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!