Greg, Ivy, & Luke

Month 7

2010-10-17T20:31:00.001-05:00

I can't believe we are already halfway between 7 and 8 months that Luke has been with us.

He is really fun! He's nearly crawling (he can move, but it's more of a military crawl where he uses mostly his arms), he smiles a lot, and is making lots of noises. Sometimes when we sing to him he sings along in whatever key he deems appropriate. He's eating solid foods very well: pureed bananas, mangoes, sweet potatoes, peas, and prunes, all mixed with baby oatmeal. His sense of humor is pretty good -- he laughs a lot and seems to understand some jokes, and perhaps even plays some on us.

Last weekend we went for a two-night camping trip, which went really well. Our car was packed with stuff to simplify baby care, eating, and sleeping.

Here are a few selected pictures from the last two months:

Month 5

2010-08-14T11:30:00.000-05:00

Luke is now just over 5 months old, and he has -- FINALLY -- started sleeping better. Not wonderfully, but much better than before. Of course, even as I type this he is whining a bit about being down for a nap.

He's going through a lot of changes. Lots more vocalization and interaction, grasping, a bit of rolling... and Luke is now going to daycare a few half-days per week (in preparation for school starting next week), and this morning he had his first "solid" food!

Here are the requisite pictures.

July!

2010-07-31T20:07:00.000-05:00

Summer in Texas is hot, but Luke is still cool. We spent a weekend with our good friends in Iowa. There, Luke met another baby just his age, and they had a good time hanging out together.

Finding his feet!

2010-07-14T20:21:00.000-05:00

Month 3 pictures

2010-06-16T12:48:00.001-05:00

This month Luke has grown a lot. He's smiling a lot, able to be happy by himself, and his sleep schedule is starting to regularize a little bit. Sanity is being restored in our household. We are visiting California, where Luke got to meet his Aunt Sue, Uncle Tim, and great grandmother Meme for the first time.

Luke meets Meme for the first time (in San Diego).

Luke hangs out with Jim & Sarah in Waco.

Luke likes to help daddy mow the yard.

Smiley boy!

2010-05-24T14:24:00.000-05:00

Luke has become very smiley, and a much better sleeper. He's only getting up to eat once a night now, instead of 3-4 times. We're all thankful for the sleep. When he sleeps we've found the Kidappotamus swaddling blanket to be the easiest and most secure way to swaddle him. Also, letting him sleep in his swing helps lull and keep him to sleep most reliably.

He's been going with us to church for the last three weeks, without incident. It's been nice to reconnect with our church family. He just sleeps through the service in a sling on Greg's chest.

He has been able to find his hands for sucking on, and he has a lot better control over his arms and hands. He's been grabbing things on his bouncy seat -- sometimes with both arms at once! During tummy time, he can really lift his head and hold it up.

Here are some more recent pictures.

Two months old

2010-05-04T21:29:00.000-05:00

Luke is two months old today, and he passed two milestones today. First, he seemed to repeat a sound that Greg made (we think). Second, he flipped himself from stomach to back -- twice! When he landed on his back, he was pretty surprised, and cried. But we were pretty happy.

Luke has been making a lot of different new sounds lately -- coos and grunts and other types. He's been batting at things, reaching for toys above his chair. He's really looking at lots of stuff. The most fun thing is his smile. He smiles a lot now, especially in the mornings. His smile is *great*. :)

Here's a picture (taken by Ivy):

It's summer (almost), so we've been able to spend some more quality time with Luke during the day. If you haven't yet met our boy, you should! He's growing up fast.

Luke meets more family

2010-03-22T11:53:00.002-05:00

Luke met some of his great grandparents and his great aunt this weekend. But first, we had to wake him up, photograph his feet, and give him his first real bath.

Welcome, Luke Ansel

2010-03-14T12:25:00.005-05:00

Ivy gave birth on Thursday March 4th, 2010 to Luke Ansel, who was due today (March 14th). He is doing really well, and we hope to post some pictures here periodically. Thanks to Robbie Rogers, who took some of these pictures!

Life moves fast!

2008-01-04T08:55:00.001-06:00

Been a while... need to update the blog!

Since the last post, we completed our trip to Denmark. It was a very fruitful trip for Ivy's research, though it was a difficult trip from other perspectives. Living in a small hotel room for a month was not easy.

Ivy finished her degree while we were away. Many thanks are due to her support team, including Greg's dad who hounded UCSD gatekeepers about getting papers signed while Ivy was absent.

When we returned to Texas, Ivy was rewarded with a cat, named Zoe. Here's a picture of Zoe when we got her:

And here's a recent picture of Zoe:

Ivy's parents now live in Waco, about 15 minutes from us, and it's great having them here!

We had a good fall semester of teaching and research. Several trips thrown in for work -- Chicago, Vancouver, and then Thanksgiving was in San Diego with Greg's family. Christmas/New Year's was at home. We have about 10 days before the spring semester starts again. We've been cleaning house and organizing, which has been awesome (says Greg).

We also recently (about a month ago) got another cat -- for Zoe to play with. His name is Toby, and he is very sweet. Here's a picture of the two together:

Ciao for now!

Belgium!

2007-06-17T01:38:00.000-05:00

We've been travelling quite a bit, hence the delay of 10 days between posts. Let's recap quickly on our trip to Belgium, shall we? We'll talk about other travels in subsequent posts.

Last weekend (June 8-11), we flew from Copenhagen to Brussels (about a 90 minute flight), and then took a quick train to Leuven, the city where we spent the 2003-04 academic year. This was a trip to see the friends we made that year -- colleagues, church friends, etc. We had a wonderful time. On Friday, we spent a few hours in Brussels, eating moules frites (mussels and French fries), and wandering into churches and bookstores.

Then we took a train to Leuven (only 20km away), where we wandered around some more seeing the sights and carrying our bags (getting heavy from all the walking).

Around 6:30 PM we went to the house where we spent our year 3 years ago. Bea (the woman who owns it) let us stay with her for the weekend, which we enjoyed very much. That evening we went to dinner with some of Greg's colleagues from the university at De Wiering, a ribs place. It was great to re-connect with them and see how they're doing, and interesting to hear their perspectives on local things like politics and relations with Holland.

On Saturday, first we did some laundry at Bea's, which was sorely needed at this point. We went to the Saturday outdoor market in Leuven, which is always a fun time. Lots of fresh and local food, flowers, and knick-knacks. It was a bit rainy, but the market was still going strong.

We got breakfast at our favorite place -- Het Dagelijks Brood (The Daily Bread).

We spent some time wandering and relaxing, and then had dinner in the city center. We were planning to meet with some of our friends from our Dutch language class, but due to lack of email and cell phones we weren't able to meet up with them.

Sunday morning we went to church at ICEL, the International Church of Evangelicals in Leuven. This was the church we attended while we were in Leuven for the year. It was wonderful to see everyone, to hear of new marriages and children. For some reason people kept introducing us to people we didn't know, and we spent a lot of time talking to those people -- which was very nice, but I'm not sure we'll see them again. We had lunch with Lies, Jean, and Ida, a family who hosted a Bible study at their house which we used to attend. It was very nice to talk with them and catch up on what everyone has been doing.

On Sunday evening we caught up with Bea again and talked with her for a while. We really enjoyed seeing the renovations of her house, and hearing about how she and her family have been doing. Then on Monday morning, we packed up and left for the airport and flew back to Denmark.

It was such a great weekend. It was fun to see everyone we knew, to hear and practice the Dutch language again (which we can sort of understand, as opposed to Danish, which we can't), and to re-trace our old paths through the city.

The only thing that was slightly negative was that the airline never checked my (Greg's) identification when boarding the flight to Brussels. I tried to show them, but they just waved me on.

More on Stockholm

2007-06-06T12:48:00.000-05:00

Stockholm has really been the highlight of our trip so far. The weather was very sunny with a cool breeze. Stockholm is built on a bunch of islands, so there are bridges, canals and boats everywhere. When the sun comes out, the whole city sparkles.

It has been 6 years (!) since I did my field research in Stockholm, but all the places I liked to visit in 2001 are still where I remembered them being. My favorite places in Stockholm are the marketplace at Östermalmstorg, the Vasa museum, and the open-air museum (Skansen).

The market at Östermalmstorg has all kinds of food. The fish counters were amazingly well stocked with all kinds of marinated herring, shrimp, octopus, huge salmon and other fish I couldn't identify. The cheese counters are pretty impressive, too. I love all the colors and smells at the market.

As Greg described earlier, the Vasa museum presents a warship that sank in 1620. There were too many canons on the boat and not enough ballast in the bottom, so it tipped over and sank before it even got out of Stockholm's harbor. So much for projecting power in Europe. The museum is built around the warship, so it's possible to look at it from many different vantage points. My favorite part of the museum is not actually the warship, but the parts that describe life in 1620s Sweden. This was shortly after Sweden became a Protestant country and during the time when Sweden dominated Finland and was competing with Denmark for dominance in Northern Europe.

Skansen claims to be the first ever open-air museum. It's a big nature park dotted with old houses from around Sweden. During regular business hours, the houses are opened and staffed with historians reenacting life in the place and time that the house would have been used. When Greg and I visited we saw a woman knitting a sweater based on a pattern from the 1920s. It was very colorful and thick with a complicated pattern.

Skansen also has a zoo with nordic animals -- my favorite are the reindeer, but they also have bears, wolves, otters, and seals. When I went there in 2001 it was the day of summer solstice and they had people in traditional costumes dancing around the maypole.

Skansen is on a hill, so it has great views of the Stockholm skyline.

Here's a reindeer.

This specimen is double-salt licorice. It's a very popular kind of candy in Sweden. Most Americans have difficulty eating it because the taste is very strong. Imagine being bludgeoned in the head with a brick of salt and black licorice sticks. In our experience, it induced nausea that lasted for hours. I guess we shouldn't have eaten it on a high-speed train.

I thought this advertisement was interesting. Who names their blue jeans company after acne? Did they mean acme? Does acne mean something else in Swedish? The mystery continues.

Weekend in Stockholm

2007-06-04T02:16:00.000-05:00

Ivy and I went to Stockholm (Sweden), where we spent 2 nights. It's a 5-hour train ride each way. Ivy had been there previously, I had not.

Suffice it to say that the city is amazingly beautiful. Stately. It helped that we had beautiful weather. And it's a bit cheaper than Copenhagen. Wish we could've stayed longer! I took so many pictures that I filled the memory card on my camera -- something I haven't done in years.

We spent our two nights at Stureparkens Gästvåning in Östermalm (north part of the city), which we found through our Rick Steves guide.

The first night we wandered around the old city (which is on its own island), Gamla Stan. It has tall buildings and narrow winding cobblestone streets. The building are painted solid yellows and reds and other primary colors. The light was amazing.

For dinner we had reindeer with cream and horseradish (as an appetizer), followed by fish and potatoes (for the main course):

Then we wandered back to our hotel.

Hey, look, they have math on their money! The picture is of Christopher Polhem, a Swedish scientist.

The next morning we walked from our hotel to the city center, stopping at a church and a world-class open-air market on the way.

We went to the "Taste of Stockholm" event, got a quick lunch, and then went to the Vasa museum, which is a museum containing a huge warship that sunk in the 1620's, just after putting out to sea for the first time.

After this we went to Skansen, a huge open-air museum filled with buildings, animals, people, and events as they were a hundred years ago. It was like walking through a forest in the city.

More pictures of the waterfront:

Settling in...

2007-06-01T03:33:00.000-05:00

We're getting used to living here. Finally over our jet lag. We've been working during the day at the Royal Library (called the "Black Diamond" due to its architecture). It's a very impressive building, and the reading rooms are very quiet. Ivy has been able to use the library to request books.

On Wednesday we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3. This morning, Ivy went to a meeting of the EU Affairs Committee (held in Danish). We're about to leave for Stockholm for the weekend.

We ate at a place called "Chilis," which has similar fare to Chili's in the US. Or, as close as you're going to get in Europe. I had a jalapeno burger, and Ivy had a cheeseburger. Quite good!

Here are some more pictures...

We saw a group of about 15 roadsters driving through the streets.

People rowing the canal...

Views of the canals.

The international language of juggling

2007-05-30T01:11:00.001-05:00

Last night I (Greg) walked to the north side of Copenhagen, where a group holds a weekly juggling meeting. I found out -- too late -- that there was also the Nordic juggling convention this past weekend in Køge, south of Copenhagen.

I didn't plan to do much juggling this trip, and also we're trying to travel lightly, so I didn't bring any of my own juggling equipment. But I was of course allowed to borrow the props others had brought; the international juggling community is very friendly and willing to share.

The juggling venue was a 3rd-floor (4th-floor to Americans) community room. I showed up about 15 minutes late, and was the first one there by about 5 minutes. Finding the general building was easy enough, but finding the room required wandering and asking random people. One guy, perplexed as to why I was knocking on his door, asked right off "are you Italian?" Not sure why. Finally I found a woman who worked in the building and knew of the group.

Anyway, it felt really good to juggle for a few hours and meet some other people. Mostly Danes, but also an American and a Dutch woman (I think). About 15 people at the peak. Lots of people doing non-juggling things, like poi and devil sticks.

John Nations doing 4 clubs, Kip (sp?) in the back. Kip taught me a few tips about doing clubs, John showed me shoulder throws for 4 balls.

Kip (?) and someone else I didn't meet, passing clubs.

John doing seven rings, Jonathan, and two women doing poi.

Mogens and John passing, an unnamed woman doing 3 clubs...

Palle and a nice 4 club routine.

First interview

2007-05-29T16:24:00.000-05:00

Greg and I visited the national library (a.k.a. the black diamond) today. The building is remarkable -- one whole wall is windows, five storeys high. It is right on a canal, so the view out the window is very pretty. There is a cafe with very reasonable prices (well... reasonable for Denmark) and it has tables inside and outside by the canal. We had some very good sandwiches there for lunch and espressos that tasted like they were flavored with cinnamon or cardamom.

There are two reading rooms in the library. One is stocked with periodicals and the other is for serious researchers. We started out in the research room, but found it to be too strict and nerve-wracking. So in the afternoon we migrated to the periodicals room. Both rooms were packed with students and eerily quiet -- only the sound of typing and an occasional loud sneeze (from me -- forgot to take my allergy medicine). Readers are not allowed to bring in any bags -- only books, papers, laptops and writing instruments. I was able to get a library card, but it only works in the reading rooms. If I need to read a book, I can order it online and have it delivered to a reading room and I can read it in the room. The librarians actually check when you leave the room to make sure you aren't smuggling out any library material.

I found some interesting periodicals, but none related to my research. I know the library has at least some of the journals I read for research, but they must be stored somewhere else. I did get to glance through copies of Spiegel, the New York Review of Books, and l'Express.

I had my first interview today. It was with a civil servant who works with the parliamentary committee I am studying. She was very kind and informative. She even had coffee and danish pastries ready for us to eat while we met. I expected to have about 45 minutes for the interview, but it went twice that long. I have pages and pages of notes and learned some new, interesting things about this committee.

If you are at all interested in the committee I am studying, you can read about it here. You can access information (in English) about Denmark and the European Union here.

Whitsun, Danish lunch, Folketinget

2007-05-29T00:36:00.000-05:00

We had intended to go to the library yesterday, but it was closed for the second day of Whitsun (Pentecost) holiday. The royal library is a very interesting-looking building, called the `black diamond':

Which backs up to the Danish Jewish museum (we didn't go in):

Instead, we walked around some of the city we hadn't visited yet, particularly around Christianborg (government and royal buildings). The building below in the distance with the scaffolding is the parliament building.

The parliament is called the `Folketinget.' It's unicameral; they abolished the upper house in 1953. We took an English-language tour of the parliament in the afternoon, with another family from New Zealand (one of whom was also also a political scientist). The Danish pride themselves on their transparent democracy, and it was a very interesting tour. Ivy starts interviewing people in this building today.

We got lunch (actually before we took the tour) at a traditional Danish lunch place (though it was in the tourist area, and we were surrounded by British, Dutch, and apparently a team of Californian bicyclists). For lunch, Greg had a lunch plate (various herring and bread), while Ivy had a smoked salmon salad -- all delicious. So much food that we didn't eat dinner.

We did, however stop for an ice cream in the late afternoon. Greg had basil-flavored ice cream -- which was really quite good!

Art, church, hotel

2007-05-28T03:14:00.000-05:00

Sunday being a day of rest, we rested. Jet lag still has a hold. In the afternoon we went to an art museum, the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. It was interesting to see the work of some Danish painters and sculptors, but some things we wanted to see were closed off (or, at least, we couldn't find how to get to them). The tucked-away top-floor collection of modern art -- most of which were super-sized versions of everyday things -- were interesting.

In the afternoon we went to the Copenhagen Community Church, whose service starts at 3 PM. They meet on the 4th floor of a building above a pub and the main shopping street. They were very welcoming. A bit more charismatic than what we are used to, but we enjoyed the service. The message was from Psalm 30. After the service, they provide a dinner for everyone, and then there was a business meeting which we were asked to stay for, and even asked to speak at -- about how our home church handles the ongoing work (i.e. the Dayspring chart).

Here is the building the church met in (the top row of windows):

This happened to be going on in the main square (but was not associated with the church we had just attended):

An artistic commentary on trash in the city, in the town square:

Here's a tour of our hotel room. There are three beds, but none are big enough to fit two people.

Notice how the shower drain is positioned in the bathroom, with the shower head directly above it (not visible):

Copenhagen & Carnival?

2007-05-27T01:11:00.000-05:00

Rain today, as predicted. Late start out the door. First task: gather foodstuffs, razors, lotion, glue, other things. Visited three stores to get things, but still don't have superglue to fix Ivy's ailing glasses (I admit I -- Greg -- should have fixed them before we left).

As we approached the Strøget (the walking shopping area, "largest in Europe"), we heard loud drums. It was a Carnival parade, strangely out of place here -- in a Protestant country, very much after Lent and Easter. Apparently it's a regular thing -- there's a Wikipedia entry just for Danish carnival. See below for pictures. And yes, it was raining during this scantily-clad event.

After gathering supplies, we went in search of lunch. We found a reasonable cafe just a little off the beaten path, took a seat, and waited. And waited. All told, an hour after we had ordered, no food had arrived. Our waitress was apologetic, and rather than lunch we got coffee and pastries -- on the house. Some more window shopping at various stores (ever see an $8,000 lamp before?), and we had dinner at McDonald's to compensate for sticker shocks. We were back home and relaxed until bedtime.

By the way, Skype is our new hero. We talk for free to people over the computer (with/without video), and very cheaply to most numbers we want to call -- 2.1 cents per minute to the US or land lines in Europe. It has made our lives much easier. If you want to chat, let me know.

Finally, our hotel is right next to Tivoli Gardens. We initially thought this would be some sort of public garden area; boy were we naïve. It's a kind of theme park, think Disneyland. But we've been told it's very different than Disney -- we haven't been in yet. Last night at midnight we were reminded that we are right next to it when we were treated to a 10-minute fireworks show that seemed to loom over the hotel. Other than that, this hotel has been really quiet. I'll post some pictures of our room soon.

Farvel!

Karen Blixen Museet

2007-05-26T04:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday (Friday) was supposed to be rainy, but it was nice, so we headed on the train for Rungsted Kyst (that second word meaning "coast"), which is the place where Karen Blixen, the famous author, lived. Ivy has read a bunch of her work. The Copenhagen train station was very confusing; hard to find the train we needed (we finally had to ask). And the train was really expensive.

The coastal town of Rungsted is beautiful. It reminds me a little of coastal Santa Barbara (no mountains, though). Karen Blixen was very into three things: writing, painting, and tracking bird migrations. We had to put slippers on to see some of the rooms in the house. The best part, actually, was walking around the grounds -- there are a bunch of long trails that lead through the woods. Lots of birds (it was a sort of sanctuary) and beautiful trees. We came upon a group of horses, across a fence in the next-door riding school. I cut my hand on some barbed wire when I slipped. Fortunately, my jaw hasn't locked up yet...

Last night we dined at a nice French place, then came home and crashed.

Requisite pictures:

That's right, gasoline is about 10.5 DKK = $1.95 per liter, which is about $7.34 per gallon. We've also heard that cars bear a 180% purchase tax (because the Danish make no cars and therefore their industry isn't affected). So a $10,000 car would be $28,000. Cars = expensive in Denmark.

Smørrebrød

2007-05-24T16:01:00.000-05:00

We spent the afternoon in the national museum. There were lots of exhibits about Denmark through the ages. Some of the highlights were in the coin collection, of all places. For example, there was a Swedish "coin" that weighed 2kg and was about 2 feet tall. At the time Sweden was trying to keep the price of copper high by casting ridiculously large currency. Also, they had an exhibit on currency in the Bible, including the type of silver coins they thought Judas got for betraying Jesus, an example of what could have been a widow's mite, denarii, and other coins that were minted under Herod. Really interesting.

I found a book in the museum bookstore called Prehistoric Cooking. Before looking through the book I had never thought about the difficulty of cooking before people discovered metal.

For lunch we ate smorrebrod -- open faced sandwiches. We got four of them and shared them. All of them had a small slice of whole grain bread spread with butter. On top of that was layered various ingredients like potato slices, beets, mayonnaise, pickled herring, chicken, pork rinds, radishes. It was better than it sounds. It's about $2.50 per sandwich, so we were able to eat all these interesting and healthy(ish) sandwiches for less money than eating a meal at McDonalds (at least cheaper than McDonalds in Denmark). You can see some recipes for Smørrebrød.

Sleep!

2007-05-24T04:09:00.000-05:00

13 hours of sleep last night. Deeply needed and appreciated. Hotel was quiet -- which was also appreciated. Our room has 3 beds -- main, trundle, and bunk in a room which is tiny by American standards, but quite reasonable by Euro standards. We also have internet, allowing us to blog and talk with people (over Skype -- search for Greg's name on Skype to chat with us).

Last night we ate dinner at Wagamama, a noodle place. We both got ramen (though much better than the grad-school variety). It's good for jet lag.

We're in this hotel until mid-next week, so we have plenty of time to get acquainted with the area.

Today's plan: visit museums and make plans for the rest of our trip.

Wandering in Copenhagen

2007-05-23T10:08:00.000-05:00

Ivy and I had about 8 hours to kill before we could check into our hotel, so we wandered around Copenhagen and took in the sights. Weather was beautiful, but perhaps a bit too warm at the end of the day. Finally, we got to go to the hotel, check in, and crash for a bit.

Here are some selected photos:

Made it to Copenhagen

2007-05-23T02:21:00.000-05:00

We made it to Copenhagen, and we have all day to explore the city -- we got in at 7AM, and we can't check in to our hotel until this afternoon. We're staying here: Cab Inn City, very convenient to the train station.

Weather is nice and cool. Danish is confusing but everyone we've spoken to has perfect English (as expected).

Here are some pictures thus far, of us in the Copenhagen airport, and then after we arrived in the central train station:

In Washington, DC (Dulles)

2007-05-22T18:15:00.000-05:00

Tue May 22 15:24:50 CDT 2007

Sitting in Dulles international airport, charging my laptop's battery and waiting for a flight to Copenhagen, a man walks past in a white T-shirt, black fedora, earphones on, and singing at a rather loud volume. He's accompanying his soulful music with his own mostly-but-not-always-in-tune notes, pausing mid-stride for emphasis as he hits some high falsettos. This place really is a mixture of humanity.

Ivy and I went to bed at 3AM this morning, only to wake up at 4:15 AM so that we could be ready for Ivy's mom to ferry us to DFW for our 9AM flight to Dulles. When we got to DFW, however, our flight had been cancelled, so we actually caught an earlier flight to Reagan airport, also in DC, but about 40 minutes by car away. No problems, however, because we had a nice flight and a nice cab ride with an interesting, jovial driver originally from Pakistan.

Now we wait, our 5-hour layover still much too long despite flying to a different airport. Only 30 minutes to boarding, however, and an hour until our flight. Our airplane has been sitting at the gate for at least two hours, while we've been sitting on the other side of the glass looking at it and wishing we could get on. Scandinavian airlines is even more punctual than I expected!

Every time Ivy sits down for more than a minute or two she falls asleep. For once, we don't anticipate any trouble sleeping on this flight. The usual airplane annoyances shouldn't keep us awake this time. Maybe an all-nighter the night before travel is the secret to sleeping on the plane and avoiding getting over jet lag? Sooooo tired!