First snow!

We woke up this morning and saw this out our window!

Let's see what the chaos on the roads is like now! We thought it was bad last week... Maybe it'll take some traffic off the roads. Or more likely, it'll be even more chaotic.

At Least We Don't Live in Zagreb, Croatia

We may have Russian tanks within Georgia's borders, but at least we're still planning on celebrating Christmas and New Years. Why would anyone ban Christmas parties, buying and giving gifts and celebrating New Years? Seems crazy to me, but apparently the Croatians are just that.

Don't believe me? Check out the BBC article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7730813.stm

(Ok, technically it's only public sector workplace parties, etc. But still. You couple that with the public sector salary freezes and you have yourself one inspired, hardworking public sector work force. The extra sarcasm comes free today, folks. Enjoy.)

Georgians and their names

Alright, so I know it's not nice to make fun of someone's name, but seriously... the following are some of the most common female names here:

* Nino
* Nona
* Nina
* Nini
* Nono
* Nana
* Nani
* Nato

Seriously. There are 4 girls that work at the cafeteria. 2 of them are named Nino, 1 is Nato, then there is the random Tanya. While it doesn't flow as nicely, Dodo is also a valid female Georgian name.

Men aren't much better. Here's a few of theirs:

* Niko
* Nika
* Giorgi
* Gia
* Goga
* Giga
* Gega
* Gela
* Zaza

One Georgian who was expecting a baby boy once said they didn't like how Nika and Giorgi were over used. She wanted something creative. So she came up with..... wait for it .... "Nikagiorgi". Yes folks, the Georgian version of Jim Bob.

We met one who's real name is Nani, but she goes by Nacho. Which reminds me of my good friend Melissa's favorite joke -- which probably doesn't translate very well. Q: What do you call cheese that isn't yours? A: Nacho cheese!


(On a much less funny note: Saint Nino and Saint George are very popular figures in Georgian culture. Still, folks. There are a lot of saints out there. Diversify your portfolio.)

Mtskheta Day: Tbilisi "Church" Tour

While most Georgians adore Americans, they do not celebrate Columbus Day. They do, however, celebrate Mtskheta Day (or "Historic capital of Tbilisi Day") on the very next day, which makes for a nice break in the middle of the work week.

We used this freebie to do some sight seeing with friends. We planned a morning of breakfast at a donut shop owned by an American (which means REAL American donuts...mmmmm...sinfully good.) followed by a self guided tour of some of the more prominent churches (and a synagogue) in Tbilisi.

We began with the newest church in Tbilisi. Visible from almost any point in the city (including our front porch) this church is located in the historic (read: old and falling apart) Armenian district of the city. Accessible by steep, narrow cobble-stoned streets packed with pedestrians and veggie stands this church is recognized by its gold dome and 3-tiered facade.


When we walked through the first set of arches onto the church grounds I commented that it felt as though we had stepped out of a time machine into a new world. Expansive green lawns, manicured gardens and close clipped hedges, ponds complete with swans as far as the eye can see (unless you can actually see beyond the walls to the hazy city below.)




Next stop was a synagogue in Old Town Tbilisi. This was much smaller and more intimate compared to the large church we had just left. A grounds keeper took us inside and turned on the lights for us. He invited us to the 2nd floor along an intricately painted stairwell.



Across the street from the synagogue was this Georgian Orthodox church. It was not open for us to go inside so we roamed about the grounds. You can see the crack down the exterior wall of the building, damage from an earthquake.





We ended our tour with the oldest church in Tbilisi. This is a tiny church and we were not allowed to use the flash on our camera so the photos are a bit blurry. There were detailed frescoes on the ceiling and a tomb in the floor. It is a sign of respect for women to cover their heads when entering an Orthodox church, although the parishioners are understanding of ignorant tourists.

Mobile again...

I'm back up and mobile again. Watch out!

After about 36 hours of pain killers, I moved over to straight up Vitamin I (Ibuprofen) and am still taking it about 2-3 times per day to keep the inflammation down. 3 days after surgery I was up on my feet all day for a wedding reception. After 15 hours, I sat down and took a peek at it and was a little alarmed to see that all the bruising had drained to the bottom of my foot. All the purple color that was normally just lightly all over my foot was influenced by gravity and formed a thick dark purple line at the bottom of my foot. I talked to a nurse friend of mine and he said it was nothing to worry about. (This was later confirmed by my doctor.)

Stitches came out on Monday, hit the plane on Friday and back in town on Saturday night. I'm able to ride the bike, hit the gym and do anything else as long as I don't put too much weight on my toes. I need a few more weeks of recovery to get back to running or lunges.

The pain is largely gone, though it's still a little sensitive. I'm easing into things again -- I have no desire to push myself back into a problem by pushing too hard, too fast. Snowboarding/skiing season is still a few months away.. lots of time. :)

Glacier Doesn't Suck

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Originally uploaded by SethTri

For our honeymoon, Meg & I spent 10 days hiking in Glacier National Park. We spent the first few days with our good friends Jen and Eric, then got some time to ourselves.

Unfortunately, as soon as the paddle and saddle was over on Sunday, the weather turned on us. We had just enough time to get over to the Many Glacier side and get in one short hike before the rain started. But in the end the rain probably worked out for the best as we saw a lot more of the park than we would have through multi-day hikes. If you'd rather just look at all the photos, you can find them at: http://flickr.com/photos/86674201@N00/sets/72157607233218815/

On Monday, we saw a Grizzly and her cub about 5 minutes into our hike to Iceberg Lake. The lake had dozens of large blocks of snow from the surrounding snowfield still floating in it. As we got home a few clouds appeared to be coming in. Apparently they where the harbingers of 4 days of rain and cold temperatures. The rain started just as we ducked into the tents.

Unfortunately, during the night I learned that my 10 year old tent's rain fly is not as waterproof as it once was. It appears to be ok during a light drizzle, but during periods of a steady rain the water soaks through the fly, runs along the poles and then drips into the tent. Fortunately that spot was right on the center of my face, and woke me up in the middle of the night. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have noticed until my bag was soaking wet. Stick a rain jacket under the drip, move closer to Meg and I'm good enough for the night.

The next morning I bought a space blanket, some hair bands and a little rope and fashioned a backup rain fly that worked just fine. (Though it may have been a bit loud in the breeze.) Over the next couple days Eric, Jen, Meg and I hiked several waterfalls and many other day hikes along the Going-to-the-Sun road.



After 4 days of hiking and sleeping in the drizzle, we spent Jen & Eric's last night with us in a cabin at the KOA. (Showers, laundry and a nicer bed for a night were well worth it.) After they left, we headed over to Sprague Creek campground and got ready for a break in the weather and a 2 day backpacking trip.

Friday and Saturday were (as forecasted) nice and sunny. We caught the bus to the Jackson Overlook on the Going to the Sun road and started hiking the Gunsight Pass Trail. Day 1 was 11-ish miles, 2,000 ft of elevation gain and a lot of beautiful photos. After a while, I got a little tired of all the beauty around me. How many photos of waterfalls, beautiful ridgelines, mountain goats and trees do I really need? It's pretty ridiculous when you can point a camera randomly and get a fantastic shot.



We camped over night along side a beautiful lake and hiked back to Lake MacDonald lodge the next day. We saw a Pika, a Hoary Marmot and a bunch of horses along the way. We also got in some canoeing and had a good time by the camp fires.



We saw a lot of Glacier National Park, and had a lot of fun. We both highly recommend the area and will probably try to get back in the future.

Surgery day one....

As some of you may or may not know, I was scheduled for foot surgery this afternoon. So far everything seems to be going well.

For the last year or so, after about 20-30 minutes of running my left foot would start burning, getting worse as I continue. Cycling would also cause pain and snowboarding was excruciating after several hours. After I stop pounding my feet, it would eventually stop hurting but sometimes it would take quite a while. Last time I talked to my doctor, we tried modifying my orthodics and that instantly did the trick for a few months. (It allowed me to get back on the track for a while.) But eventually, the pain came back.

After some discussions and a sonogram, we pretty much concluded it was either compartment syndrome in my calf pinching a nerve, or a Morton's Neuroma. I then had to move overseas so further work with my doctor was pretty rough. But, after some research and closer attention to my symptoms, I figured it was probably a neuroma.

This afternoon Meg & I walked into the Dr's office where a marble sized bunch of stuff was pulled out of my left foot between the 3rd & 4th metatarsals. A good chunk of it was my nerve but there was also a lot of scar tissue as well and it was pretty large. From the doc, it appears to confirm the diagnosis.

Recovery? Well, I'm on some pain killers now and stuck in a bed for the next 24 hrs or so to keep the swelling down. But I should be able to get back on my feet in a day or two, back to work on Monday, cycling and other low/medium impact in a week (as long as I can put up with the pain) and running shortly there after. We'll see how it goes, but overall, even it if takes months to get back to running, it's probably better than 2 years of running in pain.

Safe in Yerevan. Safe in Georgia.

Seth and I are both safe. I am in Yerevan, Armenia (Georgia's neighbor to the south) and Seth is working very long (if not all) hours at the embassy in Tbilisi. I have been trying to keep many people up to date with our situation through e-mails and many of you mentioned that you have been checking the blog with "stalker like frequency" to quote one, so I figured I should post an update.

The embassy in Tbilisi went to "modified authorized departure" status on Saturday August 9th. This meant that family members of embassy staff were permitted to depart (and be provided for by the government) but all staff had to remain at the embassy to work. I held off on departing at first, wanting to stay with Seth and continue to volunteer at the embassy. When the Georgians announced a cessation to their military action and Russian forces continued to advance into the country Seth and I made the decision that it was time for me to head out. I drove across the border into Armenia with a convoy of vehicles from the embassy in Tbilisi and since that time I have been well taken care of by the folks at the embassy in Yerevan.

Seth has been working long hours, sleeping at the embassy (when he gets time to sleep) like so many other dedicated people. They don't complain, far from it. they are happy to be doing work that is needed. Help is beginning to arrive in the embassy from all over the world, other embassies that can spare people and the main State Department in the US are sending employees to support our fantastic people in Tbilisi. We are beyond proud of the work they are doing. What others may see as a sacrifice, they are glad to do.

I have been busy here working on rearranging my flights home for the wedding in Montana on August 23rd. I was very lucky to get the last seat on a flight out of Yerevan on August 19th (it pays to travel alone sometimes). I have Seth wait listed on 2 separate flights out of Yerevan in case he can't fly out of Tbilisi. We are hopeful that he will be able to make it to Montana for the wedding. If not, Montana is one of the few states that allow "proxy marriage" so if he can't be there I will have a stand-in groom. We will go ahead with the ceremony and celebrate for Seth. But as of right now we are thinking positively! Please join us in these positive thoughts.

I will update the blog if there is any real news. Unfortunately, there hasn't been any major changes (that I am aware of) in several days. We remain hopeful and send positive thoughts and prayers to our Georgian friends who cannot leave and whose lives have been changed. We are very lucky that most of us do not know what it is like to experience what they are going through.

love,

Meg & Seth

The Next Time You Complain About Your HMO...

...put a sock in it and be thankful you're not seeking medical attention in a  developing country.

As many of you have read in the previous post I recently competed in a World Cup event and was defeated by a stronger and more experienced "Team Lowenbrau." After 6 days of tenderness (and doing aerobics on it, hosting a party on my feet all night and riding 20 miles on a mountain bike) I decided to see a doc about my ankle.

After the usual touching, pressing, "press against my hand, now pull against my hand" exam he diagnosed a painful but essentially harmless bone bruise. He said that, "while most people would have stayed off their feet for a couple days after an injury like this, Seth and I don't appear to be very normal when it comes to self imposed inactivity." So he gave me strict order to stay off it for 1 week and go get an X-ray done just to be sure.

If I'm nothing else, I am a good patient and when a doc says to do something, I don't argue. He gave me the directions to a diagnostic facility in Tbilisi that could do the X-ray. I found the building on the main drag in town. I walked into a reception area with one man whose arm was in a sling and what appeared to be his father, his wife and his father's friend who all seemed to be sitting apart from him and taking turns making fun of the injured guy.

There was no one behind the reception desk. After sitting patiently like a good little Westerner waiting to be served and watching patient after patient walk in the front door and just go right on back into the hospital I said, to heck with it and walked back myself. Imagine going to see your doctor, finding no one sitting at reception and just saying, "Aw heck." and walk into the back past all the nurses and just busting right in on him in an exam room. that's essentially what I did and the hilarious part is that no one even blinked. 

After I asked for someone who spoke English a man called for a woman who would end up being my X-ray technician. She led me back to a dimly lit room which, at first glance appeared to be some sort of storage area for old medical equipment. There were stacks of machines with exposed, multi colored wires and what appeared to be half of an MRI machine in the middle of the small room. She cleared off a low chaise lounge and motioned for me to sit. She then went into an adjacent room and dragged out the X-ray machine. This is where my X-ray tech turned into Jerry Lewis and proceeded to repeatedly step on the machine's electrical cord which was dragging behind her, causing the machine to come to a dead stop and her to stumble backward almost falling over in her 3 inch heels. 

Once she managed to squeeze the X-ray machine between my couch and the half of an MRI machine and free her skirt which was wedged between the two pieces of equipment, she set about arranging my foot on the plate for the X-ray. now, why is it that X-ray techs always manhandle the body part that you are getting a picture taken of? You've got to know that the only reason I'm here is because this thing might be broken, which at the very least means significant discomfort and may possibly be rather painful. Knowing this, they always seem to need you to turn it in the exact manner that causes the most pain and when you can't perform this task to their satisfaction they graciously offer to assist you by cranking it around to the position they want.

After 2 pictures she tells me to lace up (at least, I think that's what she said. It was either than or, "Go to hell." The body language could have gone either way.) She enters my information into a computer that is balancing, I'm not kidding, on an 8 inch stack of papers. She puts my film into an envelope and says, "You must pay cash." All righty then.

I'm led further down the hall to another office where a woman gestures to another couch covered in stacks of papers and scrap metal and instructs me to "Sit." I'm sorry, where exactly should I"...aw heck, I pick up a stack of paper and put it in my lap. She writes something in a ledger book, looks at me through thick glasses and says, "20 Lari." Folks, this is about $15.

All jokes aside, once I aggressively pushed my way in to this facility I was seen immediately and got a pair of X-rays for the cost of lunch at Applebee's. As long as you don't leave home without your sense of humor and you don't have any major medical melt down, you really can't complain.

Move Over Cold Compress, There's a New Game in Town

I got home from a grocery store run yesterday for beer & food for Seth's birthday party on Friday. When I parked the car and opened the back door out came rolling one of those little kegs of beer that holds 5 liters that had fallen over on the ride home and what did I do?

I tried to catch it with the inside of my right ankle like a hacky sack! Right on the ankle bone! What the hell was I thinking????

I immediately dropped to the ground and simultaneously felt like I was going to puke and pass out. This woman was walking with her baby in a stroller and she came running over. Although we couldn't speak the same language, she was rubbing my back while I got control of my breathing and she helped me stand up.

I limped over to our door and she helped me carry 2 bags of groceries that had the frozen veggies etc. I then looked up at the 52 stairs I have to climb to get to the front door from our alley. My first instinct was to call Seth but I thought, "What is he going to do? I'll call when I get inside." So I carried up the groceries limping on my right foot and by the time I reached the top thought I was going to pass out again.

I got inside, put the stuff in the freezer, grabbed the ice pack and laid down on the couch and called Seth. He told me to stand up and put all my weight on my right foot to test and see if it was broken. I could stand on one foot so we were hopeful that it wasn't broken. I spent the next 4 hours lying with my foot elevated, alternating 20 minutes of ice on and 20 minutes off. I took 4 ibuprofen and prayed it wasn't broken because I did not want to fly with a cast and get married in a cast!

All because I couldn't just let the keg fall! I

Apparently my diligence as a patient paid off and I woke up this morning feeling tender to the touch but much better over all. I am able to walk around with little to no discomfort. I came in to work this morning and relayed this story to Alan, who gave me another gem of advice:

The next time something like this happens, I am to immediately go to the liquor cabinet and pull out a bottle of vodka. Pour the vodka over the injured area and rub into the skin gently. Repeat this procedure every 30 minutes until the pain disappears. (I imagine it wouldn't hurt if I accidentally spilled some of it into my mouth every once in awhile either.)

Silly American. Why would you want RICE when you can have vodka?

Your friend,
Pele

Chapel Climb

Seth and I have been "training" for our honeymoon in Glacier National Park by going out for long hikes with loaded packs on the weekend. These hikes have taken us to some pretty amazing spots.

Behind me in this photo is a small chapel that is part of a larger monastery complex in the hills outside Mtskheta (the historic capital of Georgia located about 30 minutes from Tbilisi). Unfortunately we couldn't enter the monastery because I was inappropriately dressed (shorts, no sleeves and no head cover.)

But we were able to climb up to this small chapel and have a look around.

The photo on the right is of the inside of the chapel looking up toward the dome over the altar. This ancient chapel is still used today and there was a small table set out with a prayer book and a jar for offerings.

Below is the view from the chapel.

Rubber Side Down?

... I KNEW I was forgetting something today when I went for a bike ride. It was a hot one on Sunday and I had already been riding with a buddy for an hour or so. But he took off and I decided I'd go for another 30 minutes to get a final burn in.

I rode up this hill to go check out a circuit I've been thinking of proposing holding a small crit style race on. The course has a solid uphill portion where you can get the HR up, but it's not too bad, then drops down into a long gradual descent. I softened up the suspension about as far as it would go as I came over the final rise and just let her go. I was having a blast flying down the trail when the trail had a bend to the right. It was a pretty smooth trail though covered in loose top soil. I probably entered the bend at about 35 mph.

I exited significantly slower, and was 0 mph for a while.



I managed to earn my first case of solid road rash, ironically, not on the road. A nice 4x4 patch on my right hip, a snapped front brake lever after the bars spun 360 degrees, and the bars were pushed waaay off center. A fun 5 minute cruise to the car (thankfully the bike was rideable and I was ok other than a slight stun) and I'm on way home with a kit that's got a few holes and blood starting to soak through.

Shower, gauze, tape and I think I'm patched up. We'll see what tomorrow morning is like.

The yard gets mowed for the first time

backyard2.JPG
Originally uploaded by SethTri

I'm certain I've mentioned a few times that we've been working on the backyard quite a bit. Well the mudpit was seeded about a month ago and we've been watering it every night since then. And VOILA! We have grass that needs mowing. It's not a lot of grass (about 6 swipes with the mower) but it's thick and green!

The yard is definitely more weed free than it used to be, but there are signs that we need to work to keep on top of that. Chickweed and a few other miscreants have poked up from time to time. For now, we've got to pick 'em out by hand, but in another 2 mowings, I bought some weed & feed to do the job.






We used weed & feed on the front yard and have been AMAZED at the lack of weeds. There used to be lots of little annoying plants coming up, but no more! Good stuff.




Overall, the seeding adventure is coming to a close (which is nice) and it was successful. There's no way we'd do this ourselves on a larger area though. Soon, it'll be time to setup barbeques on the yard. Just in time for summer.

Advice by Alan

I've decided to add a recurring feature to our blog, Advice by Alan.

Alan is the security guard at my office. He speaks little English but that hasn't kept us from becoming friends. We communicate with a mixture of the English he knows, the little Georgian and Russian that I know, a healthy dose of charades and a bit of Pictionary. Each morning I can count on a walk-in from Alan. He pops into my office, we exchange "Good mornings" and "How are yous" in Georgian (which is closing in on the extent of my knowledge of the language) and he quickly launches into a one sided conversation in a mixture of Russian and Georgian.

During our "conversations" my eyes work harder than my ears. I am constantly watching his facial expression and his hands as he expresses his story. Alan's stories often evolve into advice giving sessions. Alan's advice ranges from cancer prevention to the best accompaniments for vodka. From how to make your plants grow to the uses of the common house cat in curing your bodily aches and pains.  I realized that I have been selfishly keeping his advice to myself, but that stops today.

Advice by Alan #1: Mobile phone antennae cause cancer

Recently Alan came into my office to chat when he noticed my cell phone sitting on my desk. He pointed to the phone and shook his head. "Your phone, wery old," he said. (This would be the phone I bought before we moved to T'bilisi in August 2007) He continued by pointing at the antenna of my phone and then gesturing at the side of his stomach, his hands slowly moving away from his body. I shook my head indicating that I didn't quite follow.

He went on to tell me a story about the time he and a friend were drinking vodka one night. Judging by the way he was moving his hand to his lips and repeatedly tilting his head back I'm going to say they were doing shots of vodka. All of a sudden his friend grabbed his heart in pain and told Alan that his chest hurt. At that moment Alan realized that his friend was carrying his cell phone in the front pocket of his shirt. Alan removed it and the pain subsided. Alan looked down and noticed that his friend's cell phone had an external antenna. Proof positive that "cell phones with external antennas cause cancer."

I asked Alan if it was possible that perhaps the nights of vodka shots played a role in his friends chest pains. He assured me that this was, in fact, ludicrous. So, for all of you out there with old cell phones that have external antenna, take it from Alan, it's time to upgrade. As long as your antenna is internal, your safe!

A Cyclocross Bike is not a Mountain Bike

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Originally uploaded by SethTri

... but it's close. There has been a TDYer here who actually brought a mountain bike with him for the last month or so and I was easily convinced to get out on a ride with him. I managed to put the knobbies on the cyclocross bike that for far too long has sat on the trainer and ride with him 3 times now.
For those who aren't aware: a cyclocross bike is effectively a road frame (toughened up a bit) with wider, but certainly not wide knobby tires. There is no suspension like a mountain bike has, the tires are significantly narrower than mtn bikes, and I don't have mountain bike pedals (yet) on it.


I've been out 3 times now with him and the first 2 times I was doing pretty awesome. Despite the much harder gearing I'm running than the mountain bikers, I've made it up almost all the stuff 2 guys out here could get up. Going down is a little sketchier though -- it's much more of a technique challenge that I can't transfer from road riding, and since I have no suspension, every rock puts me in the air. But I've made it down most of the stuff, though usually significantly slower and conservative than the downhill mountain bikers.


Now for the fun part:


We've been riding the same areas that Meg & I have been running for quite a while. I can see the Embassy from the ridgeline, and I've long thought it might be possible to make the traverse over. (Though it looks like it's at least 5 miles.) So, on Saturday, three of us attempted the ride.


Boys and Girls, learn from my mistakes: A cyclocross bike is NOT a mountain bike.


So we got our normal ride in, and that worked out pretty good. Then we headed up to the saddle that has a road coming off it that leads down into the valley we wanted to go. Ohhh... it seemed like such a good idea at the time, and it looked like I could have used it to commute to work eventually.




Not quite. It starts out a pretty steep downhill, big loose rocks filled in with scree and a big rut that wanders all over this "jeep trail", that even a Jeep would be very challenged to get up. And then it got steeper, and sketchier. I was pretty gripped and eventually kicked out of the pedals and kinda shuffled down. It got rideable again, and we continued down, but then the road disappeared into a washed out thin trail. Well down we go (and out of my road pedals again).


And then the trail ran into a foot deep creek with big rocks on the bottom. This bike would have had a tough time with the creek bed WITHOUT water in it. Ok, so I'm walking it, but now I'm trying to walk across this creek with my road shoes and cleats on. Yeah, that won't work, so off come the socks and shoes as I walk through water that smells a bit like manure. (At least there probably aren't any other chemicals in here.)




But once across the creek, we were on a dirt road (a real dirt road!) and worked our way through dilapidated buildings of the lower-middle class parts of Tbilisi. A few dead ends later we popped out on the streets of diplomatic heights and Meg came by and rescued us from having to return by either the same route or by the very busy roads of downtown Tbilisi.


Alright, so maybe I'll consider getting a suspension on the bike. Maybe. We'll see.

Our Garden (The Mudpit)

Many of you have been hearing us talk about working on our yard and garden. We thought it was time to update you with some photos.

When we first arrived in Tbilisi

in August 2007, the summer season was in full swing, the roses were still blooming (and would continue to do so through Christmas) and the pomegranate tree was just beginning to show fruit. The branches on the fig tree were heavy with fruit and we had a lone apple holding on for life. Seth deduced that the monstrous tree in the corner of the back yard was, in fact, a bay tree and the hazelnuts were almost ready for harvest.

It sounds like a lot doesn't it? But there were still more trees and plants we couldn't identify as their season had already come and gone. We have just experienced our first spring in Tbilisi and it was full of surprises. For weeks we would wake up and look out the window in the kitchen to see something else had opened up over night. We realized that, what was a row of nasty, drooping, green stalks in the backyard during the fall and winter, became yellow irises in the spring. Three cherry trees are now as heavy with fruit as the fig was last fall. We have a bed of tiger lilies and the hyacinths have come and gone.

Our major project, however, is the yard itself. We inherited a yard that had not been cared for in years. In Georgia the belief is that "green is good" meaning, if it's green, they don't touch it. Our "yard" was a blanket of weeds. What makes the situation even more challenging is that the previous owner had laid a network of stone paths without any boundaries. As a result the stones migrated throughout the yard over the years, leaving us with a rocky weedy mess.

Seth has spent hours with a shovel tilling the soil by hand to prepare it for grass seed. At first we would sit in the piles of dirt, picking out rocks and stones (and glass, cigarette butts, chip bags and other oddities) by hand. It took an hour to fill 1 bucket and we were looking at a minimum of 40 buckets worth of debris.

One day I mused that "This would be so much easier if we could get one of those box sieves that gold prospectors used when panning the river." Seth suggested I draw up the schematics and he would see if he could get the carpenters at the embassy to build it. They were able to build it (for 40 Lari/$30) and we have been making quick work of the yard ever since. We are almost ready to put down some grass seed. The added bonus of filling in all the potholes in our alley with the stones from our garden is also nice.

As you can see from the photos, the roses are in full bloom and it's time to weed whack the irises as they have finished their cycle. The containers of cherries came from our own trees, which we take no credit for because they just appear and we eat them. Neither of us has ever had our own yard to care for and develop before and we are having a great time with this!

Our First Visitors

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Originally uploaded by SethTri

A few weeks ago, Jason and Kristin became our first visitors to Tbilisi. Kristin was going to Bucharest for the NATO summit and Jason tagged along to make it into a Black Sea tour. They had a good time in Bucharest, then flew over to Istanbul then Trabzon, Turkey, took a bus over to Tbilisi. They stuck around here for about 5 days then took the bus back to Trabzon and flew back to Istanbul and home.

It was pretty cool showing some folks around and they kicked us in the pants to do somethings that we've been meaning to do, but never managed to take the time.

We checked out the botanical gardens, walked around and found a "businessman's" house that we weren't allowed to approach or take photos of. This house was HUGE! It a helipad, mutliple 20' waterfalls into some huge pools. Let alone the size of this "house". I mean, I've seen 5 star hotels that looked run down and small compared to this.

Given our issue with the security guard, so then we hiked of to Narakeli fortress. On the way to it, we passed by a "dream tree" where people tie scraps of fabric and make a wish. We checked out the fortress and had some time to kill before dinner, so we headed over to the beer wall.

That's right, I said "Beer Wall". Kazbegi has a stand at their brewery where you can walk up with any container you want and fill it up for dirt cheap. We paid 8 Lari (about $5) for something like 6 Liters of beer. I'm pretty sure it would have been cheaper had we brought our own container.

While there, we saw the interesting side of Georgian life. This guy with an accordian came up looking for tips. Also a bunch of random folks came up looking for a cup of beer or two. We even saw a 5 year old kid, and his 22 year old father drinking a beer. (Yes, that's right, his son was drinking too.) It started raining, so we ducked for cover and ran into a bar down the street.

One day, while they were at the local English bookstore waiting for us to get out of work, they met a couple riding their bikes around the world for bike awareness. We went out to dinner with them a few times and talked to them about their project. Their blog is linked over on the right side.

Jason and Kristin got back on their bus ready for a 13 hr ride back to Trabzon and left Tbilisi a few liters of Kazbegi lighter.

Tbilisi Botanical Gardens

The other day I had several hours between lessons and decided to walk to Narikala Fortress in Old Town Tbilisi for some exercise. While I was climbing around on the fortress walls I peered down over the edge to see a network of bridges and manicured flower beds. "What is this?!" I exclaimed to myself.

It turns out I had found the Tbilisi Botanical Gardens. I walked along the walls looking for a way down. I came upon a turnstile but was given the international symbol for "NO! Don't go there!" (which, in case you're curious, looks like 2 forearms crossing in front of your chest) by a man sitting in a little guard house. So I left. Defeated.

The following weekend our friend Brad took us, along with his 2 children, down a bumpy back street to the lower entrance of the gardens. It was worth the wait. Tucked away behind a looming fortress and hidden among a snake-like network of streets is a gem among the crumbling foundations of this city.

A 1 Lari entrance fee ($0.70) gets you access to a beautifully manicured network of paths, flower beds and streams. Gurgling irrigation pools trickle past you along the paths as you climb past collections of trees and flowers (virtually garbage free, except for this one cave which has a pile of trash in it...alas, the rule of 80%)

The kids were told that they could not pick any flowers except dandelions. As a result, we all carried fist fulls of yellow weeds by the end of the hike. We did our part to clean up the landscape.

We even spotted a couple of people practicing Tae Chi among the trees. As we wrapped around the stream to head back toward the cars one of the kids pulled up short and said, "LOOK!" I looked down to see 3 pink sequins on the ground. Leave it to a 4 year old girl to find the smallest, shiniest pink object in this huge garden.

As we neared the parking lot a noise, which I had mistakenly took for some very large and aggressive birds, became louder. We crossed a foot bridge over the stream and came upon a frog pond (ahhh...so NOT huge killer birds then.) These frogs were having a heated debate over who could boast the biggest "lily pad." Can you spot them?

The Botanical Gardens has made our list of "Places to take people who visit us in Tbilisi."

Of course I said yes!

She said yes!
Originally uploaded by SethTri

The much anticipated story of "How Seth Proposed."

I had arrived in Durango, CO the night before. After racing to make all my connections Seth picked me up at the airport and I could not have been happier to see him (actually, I may have been happier to see all my luggage had made it, but I digress.) We went back to our friend's home and met up with some more great friends whom we hadn't seen in a while.

Thursday morning, January 31, we piled in the cars and headed to Purgatory Ski Resort for a day on the mountain. Being the baby skier that I am I headed toward the "all green" lift while everyone else went to go throw themselves down the mountain the most challenging way possible, with the plan to meet up for lunch at the bottom.

After lunch I had a private lesson scheduled for the rest of the day. As I was heading out to meet my instructor Seth said (ever so casually), "Hey Meg, why don't you have your instructor drop you off at the Powderhouse (a restaurant halfway down the mountain) and we can do the last run of the day together."

It sounded like a good plan to me so I headed out to get schooled on some skiing. Around 3:30 my instructor and I realized that we had lost track of time and were running late. We high tailed it to the Powderhouse. I saw Seth standing, very patiently, by the signs directing skiers to various runs waiting for me.

After quick introductions and thanks for a great lesson my instructor took off and Seth and I turned to head for the bottom of the hill. After a few turns, however, he headed over to the side of the slope and called out, "Hey babe, come over here for a second."

I made my way over and side stepped into the powder next to him.

"I love you." he said.
"I love you too,"

BAM! After luring me in with his sweet talk he pushed me down into the powder, tackled me and started a tickle fight right there on the mountain. Tackling and tickle fights are par for the course with us and after we composed ourselves and caught our breath, we sat up again laughing.

Seth looked at me smiling and said, "I want to make you happy."
"You do make me happy."
"I know, but I want to make you happy for the rest of your life." he said, as he reached into his right pocket and pulled out a ring box.

At this point I may have blacked out, but I think I started mumbling something along the lines of "Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God..." When he opened the box I dropped back down into the snow screaming in excitement and flailing my arms around in snow angel fashion. At which point a member of ski patrol happened to be riding up the passing lift and called down, "Are you OK?"

I realized that I had not actually said "Yes!" yet. I sat up quickly, took Seth's face in my hands and said "Yes! Yes! Yes! We are going to be such a great team!"

To which Seth replied, "You're gonna have to take off a glove."

I stripped off the gloves and put his beautiful ring on my finger and we headed back down the mountain to meet all of our friends who were waiting for us at the bottom. Only 2 of Seth's closest friends knew what he was up to on the mountain that afternoon so the crowd was thoroughly shocked when we walked in.

Beers were bought, photos were taken and hugs were shared all around.

This story has been told many times already and each time I am reminded how fortunate I am to have the love of a man who would take such care and make such an effort to create a moment that was so true to our personalities. With a backdrop of the snowcapped Rockies, in a pile of snow, he asked me to marry him and I said yes.

My Wild Ski Trip

Me and Ouray, CO
Originally uploaded by SethTri

First, as many have heard already, during this ski trip I proposed to Meg. Meg's working on putting together a post describing how. I'm usually leaving it to her to do it because she's so excited. Why not me? Well, I kinda saw it coming, so while I'm still thrilled that she said yes, I never had any doubt that she would. My tone is a little less "OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!" than hers. So, she's a little more fun to listen to tell the story.

Back to our regularly scheduled blog entry... (not really so regular, sorry about that.)

Meg & I went our separate paths on this trip. I left a day earlier than she did and very different routes. My first endpoint (by plane) was Chicago, where I jumped into a (more expensive than anticipated) cab ride to the train station. After a 3 hr wait due to the train being a little frozen over in spots apparently, we got on the 4 hr ride to Jackson where my ever so patient family were waiting for me. Got to my Aunt's house and passed out.

We spent the entire next day talking and catching up. Had some good food and I told the family the game plan for the trip. Then, after dinner, we all piled back into the car and headed to the train station so I could be back in a hotel in Chicago a little after midnight. Pass out there, back in the airport by 7 for my 9:00 departure to Salt Lake City (SLC), Utah.

Pull into SLC where my friend Stephen is waiting for me. We grab lunch at an Italian Deli, check out the Black Diamond shop and meander our way down to Park City, UT where we found a room in a hostel with 2 beds for relatively cheap.

Why only relatively cheap? 'cause for those of us who don't pay attention to Hollywood much, apparently during the last couple weeks of January, there's this little thing going on in Park City called Sundance. Hotels are packed and expensive, parking is insane, but no one is on the mountain because they're all watching movies.

On Wednesday night we did manage to snag a movie. A kinda funny French flick, but we both were struggling to stay conscious for the last 30 minutes. Thursday we hooked up with a ski patrol buddy of Stephen's who got us discount lift tickets to The Canyons and took us into the backcountry. So glad we got the discount tix, because full price for only 3 rides seems insane. Seth's a pretty cool guy who relocated himself from Maine to do the fun stuff in Utah. In a lot of ways I'm jealous. But his work schedule is pretty insane and I don't have the guts to just drop everything and live the lifestyle. (That and
Meg would probably kill me now.)

Thursday night our buddy Joe showed up. Friday the three of us went to Park City (only 150yds away from the hotel!). We skied pretty hard and threw Stephen down some pretty gnarly stuff. He's a trooper though and managed to get down most of it without serious problems. Joe took a pretty good digger that kind whacked his noggin' a bit while trying to mess with Stephen, but that's about as bad as it got.


Apres ski found us hanging out with 6 - 8 former Tampa Bay Cheerleaders. (Some of them clearly VERY former, if you catch my drfit.) But we all kinda laughed about it and Stephen met a ski instructor for a lesson, so it was good. We had dinner, found Joe's knee had swollen to the size of a grapefruit (but no pain) and passed out.

Saturday, Stephen went to a lesson, while Joe & I warmed up on black diamonds. Joe's knee wasn't bothering him, but was still pretty swollen. My head wasn't in the game (jet lag + a few days of hard skiing taking their toll) and I took a doozy of a tumbler. (2 cartwheels followed by 2 somersaults, and a loss of about 40+ feet of vertical.) That woke me up and we really started hitting it again. Joe's knee made him bail by noon and Stephen and I had a good time reinforcing his lesson while I worked on comfort with speed and being fluid. Another awesome day.



Sunday, we bid farewell to Joe at the airport while Stephen and I headed to Ouray, Colorado with the goal of ice climbing on Monday. A major weather system started to hit us though, and when we woke up on Monday morning, 3 passes were closed between us and our final destination (Durango) with a forecast of a long delayed opening, so rather than climb, we drove. What should have been a 1.5-2 hr drive took us 5-6 hrs and 200 miles to get around the 4 closed mountain passes. But we got to Durango, met up with friends and hot tubbed. It was good.

The weather system continued to pound the region and we went skiing on Tuesday, got a bit of ice climbing in on Wednesday, more skiing on Thursday and Friday. (Engaged on Thursday too on the mountain.) We moved into town on Friday where Durango's snowdown was going on. Snowshoing on Saturday morning, Follies (skits) on Saturday night, followed by Superbowl on Sunday. (Not very often I can watch a Spartan catch the winning touch down in a superbowl!)

Monday most of us were planning on leaving. Some had planned on the 6am flight 'cause they had to work on Tuesday and wanted to get to DC at a reasonable hour. We chose the 1pm 'cause we weren't in a hurry. Unfortunately, it had snowed 18" overnight (making that a total of 65" over the course of a week!), and the 1pm was the first flight that wasn't canceled. We got back to DC where my parents were waiting for us and drove us into Arlington.


Dentist, shopping, hang out with my folks, hang out with some friends that couldn't make it into Durango and the next thing you know we're back on a plane to Tbilisi. We did a lot, skied a lot, talked to a lot of people and had a blast. One thing we didn't do: sleep a lot. Wow, I think we're still trying to catch up on that.

Thanks to all for helping make it as great of a vacation as it was. Craig: sorry you couldn't make it this year. It was epic again. How does next year sound?

Snowshoes in Georgia

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Originally uploaded by SethTri

This weekend, it dumped 8-12" over about 48 hours. For Christmas, I had given Meg a set of snowshoes and a down sweater and this was the perfect weather to try it out. We packed up the car at 12:30 and were snowshoeing at Lisi Lake by 1:00pm. (It took us a while to get 'em on the first time.) We spent about an hour hiking around knowing we couldn't get lost because we could always follow our tracks home.

We then sat down and ate some lunch and just enjoyed the peacefulness. We then headed home but had to turn back when I realized I no longer had the camera on me. Apparently when someone (who will remain nameless, but it wasn't me) decided to tackle me in the snow, the camera fell out of my pocket. Not to worry, we back tracked, had more fun hiking in the shoes and found the camera.

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Originally uploaded by SethTri

Wow.. this was fun. With all the fresh powder on the ground and more falling,the entire place was spectacular. So peaceful and quiet, you'd have no idea we were surrounded by city on two sides by no more than half a mile.

I'm a big fan of the saying that photos speak more than words, so here's a bunch just to show you our awesome day.

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Originally uploaded by SethTri

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Originally uploaded by SethTri