Eleanor Lucille Terry

Born Friday, December 28th at 6:19 a.m.

6 lbs 13 oz, 20 1/4 inches long

With Melissa's eyes and nose (we think) and Michael's mouth and chin, 

Melissa's long fingers and toes and Michael's long arms and legs. 

Nora is beautiful and delightful. We're absolutely crazy about her!

December 30th

Grandpa and Grandma were Nora's first visitors.

Happy family of 3

January 3rd

January 5th

January 7th

More baby growth . . .

Last time I posted belly pictures here, we were at 20 weeks. Well, the baby and I have grown A LOT since then . . .

23 weeks

25 weeks

28 weeks

30 weeks (on my way to Charlottesville, VA)

33 weeks (and starting to feel BIG)

35 weeks -- and I'm thinking no more public photos

In case you're wondering, Mike has not gained any sympathy weight. But he has been a very sympathetic partner throughout the pregnancy. 

Baby Showers

My very generous family members and friends have recently hosted two baby showers. It was great to see so many loved ones, and we got such nice gifts!

First, a baby shower with my extended family at my mom and dad's house in Idaho:

My sister-in-law, Sarah, did the decorating. Cute!

The menu consisted of all kinds of dips and they were served in pumpkins from Mom's garden.

Everybody put a few stitches into an adorable crib quilt for the baby.

I opened lots of cute pink presents!

Grandma

Grandma, cousin, aunt

Next, a baby shower in Laramie hosted by good friends AmyJo and Bridgette:

Nursery rhyme theme

To market to market to buy some fresh fruit

Sugar and spice and everything nice muffins

Guests: Jenni, Cathy, Tylita, Sara

Corianne and Melissa

More cute pink girly stuff!

We are getting awfully excited for this baby to arrive, and most of her gear is ready to go, thanks to our very kind and generous friends and family.

Library Assessment Conference

I traveled to Charlottesville, Virginia at the end of October to present at the Library Assessment Conference. I almost cancelled the trip because Hurricane Sandy was supposed to hit the whole East Coast and knock out power for days, but I decided at the last minute to go for it and (luckily) experienced no bad weather, no power outages, and no travel delays.

My presentation is now available from the conference website: http://libraryassessment.org/bm~doc/Bowles-Terry_Melissa_2012.pdf

It was a great conference!

Weekend in Denver

Mike and I just spent a really lovely weekend in Denver -- I guess it was a mini-"babymoon" (who knew that was a thing?).

We saw a theatre production of Lois Lowry's The Giver, which is one of the best YA books of all time.

The book was published 20 years ago, long before the recent rage for dystopian YA novels. It's set in a future where people live in a conflict-free society, but live with no choices and very limited feelings. Everything is very controlled -- there is no sunlight and no color. Seeing the play on stage was not as powerful as reading the book, but there were interesting elements (such as the lack of color) that were really striking in that visual medium.

We stayed overnight in Denver so that we could go to the opening day of a Van Gogh exhibit at the Denver Art Museum, but we failed to purchase tickets in advance. The event was totally sold out for the day, so we didn't get to see the exhibit. We did, however, enjoy other parts of the museum, especially an exhibit titled "When I Last Wrote to You about Africa" by El Anatsui.

Summer 2012

Autumn on UW campus -- so beautiful!

Autumn is here, with red leaves and cooler temperatures. I didn't share much here about the summer that followed our trip to Europe in May, so here's a round-up of some of our trips and activities.

• We want to all of the Snowy Range Theatre productions; my favorite was "Always . . . Patsy Cline," but we also really liked "Santaland Diaries."
• I went to the American Library Association's annual meeting. This year it was in Anaheim (I didn't do any Disney-related stuff, though).
• We went to local parades and 4th of July celebrations.



Melissa walked with the Albany County Democrats in the Jubilee Days parade

• We spent a weekend with my family in Idaho and saw my brother Nick, recently returned from two years in Seattle.
• Celebrated Mike's 33rd birthday!

Birthday present!

• Had visitors from Albuquerque! Mike's brother, Bob, and his family came for a few days.

Here's Isaac and Uncle Mike, going for a hike at Vedauwoo. So cute!

• Had visitors from Idaho! My mom and brother Nick came over Labor Day weekend.

We're going to spend the autumn working hard (fall semester is the busiest), traveling to conferences, and getting ready for the baby girl to join us!

Baby growth

It's amazing to think how many times our tiny baby has doubled in size over the past 4 1/2 months. Here are some pictures documenting our shared growth:

5 weeks

10 weeks

12 weeks -- this is when I started to note a difference!

15 weeks -- this is when others started to note a difference.

18 weeks

20 weeks - half-baked!