Hello Laramie!

We're thrilled to be living in Laramie, Wyoming. We love the bright, blue sky, the quaint downtown, and the numerous bike lanes throughout town! One of Laramie's charms is the farmer's market that happens every Friday afternoon during the summer. A couple of downtown streets are actually closed to cars to facilitate the market (not pictured, yet).

We found this downtown sign pretty intersting.

We thought this double rainbow was a very auspicious sign to begin our time in Wyoming.

You can tell that Melissa's a happy camper living here in Laramie. Here she is on her first day of work.

Goodbye Illinois

Melissa and I moved from Illinois to Wyoming last month, so here's a post to say adios. We spent a lot of time at the University of Illinois over the last two years, and here's us saying goodbye to a couple important landmarks on campus.

The Alma Mater.



And a statue we affectionately call "the tickler."

Also, our church family threw us a going-away party, so here's us saying goodbye to them.

Finally, here's Simone saying goodbye to a handy hiding place.

Thanks to all of our Illinois friends for helping to make our experience in the Land of Lincoln fun and memorable! We wish you all the best.

Packing

Packing has begun and we're stacking boxes in the spare bedroom. Simone feels the need to climb as high as she can to get a good view of all family activities.

Mike and I took a break from packing yesterday to go to the farmer's market. We got some beautiful strawberries, a nice salad mix, some yummy kettle corn, and this tomato.

The tomato vendors grow big, beautiful, perfect tomatoes, but this one came from the red bin of half-priced "ugly or small" tomatoes. I think it looks a bit like a heart and it was deeee-licious.

Arkansas Travelers!

Melissa and I went on a trip to Arkansas last weekend! I've wanted to visit Arkansas for a while and show Melissa around my old stomping grounds from when I was in high school and college. We stayed with my good friends Chris and Liz and their adorable daughter Meghan while we were there. Here are a few of the highlights from the trip.

This is Melissa at the Mean Pig BBQ in Cabot, AR. They've got some of the best food and friendliest people around.

Chris and I are standing in front of the Bill Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, AR. We'd heard that the building looked like a big triple-wide trailer, but we didn't really believe it until we saw it. The museum itself was mostly what Chris dubbed as a Clinton "love fest." His presidency was depicted as a golden age of American life. There wasn't any critical analysis of the Clinton presidency, which we found disappointing. There were some very interesting artifacts on display. The most memorable for me was a handwritten manuscript of a speech Bill Clinton gave to the Arkansas Boys State delegation when he was a teenager. He was elected to Boys Nation where he met President Kennedy and other national political leaders.

This is a photo of the Heifer International headquarters in Little Rock. It's quite an impressive "green" building. I was interested to see the new building because I volunteered with Heifer one summer when I was in college. For more info on what they do, click here.

While we were in Arkansas, we spent some time in Conway, the home of the University of Central Arkansas (my alma mater). Above is a picture Wingo Hall, the dorm I lived in when I was a freshman. Wingo is now used for university offices rather than living space. The columns and ornamental top window were added after I graduated.

This fountain is also a recent addition to UCA's campus. It was built to celebrate the university's centennial.

As you may know, Conway, Arkansas is also the hometown of Kris Allen, the newest American Idol. All over town we saw signs on all kinds of businesses supporting Kris.

Here's a photo of our fantasic hosts Chris and Liz with their daughter Meghan. Not pictured are the many other friends we had the chance to visit. This was my first time to be back in Arkansas in six years, and it was Melissa's first visit to the Natural State. We were both completely won over by the friendliness and hospitality of everyone we met. It was a great trip.

Job

For the last seven months, much of my time and brain space has been devoted to job searching. After 15 job applications, 5 job interviews, and 3 job offers, I've finally accepted a tenure track position at University of Wyoming libraries as the Instruction and Assessment Librarian and I'm totally excited about the job. This is the job description:

The Instruction and Assessment Librarian provides leadership for the Libraries for our instruction program that includes bibliographic and formal instruction. The position also oversees an assessment program that evaluates our instruction program and will provide direction for improving information literacy for the university. This position also provides reference and instruction, including night and weekend work and may have subject liaison responsibilities. The Librarian reports to the Head of the Reference and Instruction Services. As a member of the library faculty, you will pursue an active and ongoing program of professional development, scholarship, and service.

This position is a great fit for me because it will involve a great deal of teaching, which is my favorite part of librarianship and what led me to library school in the first place. The University of Wyoming is in Laramie and meets many of the requirements that Mike and I had for our next place: it has mountains, an active outdoor culture, and is within a day's drive of many of our family members who live in Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico. They do have nasty winters in Laramie, which we experienced firsthand in December 2007 when we got stuck there while driving from Illinois to Idaho. But, harsh winters notwithstanding, we are really looking forward to getting settled there. Mike is looking into employment options with the University, area community colleges, the Wyoming Arts Council, Wyoming Humanities Council, and more. Laramie is a small town of about 27,000 people, but it's just about a two hour drive to Denver, so it's not completely remote from civilization.

We're planning to move in mid-July and I'll start work at the beginning of August. We're taking a house-hunting trip to Laramie in the middle/end of June. So, if your travels take you to Wyoming in the near future, get in touch and come visit us!

Graduation!

Yes, I'm a real librarian with a master's degree in Library and Information Science! The commencement ceremony was today and it was a beautiful, sunny day. Very exciting!

Michael has been the most supportive spouse through this whole degree program. He's simply the best!

I started the MS program with these three lovely ladies two years ago and we worked together for those two years at the Central Reference Desk. They're the best coworkers a person could ask for and I will truly miss them.

(Regalia was optional -- I didn't wear a cap and gown, but I really did graduate!)

So, I got the degree. I'll post about the J-O-B after I accept it tomorrow morning!

Another Trip to Chicago (The Last for a While?)

Last weekend we had a super-fun, super-quick trip to Chicago. It may be our last visit to the Windy City in a while, since we're hoping (planning) to move back to the West this summer. (More on that later, once I actually have a job. Don't want to jinx it by saying too much too soon. But I have a few interviews in the next few weeks.)

We ate dinner at one of our all-time-favorite Chicago restaurants, Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinders. Problem is, it's everyone else's favorite, too, and we waited an hour and twenty minutes for a table. But it was worth the wait. After dinner, we went to The Second City for a hilarious show, America: All Better! We spent some lovely quality time at the Art Institute. One of the best parts was an exhibit of portraits by Yousuf Karsh. He photographed everyone, from Elizabeth II to Walt Disney to Audrey Hepburn, and the exhibit was really fantastic.

We went to the Chicago Public Library main branch for the first time and it's a lovely place. The picture above is an atrium on the 9th floor. They also had an interesting Lincoln exhibit.

This was one of my favorite "library" quotes on the walls of the Chicago Public Library. "The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man." T.S. Eliot.

One more picture from the library -- a future librarian!

The main reason for our trip to Chicago was to see This American Life, live at the Chicago Theatre. It was amazing! We got to see it again in a local theatre on Thursday night, and it was maybe even more amazing in the movie theatre because we were seeing Ira Glass's face up close and huge on the big screen instead from 2 balconies back. We're huge, giant fans of TAL. You should listen to it if it's available on your local NPR station. My favorite story from the live show was Dan Savage's story about faith, loss of faith, and his mother's death.

Below are just a couple of random photos from our walk around Chicago. First, some cabbages growing in a flower pot and second, a giant "American Gothic" statue with the two iconic people as world travelers.