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eafrench
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Name: Liz
Gender: Female
Interests: Mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding, running
Expertise: Natural resource management
Occupation: Engineering Technician
Industry: Local Government
Message: message me
Member Since:
12/10/2004
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| Just a few quilts that I wanted to share with everyone.
First, for Jocelyn's baby shower, I made a baby quilt using my favorite patter - Flock of Geese. I first made a quilt square from this pattern when I was in 6th grade and we were studying colonial life. Here's Jocelyn, with Beckett in the red sling, with the quilt:
I don't have many pictures of this quilt because JD had the camera on the day that I finished it, which was the same day as the baby shower.
Then, Nana and Pop sent us a beautiful Log Cabin variation quilt (Log Cabin is my second favorite pattern!). The quilt matches our decor perfectly, and as you can see, the cats thoroughly approve. To make it even better, its thick enough that Little Cat's sharp claws can't get through the material!
Finally, I just finished a quilt for our neighbors who are moving to Montana. Its a baby quilt for their 11 week old daughter. I also made a miniature version for their 5 year old daughter to use for her dolls. This was a much more simple patter:
Tonight I'm heading down to Portland to watch the 60th annual Warren Miller ski movie. Its a great way to start the ski season (or at least start thinking about it). Meeting up with Kate and Mark, and Tony. JD will join us after work for drinks before the moving. Sunday I'm running a 10K race downtown (OK, jogging is a more appropriate term), in costume. I'm going as the St. Pauli girl. I'm definitely bringing the camera down with me!
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| Well, its been nearly 6 months since I last blogged! A lot has happened since then, so I'm going to try to keep up with current happenings while interspersing blogs of old events.
On Tuesday afternoon, I headed over the mountain (and through the woods?) to Sunriver for a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) conference. The conference was great - lots of really good information and presentations, and a lot of very helpful networking. I have a tendency to forget that I can ask for help instead of struggling as a 1/6 of a person GIS department (yes, 1/6, not 1 of 6) to figure out more efficient ways to do things. I'm looking forward to trying out a bunch of new stuff now. Good conferences always get me excited about the subject material - although things like sustainability are much easier to get excited about than mapping :)
The conference went until Friday morning, and then I splurged on a deep tissue massage and a facial. Felt SO much better and more relaxed after that - just heavenly. Another thing that I tend to forget to do is pamper myself. It feels so good when I do!
Friday afternoon I head back to the west of the Cascades to McKenzie River and the Belknap Hot Springs area for our annual mountain biking trip. The first 2 years we camped (including 1 year in a near flood where we created "tarp city"), and then last year, due to the presence of a 1 year old and a 3 week old, we rented a cabin (plus I had just had my shoulder surgery). This year we also rented a cabin since there were 2 children present, with the possibility of 2 more. I have to say that although camping is fun, having a cabin is SO nice! There were 7 of us - Jen and Tony with Maddie (25 months), Tanya and Erik with Jack (13 months), Vicki, Jon, and me. JD couldn't make it because he's getting paid to sit in a field with an ambulance (seriously - he's doing medical standby for a wildfire in the Willamette Nat'l Forest. The isn't any active firefighting, so there isn't much going on, but since they're busy felling dead trees and cleaning up some of the mess, they need standby medical).
Saturday we had a fabulous breakfast and then departed to mountain bike, leaving Jen with the children. The ride was great - started out sunny and ended in the rain, just as we were all getting tired, sore and hurt. There are 2 waterfalls next to the trail, Sahalie Falls:
 
And Koosah falls:
 
Unfortunately, I had the bad camera, so I didn't take many pictures since the camera annoys me. The trail is a combination of smooth single track with some roots and gnarly lava rock. Lots of technical challenges, but plenty of time to recover. We only did the upper 10 miles - by the time we got to the campground at midpoint (where we used to camp), we were all wet and tired. Luckily, we had left a car there, as well as at the very end, another 10 miles down the trail.
Once we returned to the cabin, most people went to the hot springs, but generally they are too hot for me, so I stayed home with Tanya and relaxed, showered, and started dinner.
Sunday was time to pack up. After 6 days away from home, I was ready to head back. Plus, I am coming down with a cold and was very tired. Erik and Jon went for another ride, Vicki and I both headed home, and Tanya, Jen and Tony took a walk at Clear Lake.
The drive back north was beautiful - the sun was out, and we've been lucky to have fairly dry, cool weather, so we are actually getting fall colors. I stopped at Sahalie Falls to get a view from the other side of the river:
 
I also stopped once to get pictures of the leaves. I love the reds mixed with yellows, and the vine maples seem to be doing an extraordinary job this year of displaying stunning colors:
  
Now its home and time to finish putting away everything from the past week and get ready for the coming week!
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| We'll start with the good news (besides the fact that I have my wedding dress!!). I found out this morning that I passed my EMT-Basic written exam (I passed the practical exam at the end of March)! I am now officially an EMT-Basic. This will be a big help for my volunteering at the fire department (80% of our calls are medical-related).
Now, the bad news, that I mentioned in my previous post. JD shattered his ankle on the Grand Canyon 2 weeks ago!
Here's the jump that caused all the problems:
This is (well, WAS) an extremely popular jumping spot on a small side creek on the Grand Canyon. The cliffs are about a 3 mile hike in, fording the creek several times. Unfortunately, a flash flood last year filled in the creek, so JD landed in about 2 feet of water. Since JD's group was one of the first of the season, no one knew. (It turns out that someone else had done the same thing about 5 days earlier, but there was no way that JD's group could have gotten the news).
To quote JD: "i immediately came up and felt a pop in my ankle and looked down and realized it was dislocated and displaced laterally and rotated about 75 degrees externally. i looked at the group of friends i was rafting with and just said "drugs. helicopter. now." this was about 12.30pm. they helped get me out of the water and after checking and realizing that i wasn't hurt anywhere other than my ankle, i passed out for a few minutes. when i woke up people had already left to go get my big ass first aid kit and materials for making a stretcher. i was covered with whatever spare clothes we had and the two guys left up with me, rob and dirk, did an amazing job of keeping me warm while we waited for everyone else to arrive, even through a couple rain showers where i know they were getting cold themselves. about 3 pm the first guy back from the boats came back with some warm clothes and pain meds. i then started a big enough course of oxycodone that by all accounts should have killed a hippo. as the next few people came in we realized that they had been able to get through to the park
service with the sat phone and after a few tries realized that they wouldn't likely be able to fly this afternoon and either way we would have to start hiking out. we formed a splint out of a sleeping bag, paco pad (big air mattress made out of rafting rubber) and some cam straps, which actually turned out to be pretty damn good. we then rigged a stretcher out of a tarp and some oars and started the long process out. got an iv started but otherwise closed fracture with good circulation, motor, and sensation in the foot, so i was doing relatively ok."
The evacuation was, not surprisingly, pretty difficult. They made it about a mile before deciding to spend the night up the creek. The next morning, the helicopter was able to land in the canyon, about 100 ft from where they had slept.
JD was loaded up, flown to the park south rim, and then 2 different ambulances to get to the Flagstaff hospital, where he finally called me, just over 24 hrs after the whole incident started. I was on my way to a friend's Easter party, and just kept driving straight to the airport, getting in touch with my family to find out what airlines would fly to Flagstaff that day. I made it to the hospital about 8pm, 1.5 hrs after JD was done with his surgery. Luckily I had my gym bag in the car, so I had a few personal items.
Here's the before picture of the dislocated tibia
And the picture after the surgery:
We spent 2 nights at the hospital, and then JD was able to sit & stand long enough to fly back to Portland. My family was great - Julie made the plane arrangements for us, and my parents were kind enough to pay for the tickets. THANK YOU!!
The flight and drive to our house wore JD out, and he's been slowly recovering since then. Last week he got the stitches out and a real cast, and it'll be another 7-10 weeks before he's allowed to start putting weight on his foot.
So I've been working on a lot of "his" projects around the house, such as installing the bamboo flooring, going to the dump, and other fun things like that! He's going stir-crazy already, even with getting out of the house every day this weekend.
JD was actually lucky that his ankle dislocated, or else the damage could have been much worse - shattering both bones, or transferring the energy up to his knee or hip. In the grand scheme of things, I'll take an ankle fracture over the alternatives. (and yes, we've all mentioned what a good thing it is that he didn't dive - he said that he never considered it)
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