Homeowners!

Mike and I bought a house in Laramie, and we just moved in two days ago. We love the house, the neighborhood (we're across the street from a city park), and the yard. My amazing, fantastic parents came from Idaho and spent two and a half days working their tails off to help us get moved in. Seriously -- they put in two 10-hour days and a half day today, and the place looks awesome. I'm so blessed to have two very healthy, energetic, and generous parents. They scrubbed the floors and the stove, hung light fixtures and shelves, pulled weeds and mowed the grass. Plus dozens of other things -- my dad even put in an electrical outlet outside the house. I think Mom and Dad know how to do just about anything.

World's Best Parents

So here are some photos of the process. The pictures don't quite show just how charming the house is, so you'll have to come and visit us to get the full effect.

Here's the dining room on Day 1.

Here's the living room and dining room today (our dining set has not yet been delivered, so you're seeing a temporary set up here).

Here's the kitchen on day 1

Here's the kitchen today. It's back-lit, but as you can see, all the boxes are gone. :)

Here's the entry on Day 1, with plastic on the floor and lots of furniture.

Here's the entry today. We still have lots of books to unpack.

Our bedroom on Day 1.

Our bedroom today -- box-free, and the cat is making herself at home.

I'll post some photos of the yard later, once we've had a chance to pull more weeds and do some planting. Here's one final photo. This is the view from our dining room window -- we have lilacs framing the window and it looks out on one of the city parks. And yes, we have a white fence around the yard. We're living the dream.

Chicago, June 2011

Last weekend, Mike and I made a quick trip to Chicago. I got to speak at a library instruction assessment symposium at University of Chicago, and we were able to spend some time in our favorite Chicago places together and we visited some new places, too.

As you may know, Laramie is a somewhat remote location and it takes a while to get from here to . . . anywhere. So on our departure date we drove for two hours to Denver, parked and took a shuttle to the airport, had a two hour flight to Midway, took the train into the city, dropped off our stuff at a downtown hostel (more on that later) and THEN took a bus to Chicago Pizza Kitchen and Oven Grinders, home of the best pizza we've ever eaten (and we go there every time we visit Chicago). In other words, we left home at 8 a.m. and made it to dinner at about 5 p.m. and we both agreed that it was totally worth traveling all day long to eat that pizza. Yum!

After dinner we saw the play "The Gospel According to James" at Victory Gardens Theatre. It was a fantastic show, and as a bonus one of our friends from Utah State, Chris Martin, was in it. We got to chat with him a bit after the show.

We stayed two nights in a hostel near the downtown public library in Chicago. We had never stayed in a hostel before, but our funds for the trip were limited and this hostel was less than half the price of a downtown hotel. It was also recommended by the librarians at University of Chicago, so we went for it. Here's a photo of our room:

It was narrow, to say the least, and kind of like staying in a dorm room, since we shared bathrooms with the other people staying in our suite. Overall, it was not bad. The location and the price were definitely right!

My presentation at University of Chicago went really well. I won't bore you with too many details, but I presented on a mixed methods study I'm still working on this summer that attempts to measure the impact of library instruction on student achievement through focus groups with graduating seniors and a transcript analysis of a large sample of UW students. There were some great presentations at the symposium and a keynote address by my librarian hero, Megan Oakleaf.

The University of Chicago campus is really beautiful. Here are a couple of photos:

This is the Quadrangle Club, where we ate lunch during the symposium. (This is the fancy faculty clubhouse. Feels like a men's club, with lots of dark wood paneling and tweedy professor types.)

This is the reading room of the Mansueto Library, which is a brand new robot-powered library. It looks like a greenhouse from the outside, with that glass dome, and 3.5 million books are stored in the basement. You can call up a book by typing your request at the front desk, and a robotic arm gets the book for you. It's pretty cool, and obviously a popular space for students to work.

While I was conferencing, Mike went to the Adler Planetarium and to Millenium Park:

Here's a view of the museum campus, which includes the Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum, and Adler Planetarium. Maybe you can tell, we had beautiful weather for our 3 days in Chicago. It was warm and humid, but overall pretty nice.

Millenium Park

Mike and I met up at the University of Chicago and had a refreshing beverage at a cafe just off campus. All the servers were wearing t-shirts that said, "Obama Eats Here." The Obamas do, in fact, have a house in Hyde Park, which is the University of Chicago neighborhood. We went from the University to Navy Pier specifically to see the stained glass museum there. (I really wanted to go because I recently read a historical novel about the women who worked for Louis Comfort Tiffany in the first years of the 20th century, designing and creating stained glass windows and lamps. The book is Clara and Mr. Tiffany and I highly recommend it.)

Here's a stained glass window designed for a Chicago home, meant to go in a staircase.

And here's a Tiffany window. Honestly, the room full of Tiffany windows made all the others in the museum look a little bit dull. The colors are so brilliant and the landscapes so evocative.

Also at Navy Pier we enjoyed some Garrett's popcorn and the view of the city skyline.

If you visit Chicago, you must visit a Garrett Popcorn Shop and order the Chicago blend. It's caramel and cheese popcorn mixed together, popped fresh, and it's sooooo delicious.

On our last day in Chicago we visited the Art Institute, which is another of our favorite places. Last time we were there (two years ago), the modern wing was not yet open, so we were excited to have a chance to see it. The new space has an awesome, open design created by architect Renzo Piano. Here are some of the interesting pieces of modern sculpture we saw there:

Venus de Milo with Drawers by Salvador Dali

A set of sculptures by Constantin Brancusi

Chicago is our favorite city. Public transit makes it easy to get around, the architecture of the place is fantastic, and the Midwesterners who live there are pretty darn friendly. It's a fantastic place to spend the weekend.

Philadelphia, ACRL 2011

I visited Philadelphia for the Association of College and Research Libraries conference last week. Here are some photos:

Food

Philly cheese steak (not that delicious)

Cannoli (100% delicious)

Historic sites

Independence Hall was my favorite of the historic sites we saw on our walking tour

Christ Church -- the oldest active parish in the U.S.

Benjamin Franklin's grave

Carpenter's Hall
Library Hall (with a sight-seeing carriage)
2nd Bank of the United States
Betsy Ross's House
And me at the Liberty Bell

Grad school friends

Several of us who went to University of Illinois together met for dinner while in Philadelphia. We are librarians in: Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

Spring Break 2011

This year for spring break we took a 3-part trip: 1) to Albuquerque to see part of Mike's family and our new nephews, 2) then to Santa Fe and Taos, and 3) then to Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado.

We met Mike's family in Albuquerque, where his brother and sister-in-law live. Bob and Emily have two of the cutest little baby boys EVER, and we got to spend time with them, along with Mike's parents (who live in Fairbanks, Alaska) and grandparents (who live in St. George, Utah). We had a great time.

Here's Mike's brother, Bob, with both of the boys. Isaac, on the left, was born in February. Dean, on the right, was born in October. Bob and Emily got to adopt Dean soon after he was born, and he got a little brother just a few months later! Dean stares at Isaac like this when he's screaming. Dean seems to find his brother sort of confusing.

Here's Dean modeling the hoodie that Aunt Melissa knitted for him. He is the happiest baby! He smiles at everyone and everything. I find him irresistible.

And here's Dean modeling a soccer uniform from his Aunt Rachel in England
Isaac, I'm sorry I don't have more pictures of you. Your big brother is just more photogenic right now, but I'm sure you'll catch up soon!

Part two of our trip included a visit to Pecos National Historical Park, just outside of Santa Fe. (Note: This park has nothing to do with Pecos Bill.) The Park preserves several layers of history: the Pecos Pueblo, Spanish mission, and sites of a Civil War battle. Who knew that there was a Civil War battle in New Mexico? The ruins of the pueblo and the Spanish mission are fascinating. Around 2,000 American Indians lived in the pueblo, in apartment-like homes. It was a self-contained town. The first church that the Spanish conquistadors built on the site was burned down by the Indians, but the church was rebuilt.

Pueblo and church ruins
Landscape around the ruins: cacti, pinon, and the Sangre de Cristo mountains in the distance
Ladder to an intact kiva -- a sacred ceremonial space in the pueblo
Ruins of a kiva
Mike standing in the church. Notice the beams sticking out of the adobe.

After Pecos, we spent some time in Taos. We really wanted to go to the Taos Pueblo, which is a living and lived-in pueblo, unlike the ruins of Pecos, but the Pueblo was closed to visitors for the day. We dropped by the public library, spent some time in a bookstore (yes, we're book nerds), and then went to the Mabel Dodge Luhan house. Mabel Dodge ran a kind of salon for artists and thinkers. Friends who stayed at her home include D.H. Lawrence, Georgia O'Keefe, Ansel Adams, and Carl Jung. It's an interesting place with a great counter-cultural history. Mike wanted to visit the house because of a book he studied in grad school, Utopian Vistas.

The Mabel Dodge Luhan house
Mountains outside Taos
And the Taos Public Library

We spent the last part of our trip in southern Colorado. We visited the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, which is a national park I had not heard of before. It's sort of unreal -- a huge sand basin at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains (left by an ancient lake) has created the tallest sand dunes in North America.

The long view, approaching the dunes
We did a little bit of climbing in the dunes -- walking in sand like that is hard work!

Here's a Boy Scout troop climbing up into the dunes -- I thought it was a nice photo to get some perspective on how huge this pile of sand really is.
And in case you thought this landscape looked desolate and empty, here are some deer we saw on the way in to the park.

2010: The Year in Review

The past year was a great one for us. As we've reflected on 2010, we came up with a few highlights:

We took some awesome trips: Mt. Rushmore, the Black Hills, and the Badlands; Alaska; Yellowstone National Park; St. George for Thanksgiving; and Cache Valley for all kinds of family fun.

Our families grew: Justin & Annie got married, and we have two new nephews -- Dean in Albuquerque, NM and Gavin in England.

The wedding
Dean
Gavin

Melissa had lots of opportunities for professional development: ALA Midwinter in Boston, ALA Annual in Washington D.C., Immersion in Vermont, Library Assessment Conference in Baltimore, Wyoming Library Association presentations, two articles (article 1 and article 2) published and another accepted. She is loving the job at UW after a year and a half.

Mike has developed professionally, too: continuing to take Master's of Public Administration (MPA) classes, and getting a great new job in Student Success Services as an advisor for at-risk students.

Other good stuff: we have made great friends, spent time hiking and camping, read lots of good books and watched some good movies, and became addicted to a few TV shows (Buffy, Angel, and Bones).

We have big plans and high hopes for 2011, and we wish all of our readers a very happy New Year!

Christmas 2010

Christmas tree at the Bowles home

We had a wonderful trip to Idaho to visit the Bowles family over Christmas. We had some great quality time with the brothers and sisters-in-law (we love you guys!), and of course with Mom and Dad, too. Mom and Mike and I went snowshoeing on Christmas day, up in Strawberry Canyon, and it was just gorgeous. Of course we also played lots of board games and card games during the week of vacation. The new ones were Bananagrams and Scrabble Slam -- both very fun in my opinion, because I'm good at word games -- and the old ones were Rummikub, Salad, and Outburst. Good times! (Except for when I lost at Salad by about 400 points and had a tizzy fit. New Year's resolution: be a better sport)

We have a tradition in the Bowles family of having our grandparents over on Christmas Eve for dinner and a program of Christmas music. Rob and Sarah sang a beautiful arrangement of "Away in a Manger," Justin and Annie played some piano duets (congratulations to Annie, who taught Justin to play), and Mike and I prepared a Music & the Spoken Word arrangement of "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." There were other musical performances as well, including the traditional performance of "Sleigh Ride" as a piano duet by Mom and me. Here are a few select photos from the evening:

Grandma Hansen, Grandma & Grandpa Bowles, Dad playing his traditional role of running the video camera

Justin & Anna Lee, "Silent Night"Mike doing the spoken word portion of "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" (Mike really can sing, but it's not really something he's comfortable doing for an audience. Thus the spoken word.)
Dad and Mom serving the cheesecake on Christmas Eve

We also opened a few presents on Christmas eve, which included these awesome aprons made by Mom. In case you can't see, they're all university-themed. Justin and Annie have "Vandals" aprons, Rob and Sarah have "Aggies," and Mike and I have "Cowboys." So cute!

Mom and Dad hosted the big Hansen family party this year on December 27th. The extended family keeps on growing exponentially. There were about 50 people at the party this year, all fed and entertained in the Bowles home. It was quite a feat, and I had a great time seeing all my cousins.

In addition to spending time with family, we went to a gathering of some of my high school friends. I was on the Academic Decathlon team in 1999-2000 and our little team defeated all the other schools in Idaho (some much larger than ours) and we went to the National Academic Decathlon competition in San Antonio, Texas. It was a great experience and an awesome team, and a few of us from the team were able to gather at our coach's home before Christmas to catch up. It was great to see everyone, reminisce about our "glory days," and catch up on what's happened in the last 10 years.

Other fun activities over Christmas break: catching up with old friends at Mom and Dad's church, talking to my brother Nick (a Mormon missionary in Seattle) on Christmas day, seeing True Grit with the whole family (I liked it a lot -- even more than I expected to), going to the Logan temple with some members of the family, lunch at Cafe Sabor (yums!), more snowshoeing near Maple Creek after a big snowstorm.

The snowstorm hit on Wednesday, when we had planned to leave for Laramie. We stayed at
Mom and Dad's that night, and Mike ended up on a tractor moving snow around on the dairy.
We thought we had a window to get back to Laramie on Thursday, but we ended up getting stuck at Little America when I-80 was closed for about 100 miles between Rock Springs and Rawlins. We were glad to get back to Laramie the next day and ring in the New Year with friends.

P.S. I also read all three Hunger Games books during Christmas break (over the course of 4 days). The series was a fascinating look at the nature of televised war, a voyeuristic society, governmental control, and it's a great coming-of-age story to boot. Highly recommended, especially for anyone interested in dystopian YA lit.

58 Books in 2010

I'm a list-maker, and since 2007 I've kept a list of the books I've read. This helps me remember what I've read, what I want to read, and allows me to pull up a title when people ask for book recommendations. Some of my reads were for my book groups, some were free galleys I picked up at library conferences, some are not necessarily great literature (I read the entire Sookie Stackhouse series, for example.) I read 58 books in 2010, and thought I'd share my favorites here. If you have read and want to discuss any of the books below, if you want information on any of them, or if you'd like a personalized recommendation, leave a comment. (These are listed in the order in which I read them.)

1. Steinbeck, John The Grapes of Wrath
2. Shaffer, Mary Ann and Annie Barrows The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
3. Atwood, Margaret Oryx and Crake
4. Strout, Elizabeth Olive Kitteridge
5. Grossman, Lev The Magicians
6. Smith, Dodie I Capture the Castle
7. Walters, Barbara Audition
8. Jackson, Shirley We Have Always Lived in the Castle
9. Barry, Sebastian The Secret Scripture
10. Mantel, Hilary Wolf Hall
11. Stead, Rebecca When You Reach Me
12. French, Tana In the Woods
13. Palfrey, John and Urs Gasser Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives
14. Benjamin, Melanie Alice I Have Been
15. Stockett, Kathryn The Help
16. Udall, Brady The Lonely Polygamist
17. Bender, Amy The Particular Sadness Of Lemon Cake
18. Thackeray, William Makepeace Vanity Fair
19. McCann, Colum Let the Great World Spin
20. Nicholls, David One Day
21. Byatt, A.S. The Children's Book
22. Eliot, George Middlemarch
23. Collins, Suzanne Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay
    
24. Kingsolver, Barbara Lacuna

So there you have it: a mix of old and new, YA lit and regular lit, mostly novels with a few nonfiction books mixed in. I finally read some stuff that I'd been meaning to read for years (Middlemarch, Vanity Fair, and The Grapes of Wrath -- not one of those disappointed), a series that was recommended by everyone from my mom to a friend in Seattle to YA librarians everywhere (The Hunger Games -- WOW!), some highly acclaimed novels (Let the Great World Spin, The Lonely Polygamist) and some critically panned (Lacuna). All in all, it was a very good year for reading.

Happy New Year, and I wish us all good reading in 2011!