Mt. Whitney Win!

On Monday 4 Oct a group of my coworkers, friends of friends and I went for another attempt at summiting Mt. Whitney. Last year at this time we tried, but came up short due to trail conditions (http://fairfieldjohnsonfamily.blogspot.com/2009/10/pictures-from-my-mt-whitney-trip.html ). This year we had good weather for the most part. Daytime temps were in the high 30's to low 40's with wind. We stayed overnight at a place called Trail Camp before attempting the summit on Monday. After eating our delicious MRE's (meals ready to eat), courtesy of the US government, we spent most of the evening in our tents to get out of the wind and stay warm. When the morning came, we got up, ate some breakfast and then started hiking for the top. It took approximately 3 hours from where we camped to make the summit. The hike from the trailhead to the summit is about 11 miles. We hiked in 6 miles with heavy packs to our camp site on Sunday. Monday morning we hiked the rest of the way to the summit. After summiting we headed all the way back to the trailhead. We did a 1/4 of the trip distance on the first day and the remaining 3/4 the next day, including summiting. Photos are in reverse order. Enjoy.

Dee's in Real Simple!

This month's issue of Real Simple quotes Dee! I about dropped the magazine when I read on p. 160:

Gluten-Free 411
Avoiding this protein, found in wheat, rye, and barley, is a trendy health move, but don't feel compelled to cut it from your diet. "Unless you have celiac disease or a diagnosed allergy, there's nothing wrong with consuming gluten," says Dee Sandquist, a registered dietitian in Ottumwa, Iowa. [....]

Awesome!

How do I upload pictures

Back from Switzerland!

Hey Family -

Wanted to let everyone know that I got back safely and I'll be uploading pictures soon for you all to enjoy! Love you all!

Update from Keokuk

Rob, thanks for sharing the article about your work project. It's great to see the end results.

I spent Easter in Keokuk with Jerry and his children and grandchildren. The Easter Bunny came, not once but twice for the kids.
Emily and Matt both enjoyed meeting each of you before Christmas.
I like my job at Hancock County Health Department as the Director of Clinical Services. I oversee the medical clinic which includes several grants for state and federal programs. I have worked at the geriatric end of the life cycle and now oversee the WIC (Women, Infants, and Childrens) program. Also Family Planning Clinic. We are writing a grant to decrease teen pregnancy. In the last 6 months there are about 10 pregnant girls under the age of 17 who have used the WIC Program. There are over 400 WIC participants in the county.
I live 1 block from Jerry. Very convenient. The house I rent has a garage which was appreciated this winter with no windshields to clean or snow to remove.
Love to all
Dian

Me at work (sort of)

Hey,

Here is a link to a local newpaper's article about the project I've been working on over the winter (actually on and off for 2+ years). http://www.thedailysound.com/results/031210goletahospital

Groundbreaking for the actual structure its self will probably happen next fall. Our portion of the project, the ground improvement phase was completed last week. Now we have to write a report about what we did and the results we achieved. This then gets presented to the state regulatory agency overseeing hospital planning and construction.

We're back...

I guess I didn't post this, but we made it back safe and sound. Since we skipped out on January, we're still "enjoying" the winter...hopefully we'll make it to March. We have pictures to post too! This a thermal spring heated by a volcano in Costa Rica!

The beach was fun!

It was a nice break from the ridiculous wind and rain that we were being hammered by in our small rental house! 90 degrees and 50% humidity...buenisimo. We also found some incredible restaurants (run by foreigners...Costa Ricans have no food culture to speak of) where Jenna discovered a Costa Rican margarita made with tamarind.

Today we're going to try windsurfing and tonight we'll go into town for a chicarrone (pig's ears) cookout with karaoke!

Eric and Jenna have arrived safely!

We're living in our casita (small house) and exploring the area. It's been very windy...the guide book says the winds are up to 60 knots, which i think is like 90 mph! But now the sun is out and we're planning our first trip, to go see the volcano called Arenal. Also, this morning, we woke and 3 cows were grazing in our yard (it's a big yard) and they had little white birds following them around eating bugs that bothered them.

Eric and Jenna go to Costa Rica

Here's the website of place we'll be staying! It's a bit inland on near a big resort lake with volcanos around it.

http://www.dreamplace.vpweb.com/