2011 in Review

Greetings, all! Below is the traditional year in review. We thought it would be relatively slow but the old calendar seemed to have filled in by about January 5^th…

We again traveled to California & Nevada in March to collect trilobites for John’s continuing research. ReBecca & our co-worker Zeb found complete Glossopleura’s!  It was also Ruby’s first camping trip, & she did great out in the middle of the desert! In April we took a quick trip out to Arkansas & Oklahoma to visit friends & family. ReBecca had a great time catching up with her friends! At the end of that month we all traveled to Kemmerer, WY, where John & ReBecca presented at the 9^th Conference on Fossil Resources & attended the 4th Fossil Preparation & Collections Symposium.

May was a busy month! We traveled west to attend our good friends Josh & Aubrey’s wedding in Tahoe. We also visited Yosemite National Park, where we met up with John’s father for the day. Upon our return the museum opened its new temporary exhibit for the summer, a large robotic T. rex. The exhibit was very successful & Ruby & the Tyrannosaurus made the front page of the local newspaper. A few weeks later John was reunited with his family again for his nephew Dave’s graduation from high school. The next day John, his sister Chris, his dad, & Dave all ran in the Bolder Boulder, a 10K race. We then all enjoyed a post-race lunch at the Boulder Teahouse for ReBecca’s birthday & were joined by John’s grade-school friend Will, who now lives in the area, & ReBecca’s friend Laura.

In July we took a family trip to Glacier National Park in Montana. We spent the first part of the week with John’s family (his father, family friend Joanne, & sister Chris’ family) & the second part of the week with ReBecca’s family (her parents, her Uncle Jon, Aunt Terry & cousins Matt & Samm, along with her children). We hiked up to Avalanche Lake on July 4, survived a fireworks war in Hungry Horse, played dueling paddleboards on Lake McDonald, visited Polebridge, took a Red Bus tour, hung out by the river, & generally relaxed a lot outside our cabin. We really enjoyed our rare summer vacation away from work!

In October we celebrated Ruby’s 1^st birthday! We had a good time & find it very hard to believe that a whole year has already passed! Russ & Chris came out to visit the next week & we took a nice drive up Grand Mesa. At the end of October we took a quick trip over to Denver to see Jimmy Buffett in concert!

We attended the annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting the first week of November in Las Vegas.  We had a great time visiting with our friends & learning some new things. After Vegas we took a quick trip to California. John has really wanted to introduce Ruby to the ocean. It went well until she was so excited when running after a wave that she took a big face plant in the sand. She recovered quickly & was back enjoying the beach again the next day. We took a quick trip up to San Francisco & the UC Berkeley fossil collections. We also took a trip down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Ruby really enjoyed the sea turtle & the tide pool where she could touch star fish. We also enjoyed a great dinner out with Tim, Kelly, Dave and Linda!  

For Thanksgiving this year we once again traveled to New Mexico to see ReBecca’s family. Ruby’s great-grandparents were there, along with her grandparents, two great aunts, and an aunt and uncle. It was nice to get to spend time with family and let Ruby get spoiled a little more. We also got to spend a day in old town Santa Fe.

ReBecca spent much of the year staying home with Ruby and working at the museum when she could. We have been continuing our inventory of the museum collections, and that has been moving along. She and John co-authored a paper on dinosaur skin fossils from our Jurassic quarry, a paper that came out in May. She joined a local MOM’s Club chapter and took a parenting class where she and Ruby met many new friends. The classes were the highlight of their weeks, where they would get to interact with other babies and moms. We also took a few trips over to Denver this summer to visit with friends and take in a few Rockies Baseball games. In September ReBecca took a trip to visit one of her best friends and college roommate, Liz, in Portland, Oregon. She had a great time visiting her last western state, and was able to relax and have some fun. She walked all over Portland, and visited the coast and Mt. St. Helens while on her trip. In October she was busy planning Ruby’s birthday party, while also organizing the museums second annual National Fossil Day. She was very happy to have one of her best friends from high school, Christie, and her family out for a visit in October as well. The fall has been occupied with working 2 days a week and spending the rest of the week with Ruby, visiting with various friends, canning, crafting and sewing.

Some of Ruby’s favorite things are her dog and cats, clapping, waving, swimming and playing in the water, swinging in the sunshine, ‘read’ her books, being outside and hiking with her mom and dad. She seems to enjoy all the traveling we have done and has been on several of our fossil collecting trips. She is good at sharing and is sweet to her new friends, giving them hugs and kisses. She has recently discovered stuffed animals and pretending to cook. Ruby learned to crawl in May and was walking all over the house by the beginning of September.

John attempted to climb 14,036-foot Mount Sherman in the mountains of central Colorado in March, with colleagues from work. They made it to 13,000 feet but were turned around by wind and poor conditioning for the winter conditions up there. John was disappointed by having to turn around for the first time on a 14er but they plan to try again, maybe this summer. In June, John spent ten days at a paleontology conference and field trip across Arizona and Nevada, one that he had helped organize on the Cambrian stratigraphy and paleontology of the Great Basin. It was a very informative meeting and trip and a chance to meet many new colleagues from all over the world. Most of the summer was busy with digging out in our quarry in western Colorado, and watching the uncovering of a dinosaur femur fully 6.5 feet long. In late summer, John also got to lead a museum trip down to the Circle Cliffs in Utah, a trip during which they found several nice trackways of ancient horseshoe crabs. The highlight of each day for him, however, was coming home to Ruby’s smile and goofy antics.

We also worked on a garden in the back yard this summer. Corn, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, an artichoke and 1 pumpkin were our harvest. The potatoes were huge – a success for our first time growing them. ReBecca ended up winning the Battle of the Squash Bugs and was rewarded with one nice pumpkin (which we carved down at ReBecca’s parents’ place down in New Mexico at Thanksgiving). We even grew enough tomatoes for John to make two nice batches of salsa, and enough peppers to get us through the winter. We also joined a Community Farm this year. ReBecca and Ruby really enjoyed the trip out to pick up our produce every other week. We occasionally would spend an hour or so picking more. It was nice to know where our food came from and to give Ruby a good connection to how we get our food and get her started off eating well. 

All of the cats are doing well and are still enjoying their backyard, where they spent much of the spring and summer. Tikka the dog enjoyed going trilobite camping with us in the spring. All four of our fish (Tank, Flavio, Chip and Chip) are enjoying a brand new (and very bright) tank light.

We hope that 2011 was a great year for you. Have a very wonderful New Year!

John, ReBecca, Ruby, Kelty, Duma, Grizz, Tikka, Tank, Flavio, Chip and Chip

Ruby Goes Camping: Part 4- Feeding and Staying Cool

Part 4, and the final part of my series on taking our daughter, Ruby, on her first camping trip at 5 months old.

Feeding: This part I did not think out that well. I took a small food mill we had to mush up food to feed Ruby, but we had only just begun to feed her solids, and were not feeding her much that would travel well for consecutive days in a cooler. We had not fed her anything that I had not made myself at this point, so that further complicated things. So she ate rice cereal and bananas that week. Unfortunately I was no longer breast feeding so we were doing formula, which was easy (too easy). I also did not think about how I would feed her - how to keep her still that is. I fed her a few times in her car seat, but after the drive to the site, that was the last place she wanted to sit. We ended up just having her sit on the folding table we had brought. Lucky for us she was already sitting up very well on her own, so that was helpful.

eating in camp

We have since discovered the squeeze packs of food (Ellas Kitchen, HappyBaby and Plum Organics are our favorites), and these have been terrific for us on recent trips.

Staying Cool: The afternoons turned out to be warmer than we had anticipated. Too warm for Ruby. Even with the PeaPod for shade, Ruby was still getting too hot. We were trying to figure out how to keep her cool, and she and I ended up spending most of the afternoons in the van with all the windows and doors open, which made for a nice wind tunnel and created a good breeze to keep us cool. One day after the hike back to camp Ruby had fallen to sleep in the pack and was pretty hot, which had us a bit worried. When we got back to camp we took her out, took all her clothes off and let her play in some water. We took the top off of one of our food storage containers (we just use the large plastic boxes) and poured a tiny amount of our cold water from our coolers into it. She LOVED this. She had so much fun splashing and playing. It immediately perked her up and was a good source of entertainment.

Playing in the water to stay cool

It was at this point I had an epiphany! If I had only brought the small plastic bathtub we had I could have both used it as a chair for feeding her, and as a "swimming pool" to keep her cool. I think she is too large for that solution now that she is fully mobile, but it is my advice to others :)

Ruby Goes Camping: Part 3 - Containment & Shade

Part 3 of my series on taking our daughter, Ruby, on her first camping trip at 5 months old.

Containment: My daughter has always liked to stand. She has never wanted to sit still. She has always been ready to go and has been standing since she was 4 months old. It's nuts. She has finally learned to walk at 10 months old and it took her less than a week to go from that first step to full on running. I knew when we were in camp and digging for the trilobites the odds of getting her to sit still were pretty close to nil. I was also VERY worried about the lack of shade where we were going. The Mojave is not exactly the most vegetated place on the planet. Even in late March the temperature can get into the 90s during the day (if not more). Some had suggested taking a play pen for her to be in, but at that point we did not have one. The inflatable camping ones are a bit more pricey than I was willing to pay, and I was worried about the desert winds carrying her away. We decided to invest in the KidCo PeaPod Plus. It is a small, collapsible, light weight tent. It has windows on all 4 sides, with shades to cover the mesh windows and keep the sun (and dust!) out. It also came with a inflatable mattress that slips into the bottom to give it some cushion and a small sleeping bag that fits the entire space of the floor.

But do not let the word "small" fool you - I can even fit in this thing, although not well. We found this to be a good place to let Ruby nap in camp and at the quarry sites, while staying out of the sun and away from any 'pests' (not so many mosquitoes, but there are scorpions, spiders, snakes....!). When she was awake in the quarry we would toss some toys inside to try and keep her occupied (even though she wanted to be outside with us!) She could stand in the tent, but could not 'escape.'

Pros:

• lightweight
• good shade
• mesh doors and windows that can also be covered
• pops up on its own instantly (no set up!) and folds up easy
• large enough to be useful for a long time

Cons:

• Inflatable pad is heavy. We only used it in camp and did not hike with it
• needs a fan inside, it can get stuffy with the flaps down and a fan would help with air circulation
• lightweight enough that it can take flight if it does not have weight in it, or if it is not staked down. Stakes not provided. 

Mesh door closed

mesh door open

The tent at the quarry

Ruby Goes Camping: Part 2 - Cloth Diapers?

Part 2 of my series on taking our daughter, Ruby, on her first camping trip at 5 months old.


Cloth Diapering: We had only been cloth diapering for a few months when it was camping time. I did not know how to approach this. Thankfully I had found a wonderful resource, the Outdoor Baby Network. I posted a question in their boards to see if anyone had experience camping with a baby in cloth diapers before. I got some great feedback. I was most worried about our lack of water (we had to bring all we would use), so washing them would be difficult. I also worried that if I did not wash them that they might mildew or get otherwise very gross and damage the inserts. After talking with Megan at Colorado Baby, our local cloth diapering store, I decided to use our GroVia diapers that we use at home, with the GroVia BioSoakers in camp. We also brought traditional disposables along, just in case, since we were not sure how well the BioSoakers would work. The BioSoakers are similar to the gDiapers disposable insert (plastic and chlorine free). It is basically like a flat disposable diaper that you place in the shell. It has adhesive tabs you can use to hold it in place, but we found that we did not need them. These worked great for us and we would just toss them in a ziplock bag and eventually into the trash. When we ran into the poop problem (sorry, but it happens) we just used another shell that we had brought. We had a zip closed wet bag for containing these until we could get home. They are more slim fitting than a normal cloth diaper and we never had any trouble with leaks or rash. We are happy we discovered this solution, which worked great for us and saves us from needing to deal with the traditional disposables, both when we are just traveling and for longer camping trips. For shorter camping trips (1 or 2 nights) we just use cloth diapers.

For my husband

Source: ilovecharola.tumblr.com via Erin on Pinterest

Ruby Goes Camping: Part 1 - Camping

This post is a little late. Ruby is now 10 months old, but back when she was only 5 months old John and I decided to take her on her first camping trip. John and I are paleontologists, and recently my husband has been studying trilobites. For the past few years we have been traveling around the western US collecting these 520 million year old fossils. For the past three years we have been going to the Mojave Desert to collect in the Marble Mountains. As March approached we just figured we would go, as always. There was just the small detail of the 5 month old to think of. Being the rookie first time parents we are, we just figured we would pack Ruby up and just go for it like always. It was only a 12 hour drive after all. People have asked us about the trip, and how it went, so I will be posting a series on our adventures in first time camping with a baby: things we learned, things that worked for us, things that didn't, ect.....

Cushy camp

The Campsite: The campsite where we always stay is not really a campsite that most people would think of. It is a rock covered alluvial fan, with no electricity, no table, no shade, no water, no bathrooms, no trash service - what some people call "primitive." This does not phase us one bit. We did not even realize it was primitive camping until we got home and someone told us we were nuts. While we were technically "car camping" we still had to bring everything we would need. It was nice to not need to hike in, so we could have access to coolers, a larger camp stove, more food, ect... We were camping for 5 days in late March, early April.

Tent Camping: When we had collected in 2010 I was still in my first trimester of pregnancy and pretty tired for most of the trip. We had not even told anyone we were pregnant at that point. I wussed out and we took the air mattress and slept on it inside our tent. In 2011 I was too afraid to have Ruby sleep on an air mattress, so we went back to the Therm-a-Rest's. Since we brought so much extra gear (we had no idea what we might actually need) we went ahead and brought our extra tent to hold it all. It was a bit excessive, but since we had the ability with our "car camping" it worked for this trip.

our double tent

all zipped up in the tent

Another item I was worried about was how to keep Ruby warm. It can get very windy and cold at night. I was terrified to have her sleep in the sleeping bag with us (we have a dual/double bag), afraid the nylon with smother her in the middle of the night. I asked around and a friend suggested letting her sleep in a snowsuit. I thought that was a perfect idea. I bought a fluffy, warm, used snowsuit at our local consignment store and cut the hood off of it (I was worried she might get it wrapped around her face and, again, smother - a common fear of mine).  I sewed the raw edge down. It worked great! Sometimes too great! Ruby even got hot enough a few nights that I would unzip it half way down to keep her cool. I also would put her hat and gloves on her  (or just flip the snowsuit sleeves over) to sleep in. I made a little nest of a small baby blanket for her to sleep on next to me. I was again worried about the blanket smothering her, but she did not move enough for me to worry about it in the end. I could put my arm over her and make sure she was ok all night, which was great. We even had a battery powered night light we used so we could check on her at night (available at Target).

the way we ventilated on warmer nights

s

Updates

Things are moving along here. Everyday it is something new with Ruby. I seem to be morphing from ReBecca, the paleontologist, to just being ReBecca, Ruby's mom. While I love being her mom, I am having a difficult time dealing with the thought process of some people that since I now have a baby I can either no longer be a paleontologist or that I have no time to be a paleontologist. I do not appreciate either. While I am still figuring out how to juggle everything I wish people could still just see me as ME, not as just Ruby's mom. I have not become a different person, I am still ME, I am just evolving. So, as my life changes, so may this blog. I may on occasion start talking about my live as both a paleontologist and a mom, so if that bothers so people, it might be safe for you to just stop reading my blog now. Thanks for the interest regardless.

If you would not mind, please take a moment to vote for the cat shelter that John and I help with: CLAWS.
Thanks!!

2010 in review

WOW! Another year has flown by! It was a year of many changes in the Foster house. In February we found out we were expecting a baby! We welcomed Ruby Adelaide Foster on October 12, which happened to be her due date (punctual!!). She weighed in at 7 pounds and 0.8 ounces and was 20 inches long. She was just 36 minutes short of being born on the first ever National Fossil Day. Her name comes from both the gemstone and Ruby Canyon, which the Colorado River runs along here in our area. Adelaide is a German name meaning “of noble kin” – a nod to John’s German side of the family. Both names are also found in ReBecca’s family tree. ReBecca’s parents were in town for the big day and John’s father flew in the morning after she was born. Having all of our parents in town for her arrival was very special for us.

We had decided to let her gender be a surprise and once she was born it took us nearly two minutes before someone asked “Is it a boy or a girl?” and we realized we had forgotten to check! We were just happy to have her in the world with us, complete with all ten fingers and toes. She is a perfect little girl who brings us new surprises every day. We love waking up to her little smiles in the morning. She has started trying to talk with us, which never fails to make us laugh. She is also very good at looking like a beetle while she’s asleep.

Other news for the year was our move from our home in Grand Junction to our new home in Fruita. It was hard to say goodbye to our first home together, but we are enjoying our new place that has more space and is much closer to the museum. We cut our commute down to a mile and a half! All of the cats are doing well and have settled into the new place. They enjoy having a yard they can roam in, as does Tikka (our dog), who has a new dog cottage to sleep in. All four of our fish (Tank, Flavio, Chip and Chip) survived the move and have a better view of the action in our new living room.

With our new yard, John has become reacquainted with lawn mowers, hedge trimmers, and weed-eaters and has been introduced to the fun of broken irrigation pump low-pressure switches. We spent nearly a week in the field in beautiful northwestern Nebraska in May, collecting fossil turtles and oreodonts for the Museum – and ReBecca found a nice rodent skull. On the same trip we shot up to the Black Hills to visit friends and see the new paleo facility at John’s old school in Rapid City. An afternoon in the Deadwood produced, grudgingly, a few fragments of Late Cambrian trilobites. John also received a BLM grant for $25,000 to continue his research efforts at the Mygatt-Moore Dinosaur Quarry. In September, John hiked up Mount Shavano along with work colleagues; this 14,229 ft peak is a long enough haul that they needed to leave camp in the dark at 3 am! But hiking under the stars by headlamp and the view of sunrise from just above treeline was worth the effort.

ReBecca spent much of the early part of the year working from home, but was feeling much better by mid-spring and spent the entire summer working out at the Mygatt-Moore Quarry running public dinosaur digs for the museum, and occasionally working out at the Fruita Paleontological Area with John. The heat was not too bad this year (although the gnats were!) and ReBecca is quite proud to have not missed any work days this summer due to the heat/pregnancy combination. Who knew Ruby would have a whole field season under her belt before she was even born! ReBecca has continued to work at the museum as paleontology collections manager. Days not spent in the quarry have been spent inventorying the collections, which has been both productive and have turned up some interesting specimens. For fun she went over to Denver to catch a few Rockies baseball games and went to see the stage production of Mamma Mia with two great friends!

We again traveled to California and Nevada this past spring to collect trilobites for John’s continuing research. We also had a chance to see the King Tut exhibit at the Denver Art Museum over the summer. While we did not travel as much as we did last year, we did take time to go on several drives and enjoy our beautiful part of the Colorado Plateau. Work let us hang out in Moab several times this summer, and we rafted the Colorado River through Ruby-Horsethief Canyon in Colorado numerous times and took one trip down the river through the Professor Valley in Utah. To end the field season we took our canoe down the river from Grand Junction to Loma on a beautiful sunny September day. We spent Halloween in Denver with many friends and family and Thanksgiving in New Mexico with ReBecca’s family (Ruby had a chance to meet more family, including her great-grandparents).

We hope everyone had a great Christmas and that you have a happy New Year!

John, ReBecca, Ruby, Kelty, Duma, Grizz, Tikka, Tank, Flavio, Chip and Chip