I think the blog is slowly drifting off into Facebook and Instagram, but I'm loath to let it go completely. Especially if there's stuff like this to remember:

darcy photo shoot

nature walk at the elem school

dead forest... sssoooo sad.  terrible terrible

picking out a christmas tree with viv and sarah and kids (hal)

beet salad, rach stuffing, lemon/blackberry pie, viv rolls, ham, fancy drinks

staying up late with viv

sarah got sick

blessing baby mae: tim, grandpa, jerry, gordon

claire crying at what she was thankful for and making gordon cry at his

jerry was funny

gwen was fairy queen of the stairs

eric and levi watching stanford play football

beth "i want this pie eaten at my funeral

eric  "why are we even TALKING about your funeral!?"

claire " well?  LOOK at her?!

mae sleeping so soundly on grandpas lap

soccer outside

falling asleep by the fire with eric on the blowup mattress, then being jumped on by hal

watching "girls just wanna have fun" late at night with darcy and syd, sarah, viv, rachel

Dance Party in Ross

Almost as good as that scene in Footloose, wouldn't you say?

Look AT the camera. Just look at it! In a normal way!

At the first real 'photo-op' point of our Nepal trip, our guide took out his camera and motioned for us to group closely together. Initially I was confused, but then I realized...he wants to take a picture of our family. I thought about gently refusing, but he seemed so nice, and I didn't want to be a grouch, so I encouraged everyone to give it their best. We huddled together and smiled. He clicked the shutter and glanced down at the view screen. His smile faded slightly. "One more!" he announced, with renewed enthusiasm. Again, glancing down at the camera after taking the picture, he paused. "Hmmm. Another!"

Multiple times he tried, looking increasingly puzzled each time an image captured. After about a minute I began to recognize the look on his face. It was the same look I've seen on Vivian's face, or Rachel's- really on anyone who has ever tried to capture a group of Gregorys on film.

To quote Grandma Brown, we look good from the back. But, try to pose us in any way and things start to fall apart quickly. Maybe we just spend more time with our eyes closed than most people do? In any case, a retrospective, of Gregory family photos:

This is the photo shoot where I first realized it was a problem.

But, even in casual settings we can't do it.

  

Just put sunglasses on Chris, you say? Well, that works. Sort of.

 

 

I can't just blame Chris.  No, I blame Chris AND Lucy for not taking this seriously.

 

Now the happiest moments are when I get the trifecta. At this point it just kind of warms my heart. But I'm not sure our Nepalese guide really saw it that way.



 

Thoughts From a Sickbed

A night of vomiting and diarrhea left me pretty drained this morning and I spent the day in bed, too dizzy and weak to do anything else. Even sick, you can only sleep so much, so a good part of the day was me just looking at the ceiling and thinking about stuff. Stuff like:

- If a blanket is so soft that you can barely feel it, does it really count as a blanket at all?

- When even the thought of food makes you queasy, why is it impossible to stop thinking about food? "Don't think about those cookies you ate last night...don't think about them...gah! Ugh! Cookies!"

- Did God create cold ginger ale just for me on this exact day?

- It's too bad that I'll have to cancel Pi day this year, as I'm never eating again.

- Is my goal of removing the 3 neatly tied grocery bags full of vomit from the bathroom floor before the maid gets here a realistic one?

- Does any sentence containing the words "before the maid gets here" make me seem pampered and entitled?

- If the best books that I've read this year were non-fiction, why do I read so much fiction?

- I wish I had a really fluffy, non-serious book to read right now.

- Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is straight up quality.

That's all really. I'm sure this has been fascinating, but it was a pretty quiet day.

September 17, 2015

Welcome to the family, Mae Vivian Rees. You are adored.

Last day at work-

Today was my last day of work. It feels very strange. I've been in the same office, working with some of the same people, for over 8 years. It's hard to say I'll miss it, because of all the new things coming into my life to fill the void. But I think I'll have fond memories of my time at UC Davis.

I've spent months trying to clean things up, and pass things off. And for the last week, I've been depersonalizing my desk space, taking down valentines from Levi and Gwen, packing up my snacks and dishware. And most fun of all, going through any personal files on the computer.

I came across some real gems. Documents created by me, while I should have been working:

- A spreadsheet (with fancy graphs) tracking my weight gain over two pregnancies.
- A list of options for a drugged up, recently wisdom-toothless Rachel who came to stay with us, so she could just point, instead of talk (Would you rather watch The Office, eat pudding, or spit?)
- An apocalypse identification flowchart (you remember)
- A list of questions I asked Gordon, to help determine if we should get married

Also, this photo, which I took years ago in the 1st floor bathroom. It makes me laugh. Mostly because it probably made people stand outside their stall even longer, since they had to read a sign.

The Grand

I'm not sure I can even explain how much I loved our 16 days rafting the Grand Canyon, but I'm going to try.

I loved the boats.

 

I loved rigging them, and strapping things down. "Rigging to flip" means that you should be able to turn the boat upside down and shake it and nothing would fall off. I loved carrying everything we needed on them, rigged to flip. I loved the feel of pushing off for the day with adventure ahead. I loved balancing with my bare feet on the side tubes as I got ready to jump off and tie us up when we came into camp.  I loved the look of them, headed through the canyon, peaceful but exciting all at the same time. One night I even slept on the boat, and it was good.

I loved the water.

Stockdolager Rapid

I loved hearing it constantly, day and night. One evening I waited until the full moon rose then found a place to strip down and wash my hair. Cold water, warm air, full moon...it was exquisite. Most of the time there was a current but the water was smooth. But on big rapid days you would hear the roar, sometimes from 1-2 miles ahead, and the anticipation would start to build. When we were just above the whitewater we'd pull over and climb up to scout the best line. Serious, serious discussions would take place because this water was big enough to flip a boat and that's a disaster. I loved the discussions, because...

I love the lingo. Where you or I might just see a bunch of water, real river runners see ledge holes, keeper holes, lateral waves, sleeper rocks, hydraulics, eddies, circulating eddies, eddy lines, haystacks, v-waves, bubble lines, strainers, pour overs, and flip rocks. There are tongues and chutes, rock gardens and cheese graters. A typical analysis of a rapid might go like this: "I'm going to ride the bubble line down the tongue right of that ledge hole, bow pivot to T up with those laterals, pull hard through the right side of that V wave and then hope I can stay off that cheese grater into the haystacks at the bottom. If not we could get maytagged and there might be a fire sale." I would squint at the river and nod. I loved squinting and nodding.

Here is a video of running Lava rapid, "the most intense 8 seconds of water in the Grand Canyon." It's not us in the video, but I was sitting where the camera is, so it brings back great memories, although I couldn't have told you what was going on.


I loved the river, but I also loved the side canyons.

Silver Grotto in Shinumo Wash

When I heard we'd be hiking every day, my heart sunk. Grand Canyon hiking sounded miserable- hot and steep and exposed. I had no idea about the little slot side canyons. Oooh...when you say 'hiking,' what you actually mean is swimming through narrow pools and scrambling up waterfalls! That's the best kind of hiking in the world! Besides, it's a great team building exercise, and...

I loved the group dynamics of the whole thing:

Helping Joann make the climb.

My first impression of the group was a couple of kids, some Outside magazine poster boys, some old people, and us. But the old people free solo climbed 50ft waterfalls and took the inflatable kayak through Class IX rapids, not to mention that Joann (as pictured above) was the best boatman on the trip. The poster boys and the kids turned out to be mellow and hilarious, and by day 2-3 we were tight. After 16 days of isolation and adventure and inside jokes they seemed like the whole world to me.

But now that I remember the rest of you, it seems like the only way this trip could have been better would be to have you guys on it. River trip, anyone?