The happs...

...as in "the happenings." This blog post will skim across what has been many, very busy weeks. In late August, the semester crashed down on us with a boom... boom being the sound of 13 new graduate students, several looming deadlines and an average of five meetings a week.  But whoa! ... let's back up a bit!

Before said semester began, we were incredibly lucky and thankful that we had a long vacation planned with the Smith side of the family and friends, the Perrys, in North Carolina. After the summer from hell, it was a true vacation from heaven. We flew into Raleigh and drove our rental car out to Emerald Isle, arriving in the wee hours of the morning. We were given the "honeymoon suite" with the beach view since it's our first year of marriage and, wow, was it spectacular.

View from the deck outside the honeymoon suite

We were greeted enthusiastically the next morning and the following ten days went by way too quickly. Each day we hit the beach and that was subsidized with shopping, golfing, walking, chatting, reading, playing, a trip to the aquarium and obligatory trips to Dairy Queen (of course!). We celebrated Emma's birthday and later in the week celebrated all of the other happy events of the past year, including our first wedding anniversary and Mom Smith's big 7-0. It was a nice reminder of all of the good that has happened in the past year. The night before our departure it still felt like we had only just gotten there. It was tough to say goodbye especially when you're surrounded by such amazing family and friends. But now we have Christmas and more moments like these to look forward to:

Not long after we arrived back and the semester started I had two visiting researchers arrive from the University of California-Merced. One, Collin, is a Ph.D. graduate student and the other, Manu, is a post-doc. Both are in the lab of our friend and fellow RSMAS grad, Monica. They were there to sample diseased corals with me for a project that we're hoping will lead to something bigger. I was very much ready to get back in the water but wasn't sure how "Thumb-y" would handle it. As it turns out, there's no better therapy for getting your hand strength back then pounding on some corals to collect tissue!

Me and Thumb-y sampling some coral tissue. (Thumby is in the glove holding the hammer - go Thumby!)

That project kept me and Thumby busy for about a week and a half. Since then our days have been filled with class, meetings, field work, beach cleanups, and more tropical storm scares. Hurricane Irene was only a Tropical Storm when it passed by us right before Collin and Manu arrived, but it wreaked havoc in the Northeast. My sympathies and support go out to family, friends and just fellow-northeasters who were affected, some of whom lost almost everything. Here's hoping the Atlantic stays quiet the rest of the season! So those are the major "happs" for now. I'm sure there will be more to report soon so stay tuned! Until then, enjoy the sunset:

North Carolina sunset

Life

...isn't fair.

This saying has never been as true as this summer has proven. Many randomly bad things happen in life but none have ever come close to being as unfair and totally devastating as losing my brother Will to a physiological abnormality.

In my chosen career I study seemingly random patterns in nature and try to make sense of them. I know that if you can identify the simple rules that govern interactions in nature you can reproduce the most complex and beautiful patterns and understand how they work. But I never ask the question "why?" Why do those rules exist? Why are we here? Why does all this happen? The "why" I leave up to the more religious: people who need a reason for why we are here. Instead, as a scientist I ask how. How does it work? How does it happen? How does that thing exist as it is?

But the totally random nature of Will's death has left me gutted. All I can ask is why? Why him? Why not someone else? Why then? Why not when he was 50, or 60, or 100? I can understand the details of how... the physiology and the genetics and all that... but I can't understand why.

I guess it's because life's not fair. But it can be fair. In fact, it's been overly fair to me. Compared to most of the world's population, I have it pretty darn good. I was lucky enough to have a brother as thoughtful and protective and funny and fun and just plain good for 38 years. I am still lucky and truly grateful to have wonderful friends and a family that's loving and supportive and incredible in many ways. So I guess I will try to stop asking why and keep working on how. How do I put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward? How do I remember Will and all of his amazing qualities and all of my memories with him and not feel totally overwhelmed with loss? I don't know exactly how to do these things yet but I hope with time I will.

Rest in peace Will. You are deeply missed. 

Thumbs down!

**WARNING**: If you have a tendency to lose your cookies at images of mangled body parts, do NOT scroll down.

So instead of posting about a Memorial Day weekend filled with sailing over to St. John, participating in the 2011 Beach to Beach Power Swim, and sailing back, I instead I must report on what I refer to as the *Thumbpocalypse* of 2011.

There I was Friday afternoon, all shiny and happy after a great day on the water, unloading the boat and excited to put my new coral disease samples in the freezer, carrying a tank in my arms and with a tank on my back... when I stepped on a stray piece of broken dock (thanks Hurricane Earl) and found myself sprawled on the concrete landing with a mutilated thumb.


Tyler was walking ahead of me and heard me fall. When I barely responded, he came to check on me and we both stared unbelieving at how truly and utterly I had damaged myself. As I realized I couldn't move my thumb and as the pool of blood collected around me, the decision was rapidly made to head to the ER.

For visual reference, the scene:

 

I must admit, Caribbean hospitals and the stories I had heard of the St. Thomas hospital in particular were not inspiring great confidence in me. I was a little nervous to say the least. But mostly I was in pain. And heading towards shock. Against all odds, the ER was fast (amazing!) and professional, and I even had a UVI nursing intern give me an IV. She did a great job ...I think. At least, I thought it was exceptional when it delivered delicious painkillers directly into my blood stream. Four hours later I was sewed up but still jacked up with a referral to an orthopedic surgeon for after the holiday weekend.

I remember some things about that weekend: Tyler and Shaun completing the beach to beach power swim. Tyler did the 3.5 mile course and came in right in the middle. This was the toughest course  which  many pros participate in and he did amazing.  At his pace, he would have won the intermediate 2.5 mile course. Go Tyler!

Other things I remember: taking painkillers and sleeping a lot.

Finally, on Tuesday the doctor unwrapped my finger for the first time since the accident. The result is the bloated disgusting thing in the photo. I had gotten 8 stitches at the ER including one to hold my nail on (yuck). We didn't get  to see the doctor until late that day (we had to deal with workers comp first - joy) but finally we got the word that I needed the dreaded S word. Yes, surgery. Apparently, they needed to go in and clean everything out and put some pins in to fix the joint.

I won't bore you with the details of waiting for surgery (which took about a day and a half).  But in the end I had three pins inserted and was stitched back up.

They said it would take about 6-8 weeks for everything to heal up.

I'm still healing at the time of this writing so I'm not sure yet what the final outcome will be. Odds are that I will get full functionality back. But regardless, I'm going to have some bad-ass scars.

Currently in development is my better thumbpocalypse story involving a 20 ft great white shark and defending a class of kindergardeners  ...or maybe a pod of baby dolphins  ...or maybe kindergardeners playing with baby dolphins while a boat of kittens floated by...   hmmmmm...

Carnival!

I'm falling a bit behind again but I swear I have a good excuse! Before telling the story behind the excuse though I must first post about our Carnival adventures.  Even if you haven't heard of the Caribbean tradition of Carnival, you've probably heard of Mardi Gras.  In New Orleans, Mardi Gras is celebrated the week leading up to Ash Wednesday. It's a time to get out all of your debauchery before lent and it culminates on Fat Tuesday. Instead of Mardi Gras, the Caribbean has "Carnival", and each island has its own cultural twists.  Trinidad and Tobago, to my knowledge, is the only Caribbean nation to celebrate its Carnival in the appropriate time slot - the week before lent begins - and it was where the tradition of Carnival originated.  Over the years, other Caribbean islands have started their own Carnival celebrations to correspond with other big events or to specific times of year.  In the U.S. Virgin Islands, each island has its own Carnival: St. Croix is in late December/ early January, St. John is in late June/ early July and ours in St. Thomas is in late April/ early May. This year, Carnival began the night that we returned back from Florida.

In St. Thomas, Carnival opens with a food fair on Wednesday night. Early, early, early (4am early) Thursday morning there is the first parade and most people stay up through the night to attend it.  Then on Friday the kids get their turn with a children's parade.  Carnival culminates with the big "adult" parade on Saturday that lasts practically all day and then people party into the night.

The University usually has a troupe that participates in the adult parade. Besides the university-sanctioned booty shaking dancing girls (it is the Caribbean after all), UVI also has a few veteran Moko Jumbies.  "Moko-whaaat?" you ask. Moko Jumbies! They're the stilt-walkers in Carnival parades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moko_jumbie).

This year UVI veteran Moko Jumbies put out a call for new people and Tyler and I decided to answer the call. We went to the adult parade last year and saw our director of the marine science center up on stilts having a great time so we figured it had to be pretty straightforward.  Well, turns out that strapping 3 feet of plywood to your legs and learning how to walk on areas about a quarter the size of your feet takes some getting used to.  Our fearless Moko Jumbie leader said that we both had "natural" talent (yeah baby!) but all that meant is that we could stand in one place and lift our legs up and down our first day. It took many, many days of practice to be confident in walking around and not clinging desperately to walls and fences.  Our confidence was then drastically shaken when 2 fellow Jumbie trainees pushed it too far and fell, resulting in some serious injuries.  Falling straight forward from three feet up onto asphalt can really mess you up.  Mess you up in the concussion and stitches kind of way. But I'm happy to say that they recovered fast and joined us in the parade!

Waiting for costumes, or at least for someone to tell us what to do.

Stilts at the ready

The day of the parade dawned with us having no costumes and no real idea of what we were supposed to do. So we showed up and lined our stilts up next to the other clueless UVI Moko Jumbies and waited for someone to tell us what to do.

One HOT hour or so later we heard rumors that the UVI float was coming and someone was bringing our costumes. At this point, the UVI dancers had arrived who included Camille, the dean of the College of Science and Math.

UVI Moko Jumbies and dancers. My college's dean, Camille is the one in white with an orange hat.

Another HOT (did I mention this is the tropics?) hour later and the costumes finally arrived! So then it was craziness - sequins and ribbons and pieces of t-shirts flying everywhere. But suddenly we looked good. And thankfully, despite our extraordinary lateness, the parade was running on island time too so we still had to wait around to start.

Finally, we got the go ahead to strap on the stilts and pour on the charm. Below is Tyler and I at the start. UVI's theme this year was going green, hence all of the... well... green.  The dancers also gave out cloth grocery bags and other goodies to encourage green behavior.

I had been so nervous about not falling that I hadn't really thought about the fact that we would be in a parade with a thousand people looking at us.  But as we started walking it dawned on me how excited people were, especially kids, to see us.  This year we were the only troupe to have Moko Jumbies, and there were 12 of us!  People waved and cheered and we danced and posed for photos. Soon I forgot all of my nervousness and just enjoyed the parade. It was a ton of fun!!

Three hours later, we entered the stadium that marks the end of the parade. We were toast! No lunch and the intense sun and heat made us some pooped Jumbies, but it was totally worth it.  I'm still trying to get a video of us dancing from my friend Dan. Hopefully, I'll be able to add that here soon. In the meantime, here's a photo of us with our fellow (wiped-out) Jumbies at the end of the parade. We'll see you next year Carnival!

 

The Florida circuit

Tyler ready to party down at the wedding

The end of April found Tyler and I traveling to attend a big exciting British wedding. No, not that one, but just as exciting! My old roommates Paul and Lisa got married the day after that other wedding across the pond. That meant Tyler and I took the occasion to visit Miami and catch up with everyone. We arrived two days before the wedding so we could drops some bucks at our favorite dive shop and meet up with collaborators and friends at RSMAS. Adrienne and Thiago were nice enough to put us up despite Thiago's impending Ph.D. defense date (July whoo hoo!).  They also accompanied us to the wedding along with Jason and Rachel who have officially moved onto their boat in anticipation of their Caribbean cruising adventure (see blog Kaki Batu Dua link on side).  The wedding was beautiful, despite being moved inside because of the rain, and we all rocked out to an excellent live band.  Tyler was unfortunately a little feverish that day... and you know he's sick when he couldn't even dance his way through a whole Michael Jackson song.. but he still looked good!

Rachel, Jason, Adrienne, Thiago and I also prepared to shake our booties, after the solemn wedding ceremony of course.

After partying it up in Miami we hit the road with Orlando as our destination. Cara and Wade drove over from St. Pete and were kind enough to pick us up and cart us around after we dropped off the rental car. We headed out for a quick dinner at the Bob Marley cafe at Universal Studios and then hit the sack in preparation for the big day that followed.

me in 2009, excited

So as a little back story: to the left is a photo of me from the summer of 2009 when I went to Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure to celebrate my friend Johnathan's successful Ph.D. defense.  To my complete surprise and utter delight we discovered this sign explaining that they were in the planning process for building a Harry Potter world. As evidenced in the photo, I was pretty excited.

Below is a photo of Tyler and I on the same bridge two years later having completely conquered Harry Potter World in all its glory!

me and Tyler in 2011, still excited

Cara and I awkwardly with the Hogwart's Express conductor

Cara and Wade were of course there with us and who better to explore Hogsmeade, Hogwarts and the Forbidden Forest with than two other massive fans of Ms. Rowling's books? We managed to get in early and ride everything by noon. Lucky for us, it was not busy that day so we even rode some rides three times. We also consumed at least twice our daily caloric intake, gorging ourselves on frozen butterbeers (delicious), carmel covered apples (okay that was just me), Hog's head ale, and other tasty delights. All food and beverages in Harry Potter World are specific to the world. Meaning coke, sprite, and other main stream stuff is replaced with butterbeer, pear cider, and iced teas of different varieties.  It was bloody wonderful!

But sadly our HP world adventure had to end, but a new adventure was beginning as we packed it in and headed back with Cara and Wade to St. Pete to stay with them in their newly renovated house named Ms. Magnolia.  For the inside scoop on the Coopers abode check out their blog: the Coastal Coopers. For the next couple of days we visited with friends including Ryan, Kate, and Annette and Mark and their ridiculously cute son Noah, and we generally had an awesome time catching up with everyone including the Cooper "kids" (two happy cats and two very excited dogs). St. Pete is a great city and the time went quickly biking, shopping, and ok a little bit of working, but soon we found ourselves back on a plane headed to St. Thomas. Thanks to all who made our circuit of Florida outstanding! We miss you guys!

Catching up and some not so fun adventures

As several friends and relatives have pointed out, I'm falling a bit behind on this blog. Well, was that really a surprise to anyone? Actually, it's just been that this semester has been quite hectic. Teaching and research have been consuming our days, but it's better to be busy than bored. I also found a ballet instructor so I've been taking ballet again and I found a modern dance class that I'm also enjoying.  Sadly, the ballet instructor will be leaving the island shortly so I'll be down to one dance class a week. But one is better than none!

With dance, teaching and research taking up so much time, Tyler and I haven't been spending much time at home.  We think that might be part of the reason why we came home one night to our door kicked in and our house robbed.  On the bright side, if there is one in this case, the cats were ok and they didn't take my jewelry or destroy anything meaningful.  They did trash all of our closets presumably looking for cash and they did take our recently received Wii unit which was a gift, and the tv, computer, and ipod.  I guess that's the problem with living on an island with a high crime rate.  Also the problem with a small island: the cops came but never filed the report and we can't get in touch with them.  My conspiracy theory is that it was their cousin who robbed us.

Sigh. We've since replaced the door and gotten some door alarms.  We're looking into renter's insurance next. I guess adventure comes in all forms, and sometimes they aren't so fun.  But stay tuned... we have lots of fun things planned for May which will hopefully result in more adventures of the good kind.

Bubbles!

Bubbles are fun some times, but they're also really noisy and fish don't like them.  Thankfully, there is a technology called closed circuit rebreathers (CCR). I started my CCR training the day Mom and Dad Brandt left and it took all week. Typical SCUBA is called open circuit: meaning you breathe in the air in the tank and then you breathe out the bubbles into the water column. With closed circuit rebreathers, the air you breathe out gets trapped in a loop and you continue to RE-breathe it. Ha! SCUBA people are so clever. Anyway, the air you breathe out still has some oxygen in it so you can reuse it.  All that's required is a little squirt of oxygen every now and then and a scrubber to take out the CO2 that you breathe out. It's a very cool system that allows you to stay down longer and you have no bubbles.  To the right is me with the rebreather on - notice no bubbles! I'm carrying an extra tank of air called a "bail out", in case something goes wrong and I have to bail out of the rebreather unit. 

FUN FACT: Darth Vader's breathing noise is the noise of an open circuit SCUBA regulator. So you can imagine how noisy "normal" dives are. Diving with CCR was strange at first... it's so quiet. On one of my first open water check out dives I thought my instructor was humming...poorly. Turns out it was whale song from whales that were quite a distance away. Humpbacks migrate through this area in the winter so there must have been some in the area.

My final checkout was out on the shelf edge on the deep mesophotic reefs that are incredibly amazing. Below is a photo I took of a Nassau Grouper at about 135 feet. I love diving on these reefs but we are usually limited to about 15-20 minutes on open circuit.  With the rebreathers we can stay down much longer. Now that I'm certified I'm hoping to get in lots more time on these reefs. Stay tuned for rebreather adventures!

Brandts in Paradise

Only a couple of days after 8 tuff miles Mom and Dad Brandt flew down from the arctic north to enjoy some fun in the sun on St. Thomas. This was Dad's first trip to St. Thomas and Mom's first since the 60s. Apparently the island has changed a lot since then....

It was spring break for UVI and so I was able to get some extra time to show them the island. Mainly that consisted of showing them the beaches (of course!). The first beach we checked out was close to home... Brewer's Bay.  Brewer's is the bay that the Center for Marine and Environmental Studies (CMES) sits on and which I look upon everyday from my office window.  It's quite a nice beach and we watched the planes land and take off at the end of the airport runway nearby.  They then got their first official tour of CMES and we then headed back home to clean up for dinner.  

The next day was similar except we went to Magen's Bay on the north side of the island. On the way we stopped at Drake's Seat (see below), where presumably Sir Francis Drake, commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I, once sat to identify Spanish ships to raid.  The Spanish considered him a pirate while the British considered him a hero. I think both sides would agree that it's a beautiful view. Mom remembered this place from her past visit, but it's definitely changed. About twenty safaris (open air taxis) and taxis came through in the time we were there. It's quite a tourist destination now, complete with traffic jams and cranky taxi drivers.

The next day found us in downtown to do a bit of shopping in the historic part of Charlotte Amalie. I've been put off by this area before because it's mostly a lot of duty free shopping aimed at cruise ship passengers. I was quite heartened to discover a few new shops with local arts and crafts. So heartened I bought some earrings!

That night was our community softball league game. Tyler and I are on a team made up of mostly UVI grad students. It was our closest game yet but we won! It definitely helped to have Mom and Dad in the stands cheering us on. They joined us at Betsy's, our local watering hole, afterward for team celebrations.   

Tyler wasn't able to join us most days, only evenings, because he had just returned from a big work trip to California and was a little overwhelmed with catching up on other work.  But he took Friday off to join us on an adventure over to St. John. This was a first for both Mom and Dad so we just had to hit up Skinny Legs and get a delicious blue cheese burger first. We then did a brief tour of some beaches and settled on Hawksnest in the National Park.  It wasn't very crowded but that was mainly because it started raining almost immediately when we got there.  We sat it out and were able to get in a good hour or so of sun time. Before we caught the car ferry back we headed to downtown Cruz Bay to check out some more shops and grab a painkiller. Ahhh St. John. 

Saturday and Sunday passed too quickly.  We did some shopping on Saturday and then hit up Brewer's Bay again on Sunday.  Each night we either went out to dinner or ate in and then enjoyed some Wii time. Below is Tyler and Dad playing golf (with a little help from Blixie).  This picture is a little bittersweet because...well... stay tuned for our not-so-cool-island-of-adventure story to come.

 

Monday arrived and I was back at work full time, starting my training on closed circuit rebreathers while Mom and Dad packed up.  I then dropped them off at the airport; their week in paradise at an end. It went by quickly but I think we convinced them to come back next year. 

8 tuff ... ugh

There are things I never planned on doing in this life. One of them was running for 8 miles up a mountain.  I'm not much of a runner you see. But this year, for the second time, I participated in 8 tuff miles.  It's a race that starts in Cruz Bay on one side of St. John, goes up and over the island, and ends up in Coral Bay. And the "up and over" is no joke:  5 miles up hill, 3.3 miles down.  But it's a nice view! If you're ever interested in torturing yourself for a solid couple of hours, please feel free to join us next time: http://www.8tuffmiles.com/

Tyler and I actually did it together last year and we both scraped in at under 2 hours. We planned to do it together again this year but Tyler was invited to attend a very prestigious workshop in Santa Barbara and couldn't make it back in time. But next year team Brandt-Smith will be back!

So my goal this year was to come in under 1 hour and 45 minutes.  I'm incredibly proud to say that I shaved 20 minutes (20 MINUTES) off my old time and came in at 1 hour 38 minutes!!! Whoo hoo!! To the right is me coming in at the finish line. Not the prettiest picture, but hey, I just ran 8 tough miles.
 
In fact, everyone from UVI who participated for a second year did better.  Below are the UVI participants at the finish with our medals and other rewards (please forgive the quality of the photo - it was taken on my iphone).  From left to right: Chris (graduate student and Tyler's advisee), Donna (fellow UVI faculty), me!, and Ashley (new graduate student).

 

Next year I'm hoping to come in under 1 hour 30 minutes.  Stay tuned to see if I make it.  A big huge GIANT thank you to Kelly for transferring her registration to me because I procrastinated so long they ran out. THANK YOU for giving me the opportunity to torture myself!  

You'll be happy to note that we all erased the pain of the run with blue cheese burgers and (yes, of course) painkillers at the nearby Skinny Legs. Ok, so we started drinking at 9:00 am but hey, we all got up at 4!  After that it was a day lounging at Cinnamon Bay beach on St. John. 8 tuff miles.... huh, they weren't so tough. Ha!

Aquatic Sciences? Si!

Well, as you may have guessed there's been so many fun things happening I've been out enjoying them instead of writing on this blog! Not long after Mom and Dad Smith's visit - in fact it felt like microseconds later - Tyler and I were off to next door San Juan, Puerto Rico for the 2011 Aquatic Sciences meeting. We both gave talks but Tyler was also a co-coordinator of a day long session dedicated to mesophotic reefs (deeper reefs with the same species composition as shallow reefs).  Since getting back from the meeting, UVI sent out a press release about our research team's deep reef work and Tyler has been featured on the radio and in several local newspapers. He's famous! 

Overall, the meeting was excellentay. We got to connect with lots of old friends and make some new ones, see some great talks, make some great career connections, eat at great restaurants, and we even found time to check out one of the old forts in Old San Juan (see below).

 

While at the fort, strangely enough one of the Ireland leprechauns that we saw on our honeymoon showed up. He was acting shy but if you look closely, you can see him in this photo:

 

The week literally flew by but we found some time to take a picture of all of the UVI attendees on the last day.  From left to right, Jacqui (Research Technician for the UVI Marine Science Center), Tyler, me (looking like I'm either exhausted or it's really bright out - both were in fact true), Vanessa (our new Oceanography Technician) and Nasseer (fellow UVI faculty and old RSMAS friend): 

The Smiths take St. John

It's funny how when you live in a place it takes a visit by friends or family to make you actually take time to experience where you live.  Such a thing happened when Mom and Dad Smith came for a visit. They arrived safely on St. Thomas where we whisked them up to our domestic abode and I believe they were impressed by it being a step above Tyler's previous bachelor pad (for a start, there's a door on the bathroom).  They spent a few days and played a few games of Bananagrams with us and then were off to St. John with their friends Ken and Barb.

Meanwhile, I was off to New Orleans for a one-day NSF workshop and Tyler was left to fend for himself. The workshop was useful and I managed to cram several dozen oysters down in the 36 hours I was there.  Back in St. Thomas, Tyler and I worked the rest of the week away and then caught the car ferry over to St. John Friday morning. We in our little 2 wheel drive Toyota Echo met up with Dad Smith and Ken in Coral Bay in their 4 wheel drive Jeep rental and they led to the house they had rented. At the top of the obnoxiously steep driveway that lead down to the house a little voice in back of my head said : "boy I hope we can get back up this hill when we leave."  Hmm... am I foreshadowing? Read on...

Once down the driveway we were greeted by Mom Smith and Barb and a spectacular view of Coral Bay harbor and the Drake Passage beyond (see above). We spent a little time getting settled into Watermelon Villa and then literally crammed into the Jeep and headed off for a birthday lunch for Dad Smith at a seaside restaurant called Ms. Lucy's.

A few celebratory Painkillers later and we were at the beach enjoying the sunshine. That night we had a delicious dinner followed by birthday brownies and ice cream and then topped off the night with some lively rounds of, you guessed it, Bananagrams. 

The next day found us at yet another beach and then another seaside restaurant for a late lunch and some rum punch (whoo hoo). We made dinner at home again that night and enjoyed more games of Bananagrams. It really is a very addictive game.

Sunday morning dawned a little wetter than preferred. After some humming and hawing about whether to go to the beach, we decided to go for it and packed up both the Jeep and the Echo to head for a beach near Cruz Bay. Tyler and I were planning to catch an afternoon ferry back to St. Thomas from Cruz Bay so it was decided that it would be most convenient for all if we took two cars. Well, it turns out that the only thing worse than a car with no four wheel drive meeting a steep hill is a car with no four wheel drive going through thick mud and then meeting a very wet steep hill covered with wet leaves. One attempt forward and one backward and it became apparent that the Echo was stuck. 

But never underestimate the Echo.

With the kind assistance of a neighbor and her water hose to clean off the Echo's muddy tires, a big broom to sweep the wet leaves off the hill, lots of parental advice, some nail biting (but I swear no commenting on my part), Tyler's oneness with the Echo, the $160 price tag of a tow in our heads, and two tries... we made it up! Oh Echo.... such a good little car.

We made it to the beach about the time the skies decided we were much too muddy and a little heavy rain might help.  So we headed to Cruz Bay to dry out and celebrate our victory over the hill. Above, a photo of our intrepid team sitting above one of the most beautiful beaches in the world (officially! really, it says that insome magazine somewhere) Trunk Bay.

After lunch we left the Parents Smith and Ken and Barb to suffer yet another gorgeous night on St. John and headed back to St. Thomas on the car ferry in the little Echo that could.

Mom and Dad Smith joined us back on St. Thomas for two more nights and then were back off to Colorado. It was so nice spending the time with everyone and it made us look forward to the big family vacation this summer.  Thanks for visiting!

Christmas Snowpocalypse 2010

Despite the dubious title, our winter break was quite spectacular.  Starting off with pleasant flights to Denver, our brother-in-law Bill picked us up at the airport and shuttled us off to his and Tyler's sister Mindy's house in Denver. We awoke to two excited nieces, Holly and Madeleine, who then entertained us with a recap of their dance recital and a display of their hairstyling talents with Uncle Tyler as their model (see right). 

Tyler's parents Sharon and David, henceforth Mom and Dad Smith, were nice enough to make the trek all the way to Denver from Ft. Collins to pick us up. Before driving back we took in an IMAX 3D movie about Oceans at the Denver Museum of Science. It was quite thrilling... well maybe a bit too thrilling for some of the younger audience.

Once settled in Ft. Collins we spent the week leading up to Christmas alternating between making and eating cookies. Well, ok, we did some other stuff too. Like went to the Rio restaurant to enjoy delicious margaritas and other Mexican culinary delights compliments of our other brother-in-law Mike. We also got pumped at a local Ft. Collins gym where Tyler's sister Michele got us in twice (thanks Michele!). And we had an amazing day of skiing at Winter Park (below) compliments of both Mindy's and Michele's families (thanks everyone!). 

The weather in Ft. Collins was beautiful all week and when Christmas came it was no exception. It was a gorgeous day filled with opening presents (thanks to everyone for the amazing gifts!), playing with presents, going for a long walk (above), and eating ourselves into a stupor. All in all, a perfect Christmas! Thank you to Mom and Dad Smith for hosting and feeding us! It was fantastic!

Our original schedule had us leaving Denver and flying to NY's La Guardia airport the day after Christmas. We had heard hints of a storm heading to the northeast region but we were having too much fun to really pay attendtion. Who could predict the snow-pocalypse that would eventually unfold, snarling our travel plans and resulting in 8 hours and 20 minutes of ignoring everything else and wrestling with airlines on the phone to arrange a new flight.  Currently, my opinion of orbitz.com and US Airways is fairly low. I could go on about my feelings about them but in the interest of time and my sanity I digress...

Our delay was bittersweet... it shortened our time in NY but extended our time in Colorado and we made the best of it, enjoying dinner at Michele and Mike's house and then hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park with Mom and Dad Smith, Michele, niece Emma and nephew Ben (left).  Mom and Dad Smith, in the their infinite kindness, then braved the pre-pre dawn hour of 4am to bring us to the airport. After a few more traveling delays we finally arrive in NY on Tuesday evening to the open embrace of my parents, Ann and Bill, henceforth Mom and Dad Brandt.

We spent about 36 hours in Woodstock with my parents and played a wicked game of Wii bowling at my brother Will and sister-in-law Mandy's place. We then headed down to Philly to visit my college friends Chung and Mike in their beautiful row house. Chung had to work nights at the hospital but we got in some quality time before she headed out (see below).

After Chung went to work Mike, Tyler and I headed off to a delicious local Philly dinner and then to meet up with one of our grad students Steve at the Wu Tang concert.  Now, I wouldn't call myself a fan of the Wu, in fact I know literally none of their music, but I thoroughly enjoyed the concert.  But definitely less intensively than Tyler, Mike and Steve. The next day Mike, Tyler and I grabbed a cheesesteak (delicious!) while Chung slept off a busy night at the hospital and then came back to the house to watch her cook an incredibly delicious new years eve dinner.  Sadly we had to run out early to make it back up to NY but thanks again to Chung and Mike for hosting us!

We rang in the new year at my brother Ed and sister-in-law Kelly's awesome friend Jen's place. Because she's the best, my childhood friend Daena drove all the way from Boston to meet us (see right).  We then crashed back in Woodstock and got ready for our second Christmas.

New years day became the Brandt family Christmas day and Mom Brandt, as usual, cooked a spectacular meal. Before dinner we opened presents - everyone was so generous! Thanks to everyone for our great gifts! In our post-dinner stupor (the second of the season), we decided to see if we could entice anyone into a game of Bananagrams - an addictive game that was a Colorado Christmas gift. It started out with only a few interested persons but by the end of the night everyone had played a few rounds, including Daena who came over for post-dinner fun.

Sunday came and Daena, Tyler and I hit up a local restaurant for brunch and then said goodbye to Daena. Mom and Dad Brandt then drove us to Ed and Kell's place where we planned to catch an early morning ride to the airport. It was definitely a sad night as the realization that our fun with families was coming to an end. Ed kindly sent us on our way at the airport and we were back in St. Thomas by Monday night. No more airline drama... just the drama of leaving those we love so much.  But we had January (which has already happened!) and March to look forward to when Mom and Dad Smith and Mom and Dad Brandt were coming for visits. More on those visits soon...