we were able to train much more. Kimber rode some 1600 miles on the road or in the gym. Kirk rode less but still had plenty of training. And Sidney helped us pedal at least 300 miles with her participation in several preparatory rides of 50 miles each.  What a trooper! And what a trio we make with the tandem and trail a bike.


This year's MS150 will be hard to top. The ride was April 20 and 21. The weather was beautiful. The temperatures were not too hot and the wind was at our back. We averaged a little over 18 miles per hour for the two days on our tandem. And it was Kimber's birthday on the Saturday of the ride. What a great way to celebrate. Doing an activity that promotes physical fitness, raises money for a great cause and allowed Kirk and Kimber to spend all day together.  We could really tell the difference this year that training made. We were finished on day 1 by 1:30 pm and felt great. We were able to enjoy the rest of the day and felt good getting in the bike the next day.

Being home has also allowed Kimber to finish a couple of projects.  The first was a t-shirt quilt she has been working on for quite some time. The sewing is now done and eventually she will get around to tying the quilt. And then she will have enough shirts for another quilt.  She also made this button bunny.  She saw an example while visiting a friend with Sidney over spring break.  Kimber used all the buttons she has been collecting for a while from new clothes, etc. It was a fun project and Sidney really likes it.  Because Kimber didn't buy any buttons, it is truly a calico rabbit with lots of color.



We have also had a new family member.  Kirk brought home a bird.  It is a green-cheeked conure that flew into a neighbors house. The neighbor had previously had birds and recognized that it was tame and needed a home. They couldn't find the owner so they posted to our neighborhood Facebook page that it needed a home. And Kirk was sold.  The bird was named Kiwi by Sidney in about 30 seconds.  The bird loves Kirk, tolerates Sidney, tolerates the cat, and bites Kimber every chance he gets.  We are going to work on the biting thing but need to get some help from a bird expert.

Kirk's position at St. Joseph's hospital was eliminated in mid February.  Although the loss of a job is never welcome, it was nice to have him at home for a while. It made life a little easier. With the busy Houston market, it didn't take long to find a new job. He now works for UT Health in the medical center. He is a research nurse coordinator working with stem cell treatments for stroke, among other stroke-related studies.  The commute is a little less stressful and the job much less stressful.

Kirk also was able to attend the men's retreats with members of our church at Mo Ranch in the Texas Hill Country in early May. It is an activity he enjoys and it gives him a much deserved break from the ladies in his life. He went rappelling on this trip along with the other activities available at the ranch. Now he is impressed with the height of his rappel but Kimber used to rappel much further as part of her training for high angle rescue years ago Big Spring and Texas City. But he had fun and that is the best part. And Kimber and Sidney had a nice girls weekend.

The weekend before his get away, Kirk and the other Girl Scout troop leader took eight of the girls in Sidney's troop camping out a Stephen F. Austin State Park. The girls had a blast and so did he even though it rained a good 6 inches on them.  They all stayed mostly dry but all their stuff came home dripping and required a few extra loads of laundry by Kimber.

Kimber hasn't been travel-free. She goes to Reno to support Marathon's oil sands research facility at least once each month. She also has been to Death Valley supporting a geology field trip with the group she supports.  It was a great experience, helping her learn about the risks associated with the trips but also she learned a lot of geology which she wants to share with Sidney on a trip to the same area some time.  It was a really great experience.

Kimber also had the chance to make a quick trip back to Stavanger to help with preparations for some seismic acquisition work to be done this summer.  She didn't think she would be back in Stavanger for a long time after leaving the international support group. So it was a treat to be able to go back. She was able to get into Stavanger in time to make the end of church and say hello to everyone there.  She was also able to see our dear friend Gwynne who was Sidney's reception year teacher while we lived in Norway.  Gwynne and Jorgen and their sweet son Gus are dear to our heart. Kimber brought home a few of Sidney's favorite Norwegian delicacies. The first was dried cod. This made Kimber's suitcase stink like fish and attracted the cat. Sidney then took these to school as her snack. The teacher may not forgive Kimber. Kimber also brought back brown cheese, various "osts" which are soft cheese in a tube, and bacon flavored snacks. There have nearly been brawls over the bacon snacks and "osts" in the house. However, Sidney has exclusive rights to the brown cheese and dried fish.
 
We have had a pleasant and long spring this year. Even through the last week it has been nice to be outside all day. We even had a cloud snap in early May that nearly had us turning on the heater again. That being said, Sidney has already eaten several handfuls of tomatoes from the garden and Kimber will pick the first bean harvest over the next weekend. We have been eating lettuce and herbs nearly all winter and spring. Sorry all you northerners! And the monarch butterflies like us too. They have eaten all of the butterfly weed and we currently have 6 chrysalis, several on the fences and several on the porch. Now we need to go put in more weed to keep the next round of caterpillars fed.  We love to watch the evolution from egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis, to butterfly.

We have had a few awesome weekends together since the activities in April. The second weekend in May, the weekend of Mother's Day tops the cake though. Sidney spent Saturday afternoon with a girlfriend while Kirk and Kimber went to a wine education class where roughly the equivalent of a bottle of wine is served to each student. Neither of us drank all we were served but some of the wine was fantastic and Kimber definitely suffered the most. Kimber's notes regarding the characteristics of the white wines were quite detailed and thorough. By the reds, which Kimber doesn't like much anyway, the notes were something like "red", color "blood", and "good for a red" or "bad".  It took some hours to recover. We then watched Apollo 13 because Sidney had seen parts of it at the YMCA and showed interest.  Following the movie, her singing cat courtesy of Gwynne and Build A Bear, came downstairs in her space suit and Apollo 13 capsule. The capsule was made from a Styrofoam box that formerly held medicine. It had a blanket inside and said "Apallo 13" on the outside. It also carried a Norwegian flag. The child can re-purpose anything she finds. Watch your trash. She will take it.
 















Oh, we also drove up to Spring, north of Houston, to look at tandems. We weren't sure we would buy one but we did know that we would have a hard time training for another year on our old, heavy, clunker. And indeed we bought. Any of us can ride in any position on the bike. Kirk could ride Captain or Stoker and so can Kimber. And Sidney can ride Stoker. It has two sets of Stoker pedals, one for Kimber and one for Sidney. The crank arm is drilled so the pedals will allow Sidney to have smaller circles for her shorter legs. It should be a very versatile bike that we never need to replace. And it is so light. Kimber can probably get it on the car by herself. Sidney chose the wheels much to Kirk's chagrin. They are rainbow. Each pair of spokes is a different color.  Can't wait to ride it. It still had to be built so we picked it on Memorial Day weekend. It cost more than Kimber's and Kirk's first cars together and doesn't have an engine. Go figure. But we don't need another bike except for Sidney as she grows, forever.

The best part of the weekend was still to come. And that was Mother's Day. Kimber got up early and went for a nice 22 mile bike ride before breakfast. Kirk and Sidney cooked her a big fat breakfast of bacon and hash browns (and eggs for them). We then enjoyed a lovely church service. After that, we drove down south of Houston to Skydive Spaceland, for Kimber to redeem her Christmas present. Kimber went on a tandem skydive. It was crazy. The plane you go up in is basically a tin can with wings and an engine. There are bench seats on both sides and you cram in like sardines. Fortunately the ride is just over 10 minutes, and one-way.  The weather was great so we got to jump from 14,000 feet. The free fall is the first 8000 feet and you reach 120 mph. You pull the chute at 6000 feet and have a relaxing ride after that.  The first part, the free fall, is very intense. It is cold and loud and fast. The parachute part though is a lot of fun.  You can turn and weave and talk. So Kimber signed up to do another dive and this time she is taking Kirk along. Pictures can be found on Kimber's Facebook. We also have video which which is pretty cool. It isn't something we want to take up, but Kimber would like the chance to enjoy the free fall part more now that she knows what to expect and to learn to turn and help get out of the plane. Then we are done!
 
Well that catches us up for a while. As a parting gift for this post, we are sharing a picture of some of Sidney's artwork. The first part of summer will see Sidney off to Grandma Carolyn in Georgia. Later Sidney and Kimber will venture to Germany. Sidney will stay in Germany a week longer than Kimber and will fly home alone. Kimber will continue trips to Reno as well as a few other short trips. Kirk has a brief work trip to Phoenix (in July!) So until the next update, have a fun filled and safe spring and summer. 

No comments:

Post a Comment