Ruby Frances Robinson

So I have so much to talk about but boy am I tired. Ruby and Lora have come home from the hospital today. It's been 6 days! So the facts first:
1. Born at 10:08am on the 22nd of December.
2. 24hrs of labor with no epidural!
3. Cesarian Section required due to Ruby being "sunny side up".
4. 7lbs, 5ozs.
5. Jaundiced a bit
6. A full head of hair with blue eyes.
7. Cute as all hell!

Lora is doing really well. The hard part will be keeping her from doing too much too early. You guys will have to help me with this one. You all know Lora!

So I figured the best thing for me to do right now is talk less and show more pictures so here goes.

Ruby Roars!

Ruby getting a tan. We're thinking of piercing her nose too.

Go ahead and do it... you know you want to just kiss your screen right now.

Ok, so Lora is going to kill me but here's a shot before labor really kicked in and...

One not too long afterward. She continually amazes me.

No she's not retarded. I love this one.

Geaux Tigers! This one is for her two LSU uncles.

We had Christmas today on the 27th. Her Grandpa Jim and especially Grandma Pat went crazy after meeting Ruby for the first time. Ruby is only 6 days old but she already loves being spoiled by her grandparents.

Well, this is just the first of many pictures to come. Lora and I are so proud and can't wait for all of you to meet her. Stop by for a visit or just give us a call if you live far away.

Tim

Battery Life

OK, so sometimes do you guys feel like your nothing more than a rechargeable battery? I do. My energy levels were running low... very low last week and I needed a recharge. Problem was that it started raining and snowing this past weekend. It wasn't going to be enough rain to bring much water to the dry riverbeds and since there wasn't a base of snow to support the new snow I wasn't sure what to do. I called a friend living near Lake Tahoe and he suggested we just give the snow a chance.

So I left the house at 6:00am for the drive up to Truckee and Greg's home. So I have to say right now that Lora and I knew we were lucky to live in Salt Lake City, being so close to the mountains. I love California for many reasons but the driving times to go skiing are a bit much. For most of the trip it was dumping snow which meant 30mph on the freeway all the way to Lake Tahoe.

BUT IT WAS SO WORTH IT! After skinning up a mtn near the Mt. Rose ski area I quickly realized that California has snow... really good snow. It was white-out conditions, 14 degrees, and waist deep fluffy powder! Turns out we got lucky. Greg and I made three runs down a beautiful bowl making choking turns. Faceshot after faceshot were had by both of us. It was hard to smile because I was choking but at the bottom of each run we were beaming and high-fiving.

So now I'm home, batteries recharged, ready for what life brings us. Lora is doing well, but is in a lot of discomfort. We visited the doctor yesterday and she informed us that Lora was dilated to 2cm. The baby is sitting extremely low and will probably not drop any lower... that is until D-Day. We'll keep you posted.

Tim

Thanksgiving

My step-father Norman turned 70 the day before Thanksgiving, giving the family an excuse to all get together for the long-weekend. We haven't been together in one place for years. So it was great spending the weekend together in Weaverville.

The whole gang, minus my niece Kim who couldn't get off work.

We spent the weekend eating, playing games

and general horsing around.

Point Reyes Weekend

Lora has been staying in Berkley working out of a lab at UC Berkley. She has been staying with her sister and brother-in-law, Karen and Kevin. She's getting a lot done with her plant samples that she sent herself from Australia. Of course this means that she is in the Bay area and I'm still in Sacramento. So for this weekend we decided to go camping out at Point Reyes National Park. Lora spent some time in this area quite a few years back working at a research station on the coast, but I had never been out here.

Lora hiking down to the lighthouse at Pt. Reyes. You can really see how pregnant she is right now. 35+ weeks! Not far off now!

We loaded up the van and headed west for an evening of camping, using Gumby of course! Nothing really exciting but it was really great to just get away together and hang out. We cooked some dinner and watched a movie inside the cozy van.

Sunday had us hiking down to the lighthouse where we took a short hike. Lora is so strong. She gets winded a bit quicker but she doesn't seem to let the extra load slow her down.

Just a blurry photo of Gumby and the campspot in the redwoods.

Thanksgiving up in Weaverville with Shirley and Norm. Happy Birthday Norm! Then the following weekend down to Campbell to hang out with Jim and Pat. Busy upcoming two weeks.

We get back from Australia and there's been a population explosion with our family of friends! 9 new kiddies including the two preggos and one not pictured (William).

New Orleans, Shrimp Po-Boys, and Family

Lora, Frank and I drove down to New Orleans to see my grandparents. It was good to see them since we had not seen them in over two years. Papa Frank is 94 and seems to be doing well. Mama Cherry looks like her usual self with her red hair, albeit with a little hearing loss. We had lunch at a really nice Italian restaurant with plenty of yelling across the table.

We then went down to the French Quarter for a drink at Pat O'Briens out on the sunny patio. Ahhh, Nawlins'!


Here's a photo dad shot of Lora and I in the middle of Jackson Square. We debated the significance of the horse's two front feet being off the ground. It's supposed to symbolize that he died in battle... he didn't. Geeky stuff sorry.

I'm sick now with a cold so I'm trying to just relax and get healthy before work starts back up. Today for instance I relaxed by looking at breast pumps with my lovely wife and mother. Exciting stuff!

We are in Mississippi

Well, as hard as it is for me to admit I'm currently in Mississippi visiting with my family. Lora is here too of course. It's a Louisiana thing!

The most recent family photo.

Waiting to get seated outside the Jackson Crackerbarrel. A southern tradition.

It was absolutely fantastic to see my sister, Kimberly, and her two adorable girls. Both Lora and I missed them both a ton. Boy have they grown! It was also great to meet Mark for the first time.

John seems to be doing well. It's been two and a half years since I've seen my brother. He looks great. I'm not sure we'll be able to get a round of golf in this trip but hopefully in April when we return with our new addition.

Until the next post YA'LL BE GOOD NOW!

Two blog posts in the same day? What's up with Tim and Lora?

Lora and I went to Salt Lake City to see our friends Mike and Vicki get married... in an airplane hanger. With the multi-million dollar Lear Jet I felt like I was an extra in a rap video. This was the back-up plan in case of snow. Well, it snowed. The hanger actually worked really nice. Everyone had a great time. It was super fun getting to catch up with some old friends.


While we were there Nicole took some photos of Lora all pregnant and all. I know Sylvia has been hounding us to put some photos up on our blog. Well, here you go Sylvia.


Doesn't she look great? Nicole and Paul are great photographers too. You can check out their websites at the following sites.

http://www.nicolemorgenthau.com/
http://www.richerimages.com/main.php

Another story of Upper Cherry Creek from KayakSessions magazine

Check it out for some photos you have and haven't yet seen. The story is pretty good too. It was just "published" online today.

http://www.kayaksession.com/kayak-yosemite.php

Tim

J and J wedding

Hello everyone, we know we have been very bad with updating our blog. I am getting settled in here at g-mas house. My days are busy working from home, but I still wish I got more done. My belly is growing well and we are getting excited for the big day, which is now Christmas since I crossed the international date line. Sorry Silvia, we still don't have a picture of me looking preggers.

Last weekend we went to Jason and Jessica's wedding reception.




We had a great time. Good food, dancing, catching up with friends and flying pumpkins.


Here is the trebuchet that Jason's brother, Nate, built and supplied endless entertainment as he launched pumpkins great distances.

It was great catching up with Jason, Jessica, Michele, Ben and Jessamyn.

On Sunday we drove to Pacifica where Tim finally got some airtime. He has been trying for the last couple of weekends to get in the air, but the wind has been a bit cross. You can imagine how happy he was to get a 30 min flight in. We finished the weekend with a delicious dinner with Karen, Kevin, Laura, Ara and STINKY. He is still the best cat on the planet and very well loved.

I know, I know... How are we supposed to keep you coming back if we don't put up any new content?

Just a short hello from Sacramento. Things are going well here. Lora is back in the States and looking great. Work for me is fun at times and stressful at other times. We haven't really been up to much action. We've just been hanging out with our friends, family, and of course each other.

Future plans include a trip to New Orleans/Jackson to see family and then squeeze out a baby in December at some time. Feel free to send us an e-mail or a phone call.

Don't worry! Lora and I are still going to be posting to the blog.

Tim

The joys of playing in the mountains

OK so the title of this post basically is an effort by me to explain to you the reader how much my life has been a living hell since returning from the Middle Kings kayak expedition three weeks ago. On the last two days (days 6 and 7) I had to do some walking through poison oak. I've never really had to deal with poison oak more than just a bit no larger than a quarter. Well, I ended up getting it REALLY badly all over my arse! It was a really bad case. So bad that I couldn't even really sit down. I'll spare you the drippy, oozing details. It's finally receding and I can sit without wincing.

Chad with our route up Temple Crag right next to him.

Last week I decided to go climbing in the Sierra Nevada Mtns with a kayaking buddy. Chad is a great boater and like me he enjoys scaring himself on the side of a mountain. We decided to climb an absolute classic, Temple Crag.

Me at the base of the route. It ended up being nine pitches.

Chad snapped this photo of me on lead on one of the loose pitches.

It was a good trip but my poison oak condition made the 6 mile hike in and the climb a rather painful experience. I ended up having a fever due to the P.O. You can see in the photo below me on the approach at 4:00am needing to take a nap due to the fever. It really hit me hard. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we had to do this car to car because we couldn't get a wilderness permit due to the hiker quota.

I need a pillow... and some Tylenol!

Chad on the summit with the Palisades in the background.

All in all it took us about 14 hours. I think I would have enjoyed it a bit more if I hadn't have been sick. It sure was great getting back into the mountains on some good rock though. Chad and I have plans to do some more so stay tuned.

A video certainly worth watching! And no there is not any kayaking in it.

Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University died today from incurable pancreatic cancer. Since I've been living in Australia for the past two years I hadn't heard about him. Maybe you have already.

In this youtube video he delivers a lecture in the "Last Lecture" series. It is very good! I know it's a bit over an hour long but what he says in it is basically a plan for living a good life. It all comes down to being a good person and not letting the "brick walls of life" get in your way of achieving your dreams. Absolutely brilliant!

Particularly good for all of the academics in our lives. Mom, be warned you may shed a tear or two.

Watch it!

More Upper Cherry Creek stuff

So I found this video that a group from CO shot and edited of their run down UCC this summer. Cool thing is that I'm in it. You can see my awesome style at 1:26 and then again hanging out in camp. I'm the one with short hair wearing a blue shirt. It's a great video really well done. It would have been good to see some more rapids from the second day but overall a great video showcasing some of the best drops on UCC. Enjoy.


Upper Cherry Creek 2008 from Powder Monkeys, Inc. on Vimeo.

The Watchmen Movie Trailer

So most of you know that Lora and I are closet comic book fans. A few months ago maybe a year I posted about a graphic novel called The Watchmen. I highly recommended the book and mentioned that they were making a movie. We are both geekingly waiting for the release. Well, they released the first trailer and it looks AWESOME! Zach Snyder (the movie "300") is the director and it looks like he is painstakingly recreating the scenes from the comic into the movie. Anyways, I 'm posting the preview from YouTube. Watch it and read the book. The story is so well told in the book and it looks to me like the movie will not be a let down.

News from the Front

Well I have news to report. First of all I was offered a 6th grade teaching position in Woodland, California. I'm really relieved due to the added pressure of securing a job with health insurance so we could actually afford to have our baby here in the States. I'm excited about the job too. It will be in a large elementary school and they use a modified year round schedule. This means that I will have lots of time off during the normal school year. I haven't signed the contract yet but I have an appointment on the 17th of July.

Lora is doing really well. She's over her stubborn cold and is working hard in the lab at the University of Tasmania sorting insects. I couldn't even begin to tell you how many insects she has collected over a 20 month period. THOUSANDS... TENS of THOUSANDS! She's motoring through them though. She's also really enjoying the 2nd trimester of pregnancy more so than the first because the all day morning sickness has subsided. On the phone the other day she told me that she's beginning to show a bit. Not to the casual observer just yet though.

I also just got back a few days ago from kayaking Upper Cherry Creek. This was my 5th time down this superb run and it did not disappoint. It starts out with carrying your boat and all of your camping gear 11 miles up a dusty hot trail far from the river. Then the next two days are spent dropping over one waterfall after another. The landscape is amazing with smooth granite dominating the landscape with dome after dome. The river cuts through these glaciated domes forming a kayakers wet dream. Yes Mom, it really is that good that I had to say that last sentence for effect!

The boys (Matias from Argentina, Chris Harjes, Josh Bruckner, and Dan Glauser) at the lake in the sky. From here it drops into the unportageable Cherry Bomb Gorge.

I had always portaged around the entire Cherry Bomb Gorge section requiring 45mins to an hour of carrying all of my gear over a 1000ft dome. Well this year it was time. I was the only one of our team of five that hadn't dropped the "bomb" yet. I was scared! The funny thing was that I wasn't sure who was more scared, me or the rest of the crew that had run it before. Sitting at the lip of this drop looking down the gorge was one of the coolest things I've done in my many years of kayaking. The coolest thing I've ever done in a kayak was running this gorge. There is something about being completely committed to sticking your lines or else. Well, eager readers we all had great lines off of the bomb with no carnage to report. YEAH! The rest of the run went down great. All in all I probably ended up running at least 20 new rapids that I had walked previously.

Chris in heaven!

This trip down UCC will go down in the books as my second favorite. I will always remember the trip that Lora and I did alone down it as my favorite. It's pretty funny to see the reactions from all of these really to cool for school, hardcore kayakers when I tell them that this run is a wife run and that "Ya my wife and I ran this two years ago." Jaws drop! Damn I love my wife!

Looking down the barrel of a loaded gun. This is from the scout of Cherry Bomb Falls. Amazing! It just keeps going too.

Job hunting and waterfall running

Greetings loyal blog readers. As I'm sure you all know by now Lora and I are pregnant and are SOOOPER excited about it. If you haven't checked out the pictures in the previous post yet be sure to. It's a good shot of our alien baby.

You also know that I've been back in the States for just over a month. I came home to find a job so that we could afford to have this baby. Well, I knew it would be a hard to get all of the necessary documents needed to secure a job here in Cali but boy was I in the dark. It has taken soooo much longer than I expected. I started early with my credential back in February and now that I have that I've been told that I need so much more. Currently, I'm waiting for what I think is the last crucial paperwork from Utah. Of course it was supposed to be here on Monday. It's quite frustrating waiting on paperwork. I have applied for one job but am not holding my breath on that one. Otherwise, I'm in a holding pattern.

I was invited along on an amazing trip to go down the Middle Salmon river in Idaho. After much deliberation I decided that I needed to stay here and job hunt. It was a difficult decision but I'm really glad I decided to stay. It was during last week that I was told I'm not ready to apply for jobs until I get this new piece of paper from Utah. I would have been more of a wreck this week if I had just found this out. Thanks to all of my super friends for understanding.

So with me working during the week that left the weekends free to go kayaking. I was able to talk my buddy Hunter into an afternoon run down South Silver. He hasn't been in a boat much recently especially on Class 5 but he did AWESOME. Check him out below.

What a boof!

I also, went on a two day trip down the Waterfall section of Dinkey Creek. I've been waiting to do this run for years and it did not disappoint. This run was very committing with many waterfalls that had to be run. Some were unportageable!

It started with a HOT two hour hike down to the creek.

The put-in rapid. It was just a hint as to what was around the corner.

One of the many waterfalls. This one did have a sieve just a few meters down stream from the picture edge. SCARY! Photo by Anthony

This run epitomizes the concept of team work. Photo by Anthony

Anthony took this picture from his boat of another of Dinkey's perfect waterfalls.

Rick going deep. There weren't too many rapids that were "gimmies".

Rod showing off his perfect boof stroke.

Ben Zuppo running a committing drop that required a well timed brace. This one was like being shot out of a water cannon.

Just the bottom half of Willie's drop. Most everyone took a hit at the bottom. Just an absolutely beautiful drop.

Lastly, just a typical fun drop on Dinkey.

We had ten people total on this run so it was a large party for such a small creek. I can highly recommend this run if you're up for running big slides and waterfalls above sieves. No really it was a super good run. One that I will run again when I'm feeling ready to huck some carcass.

Well, I better get off of the computer and continue my harassment of our local government workers. I'll keep you posted as to the job hunting.

Tim

We're up the duff again!

For those of you we have not told yet, Tim and I are excited to announce that we are 3 months preggers! We are feeling really good about this one. Today, I had my 12 wk scan and it was so amazing to see this tiny little creature jumping all around in me.

While it is still too early to determine the sex, it appears to be part alien. I guess we'll just have to wait until Dec 26th to find out. Yes, that's right the day after Christmas.

Yes I am getting some of my Cali kayaking fix between looking for work and all of the other 100 things I have to do

If you like this picture that Dan took of me and another buddy on a local run here in California then check out the link to the rest of them on the Riot kayak blog page.

http://teamriot.blogspot.com/
Look for June 1st if it's not on the top of the page.

Don't think that just because I've moved back to the states that means the end of my blogging by the way. I'm just trying to think of a more appropriate name for the blog. Adventures Downunder just doesn't fit for too much longer. Any suggestions loyal readers?

Half here in the States, half still in Oz

Greetings loyal blog readers. I know it's been some time since my last post. Sorry for that. I've been busy. I arrived back 3 weeks ago to start looking for a job. I have one prospect so far and a lot of districts telling me that they are not hiring right now... and may not hire this summer! I'm a bit nervous about that but I know I'll find something.

The good news is that I finished my Master's degree! I'm pretty stoked to have that finished with and I feel good about accomplishing something with my time while living in Australia. I think I'm going to go kayaking to celebrate today!

In a few days I'll head up to Norm and Shirley's to hang out for a few days and get the VW all sorted so that I have a car again. Hunter and Lori have been kind enough to lend me one of their cars and it's been great. Thanks guys.

I thought I'd end this e-mail with some pics that Lora sent me yesterday. No not those pictures! She was folding laundry and when she grabbed her jeans she was a bit shocked to realize just how much weight she's lost. I thought the pictures were amusing more because she felt she needed to take a few pics and send them to me. Now if I could only figure out a way to get her to send me pictures when she's holding up jeans while wearing nothing at all! Yes, I miss my wife. Sorry.

Too bad she didn't lose the weight eating Subway sandwiches or we could be rich from the advertisement. Oh well.

One last trip together in Australia... The Bay of Fires

A Seakayaking trip to The Bay of Fires

A dark picture looking north from our camp spot. Breathtaking!

Our camp for the night.

So with me leaving Australia soon we decided to take a quick trip to a place in Tasmania where we always wanted to visit but hadn't found the time to get up there. It's called The Bay of Fires and it's absolutely beautiful! The water was SOOOO clear. I must have said a hundred times to Lora how clear the water was. You could see the bottom clearly and it was probably 25 meters deep or more in places.

Lora getting ready to get a mouthful of wave action as we launch. The perks of sitting in the stern. Another remarkable thing was that the beaches were EMPTY! There are no roads up here and we didn't even see a human footprint on the beach.

I've included a few photos we took on this two day trip. It really worked out perfectly for us. We ended up camping at an amazing site overlooking the Pacific Ocean. We had a small amount of rain the first day but we were rewarded with an amazing full double rainbow. It was like we paddled out from underneath them.

Lora took this quick photo as we were leaving behind civilization on the first day.

Who is that cute girl at camp?

The second day we had to battle an outgoing tide to get into Anson's Bay. The bay itself was just as nice as the coastline. We saw the largest pelican either of us had ever seen. He took off and did a slow fly-by as he checked us out.

We ended up sailing up the coastline about 15kms with a nice tailwind. Hardly any paddling. What a great way to travel. Here we are entering the bay.

All that was left was to find a ride back 35kms to the parked car. I finally roped a local into giving us a ride. I was a bit worried since there really was nothing but dirt roads leading to a few small beach shacks in Anson's Bay. Lucky.

Now we are back home packing me up to head home. Boy has Lora got a huge pile of stuff for me to take home. Maybe you should rent a truck Karen. :)

Tim