2 weeks old!

Even though it feels like Madeleine has been part of our family for a lot longer than just two weeks, we are far from having her figured out! Thankfully, apart from the odd gas attack, she has continued to be a very settled baby so far. She constantly entertains us with her faces, expressions, and noises, and we are amazed at how much she has grown already. At the last midwife visit a couple of days ago, she was up to 8.8lb (from 8.1 at birth)! Steve has been back at work this week, and I have continued to rest up, but did manage to take Madeleine out for her first, very short, walk in the stroller earlier this week. After a bit of fussing, she fell right asleep.

We have been using cloth nappies - a combination of old Curity diapers that Mom brought over (used on my sister and me some 30+ years ago!), and YoYo nappies made by a woman here in NZ. So far they have been working really well, and we have had enough sunny days to get them mostly dried outside.
Today was a beautiful, calm, sunny Sunday, so we headed out to the Pencarrow Coast for a walk. Madeleine slept the entire time, and we enjoyed a picnic lunch on the shore.

We have created a new web album for Madeleine, so feel free to check it out (click on the picture below) - we will update it regularly and post more pictures of her there than here on the blog.

Madeleine Ngaio Gibson

Madeleine Ngaio Gibson

Just over a week ago, we welcomed little Madeleine Ngaio Gibson into the world. My labour started at 3am last Friday night and by 10am we were at the hospital and I was already 8-9cm dilated. She was born at 14:10 on Saturday, May 7th, weighing 3.66kg (8lb 1oz), with a bit of help from the vacuum because she was so high up in the pelvic canal. It was an amazing experience for us, and I am so thankful it went as well as it did. We picked the name Madeleine because we both love it. For her middle name we chose Ngaio (pronounced with a silent 'g' as in nye-oh), which is a Maori name here in NZ. I love the sound of it, and I've had a couple elderly patients named Ngaio, who made impressions on me. I think down here, it is a bit of an old lady name (and not one of the 'cool' ones yet), and it is also the name of a tree native to NZ.

Daddy holding his little girl for the first time.
Madeleine wearing the toque knit by her Grammie, my Mom.
Saturday night, at the hospital, the three of us spending some quality family time together.
Sunday morning, Madeleine got to wear her blue sweater outfit that Grandma Georgia mailed over - the same one that Steve wore in the hospital when he was born.
Madeleine telling Grandpa Mark all her stories. My parents were cycling north of Auckland when my labour started. I called them and they started their journey back, taking an overnight bus from Auckland and arriving here on Sunday morning. It was wonderful to be able to share those early moments with family!
We came home from hospital Sunday afternoon, and have enjoyed being home with her. I am having to force myself to rest more than I would like - I feel exhausted after the smallest amount of walking!
Our little Canadian in her patriotic colours.
Her first bath (prompted by her first really big dirty nappy!), with the towel sent by Great Gramma Hoffmann. She didn't exactly love the bath, but once she was out, she was happy again.
Cozy cuddles with Grammie, before bedtime. My parents have been such a huge help to us this first week. They have cooked delicious meals, done countless loads of laundry (we are using cloth nappies, so I do mean countless!), and Dad is even in the middle of building us bedside tables. Needless to say, Madeleine is loving all the cuddles and attention from them as well.
I know it has only been a week, but so far, Madeleine has been such a good baby. She has learned to latch and feed well, and is sleeping 2-3 hour chunks during the night. She often cries when her nappy is being changed, but as soon as she has clothes on again, she stops. Her cry has only been piercing once - after I had eaten some coleslaw for lunch and she got really bad gas. I will be avoiding coleslaw from now on! Our midwife comes to our home for check ups every few days, and Madeleine was 3.625kg on Friday's visit.

Here is a family shot, taken on our deck on Thursday.

Mt John Spectrograph Testing

Hello all - Steve here. Thought I'd share some of the pictures I took while at Mt John for three weeks in April testing out the new spectrograph.

Since Mt John is on the South Island (at a town called Lake Tekapo), we packed the spectrograph up in a van to take it to the observatory. AK joined me for trip, which involved taking the 3hr long Cook Strait ferry between the two islands. Here's a picture of AK on the ferry with the rental van - with the spectrograph and all its required bits strapped down securely for the trip.

Luckily the seas were calm that day, and we were also able to see a few dolphins playing in the ferry's wake. After arriving on the South Island, it took us about 11 hours of driving to reach Lake Tekapo. Normally we would have been staying at the observatory itself, but since they were renovating the accommodation building we stayed in the town at a holiday home. My advisor Stuart met us in Lake Tekapo, and he stayed for the full two weeks of testing (AK stayed for a few days then flew back to Wellington). The house had a great view of the lake and mountains from the front deck, and it was nice to see some of the trees displaying fall colours.

The following day Stuart and I rounded up a few guys to help lift the spectrograph out of the van. I had taken all of the optics and delicate parts off the table for the trip, but the table still weighed several hundred pounds and took 5-6 people to lift it out of the van!

While Stuart and I started unpacking and putting the spectrograph back together, AK took the van and did some exploring around Mt John. Here's a picture of Mt John and the observatory (little white dots on top of the hill) from 'ground level'.

And here's one of Lake Alexandrina (a small lake next to Lake Tekapo).

At one point she had to stop so that a herd of sheep could cross the road:

We had a couple of days to get set up, and then on our first scheduled night on the telescope we had our official 'first light' - we took a spectrum of a star named Antares.

In this spectrum, you can think of each line as a range of wavelengths (or colours), with blue at the top, red at the bottom, and the other colours of the rainbow in between. Antares is a very red star, which is why the top (or blue) lines aren't as bright as the red ones at the bottom. Unfortunately our camera only takes black and white images so you can't see the colours directly (colour digital cameras aren't as sensitive as black and white ones so they're not used as much in astronomy).

Although it may not look that exciting, by studying the dark notches within the brighter lines, one can tell what the star is made of, how fast it is moving through space, whether or not it has a companion star with it, or whether or not it has a planet around it. For example, on the fifth line from the bottom, on the left of center there are two broad dark notches. Those two 'absorption lines' show that Antares has sodium in its atmosphere.

After we had the spectrograph up and running, we spent the next two weeks taking hundreds of spectra of many different stars. Stuart and I would start work around 4pm and head home around 7am. As well as taking spectra, we also spent some time making small changes and improvements - here's a picture of me making up some temperature sensors at about 3am one night:

One advantage of working nights was the spectacular sunrises. Here are a couple pictures of them:

A few days before the end of our testing run, AK's Dad Mark flew down to meet up with me and help with the long drive back. It was a good chance for him to see a bit of the South Island, and I definitely appreciated having some company on the trip home.

So, overall it was a very successful trip - the spectrograph worked great and actually performed better than we had hoped for a first trial run. We have another two weeks booked on the telescope in July, so I'll be kept busy until then analyzing all of our data from this trip and making some small changes to the spectrograph for the next one (not to mention the arrival of our little one sometime in the next few weeks!)

Here's one last picture of the moon and the 1 metre telescope we were using.

Pencarrow Lighthouse

Over the Easter weekend, one of my good friends from nursing school came to visit. Tanya lives in Vancouver, but is currently working in the remote northern regions of Manitoba. She was in NZ to visit her siblings who are here temporarily, and made a special trip down to windy Wellington. It was so much fun to have a friend from home visit. The weather was definitely not at its best though, so we had to take advantage of the few times it wasn't raining. On Sunday afternoon, we all walked out to Pencarrow Lighthouse, about 1.5h each way.

The gravel road is closed to public vehicles and follows the Pencarrow coastline until you go up a little hill to get to the lighthouse.
It was VERY windy at the top of the hill, and although the views are beautiful, it was hard to stand up straight in the strong winds!
My Dad and Steve both leaning into the wind...
My parents were here over the Easter weekend, and have now made their way to Auckland via train, in search of warmer (and hopefully sunnier) weather. They packed up their bike panniers and got their tandem bike all ready, and are planning to head north from Auckland, into the more rural and quiet areas of the far north. In the 3.5 weeks they have been here so far, they have cooked, cleaned, fixed, and knitted their way along. It has been wonderful to have their company, and we'll look forward to seeing them again soon. We've equipped them with their first cell phone ever, and the plan is for us to text them when the baby arrives. Then they'll make their way back south to meet their first grandchild.

Point Howard

This week my Mom, Steve, and I walked up to the top of Point Howard and along one of the bush tracks. There were beautiful views of Wellington Harbour from the top.

Here is Steve, me, and my 36 week belly...

It may be Autumn here, but there are still flowers and trees in bloom.

Steve is back home now, and trying to get back to 'normal' workdays, where he works only 8 hours instead of 12+. He has some great photos from his time on the South Island, but I will let him post them and give a full report.

35 weeks

Here is another picture of the growing baby belly! I am nearing the end of 35 weeks now, so just another month to go. Steve is still on the South Island and has our camera, so unfortunately pictures have been lacking for the last few weeks. I am feeling great, and still really enjoying the pregnancy. The baby is very active, but I continue to sleep really well, and have been using some of my vacation days to make the work weeks shorter. I have 6 days of work left over this week and next, and then I'll be finished for the next 6-7 months. Paid maternity leave here in NZ is 14 weeks, so after that we will be using some of our savings, and we will have to see how it goes before deciding exactly when I'll head back to work.

My parents flew in from Vancouver this past week, and we have stuck close to home, keeping busy with sorting through baby things and errands. Dad has accomplished a huge amount around the house and yard already. It is wonderful to have them here and their help is very appreciated. They have done everything from laundry to cooking to garbage, and I'm feeling very spoiled. Once Steve returns, they will likely start to plan some cycling adventures here on the North Island.

My Dad is flying down to meet up with Steve later this week, to help Steve with the long drive back to Wellington. Steve reports that their testing period with the spectrograph is going really well - better than they expected, in fact - and he is very ready to be finished with these long night shifts. He has been at the observatory every night from about 5:30pm - 5:30am, and then sleeps until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. I'm sure he will have some great pictures of Tekapo sunsets and sunrises, so hopefully I can post some of those next week.

First Light

"First light" is what astronomers and opticians call the first time you put light through a finished instrument. In its most genuine form it is light from an actual star, but in many instances it is first simulated in a lab setting. After many months of working long hours, and many weeks of working weekends, Steve was able to put the first light through the spectrograph that he's been designing and building. When I went over to pick him up and get a glimpse of the finished instrument, I walked in and saw a bunch of guys all ooohhing and aahhing over the instrument. Everyone that Steve works with has been very impressed not only with his hard work, but also with the finished product.

Below, Steve is in the work area where he built and tested the spectrograph. The little room to the right is a "clean room" where the actual instrument sits on a special table. The 'clean' factor is key because of all the mirrors and glass surfaces in the instrument that have to stay in pristine condition.

Here is Steve inside the clean room, with the spectrograph. All the parts are placed at specific distances from each other to ensure the light travels at the correct angles.

The final product of the spectrograph is a picture made up of dots and lines that's shown on a computer screen. This is what's called a spectrum, and what the spectrograph does is similar to what happens when white light is split into the rainbow of colours by a prism. A digital camera then takes a picture of the spectrum and sends it to the computer screen. The images are analyzed and from them astronomers can tell all sorts of things about a given star, like whether there are other companion stars nearby, what the star is made of, how fast it is moving, and whether or not it might have planets around it.

So now that the spectrograph is in working condition, Steve will pack it up and drive it to the large observatory on the South Island. Steve and I will share the driving on the way down (it is about 9 hours after the 3hr ferry ride), but he will stay there until mid-April for testing and then drive back on his own. After this stint of testing, there will undoubtedly be adjustments and refinements to be done, as well as analyzing any data they get. It has been a long road, but well worth the effort when, as Steve said over the phone to me today, "it works!"