Winter Update

Hi All! It has been a long while since my last update here on blogger, but it was a busy fall. We're now settling in for a huge winter storm that is forecasted to dump up to 2 feet of white fluffy stuff on us by Friday! Anyways, we had a great fall break, spending a quiet Thanksgiving here at home. We just returned from St. Louis after having spent a few days there with family and friends for Christmas. It was great to see everyone, but especially Riley! We haven't seen her in person (only via Skype) since last Christmas! Here are a few of my favorite pics from the trip back to St. Louis:






The most exciting news of all, however, is the newest addition to our family! He's a F1b Labradoodle with a cream colored fleece coat and is the cutest thing ever! We just picked him up from a great breeder in Golden, CO a few days ago, and he is settling in so quickly! Charlie (named for Jeremy's favorite book: "Travels with Charlie" by John Steinbeck) lived up to his name sake with a smooth 6 hour drive home. He has been comfortable enough with us to chow down on some puppy chow, romp around in the snow, and he even slept the whole night through on the first night home! Here are some of my favorite pics!

Fall, 2010

This fall we've been trying to enjoy as much of the fall colors as we can, especially on the beautiful fall days. There as also been a quite a bit of rain, but I'm perfectly willing to put up with those days when amazingly vibrant rainbows accompany them! Here are a few of my favorites from the past couple of weeks...

The latest trip to Mesa Verde, the weather was psychotic with ominous clouds and some rain, but there were also brief periods of beautiful sunshine! We took a hike we've never been on before to see some cool petroglyphs!

Spruce House in Mesa Verde from a new angle! As we wrapped up our hike to the petrolglyphs, it brought us out on the opposite side of the mesa top than where we usually snap pictures from.

The previously mentioned ominous clouds...

The vivid colors of changing leaves...

Alpine glow at Alta Lakes, CO...

Ouray, CO...

And, last but not least, a shot from a few weeks ago as we headed home from school...

Oscar Meyer (1995-2010)

Dogs' lives are too short. Their only fault, really. ~Agnes Sligh Turnbull

Film Fest

This weekend was the Telluride Film Festival, and Jer and I saw two movies. Both of them were fabulous!

One was Never Let Me Go, which was a beautifully done British film, but it was extremely deep and dark. Although it was great movie, I don't foresee it becoming a widely seen film by the general public. I also wouldn't want to necessarily see it again, as just the one viewing will most likely stay with me for a long while (very similar to the feeling I had after The Road with Viggo Mortenson last year). Seeing it with the two main actors/actresses, the director and producer sitting in the same auditorium was surreal as usual.

Never Let Me Go was about a group of orphans who were raised for the sole purpose of being organ donors. Although this may bring to mind a sci-fi thriller, it was nothing of the sort. Instead, it was set in the beautiful English countryside and done in a more artistic style.

For me, it was so overwhelming and hard to deal with for two reasons:
1. It was set in the 19050s-1990s, not in the future as many movies dealing with difficult issues of cloning and human rights are. This made it impossible to dismiss it as a possible future occurrence.
2. The characters just accept their fate and never fight back. I get the feeling this was done to make people angry and fight back against submission... In many other fictional movies about people who's human rights are taken away, there is someone who comes in to save the day. That makes for a good Hollywood ending, but often shuts down the thinking that was provoked to begin with.

The second film we saw was The King's Speech, which was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Of course, Jer and I are both history nerds and have been into this period of history lately (I'm talking podcasts, documentaries, and more), but I believe anyone would fall in love with the film and rejoice at the triumph of the human spirit in the end. And seeing the movie immediately after Laura Linney presented Colin Firth with the Silver Medallion award on the stage right in front of us, as well as a tribute reel of Firth's most notable roles and a Q & A session with Firth, just made the whole experience amazing.

The King's Speech is a film showcasing the relationship between Queen Elizabeth II's father King George VI (played by Firth of course) and his speech therapist (played by the Geoffrey Rush). Bertie had a severe stammering problem and was never supposed to be king until his older brother abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry a woman not acceptable to the British government (according to other accounts Jer and I have been listening to, the older brother also had some ties with Hitler which was of course unacceptable on the eve of WWII).

This put Bertie in the unfortunate position of becoming king, which was the last thing he wanted. With the radio and newsreels being widely used for the first time, the king could no longer hide in the palace. He had to make speeches to his subjects via radio transmissions and provide a strong monarch the country could be united behind... and a man with a speech impediment was not necessarily the best man for the job. Enter Geoffry Rush as the unconventional speech therapist. I absolutely LOVED the combination of Collin Firth and Geoffrey Rush in these roles! Even though this was a very serious issue, the two also made the audience laugh. And in the end I was crying with joy.

Quite a fabulous weekend! I'm sure there were many, many other great films this weekend as well, but we are happy with two we chose. Definitely be on the look out for the releases of Never Let Me Go and The King's Speech!

Back to reality (and school) tomorrow. I probably won't be running into the likes of famous actors and directors until next Labor Day, but considering the fact that we live at 8000 feet, my head will still be in the clouds :). Hope you've had a wonderful Labor Day!

Here We Go Again!

After week one of my seventh year of teaching, I am feeling exhausted! It's amazing how tiring the first week can be, even though it was a great week. My kids are so cute and little, but some of them have very boisterous personalities. There were a few instances that foretell of an interesting year to come!

This weekend we're relaxing and resting up, but last weekend we were booked to the max! Saturday we took a jeeping trip over Cinamon Pass to Lake City with our neighbors. It was beautiful! Lots of pics included below!

And then on Sunday we had a bunch of friends over for an end of summer party. So much good food and fun! Of course when Jer's in charge of cooking you can always expect enough food to feed an army. Sunday's meal included elk steak, homemade mac 'n cheese, potato and leek casserole, and a giant salad! It was a great way to end the summer, even if I didn't get in as much school time as I would have liked. It was obviously fine, as I made it through the first week of school without any planning/prep disasters :)

Fun, Fun, Fun

The past week we've been visiting with friends, shopping, and more. We even met up with Kat, a friend from when I was living in Columbia, MO who happened to be backpacking through Scandinavia! It's a small, small world! After several very expensive drinks at an English Pub in Södermalm (we're talking like $10 a beer!) it was early on Saturday morning (1am), and Jer finally found the perfect time for me to try my first tunnbrödsrullar. This is an interesting delicacy of Stockholm street food consisting of a hot dog, shrimp salad, mashed potatoes, relish, and various other condiments all rolled in a flat pita bread. I have never seen or tasted anything like it!

On Sunday Jer took me to Skogskyrkogården, which is cemetery south of Stockholm that was founded in the early 1900s. It was designed to blend architecture and nature together. It was a misty, rainy, cool day, which was the perfect atmosphere to take in the beauty and peacefulness of this site.

Yesterday we went on a day cruise to Åland, which is an island that technically belongs to Finland, so I can say I've been to that country too! We got up extremely early to meet Claudine, Kennett, and Maxze and drive over to the cruise ship. We all had a great day eating from a traditional Swedish smörgåsbord for breakfast and lunch, sitting on the sun deck watching the outer archipelago and the Baltic Sea float by, and squeezing in some tax free shopping.

Only a few more days to squeeze in final visits with friends, walks, and souvenir shopping for this trip!

Pics from our day cruise to Åland:







Pics from Skogskyrkogården:

Checking Things Off

In the last week Jer and I have been checking things off our list of must-dos while we're here in Stockholm. We also forced ourselves to take a few days off and just rest at home, as I had a nasty cold, and neither of us were sleeping well. The good news is that today my ears and throat have ceased aching completely, and I'm coughing very little! Hopefully, we'll both be able to stay healthy for the last 8 days of our trip! Here's what we've been up to in the last week:

1. Saturday we went to the National Museum, which is the Swedish art museum. They had some pieces by great impressionists that have work in every museum around the world, but they also focused on a few Swedish impressionists. However, I think my favorite part of the museum was an exhibit with marble statues in a room surrounded by windows to let in natural light. They even had a "station" to showcase how various types of lighting can change how you view a piece of art. It was refreshing to see a new take on an exhibition in what otherwise was a traditional art gallery. There are few pics below.
2. We spent Tuesday making the long trek via public transportation out to the country side to visit a former colleague of Jeremy's and her family. Their extended family has a little "compound" of tiny summer cottages built on land adjacent to the Baltic, and it was gorgeous! I would love to have a place like that no matter what country it was in! Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to share, but picture tiny two-four room cottages built our of wood and painted read with white trim, very typical Swedish :)
3. We've also been spending evenings with friends for drinks and dinner both out and in our teeny tiny apartment. It's so small, but we were able to cook and serve a pretty good spread for dinner without too much hassle. And it even motivated Jeremy to help clean up a bit :)
4. After recommendations from two unrelated people, we headed to Fotografiska today. It's a photography museum with a few large exhibitions. One was Lennart Nilsson's A Child is Born, which I found very interesting, but I think Jer was a bit wierded out. It follows the journey of a child from conception to birth. We also saw a large exhibition of Annie Leibovitz's work. She's a famous portrait photographer (you know... the shot of Demi Moore when she was pregnant...). I really liked a lot of her professional stuff and even some of her personal family photos. However, the exhibit seemed to be all over the place in it's set up, and I didn't really get the flow. Maybe I was missing something...

I think that's it for now. Here are just a few of my favorites from the art museum:

Midway Through the Trip

The last few days have been a bit more low key than the first week and a half. We spent an afternoon and evening with Robin and his family, having a picnic and playing in the park with his two kids. They were extremely cute and very Swedish with their curly blond hair and pale skin. At two-ish and five-ish, they were full of energy and wanted to impress the visitors (Jeremy and I), but since they only speak Swedish, it was hard for me to understand what they were saying. However, in the non-verbal language of kids... I was in much better shape! We had a great afternoon and evening with them!

The next day we spent almost the entire day at home (besides a leisurely evening walk), as I wasn't feeling well. I've managed to come down with a cold/sinus infections/allergies, which is causing my ears and throat to ache. As usual with me, it is worse at night and completely bearable during the day, but since I can't seem to get much good sleep, I'm not as chipper as I would like to be even during those daytime hours.

After a day spent at home, I was ready to be a tourist again today. We headed to the Vasa Museum, which houses a giant boat built by a Swedish king in the 1600s. It was massive and the decorations extremely intricate! Very impressive, but it's also somewhat ironic that this boat (which sank on it's maiden voyage, and was therefore an utter failure) is now a hugely popular attraction here in Stockholm. There were tourists from all over the world there today, not to mention the line of 200+ people that were waiting outside the museum the other day when Jer and I originally attempted to visit.

Below are a few pics... some of hot air balloons that float above the city nightly, and then of course those from the museum.