Cragmama "Not all who wander are lost…" JRR Tolkien

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The Halfway Point

The Halfway Point

Just over 4 months ago, I saw two pink lines on a pregnancy test.  An hour later, I didn’t believe it so I tested again.  Then also the next day, and then even a week later, just to make sure.  Now, several months later, I’m feeling my litte jellybean kick even as I type this out, and my ever-expanding belly is leaving no doubt to the entire world that my body is producing something amazing on the inside!  So I am officially 20 weeks pregnant, which marks the halfway point (b/c everyone knows you deliver at EXACTLY 40 weeks, right?) …Read the rest of this entry →

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What happens in Vegas…shows up on Facebook.

What happens in Vegas…shows up on Facebook.

I’m now in what most consider the “feel good” stage of my pregnancy. At almost 18 weeks, I am no longer exhausted like I was in my first trimester, but I’m not huge and cumbersome yet (just big enough to feel like a small whale at times…) So this seemed like the perfect opportunity to take a vacation! Steve’s company sent him to Vegas all last week for a Microsoft SharePoint conference at the Mandalay Bay. I stayed at home looking at Musicals currently in theaters that I could attend with my friends. The conference ended Thursday afternoon, so I used…Read the rest of this entry →

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Exposure = risk realized, but not increased

Exposure = risk realized, but not increased

Exposure is a commonly used term in rock climbing.  I found an online dictionary that defined it as “being in a situation in which you are very aware that you are high off the ground.”  In other words, standing on a large summit that is capped by lots of soil and very tall, thick trees would not be considered as exposed as a summit consisting of a 3 foot wide pinnacle several hundred feet off the deck.  A steep route traversing across a narrow ridge would be more exposed than a route that meanders up a low-angle slab.  Exposure typically intensifies a…Read the rest of this entry →

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Red River Gorge – great climbing, but where’s the river?!?

Red River Gorge – great climbing, but where’s the river?!?

In the few years that I’ve been climbing, I’ve had the opportunity to climb in lots of different places, but I’d never made it up to the Red River Gorge until this past weekend.  Steve and I had tried to go several times, but due to weather, schedules, injuries, etc., it seems as though the stars were never quite in proper alignment to make it happen.  But when several friends invited us to go, and especially after being able to finagle an extra day off of work on Friday, spending Labor Day weekend in Kentucky at the Red seemed to…Read the rest of this entry →

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Gaping Similarities, not Petty Differences

Gaping Similarities, not Petty Differences

So in my last post, I mentioned that we made some new friends at Pies n Pints during our visit to the New last weekend.  We overheard the couple at the table next to ours talking about their day at the Bridge Buttress, another New River Gorge climbing area, so we decided to see what routes they had gotten on.  We ended up talking to them the rest of the time while we ate – Josh and Erin were their names, and they were from Johnson City, TN.  We compared notes on our activities from the day, discussed our plans…Read the rest of this entry →

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“Not all who wander are lost.” —JRR TOLKIEN