Losing my mind...

I had a dream last night... I was helping Miles go to the bathroom on the toilet and got super excited that he actually went poop. As I was looking at the poop I noticed that it looked like the distal end of a femur and part of a mandible (jaw). I was, understandably, confused. Did Miles actually manage to eat these large bones or is it just a remarkable coincidence that my son is now pooping bone shaped number 2? I was moving in for a closer look when, thankfully, I woke up.

This dream sums up my life perfectly. Bones and toddler poop. I am losing my mind. Speaking of 'minds', I officially have a 'least favorite' bone. Ok, I'll go a head and say it, I hate it. The cranium/skull. It's kind of funny, I mean the skull is probably the most 'loved' bone. Think about all of the images of skeletons we see, it is always the cranium. Maybe its because without a head we can't really relate to a person or animal. The cranium helps it become more 'life like'. Well, I hate it.

In case you didn't know, it isn't actually just one bone, but there are actually around 22 bones that fuse together at various stages of life (why an infant's head is so soft because the different bones have not yet fused). Furthermore, these bones are very thin and, particularly if they are part of the 'brain case', are very hard to tell apart. So, what I get is 22 different bones each shattering in several pieces and it looks like this:

Trying to reconstruct the number of individuals is miserable. Granted, there are a few key bones that are good estimators, I have to at least sort through them to log cut marks, burning, etc.

Such is life. Pretty hard dissertation in the making... On the plus side (or maybe not) I'm am well over 20,000 bones now. If I were doing a 'normal' assemblage I would have probably been done 14,000 bones ago. As it stands, I think I'm somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the way through. Keep on trucking!

So ends our first month here! Two more to go. On top of everything else, I'm officially solo parenting for the month and trying to get reports written up for a company I work for in Portland. I think I'll need a vacation when this is all over with!

If this is a zoo, am I the zookeeper?

In coming up with a name for this blog, I wanted something that represented our life as a family. While there could be many words or phrases that fit the bill, nothing fully expressed how I personally feel so much as the fact that I am undoubtedly living in a zoo. Yes, the main attractions are my big lion and my little elephant, and they are exactly that. But they are wild and delving into the full fledged reality of parenthood is no less wild. However, unlike a zoo, someone took the bars off this exhibit. Perhaps, however, I'm the zookeeper and I'm in the exhibit myself. I can't seem to tell the difference.

Well, the zoo has moved to Cyprus and now we've been here for about a month. Yes, they actually have a zoo in Cyprus, so I am speaking figuratively. By now you have all been fully (or partially, because it gets really complicated) indoctrinated by Kayla into the reason that we are here. For starters, Kayla is doing her PdD research, my kids will be growing older by three months, and me....well, I'm here to oversee it all. 

Actually, I'm working remotely for my company, Fugro. How, you might ask, does someone get that gig. Well, stay with a company a good amount of time and work really hard and things tend to work out. At least they seem to, for which I am thankful. So what do I do? Well, its complicated but essentially I am in sales, marketing and business development for our offshore survey division. The market I target is geophysical and geotechnical surveying for the installation of submarine fiber optic cables. Yes, the internet, phone, data transmission as we know it globally is fed by thousands of fiber optic cables laid on the seafloor spanning thousands of kilometers across oceans. Quite strange that it is not satellite, huh? Well, that is the common perception, but satellite only counts for 1 or 2% of the total global communication. The rest is underwater. Fascinating huh? Ok, I won't bore you with details. 

So what else do I do? Well, I travel....to go to conferences, to meet clients, other meetings, etc. In the last two years I've been to Japan, China (twice), Germany, and Portugal among other (more domestic and boring) locations. In fact, this summer may be interrupted by a trip to Chile and come Monday (July 30) I will be traveling to Germany and then back to Seattle for the month of August. Yes, it is hectic...but so is having kids and a wife doing her PhD.

What? The month of August in Seattle? Yes, I will be in Seattle in August while Kayla and the kids continue on in Cyprus. But I will be back in Cyprus in September. Complicated huh. Anyway, while in Seattle I will be crashing with my very hospitable friend Ryan, I will be working and hopefully make many trips to the mountains for some climbing, and otherwise enjoying the Seattle summer. Hopefully Seattle will be having a full fledged summer by August. Oh and I'll be skyping frequently to Cyprus and otherwise also reading this blog to keep up on my family's life :)

Zookeeper's Log- Putting the kids to work

Well, we are coming to the end of month one. This week was a tough one… looking at the same bones over and over again is really getting tedious. On a positive note though, the kids are doing awesome. Since this is the zookeeper’s log I’ll stick to that and save my whining for next weeks blog posts.

In the past few days Ellis has really ‘grown up’. It is exciting and sad all at the same time. She is good at crawling around and can easily get into and out of sitting on her own. She has started to get super vocal again and is all around a bubbly little girl. She loves being able to crawl to grab what she wants and is beginning to cause mischief. Her two favorite things to grab are a toy bucket (which she uses to drum on, this girls got rhythm) and Miles’ binky while in his mouth. Thankfully he is fairly tolerant. She’s also becoming quite good at taking notes for me J

Miles is also quite the helper. His favorite thing is to help sort the teeth. As he says, Miles is a “good dentist guy”.  He’s become very polite after we downloaded a cartoon about manners… he thanks us so much it kind of drives me crazy. We’ve created a thank you monster. We’ve also started back up on the potty training. I made him a potty chart and finally got him to go pee in the potty today! At home I got him to go pee in the potty quite a lot but for some reason here it is scarier to him. But he did it. Three more times and he gets to pick out a new car. Pooping will be a whole other battle…

We’ve gotten both kids in the pool almost every day this week. They really like it and Miles is getting better at swimming already. I’m hoping in the next two weeks I can get him comfortable enough to swim ‘on his own’ with his float. Fingers crossed.

Oh! I almost forgot! Miles made two new friends this week... here he is trying to show you 'Henry' (the smiley face I drew on his thumb... to match my thumb face). And below you can see his best buddy he met today! Miles and him hung out for a good 30 mins before he "left to go find his mama". He loved 'giving him kisses' and chatting with him. 

Thank you!

So I realize many of you might not know what we are actually doing with the kids during the days here... Originally Ryan and were both going to try to work and have the kids here on our own. By "on our own" I mean that we had this crazy idea that Ryan and Miles would stay in Seattle for the first two weeks, so Ellis and I would work here. Then they would fly out here for two weeks. Ryan would watch the kids. Then Ryan's mom and my mom would both watch the kids for a few weeks, then I would fly home with both of them. It was complicated, put a lot of stress on Ryan, myself and both of our moms.

However, we were so fortunate to receive enough money from my grandfather (with the help of one of my aunts) to budget for an au pair to come out with us. Stress lifted. These extra funds could not have come at a better time! So, we found a fantastic nanny (Kelsey) to travel with us. It is beyond a relief! I don't know how we would have managed without her. So I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who made this possible for us: my grandfather for being so generous, my aunt Krissy for dealing with a bunch of bs, my cousin Kenna who was willing to watch the dogs/cat and house for a few weeks, my mom and Ryan's mom (who both were beyond generous in volunteering their time to watch the kids over here before we were able to budget for a nanny). And to the rest of our family who have always been amazingly supportive of us and my schoolwork (Grandma, Kalimar and Krysta to name a few). Without all of your help we could not have made this trip a reality. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, we are beyond grateful.

City State of Kourion- Part 2, Kourion

It has been quite some time since my Part I post about Korion, so here is Part II, long overdue. There is so much history behind this city and I know I will butcher it if I try to recount everything that was told to me, so this will largely be a picture blog. I'll explain as much as possible as I go along.          Here is the amphitheater. It is currently outfitted for modern day concerts, plays, outdoor movies etc. This picture does not do the size and beauty of the theater justice, but it does show the amazing view of the Sea. The city of Kourion was largely a place for the wealthy to live, the theater, large baths, large square/market. It is speculated that the poor and the slaves lived outside of the city walls.

One of the main features of the City of Kourion was a later building that supposedly housed visitors and families. It has amazing mosaics on the floors... unfortunately for the individuals staying here it was located directly above the sewage runoff (it ran directly over the cliffs). I'm sure not much smelled good in these days, but this in particular was likely a smelly locale.

These mosaics were from the entrance to the baths and one of a bath itself (likely a cool bath as there is no heating floor underneath). 

 This mosaic was from a dining area... note the beautiful 3-d effect in the lower right!

Below is one of the more famous stops.... a bench. Yes folks, it does look like a very important stop on the tour but no, it is just a viewing bench. Aren't you glad you hiked all the way up that hill?

These are some ruins from an older building... if you look in the upper left of the picture you can see a slanted wall. This was likely the base of an older castle/temple/main structure and this would have been a fortifying wall. As it is now, it was incorporated into a variety of new buildings/rooms.

There are several different styles of columns located throughout Kourion. I know nothing about the styles and how they reflect the time periods they were constructed except that they do. So there.

 Here is a round hole. No, seriously, thats what it is! Likely it was a water feature of sorts. Very nice round hole though... these are the things us archaeologists appreciate.

Below is one of the largest and most impressive baths. If you remember the floor heating system I mentioned before, here you can see how thick that heating floor was.

The last photo is one of the few cobble mosaics.

This mosaic is from the house of the gladiators. There likely was no 'gladiating' on Cyprus, but often gladiators would spend time training away from the games. This could have been a training headquarters. It was located between the main city and the stadium (more on that in Part 3!).

And last but not least, the church. Kourion was one of the last places on the island to convert to Christianity. It didn't convert until after a major earthquake in which the city lost its water supply, most of its population and was therefore easy to conquer. 

*Side note, there is a beautiful exhibit at the museum I work at of skeletons preserved from roof fall during the earthquake. Its a man embracing a woman who is embracing a child (~1yrs old). Amazing.

Other notes from the day:

-It rained! Such a nice surprise.
- I wrote this blog sitting across from "The Edge" from U2. Pretty cool and props to Ryan for knowing who he was and recognizing him! (Guitarist for those of you who are U2 illiterate like myself).

Watermania!!!

It has been quite hot here the past few days so instead of taking the kids to see more ruins we decided to try to cool off at the island's water park. I never thought I'd make it over there... after all we have our own pool and are less than 5 mins from the beach. Why would we ever need/want a water park? But off we went.

At 29 euro a pop (kids free) it was quite the investment. I was also skeptical of the quality. I've seen some not so great water parks. However, I was pleasantly surprised! It was super awesome! Ryan and I got there and were immediately happy about our decision... large water slides of every kind imaginable, inner-tube rides, a huge 'interactive' pool with all sorts of water features, dumping buckets etc., lazy river. It was awesome. We tried to head to the interactive pool and Miles was not having any of it. Bummer. No water slides for us :(

Off to the kiddie pool we went. Out of this huge awesome water park we were relegated to a small pond feature with an elephant 'slide' and some baby swings. Boo. Such is the life with a timid two year old. On the plus side, Miles loved the elephant slide and Ellis had the time of her life in the dolphin swing/jumper.


I finally got Miles to venture into the lazy river area and touch some waterfalls (major accomplishment). He loved sitting in the inner tube but didn't want to float in it. Baby steps.

They also had awesome food areas. Ellis stuffed as much watermelon in her mouth as she possibly could.

They really cater to adults here also. While your kids are off playing in the water you can get a massage, pedicure/manicure, eat at one of three fancy restaurants. It was all rather impressive. Once we have kids we don't have to monitor at every minute this kind of outing will be infinitely nicer!

All in all it was a good day. I can see myself going back if the heat gets too rough again.

Zoo Keeper's Log- Mommy Fail

Miles playing cars in the village

Well, this week ended on kind of a rough note. Ellis fell off the bed yesterday, head first onto the tile. Perhaps my worst mom fail yet. Thankfully the beds are really just box spring and mattress on the floor, so the fall was short, but something I could have lived without experiencing. Most frustrating because it was something I’ve been so overly cautious about since arriving here. Such is life. I guess I should mention she is fine. Well, as far as we can tell. She’s also been working on cutting a few more teeth and has been an angry little beast for the past few days… so not like her. We can still get her to give us her adorable smile, but the poor girl is hurting. Early life is rough.

How this is comfortable I will never know.

Miles, on the other hand, is back to his super awesome self. His vocab is beyond good these days and his imagination is taking off. He has started to tell stories that are quite complex. He refers to himself as “Mr. Miles”, the way I always refer to him when I tell him bedtime stories (and Ellis is Miss Ellis)… this is often the only tip off I have that he has started telling me a fictional story. They usually consist of a jumble of stories I’ve told him, shows he’s watched and the most random things pulled out of no where. He really is a funny kid.

My two favorite “Milesisms” of the week both happened today… I was asking him if he wanted to wear his Lightening McQueen shorts or gray shorts to bed. Two phrases he’s picked up from me are “tough choice” or “hard choice”. Tonight he said “Tough hard”, stopped and looked a little puzzled like he didn’t like the way it sounded then changed it to “tough and hard choice”. Wow kid, you are growing up too fast! But the best Milesism by far was this conversation:

Miles trying to give the peace sign
(Rach and Kylie, note the shirt...
yes, Ryan has a matching one)

Me: Miles, is a Stegasaurus an herbivore, omnivore or carnivore?

Miles: Omnivore! (I have no idea if he is right, but he seemed pretty certain so I’ll take his word on it)

Me: Are you an herbivore, omnivore or carnivore?

Miles: Ummm… carnivore!

Me: Well you do eat meat… do you eat plants too? Remember, herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat meat and omnivores eat both.

Miles: I eat vegetables. I like vegetables!

Me: You do eat vegetables… you also eat hotdog which is meat (kind of?). So, what does that make you?

Miles: Happy!

 Well, I guess I can’t argue with him there.

We’ve also been using the pool a lot more lately. I finally found out Miles was scared of the pool after our first swim session (day 1). I think its because there is no where he can touch the bottom. So, I finally told him that if he didn’t get in the pool people would come take it away. He believed me, so in he went. He loved it! Rather than worrying about him floating on his own with his float I just held him the entire time and he really had fun. He’s been getting in frequently since then…

You can tell I wasn’t home for this picture because I am crazy anal about not having the kids in the sun too much (I’m assuming he has on sunscreen… ask anyone, I am the sunscreen Nazi). But he was having a good time in the pool so that is good enough for me. Unfortunately, Kelsey (our nanny) had him try to float again today on his own (the same mistake I made during day 1) and now he is afraid again. Don’t worry, we’ll get back in before the men come take the pool away.

Play time before bed!

Ellis loves the pool still. She loves splashing and ‘swimming’. Today Ryan and I had her in and she was face planting on purpose! I’ve never seen a baby willingly stick their whole face in the water and keep pulling away for me to do it. She’d look shocked every time, but I think because Ryan and I were laughing she thought it would be a good idea to keep it up. I’m guessing she was taking notes when I was trying to show Miles how to blow bubbles and that’s what she was attempting… or she was thirsty. Either way, it was hilarious.

I believe that is all for this week. We are heading to a water park tomorrow so hopefully everyone has a good time. The kids are doing awesome with the heat… if it bothers them I can’t tell. So adaptable these little ones!

And Happy 1st Birthday to my totally awesome and handsome little nephew, Carter!!!