Elliott and Lara

Seriously So Blessed

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:46:00 -0500

This was written by Elliott on elliottandlara.com.

Lara and I have long been unsure how to best share photos with loved ones. We did not want to turn our blog into a never-ending series of baby pictures and stories (for a good many reasons, including some technical and philosophical), nor did we want to flood social network streams with loads of photo albums some people simply weren't interested in, nor did we want to have the photos hidden away in some scrapbook or RSS stream that interested parties couldn't find or would forget to check. We tried out Tumblr and considered Flickr. We played around with shared Picasa albums and Pogoplug cloud drives. All services had pros and cons, and a wide range of prices, but nothing quite hit the sweet spot.

I am always open to more suggestions, but I think I have our solution: a Google Plus page.

We have been users of Google+ since its inception, posting and sharing privately with a few close friends and family members. Google has made it incredibly easy to upload and share photos, and to explicitly designate what gets shared with whom. However, I don't want to just designate who sees what, I also want my followers to be able to filter my posts based on their own interests without me having to guess what they like and manage a pretty complicated set of circles. Google+ Pages fill that need.

So, if you'd like to subject yourself to loads of cutesy pictures and endless Seriously So Blessed anecdotes, visit or follow our "Claire" page. Eventually it will be re-named "Claire and X" or "Our crazy family" as it will be the home of all future family photos, but for now, Claire is the main attraction. This blog will resume its erratic postings of musings and travelogues, and our individual Google+ streams will continue to have occasional Claire pictures/stories but mostly links to articles we find interesting.

For Google users:

Addendum: Note that you must "follow" the page for us to be able to add you into the circle of allowed viewers. We originally thought we could just keep it public, but have since decided to keep it private for now.

Northern Exposure

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:25:00 -0500

This was written by Elliott on elliottandlara.com.

Lara and Claire are up in Alaska for a week to visit the grandparents, and Claire got to meet her cousin for the first time! Elsa was born three weeks before Claire (little sneaker, we'd hoped they'd have twinner birthdays) and together they are the first grandkids for my in-laws. Elsa and her mom Emeline were visiting from Chicago.

Lara has promised me that she has taken loads of pictures, though I only have six that she's sent (which have been a constant, but welcome, distraction during studying).

The two girls pre-bath. Lara states that they spontaneously linked arms several times--without any coaching--including for this picture.

Bath fun times:

And my new all-time favorite of Claire:

I love this little girl.

And while it's tough having them away, it's great that we live in the age of free video chat. And also great that the tubes reach all the way up to Alaska.

We're looking forward to meeting Claire's OTHER new cousin, Lydia--born just last week!

The Stats

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:27:00 -0500

This was written by Lara on elliottandlara.com.

Claire and I ran a couple of errands together this afternoon--a kid's clothes store, Costco, and the grocery store.

A month and a half ago, these errands would have taken me 2 hours, max. Today, it took 5. Our outing including the following:

Public crying fits: 1.

Throw-ups that soaked me to the skin: 1 (an improvement over yesterday).

In-car diaper changes: 2.

Parking lot feedings: 2.

Generous offerings of unsolicited parenting advice: 1.

Strangers cooing at my daughter: >12.

Forehead kisses: >30.

Smiles from Claire: >5.

Before Claire was born, Elliott and I would always refer to having kids as ruining our lives. And we totally have. And it's totally awesome.

Claire Hair

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:05:00 -0500

This was written by Elliott on elliottandlara.com.

We get this fancy schmancy camera yet the majority of my pictures of Claire are from my smartphone....but as they say, the best camera is the one you have on you. Here is a random sampling of Claire in low res.

Claire's been enjoying her daily phototherapy sessions. Look how stylish she is!

We're pretty into Claire and into her name, as well. Feel free to leave your suggestions for cool nicknames in the comments section below.

More pictures of Claire Emeline

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:25:00 -0500

This was written by Elliott on elliottandlara.com.

First, some close-ups of Claire:

Some oogling pictures:

Grandma R (Grammy) taking a turn...

(Again, the black--really, dark brown--hair is such a trip.)

Finally, some more camera phone pics from last night. Look at that cute 8+ pounder!

She is here!

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:35:00 -0500

This was written by Elliott on elliottandlara.com.

Claire Emeline was born at 10:27pm last night. She weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and measured 20 inches. Both mother and baby are doing well. Claire is a little angel. Lara is running on just a couple hours of sleep since Tuesday, but she looks radiant.

Lara's water unexpectedly broke Tuesday at 9:30pm before any signs of active labor. Our provider initially had us wait a few hours at home but then called back at 2am to have us come in to the hospital. Besides a few strong contractions, no signs of labor emerged until around 9am Wednesday, though the contractions were of only moderate strength. With a lot of coaxing and work, these continued in strength, but a delayed (by necessity, given the rupture of membranes and risk of infection) pelvic exam many hours later showed only marginal progress. Finally, Lara was put on an oxytocin drip around 4pm, though thankfully she was able to stand, crouch, and sit on a rocking chair despite the need for IV and fetal heart monitoring. She labored through brutal contractions without any anesthesia for an additional six and a half long long hours (total labor = 13h). Claire literally (and yes I do mean literally) did a somersault in her entry into the world, as the midwife untangled her from her cord. It was a very special moment getting to watch Lara and Claire make eyes at each other for the first time, as she was laid on Lara's chest.

The biggest surprise? Claire has a thick head of dark, almost black, hair. Perhaps Lara's distant Cherokee roots decided to make an appearance, though we suspect this may be a temporary look for her.

More pictures to follow...

Blog comments

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 13:34:00 -0500

This was written by elliott on elliottandlara.com.

Sorry...it had been so long between blog postings that I didn't realize our comment notifications weren't being properly forwarded to our email accounts. Thanks for all the comments on our two prior posts!

We just passed our official due date, as our little girl has decided to ride out the cold front hitting Houston. We don't blame her, but we're getting very impatient!

Decent Exposure

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 23:29:00 -0500

This was written by elliott on elliottandlara.com.

Thank you, our sweet unborn lovechild, for providing the justification for blowing a ton of money on a fancy DSLR camera. We've long lamented the fact that we never take enough pictures, a trend we wanted to reverse before Baby Girl comes.

The Houston Arboretum, inside Memorial Park, has long been a favorite place of ours to go for walks, and after the hottest summer on record in Houston, the weather this weekend was absolutely amazing--a little crisp in the mornings and turning warm during the day--so that's where we spent some time Saturday afternoon.
Sadly, the trees in the park, like many of the trees in Houston, haven't survived the drought. It was sad to see so many Xs painted on the trees that need to be removed.

This one was one of the lucky ones not marked for destruction.

This one made me one of the lucky ones, too.

The wide aperture soft focus effect is so cheese, but it's a lot of fun.

We took turns playing photographer during the walk, although we were really good about not fighting over the new toy. However, except where obvious, we're really not sure who took which pictures. There is a GPS add-on for our camera that allows for geotagging of photos in addition to the meta data its already storing; we need a similar feature that lets us easily designate the shooter.

Our sweet little kickboxer. She was very well behaved during the outing, which cannot be said of her behavior the last couple nights while Lara has tried to sleep.

By this time, it was late in the day, and we were working with some really harsh light, but still came away with a few that we were pleased with.

The zoom lens we got is a beast to hold, but it is a lot of fun.

Plus, we really like turtles.

I love how the light picks up the flying critters in this picture. (You can click to see a larger version of any of these.)

We weren't the only ones on the trail, and there were often others passing us by as we had our little photo shoot. I had just been playing with the settings and framing my next shot, but of course, this throw-away shot turned out to be my favorites.

Both surreal and exciting

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 22:00:00 -0500

This was written by Lara on elliottandlara.com.

First, the big news: we're expecting a girl! In fact, today marks 6.5 weeks from her due date (as in...less than two months away from showtime), which is both surreal and exciting. We've been pretty gun-shy telling people, so our apologies if we haven't shared the good news with you personally. By all indications, she has a promising future as a kick-boxer, and my ribs and internal organs wish her all the best, but would rather she postpone her training until she's ex-utero.

Some of you know that last year we lost a pregnancy at 20 weeks (thus being gun-shy this time around with sharing the news), so we feel extra fortunate to so far have indications of good health and no complications for this little one.

Second: for our own benefit more than anyone else's, we'll be recapping some of our adventures and experiences from 2010 and 2011, but first wanted to get back on here and document that, yes, we are alive and well--and that very soon we are going to have both more reasons to blog and more excuses not to.

2009 Recap

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:29:00 -0500

This was written by Lara on elliottandlara.com.

It's that time of year again when we repent for being bad bloggers and give a quick rundown of the last year.

Last March (2009), we decided on Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, TX) for med school and started making plans and preparations for our move. But before leaving D.C., we had a few adventures that haven't made it on our blog.

Spring in D.C.

In March-April, we were visited by Rachel, Hyrum, Caleb, Adam, and Lucas; Camas (and Bethany); Spencer and Emeline; Andrea and Dave (apologies if we missed someone, but it was awhile ago and these are all the pictures we could find!).

The Great Outdoors

Another April highlight was the Cherry Blossom Festival. Growing up, I'd heard my parents talk about the cherry blossoms in D.C. and I kinda thought, eh, what's the big deal? Turns out they're really that lovely.

Also in April: Virginia Beach with danje. You can't help but have ridiculous fun with those guys.

In May, we went rock climbing on Sugarloaf Mountain with Chris and Leigh. We were trying to get some practice...

...for our camping and rock climbing trip with them and others in Pennsylvania in June. On our way back home, we visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water, which was fascinating.

Cooler Than Being a White House Crasher

A couple weeks later, we went to World Refugee Day (after some internet sleuthing to find tickets), where we attended a presentation and afterwards had lunch with and met Khaled Hosseini and Greg Mortensen (and a few surprises, like Anne Curry and Angelina Jolie, who were both very pleasant in person). We were definitely outclassed at the event, but it was inspiring to meet so many good people doing so much good. We left ready to change the world.

Goodbye D.C, Hello Paris!

Later in June, I ran my first race ever (except for the Hot Dog Run in Valdez when I was a kid, but I don't think that counts). It was a 5K, and Elliott was a fantastic cheerleader.

The last day of June was the last day of work for both Elliott and me. The next day, we finished loading up all of our belongings into a single Relocube and got on a flight to Europe, where we spent a good chunk of our savings on a glorious two week trip to France and Greece.

Someday we'll get an account of our trip written up for all the Internets to see, but for now we'll say this: Paris, Athens, and Santorini were fantastic. (Both good food and skinny dipping may have been involved.)

Roadtrip to Texas

When we got home from Europe, we got in the car and drove to Houston. En route, we stopped in North Carolina for a couple days to see the nephews.

Down the road, we stopped at my Grandpa's in Georgia. Elliott and Grandpa had never met each other, so I was glad we got to spend a couple days with him.

Medical school begins, life ends

We only had a couple days between arriving in Houston and Elliott starting med school orientation, so we tried to make quick work of our move-in. For purposes of quiet and security, our choice of a third floor condo was a good one. But as we hauled everything we owned up three flights of stairs in Houston in July, we were seriously reconsidering our decision. (Especially when it came to lifting our crazy-heavy-retrotastic-Craigslist-acquisition treadmill.)

Elliott started school at the beginning of August, and his parents came down for his White Coat Ceremony two weeks later. It was great to have them as our first houseguests in Houston!

School is organized into blocks for Elliott, each around six weeks long, with an exam at the end of each block. Between one block ending and the next beginning, there's usually the better part of a week of no school, which is perfect for having adventures!

After Block 1, we spent a day in Galveston, then went to Austin for the weekend and saw its awesome weirdness, bats, capitol, hiking trails, and a geeky computer museum.

After Block 2, we went camping/rock-climbing with several other BCM students (as part of Baylor's Wilderness Medical Society) just west of San Antonio. A cold rainstorm hit late in the night, and only one person in our large group managed to stay dry. Elliott and I switched spots partway through the night, so both of us had the chance to sleep in the large puddle in our tent. However, the following day turned out sunny and pleasant and absolutely perfect for rock climbing. On our way home, we stopped in San Antonio for a few hours, where we had dinner and explored the River Walk.

The next day was Halloween, and we attended Baylor's annual celebration, Coffeehouse, a variety show put on by the medical students. A great time was had by all. There was a costume contest and we took second place as Kanye West and Taylor Swift (losing to a pretty awesome Russel from "Up").

To continue our winning streak, the next week we brought the prize-winning hummus to a "Stuff White People Like" party thrown by our friend Lauren, and received spectacularly ugly sweaters for our efforts.

Long December

Elliott and I spent most of December apart; I was in Alaska, helping my Mom after shoulder surgery, and Elliott was in Houston with his nose to the scholastic grindstone. It was great for me to be with my family and great for Elliott to be able to focus on school, but it reminded us that we'd much rather be with each other than not.

A couple days after Elliott's Block 3 exams were over, I returned from Alaska. I'd been home 18 hours when we loaded up and drove to North Carolina for Christmas. Elliott's whole family was gathering and we were the final two to arrive, bringing the total to 15, including our four nephews and our brand new niece, who we got to meet for the first time during our visit. It was so great to all be together and we had a great Christmas!

Life in General

We've been pleasantly surprised at how much we enjoy living in Houston, despite the failed promise of pleasantly warm winters.

Living inside the loop has been a nice change for Elliott (who went to high school in the suburbs), and living adjacent to the Texas Medical Center has made it easy to commute to school, go running in Herman Park or around Rice, and visit places like the Rothko Chapel.

Elliott is able to bike to school most days, and with our purchase of a bike for me, we have started going on biking adventures together. (Last week we discovered an amazing city park--complete with hills and unpaved backwoods "mountain" trails--in Houston.)

Also of late, we have been engaged in several home improvement projects, which we will be unveiling in later blogs.

It's been a good year and we've been able to do lots of fun things, but right now, most of all, we're hanging in there as medical school and the job hunt grinds on.

2 Years Down

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:41:00 -0500

This was written by Lara on elliottandlara.com.

One of the things I love about mine and Elliott's relationship is this: every once in a while, one of us will throw out a totally unrealistic idea, and then the other says, yeah, okay, let's do it!

Like having exclusively ice cream for dinner the other night.

Or getting married in Hawaii two years ago.

Both great decisions.

Today we earn our associates degrees in marriage, with high marks all around. And best of all, we still like each other. Like a lot.

Cinnamon Girl

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:08:00 -0500

This was written by lara on elliottandlara.com.

I wanted to start a tradition of cinnamon/orange rolls for October General Conference, so I spent last week looking at different recipes, deciding at the last minute on one from King Arthur Flour. A lot of butter later, I had these to show for my work.

A little more butter, a little more sugar, and I had these babies.

I made a lot so we could buy friends with the valuable currency of baked goods.

We'd hoped to deliver the goods before 11:00 conference started, but we weren't ready in time so we decided to deliver them between sessions. I didn't want them getting hard during the two hour wait, so I put them back in a slightly warm oven with a pan of water to keep them nice and soft. For good measure, I also spritzed them with water from a spray bottle.

Now, about six months ago I bought a four-pack of spray bottles from Costco, identical except for the bottles' color accents. I use them as water bottles for plants and laundry (and sometimes cooking) and for homemade and reconstituted household cleaners. Perhaps you see where this is going.

Once the orange and cinnamon rolls were in the oven, I grabbed the bottle next to the stove to give them one last mist before I let them be. *mist* *mist* *mist mist* Then in one of those slow-motion realizations, the slight smell of lemon verbena tells me something's not right. I wasn't spraying water but Mrs. Meyer's All Purpose Cleaner on the cinnamon rolls that were supposed to make us friends.

I shriek and Elliott rushes in, frantic to know which family member just died. I'm standing there, horrified, but manage to tell him, between sobs and giggles, what I've done.

After spending hours making almost sixty orange and cinnamon rolls, I was determined someone outside of our house was going to enjoy them. Luckily there were enough that weren't in the oven with their ill-fated brothers that we managed to deliver a couple plates of non-cleansed goodies, but if we never manage to have more than 2 friends in Houston, we'll all know why.

The Cost Conundrum

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:23:00 -0500

This was written by Elliott on elliottandlara.com.

Today's Lunch Break:

The Cost Conundrum, by Atul Gawande

I started to summarize my favorite points from this piece, but I decided against it. Because...you need to read the article in its entirety [1]. It's that good.

Yes, I am a soon-to-be-medical-student, so naturally this is a topic of great interest to me. But I hope that by reading Gawande's article, you too are convinced that health care reform is the most important issue in America today, with great personal relevance to each citizen and with far reaching fiscal implications for our country. It is not an issue that can be solved with simple solutions, talking points, or finger pointing. I am beginning to see that the usual points of debate (i.e. private vs public insurance) are largely irrelevant to many of the fundamental problems. Like Gawande, I believe that we must lay aside ideology for empiricism if we are ever going to succeed.

Today Obama addressed the American Medical Association (and for the first time I followed live tweets [2]). There is much that could be said, good and bad, about Obama's speech, but I was happy to learn that he (President Obama) had also read Gawande's piece.

While I continue to worry about health care reform, that in itself is a reason for hope.

[1] When you're done with that, a great commentary on Dr. Gawande's article can be found here. An interesting take on Obama's speech can be found here. For more insights by Dr. Gawande, check out Better (a must read) or watch the lecture he gave to us at the National Institutes of Health. Also, an interesting piece ("The Isolationism of Health Reform") was posted on Slate last night.

[2] Yes, I am one of those users...and I read more about Twitter in tech news than actually use it.

On Science, Faith, and Boxes

Tue, 05 May 2009 13:44:00 -0500

This was written by Elliott on elliottandlara.com.

Today's Lunch Break:
The evangelical atheists and Mormon anti-evolutionists have joined forces

Those who know me well know that science is a subject very dear to my heart. When given the chance to speak at my graduation convocation for the College of Life Sciences a year ago, I spent my entire alloted time quoting Elder John Widtsoe and Dr. Francis Collins and gushing about the beauty of biology and evolution.

Those who know me well have probably also had me pestering them to check out The Mormon Organon, a blog written by my former BYU professor. The following excerpt is from his latest post, and is today's featured LB article.

(Note: I wanted to highlight certain sentences, but it is all so good I don't know where to begin. Just read it, even though your brain may want to bypass it since, you know, its indented.)

"The presence of God is found in inwardness, as Kierkegaard argued. God's grace is his willingness to be known. Directly. Not found as part of a scientific deduction. This is where the fear of evolution goes astray...

"The naïve view that we must protect our belief in God from the physical facts of the universe (like evolution, big bang etc.) generates harm because it suggests that God can only work in our lives like we can--as a physical mechanic that intervenes in simple manipulations of matter (God took a handful of dust and made it into a body like an advanced claymation creature). No. Unlike the atheists, and those believers who have joined with them, in thinking the battle is fought in the physical world, I suggest that they look towards building a relationship with God in the inward reaches of their soul. That's where the atheists will find the evidence they seek, and the believers will find they don't need to protect our religion from the findings of science. And what they'll find once they discover (the atheists), or trust (the threatened believers), this relationship with God in inwardness, they'll find that God permeates the physical universe in ways they never expected."

I often think of a film from my molecular biology class. It was a documentary of college students from strong Bible-belt upbringings making their journey into the sciences, chronicling their early concerns and later passion for the study of evolution. In the film, it was evident that these students had decided—despite their parent's anger and vitriol towards the subject—that they didn't have to choose between science and faith. In the words of one of the students (I simply love this line): "God was bigger than the box I put him in."

One does more than miss out on the inspiring beauty and order of nature by dismissing science—they also unwittingly and arrogantly constrain God. Feeling empowered by their interpretation of scripture that was never meant to be a treatise on history, geology, or physics, they insist that He did things at a certain time in a certain way that fits within the rigid confines of their worldview—forgetting that God's ways are not our ways, nor his thought our thoughts.

God is bigger than that box. And yet, even after one moves past the dogma that God had to manually sculpt the first humans out of raw materials, it's probably still impossible to escape framing God in other ways. To a certain extent, that's OK. Boxes can serve a purpose, just as Newtonian physics is still taught as a precursor to quantum mechanics. But until we know the truth of all things, man-made boxes should not be the end-all for a God who is endless.

While evolution may seem a controversial subject, the reality is that evidence from the fossil record and genetics is mounting and undeniable. I for one do not believe that God is trying to trick us with all these clues in the natural world. I like this written response to my professor's article:

"...Could all things on and in the earth have been created how they are or placed on the earth as they are as a deception to try our faith? No! As Alma states, "all things denote there is a God". If this is true (and it came from the mouth of Alma), how can science disprove God or be at odds with the gospel? It can't and it's not! The evidence and history contained in the rocks and in the earth are the evidence and history of the hand of God. No member of the church should fear having their faith tried when they visit a natural history museum. On the contrary, it should be a faith building experience as I'm sure your BYU classes are as well."

Having a healthy attitude towards science does more than just help us spiritually. In writing this post, I am reminded of a New York Times essay I read last January:

"That endeavor [science], which has transformed the world in the last few centuries, does indeed teach values. Those values, among others, are honesty, doubt, respect for evidence, openness, accountability and tolerance and indeed hunger for opposing points of view. These are the unabashedly pragmatic working principles that...is slowly and thoroughly penetrating every nook and cranny of the world."

I hope that it is true. And I hope that believers embrace these fruits of science openly and freely, instead of waging destructive culture wars. For while science and religion serve us in completely different ways—and while God's grace, in the words of my professor, is "not part of a scientific deduction"—I believe that science deserves an important place for every person of faith.

I've rambled, and I could go on much further. I hope, at the very least, I've convinced you that science is not just a lame subject in high school or a pork project that McCain twitters against. Expect to hear more on this subject from me in the future.

UPDATE: I just learned about The BioLogos Foundation, which was recently established by Dr. Francis Collins. I highly recommend a visit to the website, http://biologos.org.

Boys Will Be [Boys]

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:36:00 -0500

This was written by Lara on elliottandlara.com.

Today's Lunch Break:
Dude, You've Got Problems

A while back I declared I wanted to phase out cleaning chemicals and instead use vinegar, baking soda, etc. for household cleaners. (This isn't totally related to the LB article, but bear with me for a moment.) Elliott is great at supporting me in what I want to do, so of course he was okay with it (especially after I assured him the house wouldn't constantly smell like pickles). In fact, he recently cleaned the bathroom while I wasn't home and used vinegar, even though other cleaners were in the cabinet. But the first thing Elliott said when I made my announcement was, with a big grin, "We're going to be the hippie family, aren't we?"

And the thing is, I kinda hope so. I hope we're able to avoid enough of the less admirable aspects of our culture that we end up coming across as a little weird. I'm fine with that. But I worry about our kids. I'm okay not being in lockstep with the mainstream, but it can be tougher for a kid.

Now, I'm not hoping my children will be best of friends with the kids getting highlights and bikini waxes at age 10 (don't even get me started), but it's also not my goal to alienate them from their peers. Their lives would be easier and more enjoyable if they weren't mocked every day at school for not being able to identify the 15-years-from-now-equivalent of the Jonas brothers. Or Miley Cirus. Or whoever.

I won't try to make my kids weird, but chances are good they will be, at least a little. Maybe they won't understand all the TV references. Maybe they'll be jealous of their friends' lunchables. Maybe they'll just be a little awkward, due to being my child.

I worry for my future girl(s), but the girl issues I know something about (see bikini waxes at 10). I can identify objectification of women a mile away. I've worked with girls with eating disorders. And, you know, I've been a girl.

Now, back to the LB article. It's my future boy(s) that have me really worried.

"Boy culture" is being heard loud and clear: to be something other than the narrowest, stupidest sort of guy's guy, is to be unworthy of even being alive.

The article talks about boys whose offenses are doing well in school, liking bright clothes, or enjoying books and as a result, are taunted mercilessly.

It's weird, isn't it, that in an age in which the definition of acceptable girlhood has expanded, so that desirable femininity now encompasses school success and athleticism, the bounds of boyhood have remained so tightly constrained?

Chances are our boys won't fit the mold. And they'll be brilliant and successful and happy...if they can just make it through middle school.